Avon Products Essay

After five straights years of ten percent plus growth and twenty-five percent operating profit growth under CEO Andrea Jung, the company suddenly began losing profits. One of the main reasons of this lost was the fast growth of Avon that couldn’t be supported by its employees. As with many growing organizations the structure, people and processes that were right for a $5 billion company were not necessarily a good fit for a ten billion dollar company (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010, p. 2). There were weaknesses that hurt the effectiveness of the employees at the talent management practices. Decisions on talent movement, promotions, and other key talent activities were often influenced as much by individual knowledge and emotion as by objective facts. Neither managers nor Associates have any idea about how the talent practices work. Even the HR department wasn’t sufficient to answer basic questions that might be asked by managers like â€Å"What will happen to me if I don’t do this? † (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010). Thus, changing at the talent management practices was a necessity for the company in order to increase the operation profits. The change theory typified in Avon Products case study is the 360 degree assessment process along with performance management and succession planning this would deliver the expected results if they were consistently and flawlessly executed. They used this method to build talent practices that were easy to implement. The proposed talent management model was integrated business and human resources strategy, talent management processes, organizational culture, provides a systemic approach, and results in having talented leaders and individuals available to accomplish the mission of the organization. One of the most simple and powerful changes was to bring transparency to every talent practice. Avon’s 360 degree assessment process was hardly a model of transparency when the turnaround began. The new team leader requested copies of each VP’s 360 degree assessment due to understand common behavioral strengths and weaknesses. A new, much simpler 360 was designed and implemented that explicitly stated that proper managerial and leadership behaviors were critical for a leader’s success at Avon. Helping to make the transition to transparency easier, the new 360 assessments and report differed from typical tools that rate the participants on proficiency in various areas. The type of evaluation information that was collected was from complex to simple, from egalitarian to differentiated, from episodic to disciplined, from meaningless to consequential, from opaque to transparent, from emotional to factual and from meaningless to consequential. Leaders know what is required to be successful, how to measure the situation, how HR and management can assist them, and the consequences of higher and lower performance. They know their performance rating, their potential ratings and how they can change each of those. They actively differentiated levels of Avon talent and provided each level with the appropriate experience. Their highest potential leaders understand how management feels about them, and they see a commensurate investment. Their lower performing leaders get the attention they need (Silzer & Dowell, 2010). Managers do the right thing for their associates both because the barriers have been lower than what they previously built and because management helped them with value added tools and information. Processes began to happen on schedule and consistently around the world. Talent decisions are made with an additional layer of qualitative and quantitative information drawn from across many different leader experiences. Leaders know that they must build talent the Avon way for both their short and long term success. When the turnaround began, no global process for understanding or acting on associate engagement issues existed. Select regions or department made efforts of varying effectiveness, but there was no integrated focus on consistent measurement and improvement of engagement (Silzer & Dowell 2010). In designing the engagement process, management applied the same three questions: the business benefit, the simple path, to adding additional value. Management accepted the substantial research that showed a correlation, and some causation between increasing engagement and increasing various business metrics. There were two goals established around simplicity. One goal was to understand as much of what drove engagement as possible, while asking the least number of questions. The second goals were to write the questions as simple as possible, so that if managers needed to improve the score on a question, their options for action would be relatively obvious. Management was confident that if managers took the right actions to improve their engagement results, not only would the next year’s scores increase, but the business would benefit from the incremental improvement. The challenge was to determine and imply communicate to the managers what the right actions were. Management with the assistance of a research team developed a statistical equation model that would become the engine to produce the answers. The statistical equation model allowed them to understand the power of each engagement dimension, for example, immediate manager, empowerment, senior management, to increase engagement, and to express that power in an easy to understand statement (Goldsmith & Carter, 2010). Avon’s mission is focused on six core aspirations the company continually strives to achieve. They are leader in global beauty, building a unique portfolio of beauty and related brands, striving to surpass competitors in quality, innovation, and value, and elevating Avon’s image to become the world’s trusted beauty company. Empower their employees to achieve economic independence by offering a superior earning opportunity as well as recognition, service and support, making it easy and rewarding to be affiliated with Avon. Deliver superior returns to shareholders by pursuing new growth opportunities while maintaining a commitment to be a responsible, ethical company and a global corporate citizen that is held as a model of success (Avon Products Inc. , 2012). Avon Products Inc. is the world largest direct seller right now. The changes in 2006 set the stage for renewed growth by enabling them to be faster and nimbler, but since then the business has grown significantly and become increasingly complex.

