Customer Value Essay Example for Free

Customer Value Essay Customer Value can be explained in simple terms by knowing the difference between what the customer gets from the product/service and what he or she has to exchange in order to get it (may be money). It is very important for any company in the market to understand this difference; if failed to do so, this can be one of the biggest reasons for the product/service failure in the market. According to many researchers, in this ever growing world of technology and social media the organization’s inability of establishing unique and convincing value to their products/services is the main reason for its failure. Keeping its importance in mind, many companies tries to understand what is their customer valuing. However, this can also be one of the most difficult things to understand. There are many factors causing it to be difficult for the marketers overcome this issue. However, for this task we will focus 3 main aspects. Firstly, every customer values different product/service differently. It might be situational or might be only for a definite period of time. Secondly, the market itself! Technology and economic nature change the pace of the global market. With the competition aggressive as never seen before, it is important for the marketers to change their strategies with the ever changing market. Thirdly, some internal factors which make it difficult for organization to bring in customer value. Gist of Customer Value No one has made it clearer of this word â€Å"Customer Value† concisely than Lamb et al. (2008, 2009) who wrote, â€Å"Customer Value is the relationship between benefits and the sacrifice necessary to obtain those benefits. Which means – if a product is of very good quality and is only obtained by paying a very high price will not be considered as of value by the customers, just like a low quality product which can be purchased for cheap price; but a value of a product is only seen by a customer when the quality of the product meets their expectation at an affordable price. Let’s take an example of coffee; some people love to drink coffee at Starbucks which may cost $10 and some people like to drink coffee from a local coffee shop which may only cost $4. Now, people who drinks coffee at Starbucks expects them to use premium offee beans (Arabica) which tastes better and so are willing to pay $10 which worth (value) for Starbucks customers. On the same note, people who drink coffee at local coffee shop might just need to satisfy their caffeine addiction and they feel that it is worth for the price they pay. According to Butz and Goodstein (1996), a customer value is the emotional bond between the customer and the company (service/product provider) developed by means of the used service/product. The emotional bond is only developed when the service/product meets the customer’s expectation. Different researchers have defined â€Å"customer value† in different ways but it all revolves around words like â€Å"benefits†, â€Å"satisfaction†, â€Å"expectation† and â€Å"worth†. If a company who wants to understand â€Å"customer value† for their product/service they need to understand more about these words with respect to their customers. But it is not as easy as it seems. Perhaps, even in dictionaries it’s difficult to find synonyms for these words because these words depend on situations. Challenges for marketers For companies to operationalize â€Å"customer value† in marketing their product can only be done by learning their â€Å"customers† and â€Å"market†. These terms can be very challenging to learn or to understand because of its diverse nature. * Customer’s change is inevitable Customer’s needs or wants can be situational. Different customers can seek same products/service for variety of needs. Vodaphone has a pre-paid mobile plan that allows customers to make international calls at a cheaper rate and also allows making free calls to local Vodaphone customers. As an international student I choose this plan to make international calls at a cheaper rate but my friend who is a local chooses the same plan because most of his friends are Vodaphone users. Further to this, a customer’s needs may change with change in their circumstances. Just like, if I secure a part-time job which gets me constant income, I will consider changing my mobile plan to post-paid service which has more offers. Customer’s needs are dynamic and can change over time. We humans have different needs at different age. Products brought by a person from a shopping mall will be different when he was single and when he gets married and more so when he’s a father. (Don Peppers Martha Rogers, 2010) It is difficult to predict or to foresee these changes in the same customer with the change in situation. At every point of time, customers are trying to actually achieve their needs for that point of time (Hultink and Atuahene-Gima, 2000). There is no single system to understand or to foresee customer’s need and to categorize them. Marketers should learn their