PROPOSAL Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

PROPOSAL - Essay Example Best for startup restaurants with limited work spaces and manpower, the SmartKitchen is designed to have all the kitchen necessities within the chef’s reach. It boasts of a refrigerator, workstation panel, cooking equipment, sink and cleaning area designed strategically within a 2x3 meter workstation. The product was also designed with small and growing families in mind. It is space friendly, yet designed to provide the best facilities for your cooking and baking requirements. The product shall be marketed by SmartKitchen Ltd., exclusive distributor in the area. Production will be outsourced in cooperation with the sub distributors of kitchen equipment in and out of the state. II. TARGET MARKET The company’s target market is startup restaurants, small to medium scale, which needs the perfect solution to space constraints. These are companies who carefully plan their space, ensuring that each square meter is fully utilized towards maximum profitability. They are open to investing in quality kitchen equipment in exchange for lower operational costs. These companies would rather allocate a bigger portion of their stores to their service areas rather than in backroom space. Secondary target market are individuals, couples or families who are also managing their spaces and would like to enjoy the benefit of having a mobile kitchen which they could use and bring with them should they design to transfer places. III. PRODUCTS AND PRICING The key to an effective pricing strategy is to find the right suppliers who will give the best price for each kitchen equipment that would be integrated in the MobileKitchen designs. Therefore, it is crucial for the purchasing team to establish good business partnerships with various suppliers to come up with excellent pricing schemes per module. The price of one module is comparative to the sum of each of the equipment featured, plus the design to make the items fit into the specific working area. The added value would b e its warranties and loyalty programs specific for design and equipment enhancement. Products will be categorized per space area, and per number of kitchen equipment integrated therein. There will be three major categories: The Basic Kitchen, The Enterprising Module and The All-Inclusive Kitchen which will occupy the biggest space of a 5x5 meter workstation. There will also be a customized MobileKitchen whereby a menu of kitchen equipment shall be presented, and which the clients can mix and match according to their requirements. Additional fees shall be charged for extra designs and features. Installation shall likewise be charged separately. IV. MARKETING PLANS The Marketing Communications would simply state the main message: â€Å"Supremacy in Quality and Style†. Such message shall be displayed in all advertising and merchandising efforts aimed at promoting the brand and the product lines themselves. All marketing channels shall be utilized. The brand shall be launched in TV and radio commercials, and also in merchandising materials, billboards and signages all over the city. Internet Marketing will likewise play a large role in product promotions. Internet Marketing has become popular because Internet access is becoming more widely available and used. Well over one-third of consumers who have Internet access at home report to using the Internet to make purchases (Benefits of an Online Marketing Approach 2011). Since target

Lenten Candles †The Color and the Significance Essay Example for Free

Lenten Candles – The Color and the Significance Essay Lent candles have their own significance in the observance of Lent. The burning candles stands for the arrival of Christ as the illumination of the world. The shades of the candles can differ. Conventionally, three purple candles and one rose-colored or pink candle are used. The purple indicates that Lent is a period of regret as well as hope. Many churches use blue candles instead of purple ones to highlight the positive hope of the period. A candle is lit on the first Sunday of Lent with an additional one lit on every following Sunday. The blissfully colored pink candle is set aside for the third Sunday of Lent, Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete, which actually refers to rejoice in Latin, is the initial word of the Introit for that Sunday: Several Christians append an exact explanation to the four candles. The first candle, or the Prophet Candle, stands for the optimism and expectation of Christs incarnication as forecasted at so many places in the Old Testament. The second candle recalls how Christ was born in modest style, in the trivial village of Bethlehem. Therefore this candle is often referred to as the Bethlehem Candle. The third candle is identified as the Shepherds Candle. It brings to mind the joy of the shepherds when they left after having seen the Christ-child in the stable. The fourth candle is the Angels Candle. It take us back to the blissful crowd that declared the good news of our Saviors birth.