How might a Jacobean audience see certain events in MACBETH differently to a modern one? Essay

Four hundred years ago in the time of the Jacobeans, beliefs then were very different from what they are today and this had impacts on the way Jacobean audiences interpreted certain events in Shakespeare’s plays. This essay sets out how some events might be interpreted differently in Macbeth. Bad things that happened to people were blamed on the supernatural like curses, witches and ghosts e.t.c. First of all was the whole idea of witches. For everything bad that happened to people, witches were blamed for them. Witches were seen as real people who had magical powers and could do almost anything. In Macbeth the witches appear at the very start of the play and accompanying them was thunder and lightning. The Jacobeans see that type of weather to be a bad omen and meant forces of evil or bad things were coming, whereas nice weather meant good things were going on. Today we see bad weather as being caused by scientific reasons; to do with air pressure for example. It has nothing to do with any events happening in the world. In Act 1 scene 2, the witches go on to create a massive thunderstorm. A Jacobean audience would believe this really happened because they thought witches did actually have the power to do that. Nowadays, a modern audience would see that as simply just made up, because we don’t believe in witches anymore. Adverse weather conditions are caused by natural phenomena not by supernatural evil witches. When Macbeth sees the witches for the first time they say â€Å"Hail Macbeth hail to thee Thane of Glamis,† â€Å"Thane of Cawdor† then â€Å"King hereafter†. The witches are saying he definitely will have those titles, not just might be. A Jacobean audience would see this as the witches predicted the future because people back then believed that they could do that. Today we do not believe in witches and again; it would be seen by a modern audience as the witches guessing what would happen. Next is the Thane of Cawdor’s execution. No-one has been executed in Britain for many years; the death penalty has effectively been abolished. But in Jacobean times, it was regarded as the natural thing to do. Therefore a modern audience would see this execution as very serious and would feel he would not deserve that punishment as much as we did 400 years ago. A Jacobean audience would see that he does need to be executed because betraying the king’s (monarch’s) army was considered a very serious crime because it would be a crime against God as well; as the monarchy was considered to be run directly by God. When Lady Macbeth calls on evil spirits to make her powerful and string-minded to carry out the murder of Duncan she says, â€Å"Unsex me here,† and, â€Å"Make thick my blood.† She actually wants to be changed into a man (on the inside) from a woman and be praying out to spirits somewhere she can do this. A Jacobean audience would believe that this is really happening because they believed in sprits; good or bad, and that if you call for them, they can do what you want. A modern audience however would see this as Lady Macbeth thinking that she has lots of power when really she can’t and she’s got too much energy and feels really powerful when really nothing will happen like that. I.e. she has a big lust for power. Today we don’t believe in spirits and that they never exist. We now would think that she’s just feeling lots of power and wants to get it very badly. But just before Macbeth goes to commit the murder of Duncan, he imagines a dagger leading him to Duncan’s room. He says, â€Å"Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?