customer’s needs beforehand to make their product valuable to their customers. To achieve this, organizations needs look at their products/services through customer’s point of view (Don Peppers Martha Rogers, 2010). As the changes in customer’s situation can be quiet fast, organizations needs to be quick in changing their strategies and innovations to meet their ever changing customers. Technological drawbacks Climbing the technological ladder too quick might pull down the organizations efforts in boosting customer’s value for a service/product. An excellent customer service is very important to maintain or to boost the value of the product/service with regards to customers. Traditional human to human interactions have been replaced by human to machine interactions by the help of technology. These changes force customers to embrace self-service technologies which can create discomfort among some low-tech savvy customers (Parasuraman, 2000). There may be customers with limited knowledge in technology or may not be willing accept the technological introduction (Walker, Lees, Hecker and Francis, 2002). Almost everyone has experienced this scenario when they call a customer service center of telecommunication provider. The call keeps bouncing to different automated machines and still our problems are not solved until we speak to a customer service executive. Similarly, online banking system with tight security measures some people still prefer to visit banks personally for some services. This is because either the customers are not willing trust these technological services or lack of knowledge to use these services. Secondly, Internet world made it easier for customers to compare the quality, product/service details, and cost of same/similar product from different companies (Bakos, 1997 Lynch Ariely, 2000). Customers can comfortable get information about the various products using internet at home without physically going to the market (J. Nielsen, 2000). This increases the competition exponentially and any company is vulnerable to this situation if they do not keep up with the hanging market trends. Companies have to constantly indulge in innovation that meets their customer’s expectation and introduce strategies to keep the customers excited about their current and upcoming product. Even a speculation of an upcoming product of the competitors can adversely affect the company’s current product in the market. Like the speculation of Samsung III (latest mobile phone) with more and better specifications tremendously reduced the sales of iphone 4s current product, even to a point that the recently released iphone 5 didn’t reach its expected sales mark. Barriers within Organizations Every organization has its own culture and employees working will be very comfortable with those culture. This culture may not be aligned with the ever changing customer’s expectations and needs. Using their own employees, organization tries to understand their customer’s needs by merely guessing it. By doing so, organizations come up with customer’s needs through employee’s perspective (or sales point of view) and not customer’s perspective. Now this â€Å"guessed† customer’s needs might be exactly opposite to what the organizations actual customer’s needs. This creates a difference between the customer value and service/product offered, which in turn results in unsatisfied customers (Woodruff, 1997). Example, Kodak Company was reluctant to change with the change in the market and customer’s needs. Customers were finding it easier to use a digital camera over a film based camera. However, Kodak Company expected its customers to use film based cameras which are not user friendly. This gradually resulted in Kodak losing its customer base to its competitors those who embraced to this change in era. Now even if the organization decides to move towards the customer’s needs by proper findings and learning their customers. It depends on managers to implement these finding in marketing their product and also in future products. Managers might be too busy with their normal duties to implement the learning on customer value. Thus the adapting to change becomes a problem when it is not in line with the introduction of new information on market change and their customers. This can also happen when the organization is reluctant to continuously train their employees on the market and customer variations. Conclusion:  There are many other factors such as market variations, globalization, wide variations in customer’s psychology, brand image etc. that makes it challenging for a marketer to show value to customers in their products/services. Theodore Leavitt of the Harvard Business School explained this idea by saying that â€Å"The customer is not interested in a quarter-inch drill. Rather the customer is interested in a quarter-inch hole†. By understanding the results preferred by the customer, an organization can invest its marketing and innovation in the right direction for the customers to achieve their desired results.