Economic Situation Malaysians Attitudes Towards Private Label Brands Marketing Essay

Economic Situation Malaysians Attitudes Towards Private Label Brands Marketing Essay The term of Globalisation is a very common word in business world. Many businessmen are trying hard to market their product to other countries. Globalisation becomes an important issue in the world today and eventually it leads to the increasing number of competitors among retailers by doing trade globally. In order to become an outstanding firm from other retailers, established a competitive advantage is an important criterion for any competitive strategy (Walsh and Mitchell, 2010). Retailers use different methods to achieve competitive advantage. The most important elements of retails branding is private label brands (Glynn and Chen, 2009). According to Levy (2009), it is easy to find out that private label brands available in almost every retail product category and it is one of the competitive strategies that retailers used to achieve competitive advantage. Private label brands have reached another level in the appearance of many products categories such as grocery, household che micals, clothing and cosmetics (Veloutsou et al., 2004). Private label brands can be a crucial component of competitive advantage especially in an economic recession (Walsh and Mitchell, 2010). Economic downturn will lead to the changes in shopping patterns. Private label brands are products that are produced by retailers and sold under the retailers own name through their own retail outlets (Baltas, 1997). Private label brands have grown in many countries and product categories in the last few decades (Connor et al., 1996). According to Lupton et al. (2010), private label brands have established their market in the United Stated and Europe in the past few decades. The consumers tend to perceive private label brands as a substitute or choices to the national brands (Lupton et al., 2010). Private label brands have built their own markets and becoming more popular among the consumers in the world (AC Nielsen, 2006). According to Morris (2002), the most successful retailer has more private label branding strategies and the retailer is normally the stronger firm. Retailers with strong private label brands will have better financial results (Morris, 2002). Malaysia, as a middle income country and one of the most developed in the developing countries, has transformed itself from a producer of raw materials into a multi-sector economy (Economy Watch, 2011). According to Economy Watch (2011), the population of Malaysia is 28.713 Million. In the following year, 2012, population of Malaysia will be 29.20 Million, which is more than the figure in year 2011 (Economy Watch, 2011). The increasing of population in Malaysia will encourage the development of retailing and will boost up the purchasing power of goods. Yelkur (2000) found that the success of private label brands is varied from different nations, such as in the United Kingdom, private label brands have successfully gain a large portion of grocery sales, but in the United States the proportion of purchasing private label brands is relatively low if compare to branded products. Developing countries are being exposed to private label brands and are becoming more aware of their benefits ( Collins and Bone, 2008). According to Collins and Bone (2008), the growth of private label brands in developing countries, such as Malaysia, is still remaining low. Private label brands continue to steadily increase their share in the marketplace. According to A.C. Nielsen (2005), the private label share of refrigerated food is 32%, paper plastic is 31%, frozen food is 25%, cosmetics is 23%, pet food is 21%, health care is 14%, non-Alcoholic beverages is 12%, snack is 9%, personal care is 3% and others. There are few hypermarkets in Malaysia selling their private label product, such as Giant, Carrefour, Tesco and Tesco Extra (A.C. Nielsen, 2010). These hypermarkets provide their private label brands in many product categories. For example, Tesco offers Tesco Finest as their private label brands (Morris, 2004). This Tesco Finest private label brands has include the product category of non-Alcoholic beverages. Morris (2004) mentioned that the strong private label brands in Tesco have became the key elements of Tescos success. Tescos private label brands generate 55% of the total sales in year 2004 (Morris, 2004). Apart than that, even though there is an amount of studies on private label brands, there is no specific research based on the Malaysians attitudes towards private label brands. Nowadays, retailers own brand becomes an alternative of consumers. According to Veloutsou et al. (2004), consumers have their own perception on different brand of products, each of the products has its special features or characteristics and it will affect the purchasing behaviour of consumers. Retailers need to understand what are the main factors affecting Malaysians attitudes towards private label brands in order to attract and convince more customers stick to the own brands (Goldsmith et al., 2010). The factors affecting Malaysians attitudes towards private label brands include consumers perceived benefits (Chaniotakis, 2010), price (Walsh and Mitchell, 2010), social influences (Nelson and McLeod, 2005) and economic situation (Chaniotakis, 2010). In a recent study of private label brands (Richardson et al., 1996), some influences such as economic and psychological factors bring the effect to the purchasing rate of private label brands. Malaysian is a country comprises of many races. The three major races in Malaysia are Malay, Chinese, and Indian. Different culture will cause different people have different perception towards private label brands. This research is focusing on the factors