† He’s seeing this dagger actually taking him to Duncan’s room meaning the dagger should be used to kill him. Macbeth is really convinced and believes it’s there. Because of that, a Jacobean audience would think the witches have put it there in his head because they told the future earlier on in the play, that Macbeth will become king, and he would have needed to kill Duncan to do it. A modern audience on the other hand would think he’s having a hallucination and he’s just simply imagining it; probably explained by the stress of being about to kill the King. Jacobean’s might not have thought that because they didn’t appreciate people can imagine things deliberately or because of stress or mental illness. They would not understand those things. In addition, Macbeth sees a vision of Banquo’s ghost at a banquet. He says to the other guests, â€Å"Which of you have done this?† Again, like the dagger only he can see it and he believes it really was there. A Jacobean audience would have believed in ghosts and life after death. Macbeth had just unlawfully killed Banquo so a Jacobean audience would see that it would make sense for his ghost to haunt him and only him and appear real. But, a modern audience would see this as Macbeth being so stressed by the murder of Banquo and Duncan that one of his victims comes back to haunt him in his mind. The fact that only Macbeth can see it proves that it’s probably his stress. Jacobean’s believed in the â€Å"Divine right of Kings† meaning that the king’s reign is so because it is what God wanted; it’s God’s will for him/her to be king. Therefore if you kill the monarch (called regicide), it was the worst possible crime anybody could commit at the time. If you did it, you were committing a sin against God and the audience would be so shocked they would be petrified. So when Macbeth murders Duncan, the audience would be petrified with disbelief that that just happened. Today, we believe that kings and queens reign because we allow him/her to reign over us and it’s nothing to do with God. So a modern audience would see the murder of Duncan as just a very serious murder, not a crime against God. This is also because we believe much less in religion now than we did 400 years ago. Plus, the monarch today does not have it much power as it did back then; since the English civil war, laws are passed by parliament, the king or queen virtually has no power and can be abolished by parliament at any time. When Macbeth sees the witches for the final time to show him the apparitions, again in thunder and rain, they cast a spell in rhymes in order to do that. For example one says, â€Å"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes†. Jacobeans would see this as the witches truly casting a spell but today we this as just a poem. Also, the apparitions that the witches come up with would have been seen to have really done that by a Jacobean audience, because again, they thought witches had unlimited magical powers and could do almost anything, including bringing out naked out of a bubbling pot children or futuristic visions out of their cauldron. A modern audience would see this as Macbeth being drugged by the witches and that potion made him go on to see those apparitions, perhaps in some sort of trans or dream. We don’t believe in witches having the magical power to do that themselves. The final thing whose perception has changed is Lady Macbeth sleepwalking. In Jacobean times, people did not understand that anyone can sleepwalk for whatever reason and thought anyone who did was mad meaning they thought Lady Macbeth was mad and stressed because of what her husband had just been doing. Today however, we think that anyone can sleepwalk and hence Lady Macbeth could have been feeling fine and she was doing a totally random thing. We no longer link sleepwalking with madness. So to conclude, in Jacobean times 400 years ago, people were less knowledgeable about science, weather and how the mind worked. This combined with poor education for most people then, meant that the Jacobeans had to make up phenomenon like witches and ghosts to explain why bad things happen or things go wrong. Nowadays, more people live in urban areas and are well-educated and less religious. Kings and queens have mostly been replaced by fully elected party leaders and the monarch is now just a person and far less important in decision making and politics. Doctors and psychology mean we can understand people’s emotions better and events such as bad weather are now explained by science.