Vinamilk Marketing Analysis

Vinamilk Marketing Analysis This report aims to analyse how the strategic operational process and management contributed to the business vision of Vinamilk ¹ which is becoming the leading milk products manufacturer in Vietnam. First of all, by identifying precisely customers expectations of company products, the operations performance objectives will be determined in order to make the process of producing and delivering products could be processed efficiently. These objectives are aiming for the final purpose of the whole process is providing products in a way that maximise customers satisfaction. Secondly, the performance objectives identified in the previous part will then be translated into significant action which is designing the manufacturing process. Put simply, manufacturing process of the company will be designed appropriate for what the company is trying to achieve. The chosen process design also needs to match with the characteristics of an output resources and it is manifested through lay-out. Finally, some recommendations will be provided in order to overcome the shortcomings that the company has been facing in managing its production and delivery process 1.1 Background of company Vinamilk company established in 1976 as the Southern Coffee-Dairy Company, then renamed to United Enterprises of Milk Coffee Cookies and Candies I in 1978 and finally Vietnam Dairy Company was formally established in 1993. In 2003, follows its IPO to the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, the company legally changed its name to Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company (VINAMILK). The company is a state owned enterprise in which the government owns about 50.01 % of the shares and the rest of the shares are currently active trading at the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange.The principal activities of Vinamilk are manufacturing and distributing products derived from milk such as fresh-milk, condensed milk, powdered milk, yogurts, ice-cream, cheese and others drinks such as fruit juice and soya milk. According to Euromonitor, it has been the number dairy player in Vietnam for the three years ending 31 December 2007.From its equitization in November 2003 to now, the sales of Vinamilk have experienced an average growth rate of 21%/year. In 2009, total sales of Vinamilk have reached a record of over VND 10,000 billion and its profit also has got the highest amount ever before.Vinamilks main competitors and Dutch Lady Vietnam, a division of Friesland Foods, Nestlà © Vietnam, Abbott, Mead Johnson, Friso and Nutifood Customer Basically, when any company decides to enter a market, identifying its target markets is the very important thing needed to do. By doing so, a company will define precisely the groups of particular customers it wants to serve and therefore could get right products or services to a right person or company. In order to target the market, a company would firstly segment its market into smaller segments, each segment is a group of purchasers with the same set of needs and buyer behavior Back to Vinamilk, by breaking up its market based on analysing demographic and geographic variables, it can be seen that Vinamilks goal is to satisfy all customers from kids to elder in any occupation. Especially, the group of kids under 14-years-old is considered the target market that Vinamilk wants to come forwards. In the present time, Vinamilks segment in rural areas and small towns has been weak, thus, this segment will also become the target market which Vinamilk want to focus more in the early fu ture. With the products which is directly refers to the health of customers as Vinamilks products, quality always is the issue that the customers care the most. Products need to match with the requirement for hygienic and safety food and the ingredients need to be ensured their orginal resources. Otherwise, different customers will have different taste and different preferences, but generally their preference always change, they could also willing to try a new product, new flavor or even the same products with a new layout design. In addition, one of the most important element when choosing a product is price, a product with good quality and acceptable price in comparison with other products will be regarded as a sucessful product. These three elements mentioned above are the requirements of customers to Vinamilk products. After packaging, products are delivered to consumers through two distribution channels: Traditional channel Distributors à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ Outlets à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ Consumers Modern trade Supermarkets / Metro à ¢Ã¢â‚¬  Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ Consumers The distributors, supermakets and outlets are regarded as the internal customers of the company in the supply chain. Delivering products on time is considered the most important thing in which the company needs to concern. If the delivery process because of some reasons are delayed, it will lead to many problems, in which might directly influence to their businesses. CONSUMERS 3.0 Operations INPUT RESOURCES TRANSFORMATION PROCESS OUTPUT RESOURCES Figure 1.1 Operations through-put process (Source: Slack et al.2009) Transformed Resources Raw materials Main ingredients for products derived from milk: imported milk power, fresh milk from domestic farms. for other products: fruit juice, soya beanà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Others ingredients: sugar, Transforming Resources Facilities Process technology International standard assembly line Modern manufacturing facilities Staff