affecting Malaysians attitudes towards private label brands. The factors that will be look into are consumers perceived benefits, price, social influences and economic situation. Last but not least, it can lead us to have a better understanding toward the issue of private label brands in Malaysia. The Background of Study There are a few previous studies that focusing on the topic of private label brands in many countries, such as a scale for measuring attitude towards private label products and examination of its psychological and behavioural correlates (Burton et al., 1998), an investigation of the new generic consumer (Herstein and Tifferet, 2007), consumer behaviour towards own label monitoring the Greek experience (Boutsouki et al., 2008) and consumers perception of generic products a Mexican study (Yelkur, 2000). The definition of attitudes towards private label brands is a predisposition to respond in a positive way to private label brands and the consumer will purchase the private label brands in a more favourable way. (Burton et al., 1998) The Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) which focusing on the research of attitude-behaviour consistency can explain the positive attitude of consumers who has good perception towards the brands when they are making their decision on purchase. The rate of adoption of private label brands is not the same in all the nations (Veloutsou et al., 2004). According to A.C. Nielsen (2010), the private label brands are still not famous in all Asian markets, but only Hong Kong having a share above 5%. Private label brands of sales increased in a few countries in year 2009 compared to year 2008, but it still remains less than 5%, except of Hong Kong (A.C. Nielsen, 2010). In a recent study of retail and shopper trends, A.C. Nielsen (2010) mentioned that Malaysia has only a share of 2.3% in private label brands, Singapore has only a share of 2.8% and Thailand has a share of 1.8%. The growing of private label brands in Asian markets has to depend on how much the retailers are willing to invest in the private label brands. Retailers have to focus on the development of products and also the quality of products in order to gain a better position in the current market (A.C. Nielsen, 2010). According to the Private Label Manufacturers Association (2010), it showed that 91% of the respondents will still buying private label brands after the economic downturn and they believe that the private label brands are just good and same quality with the branded products. The promotion and packaging of the private label brands is often similar to the branded products (Putsis and Dhar, 2001). Problem Statement According to Hernon and Metoyer-Duran (1993), problem statement must be precise and it contains the need for the study. The problem statement for this research is the factor that will affect Malaysians attitudes on buying branded products or private label brands. There are some researches being conducted to find out the factors that affect the consumers intention to buy private label brands (Walsh and Mitchell, 2010), the attribute that affect the consumers intentions of buying own-label premium food products (Chaniotakis et al., 2010) and consumer attitudes and loyalty towards private brands ( Goldsmith et al., 2010). The globalization of business creates a lot of opportunities to the retailers and it also brings a lot of competitors to them. In this emerging world, establishing a competitive advantage is the main purpose of every competitive strategy while doing the business globally (Walsh and Mitchell, 2010). Some retailers have low store-operating cost, some have efficient supply chain management and some have a large number of loyal customers (Walsh and Mitchell, 2010). Therefore, hypermarkets tend to make some changes in order to attract new customers or to meet their existing customers needs. To become outstanding among all the other competitors, retailers must have some unique products or services to attract more customers. Furthermore, the technology advancement has altered the media habits from the traditional advertising method, such as billboard, to some new advertising techniques, such as product placement, in order to reach younger generation (Nelson and McLeod, 2005). Those hypermarkets required to catch up with all these changes on media habits in order to attract more customers. Besides, due to the advance technologies, people prefer to go online shopping rather than shopping in the hypermarkets. They can purchase anything online through some website, such as amazon.com. This research not only expects that the price will be the major factor that affect Malaysians attitudes towards private label brands, but also some other factors that will bring effect on the attitudes of consumer in Malaysia towards private label brands. Some of the consumers are willing to pay more for a branded product in order to obtain higher quality than paying a less money for a private label brand (Tse, 2001). So, it is very important for this study to find out what are the major factors that determine the attitudes of Malaysian towards private label brands. Objectives of Study The objectives of the research are: To examine the relationship between consumers perceived benefits and Malaysians attitudes towards private label brands. To identify the relationship between price and Malaysians attitudes towards private label brands. To examine the relationship between social influences and Malaysians attitudes towards private label brands. To identify the relationship between economic situation and Malaysians attitudes towards private label brands. The Scope of Study In every research, there are independent variables and dependent variable. The dependent variable in this research is Malaysians attitudes towards private label brands. The