Article summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Article summary - Essay Example Results suggested that smoking during pregnancy has adverse impact on the fetal growth and is also linked with low socioeconomic indicators and other risk behaviors. The research drew a comparison between the birth outcomes of heavy smokers and non-heavy smokers and found that the former were exposed to substantially more health risks than the latter. Every variable other than the older maternal age was found to be a risk factor for smoking during pregnancy. Self-reports of smoking at least 10 cigarettes a day during the early stage of pregnancy can lead to numerous unfavorable birth outcomes. However, there is subjectivity about the extent to which the adverse birth outcomes can be attributed to heavy smoking alone as other factors like socioeconomic status and psychological stress also contribute to them. The research supports the strategies for quitting smoking, yet a broader focus is required to study the underlying factors that cause adverse birth

Service quality and cusomer satisfaction in academic libraries Essay

Service quality and cusomer satisfaction in academic libraries - Essay Example For this reason, there is an urgent need to identify and understand the factors that play a key role in bringing about improvement in a library’s quality of service and consumer satisfaction. Going through the process of development an academic library’s management should then start to â€Å"measure the gap between customers' expectation for excellence and their perception of actual service delivered by the library†. (Nitecki, 1997, p.1) this would be done by employing surveys that are structured using what is known as the â€Å"5 ServQUAL dimensions† (Nitecki, 1997, p.1), which are, â€Å"Tangibles, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy†. (Nitecki, 1997, p.1), respectively these dimensions focus on, physical materials as well as the facilities of the library, the manner of delivering on commitments, the willingness to assist customers, the manner on how library employees make a guarantee of service that gets the by-in of the customers, an d finally how the library handles every customer concern with care. These dimensions would help in the creation of a structured survey. Another method of measurement that can be utilized to measure the expectation of a library’s clientele would be the LibQUAL method, this method however, directly attacks key areas of a library users â€Å"minimum, perceived, and desired levels of service quality† (Lock, Town, 2003, p.3) these key areas are, â€Å"Access to Information, Affect of Service, Library as Place, Personal Control†. (Lock, Town, 2003, p.3). Respectively these key areas focus on the â€Å"Human Dimension of Service Quality, Required information delivered in the format, location, and time of choice, How users want to interact with the modern library, As well as how adequate the facilities are within the library itself† (Cook, 2003, p.18-21). After Determining the expectations of the library’s customer a â€Å"service plan† (Hernon and Whitman, 2001, p.74) can now be formulated. Such a plan is geared towards the continuous fulfillment of the identified needs of their clientele as well as the further improvement of their operational procedures. There are several steps into the creation of a service plan these are: â€Å"establishing goals and objectives, taking control, setting expectations, defining the relationship, empower employees, asking for feedback, respond to customers† (Hernon and Whitman, 2001, p.91). After having identified the needs of their clientele as well as the points for improvement with respect to operational procedures, Goals can now be formed. In this formation process an organization has to make sure that the goals it sets are measurable. Thus it is worth noting that in the process of forming these goals one would be able to point out the feasible and the non feasible goals. Take for example goals set by an environmental protection agency, â€Å"instead of insisting on the costly atta inment of zero pollution instead it had formulated compliance regulations based on acceptable thresholds of tolerance such as pollutant levels not exceeding so many parts per billion† (Hernon and Whitman, 2001, p.75). While it is possible that the maximum potential for attaining consumer satisfaction may not be achieved due to the possibility that some of the needs of library goers might be deemed as a basis for a non feasible and measurable goals, for example â€Å"

Financial strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Financial strategy - Essay Example It is however, critical to understand that such balancing act often depend upon the firm’s choice of the risk level which it attempts to undertake. (Walsh, 1996), As such the growing firms may be more risk loving and willing to take on higher level of risks and therefore all their decisions to expand and develop their markets will be based upon the higher degree of risk firm is willing to assume. Similarly, if a firm is more mature and risk averse in nature, its overall strategies will be relatively different as compared to a growing firm. (De Wit, & Meyer,1998). This paper will attempt to argue and explore that a firm’s overall risk consciousness governs the underlying strategies of the firm. The concept of Risk and firm The question of whether risk is the major factor behind the strategy formulation or not need to be discussed from the different perspectives. Each organization operates in an environment which is both internal and external to it and therefore develops its strategies in accordance with its environment. Firms, to a large extent, develop their capabilities to deal with the risks arising from their internal environment however; it’s the external competitive landscape of a firm which poses it significant and important risks because of the volatile and uncontrollable nature of the external environment. The overall development of the risk consciousness of the firm therefore largely depends upon the kind of external environment faced by the firm and how firm can actually utilize its strengths to withstands such external risks Risk as a concept therefore outlines that the outcome of any decisions or strategies of a firm may not be exactly according to what is perceived by the firm. As such it becomes critically important for the firms to account for and plan risks and develop strategies which can help them to counter risks arising from their internal as well as external environment. It is this uncertainty of the external environmen t which firms need to account for and prepare themselves through proper planning and strategy formulation process. It is also important to understand that the overall risk factors in an external environment can be diverse however; normally firms perform PESTLE Analysis to analyze their external environment. PESTLE Analysis allows the firms to actually evaluate the impact which political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors could have on the firm. (Ellis, & Williams, 1993) If a firm has relatively high tolerance for the risk, it may choose to work in an environment which can be politically volatile and uncertain. For example, any firm willing to operate in Afghanistan now must have relatively higher tolerance for the risk because of volatile and extremely uncertain political environment. As such its policies and strategies will be driven by the volatility of the external environment within which it is operating or willing to operate. Risk and Return Risk and Return criteria serves as the basic premise under which all the economic decisions are made. Every investor as well as the firm attempts to decide and take actions based on their overall risk and return profile.