Group of skilled engineers who control mechanical systems Raw materials quality analysis Processing raw materials Final quality testing processing Packaging Finished products Analyze the 4VS High volume Vinamilk products are produced at 9 factories with the high capactiy approximately of 570.406 tonnes per annum and distributed to all provinces of the country. The manufacturing processes are taken systematically from processing raw materials to packaging finished goods. In each process, a team of staff as engineers and workers will directly specialize in tasks related to this process. Their tasks are repeated and systemized in the standard procedures, therefore it is often worth developing specialized technology that gives higher processing efficiencies ( Slack, et al). Low variety The product portfolio of Vinamilk is diversified with over 200 different types of products however except fruit juice and soya milk, all products are derived from the main resource is milk( www.vinamilk.com.vn). Raw materials are gone through the similar processing stages, could have some different preparation in the next stages, but it doesnt impact much on the standardization systems. Low availability (Rowbotham et al) With the stable and predictable demand from customer for dairy products, Vinamilk is always actively the way it produces and distributes products to market through maintaining the stability of milk material sources. Although ice-cream products are products have the seasonal charateristic, with the demand of it in the summer time higher than other season, its changing demand doesnt impact much on the general production situation of the company. Low visibility The way Vinamilk analyses its customerss behaviour basically depends on salespersons who are committed to understand the consumers preferences in their regular contact with customers across different outlets. Performance Objectives The objective of the production management is to produce goods and services of Right Quality and Quantity at the Right time and Right manufacturing cost (Kumar Suresh,2009) Quality Quality means doing things right, trying to satisfy customers by providing goods and services which are fit for their purpose. The quality advantage in manufacturing and service operations can be achieved through a skilled workforce, adequate technology and effective communication of quality standards and job specifications.(Rowbotham,2007) Being the company operating in the food branch, quality is regarded as the first important objective that Vinamilk needs to care for. All Vinamilk products are produced by the modern system machines and closely controlled by the International Quality Control Standards of ISO 9001: 2000 and HACCP certified by the world leading corporations. These productss quality are also ensured to fully announce as stipulated by the Laws under the direct and indirect supervision of competent authorities. With such the control process and strict supervision of competent authorities, released Vinamilk products are qualified with food quality, hygiene and safety standards in accordance with the published standards. Additional, the stability of milk material sources is extremely important as it helps Vinamilk maintains and increases the productivity. As a result, Vinamilk have established stable relationships with suppliers and have committed to purchase high quality fresh milk at the highest price. Th e companys factories, which are located in strategic locations near farms of milk cows, enable the company to maintain and improve these relationships with suppliers. Speed An extensive distribution network located nationwide with 201 distributors and over 141,000 outlets in 64 provinces and continued being expanded over time allows Vinamilk to bring its core products to consumers in a fast and effective way. In addition, Vinamilk has a range of modern factories located along the country that helps to reduce transportation expenses as well as to make a way the companys products are distributed to customers becomes easier and more convenience. Furthermore, the company has two transport enterprises, one is located in suburbs of Hanoi specialised in distributing products for Southern, and one is the main distributor for Northern, which is placed at Ho Chi Minh stuburb. Flexibility Flexibility means being able to change what you do to respond to changes in customer requirements in terms of the products and services design, volume, mix and delivery times. This can be achieved through dependable suppliers, mobility of multi-skilled labour, and versatile equipment, etc. The product portfolio of Vinamilk is so diversified and successfully satisfies the increasing various demands of consumers. The company owns 3 core brands, in which Vinamilk and Dielac are two key brands and Vfresh is a new one but it offers a great potential for development. Vinamilk products are divided into 6 groups and each group also consists of specific brands for specific customers. For instance, group of powered milk: Diealac Alpha for kids. Dielac Pedia for children with poor appetite and malnutrition. Dielac Mama for pregnant and breast feeding woman. Group of liquid milk: For Adults ( 100% Fresh Milk, UHT Milk Flex) For kids ( UHT Milk kid) Vinamilk has continuously introduced to the market its new products to meet the diversified demands of consumers, including Vinamilk Aloe Vera Yogurt Milk with rich source of vitamin A and E, Dielac Diecerna, Vinamilk Slimming Milk, orange smoothies, etc.. Cost With the manufacturing milk products like Vinamilk, milk materials sources being one of the main bought -in items which has a great influence to the price of products. The fluctuations of input