attitude of Malaysian is important as they are contributing the response in this research. The independent variables in this study are consumers perceived benefits, price, social influences and economic situation. The coverage of this research is on Malaysian. This is because there already have a few studies that focusing on other nations but there are no research are doing based on the Malaysians attitudes towards private label brands. Besides, Malaysian seems to be likely increased their purchasing rate of private label brands in hypermarkets in these few years. Grocery sales in private label brands in Malaysia are rising. The respondents who participate in this survey are those who used or bought any private label brands before. Only 150 Malaysian will be selected to contribute their response to this research. The author will develop a questionnaire with the different types and forms of questions, such as closed questions and negatively worded questions. By using the method of questionnaires, the attitude of the respondents will be shown. Hence, after finding out the relationship between the major factors and Malaysians attitude towards private label brands, it will give us a better understanding about the current consumer trend of buying private label brands in Malaysia. It helps the retailers to know which of the factor has the major influence on the peoples intentions of purchasing private label brands. Furthermore, the retailers can help them to find out what factors affecting them from losing their market share, so that they can do some analysis based on the results and make some improvement and changes. Respondents can also benefits from this research too. They can broaden their knowledge toward the topic of private label brands. They can also know better about the current market trends and the main factor that determines their attitude towards private label brands. Then, by knowing the factors that affecting Malaysians attitudes towards private label brands, the government can earn more income due to the increasing sell of private label brands. Besides, the government should implement some policy to help the private label brands in order to protect them from the competition of branded and national products. Lastly, it will make contribution to the Malaysias economy because it will help the local retailers to know which factors affecting their customer on choosing private label brands, therefore, they can make slightly changes and it will lead to the increasing number of sales. By the increasing number of sales, it will definitely lead to a rise in GDP. Definition for the Key Terms Attributes Definition Sources Private Label Brands Products that are produced by retailers and sold under the retailers own name through their own retail outlets Baltas (1997) Perceived benefits The degree to which a fulfilment of expectations when choosing private label brands. Veloutsou, Gioulistanis and Moutinho (2004) Price A monetary value when the consumer wants to exchange it with the goods or services provided by the sellers or producers. Nagle and Holden (2002) Social Influences The degree to which learning the skills, knowledge and attitudes relevant for consumption from media, parents and peers. Nelson and Mcleod (2005) Economic Situation The economic conditions that will lead the retailers to enrich the range of private label offerings. Chaniotakis, Lymperopoulos and Soureli (2010) Organization Structure There are total five chapters in this research. The structure of the study is organized as following. Chapter 1 is about the introduction, the author will start by the background of this study. Besides, the author will briefly explain why this research is important, what factors will affect the Malaysians attitudes towards private label brands, history of private label brands, rules and regulations towards private label brands in Malaysia, problem statements, research objectives and contribution of this study. This part will have an overview of the research. Chapter 2 is literature review that discusses the factors that affect the attitudes of Malaysian towards private label brands. In the beginning, the definition of the theory and interest of study are introduces. Then, the author will explain each of the variables that affecting Malaysians attitudes towards private label brands. The author was reviewed the previous study to make the analysis of each variables. Chapter 3 is research methodology. In this part, it describes how the author collects information and finalizes the data. It will also explain what method will be used to conduct this research. The author defines the research framework, develops hypothesis, develops questionnaires, explain how the author undergo pilot study, chooses convenient sampling as the sampling method, and introduces the target size. Furthermore, data collection method and data analysis will be presented. Conclusion This chapter will give us some briefing about this research. Let us know about why this research is important and why this research is needed to be conducted. One of the reasons is that we can know the consumer purchasing trend in the current market after the completion of this research. Then, this study will make a huge contribution to the retailer who are selling or planning to sell private label brands. They can further know about how the consumers think and their attitudes towards private label brands in Malaysia. We can also know which variable has more powerful to affect the Malaysians intention to buy private label brands. This will have an impact on the economy of Malaysia too. Last but not least, we can also have better understanding towards the key terms that affect the Malaysians attitudes on private label brands. Besides, it will give us a clear picture for the structure of this research.