McDonald's Advertising Campaign Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

McDonald's Advertising Campaign - Term Paper Example The current Mcdonald’s advertising campaign is referred to as the ‘I’m lovin’ it’ campaign. This campaign extends to international borders and has been implemented in virtually every advertising medium available within the contemporary media climate. While many might have expected this advertising campaign to be developed by an American firm, in actuality it was constructed by an advertising agency located in Unterhaching, Germany referred to as DDB Worldwide Communications Group, Inc. Rather than debuting the campaign in the United States, the ‘I’m lovin’ it’ campaign was debuted in Australia and that later throughout parts of Europe and ultimately the United States. It seems in structuring the campaign in such a way McDonald’s was able to in a sense test out their advertising and fine-tune its various elements before debuting it in the larger Western markets. This strategy has a number of beneficial elements, namel y that despite pre-debut polling and surveys, the actual reception of the marketing campaign is not entirely discernable until after it is received within the public context; as a result numerous logistical and thematic errors can be worked out before it ultimately hits the most pivotal Western market. When it finally did debut in the USA on June 29, 2003 it did so with a large amount of fanfare. During its debut the campaign slogan was accompanied by the music of Tom Batoy and Franco Tortora (Mona Davis Music) and vocals by Justin Timberlake. In including such a large name (indeed, Justin Timberlake was at the top of the pop culture world at the time of this campaign) allowed McDonalds to significantly establish their new message and distinguish it from past advertising incarnations (Dicker 2010). In these regards, the debut functions as more than just a means of drawing significant attention to the product (which is one of the primary concerns), but it also functions to draw atten tion to the significant shift in tone and message from previous McDonald’s campaigns. This is important as it indicates that the campaign often does not simply signify a renewed approach to promotion, but oftentimes represents a philosophical shift in the nature of nature of the company’s vision. As advertising campaigns are implemented they oftentimes have been demonstrated to make subtle shifts within their production mechanisms. The McDonald’s ‘I’m Lovin It’ campaign is ne exception in these regards. Despite debuting with one set slogan and approach to promotion as the campaign progressed new forms of presentation were included; for instance, in 2007 a public casting call was issued which resulted in nearly 15,000 applicants (‘The Latest from McDonald’s’). From this pool twenty-four were selected and integrated into the advertising campaign. These individuals’ images and themes of inspiration were implemented on McDonald’s products throughout the world. This last method was a highly effective means of altering the campaign through becoming more directly involved in the customer’s perspective. Rather than simply relying on ad executives to determine what constitutes effective promotion, allowing actual customers to become involved functions to create a sort of raw and direct appeal to the audience. This method went beyond traditional television and print advertising, truly

Addition to the research proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Addition to the - Research Proposal Example tings where there are clear distinctions in the cultures of teachers from the students, Sendall, Ceccucci, and Peslak (2008) stressed that it is important to have structures put in place that eases up the intercultural friction that may possibly exist between teachers and students. It was based on this that EVA3 was selected as it allows a unique interactive online video-based teaching and learning environment (Educational Video Environment, 2014). Nagy (2005) stressed that such video-based interactions reduces the density of differences that is normally experienced between teachers and learners. More specifically on the EVA3, it will be used in the study to achieve two major goals. In the first place, it will be used as a platform that provides powerful authentic and evidence based online learning. What this means is that there will be a very valid means by which the type of learning that takes place will be evidently witnessed. In most of the case, it is very difficult to judge the level of learning that has taken place between there is very little evidence to this effect. But with the property of educational video being audio-visual, it will be possible to both hear and see what takes place as far as the classroom environment is concerned (Trentin, 2010). Indeed, there is greater benefit for the researcher in using the EVA3 as authentic evidence for learning. This is because it will be possible to always make reference to the learning that took place since the online stage supports the storage of data for future retrieval and evaluation. The second goal for using EVA3 is to ensure that there is the promotion of collaborative and positive peer based learning. As depicted in figure 2 below, there are several components of EVA3 that allows for interactivity between learners and teachers. It also has a feedback and comments section where learners can interact with each other, as well as teachers. With these, collaboration is enhanced because learning no longer