resources may be due to many causes, however in general the increase of input resources will lead to the increase of finished products. In order to stabilize the price of products, Vinamilk has established stable relationships with suppliers and till now approximately 60% milk material has been bought from domestic sources. Vinamilks factories are located near farms of milk cows, enable the company to maintain and improve these relationships with suppliers as well as help the company to limit the costs incurred from delivering milk material. Dependability Dependability means the ability of a firm to deliver a product for customers with the exact time promised. Customers might judge the dependability of an operation only after the product and service has been delivered. For instance, one supermarket is the distributor of Vinamilk, the delay of delivering products is shown clearly in the way the supermarkets sheves have been being empty for a long time. This trouble has the huge impact to the business situation of the supermarket while its customers can not find the product they need, and so on. The delay of delivering products to customers may be caused by many reasons in which the most important reason is the quality of manufacturing process. One stage in the process goes wrong, will lead to a whole manufacturing get troubles. If the company does not do well to perform dependability, the delivery is always late, therefore the company itself will lose the goodwill of customers. As a milk company, Vinamilk considers quality is the top target, therefore, its processes have been designed as a error-free process in which some unpredictable errors that may affects the quality of finished products will be minimized. Vinamilk is one of the companies that apply the HACCP approach in manufacturing process. The HACCP approach is a scientific system for food safety assurance (Nguyen et al.,2004). Its main purpose is to provide a system whereby food businesses can control quality and safety throughout the entire food operation.(Applying quality function deployment in food safety manage ment, British Food Journal Vol. 112 No. 6, 2010 pp. 624-639). ( Source: Slack et al.2007) Figure 1.2 Polar diagram for Vinamilk 3.0 Process design The whole point of process design is to make sure that the performance of the process is appropriate for what the operation is trying to achieve(Slack et al,2007). Therefore, it can be said that operations process design is an translation of performance objectives. A question here is What type of process design currently adopted in Vinamilk? Generally, the basic process for all products in Vinamilk is the same. Raw materials are tested, processed, contained, then containers are filled, capped, labelled and packed. Inspections are carried out at appropriate stages.Therefore, an idea to adopt batch process can be given. In a batch environment, the basic machinery is fixed in place, but it is used on different batches of different products( Rowbotham et al,2009). For instance, raw milk and other main raw materials all need to pump into the preventation silo from which the milk will undergo the sterilization process. (http://www.dairyvietnam.org.vn/). In this example, sterilizing machine is fixed machine, it can be used to sterilizing say, a batch of whatever yohurt, freshmilk or powered milk. After sterilizing, raw milk is undergone four more processes such as homogenising, spliting a certain amount of butter from milk, final processing and packaging. Some appropriate adjustment of parameters can be carried out in order to produce different type of products. Like for whole milk products and low fat products, butter will be added until it reaches the level of fat at 3.25 percent and 1 percent, respectively in the processing. Read phonetically However, because of the high volume characteristic of output resources, the production processes have been conducted repetitive, thus, it could be said that the whole manufacturing process of Vinamilk is also a mass process. Basically, flowlines are inflexible because of the design just allows to produce a particular product at a particular rate of output. Therefore, if demand for the product changes, capacity cannot be easily increased and reducing output simply reduces utilization and may result in very little cost saving. An idea of the process design that mixed between batch process and mass process applied in Vinamilk is called group technology will overcome drawbacks of batch and mass process individually. Group Technology (GT) is the analysis and comparisons of items to group them into families with similar characteristics (Kumar Suresh, 2009).Rowbotham et al., 2007 has the explanation of group technology as belows: Group technology can be seen as an attempt to obtain some of the cost benefits of flowlines in a batch environment.A company manufacturing 200 different products will often find that these products fall into families based upon their manufacturing characteristics, and a group of perhaps ten products could require very similar processing in terms of machinery, process sequence and operation times. While the demand for each product individually will not be great enough to justify dedicated plant and labour, the output for the whole group may be great enough to justify setting up dedicated facilities. The group technology organization rarely leads to fully fledged flowlines and is more likely to lead to small manufacturing cells containing the necessary plant and labour for that group of products. Set-up and control are easier and transport is reduced compared with batch operations. Compared with both batch and flow operations, workers can see the context of their work