The Iron Wall Essay -- Religion Government Church State Essays

The Iron Wall When reading the famous American magazine Time, you see a picture of President Bush with his cabinet praying. This is not a special occasion, but rather a daily prayer that begins his administration workday. It is not uncommon to see religious demonstrations and creeds throughout our society. Our money has â€Å"In God we Trust† and our schools daily pledge states, â€Å"†¦One nation under God†¦Ã¢â‚¬  We take oaths under the Bible and are sworn in with it. It would be foolish to believe that our founding fathers did not have a spiritual side to them. It would be even more naà ¯ve to believe that our sense of being does not come out in our writing; therefore, our nation was delivered on religious foundations and it remains today in all of the different political factions. Although the belief is that our founding fathers when creating the constitution were not trying to create a nation that was completely separate from religious beliefs. They did not want to mix church and state due to fears of a government that would not function as designed. They came from lands in which they were persecuted and religious leaders possessed too much authority in political affairs and they created threats to civil liberties. â€Å"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion, but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.† (Thomas Paine) It is lucid to see the fears of an established state religion, but does freedom to excercise it and establishing it often mixed today? The First Amendment has always guaranteed our civil liberties, but the judicial branch is believed to have guided their interpretation too narrow and strict in fear of losing their iron wall. Society today, portrayed from the court... ...e free speech rights of students involved in Christian groups. It found that the school had violated those rights when it refused to pay for the printing of the Christian’s group’s newspaper; even though, it paid for the publications of a wide range of other student organizations. The fight for our rights has clearly taken a stronger turn more recently in our country. The obvious errors of government officials are being overturned and our schools are being forced to recognize our inalienable rights of freedom and liberty that comes from the first amendment. The laws of today are meant to protect us and keep control, but even laws can enslave men if not fair. And who decides fair? The same people who tell us how the laws should be enforced, so maybe it’s time to question if we are really free, and not just remain trapped behind an Iron Wall!

Ancient Greek Theater Research Paper

Devon Whitaker Research paper Mrs. Smith December 4, 2013 The theatre of Ancient Greece, or ancient Greek drama, is a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece between 550 BC and 220 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political, and military power during this period, was its center, where it was institutionalized as part of a festival called the Dionysia, which honored the god Dionysus. Tragedy, comedy, and the satire play were the three dramatic genres to emerge there. Athens exported the festival to its numerous colonies and allies in rder to promote a common cultural identity.Clothing in ancient Greece primarily consisted of the chiton, peplos, himation, and chlamys. While no clothes have survived from this period, descriptions exist in contemporary accounts and artistic depictions. Clothes were mainly homemade, and often served many purposes. Despite popular imagination and media depictions of all-white clothing, elaborate design and bri ght colors were favored. Ancient Greek clothing consisted of lengths of linen or wool fabric, which generally was rectangular. Clothes were secured with ornamental lasps or pins, and a belt, sash, or girdle might secure the waist.Men's robes went down to their knees, whereas women's went down to their ankles. The choruses were only men, as were the actors and the audience. The plays originally had a chorus of up to 50 people who performed the plays accompanied by music, beginning in the morning and lasting until the evening. They had to be citizens of Athens, which only applied to free-born men, with few special cases. The actors wore masks, so that the people would know which persona the actor played. The theatres were built on a very large scale to accommodate the large number of eople on stage, as well as the large number of people in the audience.Actors' voices needed to be heard throughout the theatre, including the very top row of seats. In 465 BC, the Theaters began using a b ackdrop, which hung behind the orchestra, which also served as an area where actors could change their costumes. It was known as the scene. In 425 BC a stone scene wall, called a paraskenia, became a common replacement to scene in the theatres Work Cited: â€Å"Theatre of Ancient Greece. † n. d. web. 04 Dec. 2013. – Simple English Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. N. p. ,

Hysteria elects Presidents essays

Hysteria elects Presidents essays I, using my extreme psychic powers, have figured out that Bush will win the debates. This should go against logic. Kerry is clearly the better speaker and smarter person, right? Right. However, in a post 9/11 environment, none of that really matters. What is going to win out in the mind of the American public, intellectual arguments, or two word catch phrases? What the public today really wants is Fox News-like intellectual McDonalds. On their face, the Bush motives and arguments seem to make the most simplistic sense. If your view and your world are bourne out of simplicity and stupidity, the way to fight terror is to invade the Middle East...the rationale for anything can be easily reduced to "protecting the American people". "Mr Bush, you flip-flopped on your promises to limit carbon monoxide, and you pulled us out of the Kyoto treaty, causing international outrage." "I did it to protect American businesses." "Mr. Bush, your invasion of Iraq has de-stabilized the Middle East, and possibly made the terrorism situation worse." "I did it to protect the American people" "Mr. Bush, your tax cuts have exacerbated a huge deficit, and contributed to the economic problems we now face." "I did it to put money back in the hands of the American people." "Mr. Bush, you allowed the assault weapons ban to expire, placing AK-47s and Mac-10s in the hands of anyone who can skirt the system." "We need our arms to protect the American people." Hysteria and fear dominate our time. Logic does not. Americans very much like sexy European accents, but they don't really like high-fangled European logic, or a worldview that involves other countries. The stupidity we now face is monumental. Never in the history of the world has a world superpower been so oblivious to everything going on around it. Jingoism and chauvinism reign supreme. Kerry's "flip-flops" are nothing new to politics...they ...