within the overal l scheme since group technology cells are usually small enough so that all process stages are visible from every point. The process design is expressed through layout which is simply understood as the physical arrangement of production facilities used in production. The basic aim of a group technology layout is to identify families of components that require similar of satisfying all the requirements of the machines are grouped into cells. (Kumar Suresh, 2009). Vinamilk could consider a group technology organization based upon the five groups of products identified: Group of powdered milk and infant cereals Group of condensed milk Group of liquid milk Group of yogurt, ice-cream and cheeses Group of fruit juice, soy-bean milk, purified water It means that five cells layout are designed and each of them is capable of satisfying all the requirements of the component family assigned to it. In another word, all the components assigned to a cell are almost processed within that cell itself. Like the cell of powdered milk and infant cereals has the process line which comprises sterilizing, drying, additional micronutrients, mix, containing and packaging process. The cost of transportation and equipments are minimized in group technology layout. Furthermore, group technology is help to reduces production planning time for jobs as well as set-up time. 4.0 Conclusion In conclusion, this report gives an illustration of how important operations management has contributed to the success of Vinamilk in Vietnam market. First, Vinamilk understands what is important for its customers includes: high quality, stable cost, a wide range of products and reliable delivery. Seconds, the way it produces and delievers its products is right for the market. Thereby Vinamilk can indentify the order- winning and qualifying objectives is price and quality, range of products, respectively. The internal performance objectives are also determined as cost, quality and speed. 5.0 Recommendation At the present time, the manufacturing process of Vinamilk is being proceed well which is reflected in the ways Vinamilk have applied the lastest technology in manufacturing and packaging for all factories. Vinamilk is also the only company in Vietnam which possesses the system of machines that uses the eject-deciccation technology by Niro Denmmark, a world leading company in industrial desiccation technology. The company should maintain and promote the results achieved in the future

Applications of Developmental Psychology to Practice

Applications of Developmental Psychology to Practice Title: Within your chosen topic area, Health Psychology In Action: Children and the development, (chapter 3 by Tony Cassidy) discuss the ways in which developmental psychology can inform practice. Psychology is a cumulative scientific study of the mind based on empirically driven theories that link experience, behaviour and the brain. Health psychology, despite being a relatively new branch of applied psychology, is following that exact path. It is the study of the psychological processes of health, illness and healthcare systems (Cassidy 2006). While the breadth of the discipline is far reaching, its core goal is the use psychological theories and interventions to prevent damaging behaviour. Perhaps the mind begins as a blank slate and we start of as perfect idiots. At the other extreme, it could be like a Swiss-army knife, a collection of innately structured neural modules or perhaps it starts off undifferentiated and becomes modular. Is it our cultural learning or meta-representation that shapes our behaviour? (Wexler 2006) There is no shortage of one-line theories of human nature. However, when it comes to children there is very little room for error. There is overwhelming evidence documenting the effect of early childhood experiences with their long term health and associated behaviours. For example, stress in early life can inhibit neurogenesis in later adulthood (Tucker 2002; Karten et al 2005), but to what extent does such developmental theory actually inform real life practice? Or in other words, are the current initiatives used by health psychologists working in the way theories predict? There isnt room for an exhaustive search here and so this piece will focus on a few practical examples. More than 400 million adults worldwide are obese according to the World Health Organization (2004) and children from many difference socio-cultural backgrounds are at risk (Cassidy 2006). There are a barrage of studies contemplating how our surroundings are responsible for the growing obesity problem (Brownell 2004). These papers all point towards two key issues: (a) The easy availability of foods that are high in fat. (b) Poor opportunities for exercise. While it is intuitively obvious why people become obese, the relationship between weight and behaviour is still highly complex and health psychology has attempted to identify some of the reasons behind the obesity epidemic. For example, a large body of evidence suggests that the family environment is the major source of influence over childhood eating behaviour (Rivett 2008). Psychologists have attempted to influence childrens food choices through the application of social learning theory in programmes such as The Food Dudes Program (Tucker 2002). The researchers developed a video of four older children who appeared to gain super powers for eating fruit and vegetables. The basic premiss being that a child is more likely to imitate the behaviour of a person they admire and is consistent with a behaviouralist approach because there are rewards for behaviours which are desirable. Similar programs have borrowed from Gratton et al (2007) and have used the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as a framework to promote childrens fruit and vegetable consumption. TPB posits that behavioural intentions are the proximal determinants of actual behaviour, with the perception of control being an important co-determinant of behaviour (Gratton et al 2007). The programme simply took two groups of children and showed one group ways in which they could make time in the day to eat five-a-day and another group on how they could overcome motivational barriers to achieving this goal. Both interventions were found to be successful. Similar programmes encouraging children to take exercise also exist (Cassidy 2006). Despite some success stories, the effects have been disappointing in the long-term with such programmes (Brownell 2004). Surrounded by a social construct implying that being overweight is normal and acceptable, psychologists are presented with a constant struggle. However, by improving childrens own understanding of illness, this can promote healthy actions by groups and in tandem with a new TPB framework, help improve future lifestyle choices (Williams Binnie 2002). The focus of preventive intervention is also a key area of theoretical implementation in health psychology. This fits with a biopsychosocial model where biological, psychological and social factors are implicated in both health and illness. Prevention cannot focus on only a single factor. For example, drug misuse in adolescence, both legal and illegal, is an issue across the developed world which can be tied into other more serious health concerns (Cassidy 2006). Three aspects of family background have been found to predict risk of drug use: parental involvement in crime, poor relationships with parents and unsupportive child-parent interactions (Mazanov Byrne 2008). Interventions have sought to use social inoculation theory developed by McGuire in the 1960s the basic ideology being that decisions are made in the context of social pressure. More recent work has attempted to model what makes an adolescent successfully quit smoking and found that past behaviour explained more than four times the variance of other factors (Mazanov Byrne 2008). On the other hand, family environment is evidently a key area of theoretical and subsequent practical intervention. Recent research has proposed that family therapy is currently undergoing radical change, but this change seems to be driven by more contextual factors as opposed to new theoretical advances. (Rivett 2008) However, any interventions are often clouded by the prevalence of problematic behaviour patterns including impulsivity and rebelliousness making behaviour difficult to predict: The 14 year old has a very simple decision to make. When he sees a light out of the corner of his eye, he is supposed to ignore it. (Powell 2006, p. 865) This is an extremely easy task and even 8 year olds can do it correctly half of the time, but it requires suppressing a natural impulse not the strong point of most teenagers. In this simple test the teenager performs as well as adults do, but inside his head, a lot more cognitive effort is required, as shown by recent functional magnetic resonance imaging studies (Powell 2006). Are outdated theories keeping up with new physiological knowledge or should health care be expanded amongst the young moving away from traditional approaches and into the community? (Williams et al 2002) Health psychology is a new and exciting discipline and is constantly surprising both the academics and applied psychological communities. From enhanced wound healing after an emotional disclosure intervention (Weinman et al 2008) to simply using a distraction intervention to ease the pain of pre-school children undergoing injections (Dahlquist et al 2002), there is a constant stream of new theories and interventions. However, no one theory is going to answer and treat all our health problems and there is always an inherent danger when generalizing to large populations. There is a tendency for fragmentation within modern applied psychology that inevitably results from the growth and development of individual areas. References Brownell, D. K. (2004) Food Fight, London: McGraw-Hill Cassidy, T. (2006). Health Psychology: children and development. In Wood et al. (eds) Developmental Psychology in Action. Blackwell Publishing. p. 101-135 Dahlquist, M. L., Pendley, S. J., Landthrip, S. D., Jones, L. C., Steuber, P. C. (2002) Distraction intervention for preschoolers undergoing intramuscular injections and subcutaneous port access. Health Psychology, 21 (1), 94-99 Gratton, L., Povey, R., Carter, D. (2007). Promoting childrens fruit and vegetable consumption: Interventions using the Theory of Planned Behaviour as a framework. British Journal of Health Psychology, 12, 639-650 Karten, J. G. Y., Olariu, A., Cameron, A. (2005). Stress in early life inhibits neurogenesis in adulthood. Trends in Neuroscience, 28 (4), 171-172 Powell, K. (2006). How does the teenage brain work? Nature, 442 (24), 865-867 Rivett, M. (2008). Towards a metamorphosis: current developments in the theory and practice of family therapy. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 13 (3), 102-106 Tucker, M. C. (2002). Expanding pediatric psychology beyond hospital walls to meet the health care needs of ethnic minority children. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 27 (4), 315-323 Weinman, J., Ebrecht, M., Suzanne, S., Walburn, J., Dyson, M. (2008). Enhanced wound healing after emotional disclosure intervention. British Journal of Health Psychology, 13, 95-102 Williams, M. J., Binnie, M. L. (2002). Childrens concepts of illness: An intervention to improve knowledge. British Journal of Health Psychology, 7, 129-147

College Admissions Essay: Help the Little Children :: College Admissions Essays

Help the Little Children    "I believe the children are our future; teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside." These are the words of the well-known singer, Whitney Houston. They are words that I truly intend to live by. My greatest reason for wanting to further my education is to be able to teach and help the children.    See, I come from a small community in Mississippi called Fitler. Many people have not even heard of it. In this community there is nothing positive to motivate or encourage the children to get involved in meaningful goals. One would think that there wouldn't be any problems in a community of roughly 200 people, which is only growing because of teenage pregnancies. I heard a woman from the state's capital make the statement that "the people in this area are either overweight, Christians, or pregnant because all they have to do is eat, go to church, and have sex." As harsh as that sounds, I agree. They are in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing. These children have to ride the bus for one and one-half-hours just to get to school.    I believe that if there were more activities, organizations, encouragement, and motivation, and if they had someone to teach them the importance of an education and the values of life, many of their problems would cease. Therefore, with my education, I will enrich the lives of these children. First, I will start a 4-H Club. I will also organize a Big Brother and Big Sister Youth Group, build playgrounds, and start little league athletic departments. I will build a Youth Center with a library, video arcade, and skating rink. The center will also offer classes in Biblical education, computer education, and tutoring for all grade levels. I will hire advisors to come in biweekly for ACT Preparation courses and courses on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. There will be two guidance counselors available at all times and I will provide a way for the older children to earn money. I even have plans for building a school in closer proximity to the students.    I'm constantly realizing that everyone is not as blessed as I am. College Admissions Essay: Help the Little Children :: College Admissions Essays Help the Little Children    "I believe the children are our future; teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside." These are the words of the well-known singer, Whitney Houston. They are words that I truly intend to live by. My greatest reason for wanting to further my education is to be able to teach and help the children.    See, I come from a small community in Mississippi called Fitler. Many people have not even heard of it. In this community there is nothing positive to motivate or encourage the children to get involved in meaningful goals. One would think that there wouldn't be any problems in a community of roughly 200 people, which is only growing because of teenage pregnancies. I heard a woman from the state's capital make the statement that "the people in this area are either overweight, Christians, or pregnant because all they have to do is eat, go to church, and have sex." As harsh as that sounds, I agree. They are in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing. These children have to ride the bus for one and one-half-hours just to get to school.    I believe that if there were more activities, organizations, encouragement, and motivation, and if they had someone to teach them the importance of an education and the values of life, many of their problems would cease. Therefore, with my education, I will enrich the lives of these children. First, I will start a 4-H Club. I will also organize a Big Brother and Big Sister Youth Group, build playgrounds, and start little league athletic departments. I will build a Youth Center with a library, video arcade, and skating rink. The center will also offer classes in Biblical education, computer education, and tutoring for all grade levels. I will hire advisors to come in biweekly for ACT Preparation courses and courses on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. There will be two guidance counselors available at all times and I will provide a way for the older children to earn money. I even have plans for building a school in closer proximity to the students.    I'm constantly realizing that everyone is not as blessed as I am.

My Typical American Family :: Traditions Cultures Cultural Essays

My Typical American Family What is a typical American? What is generally viewed as a typical American is that your family has lived here for years and years and you don't personally know who immigrated here. Along with this, your family has molded into this typical view with no "foreign" traditions and things. A lot of people in my class can talk about their relatives that speak another language or have immigrated here. I don't have anything like that so I'll tell you about mine. According to Blauner: Members of an ethnic group hold a set of common memories that make them feel that their customs, culture, and outlook are distinctive. My family doesn't pass down stories or anything. No real passed on customs, no immigrant stories. Takaki thinks everyone should be educated in all culture that makes America so diverse. I don't really have a culture. My family more or less assimilated to the traditional mainstream American. AS far as I know, I am Irish, German, and Native American. Where or when each came together, I don't know. Randall Bass says: Individuals derive their sense of identitiy from their culture, and cultures are systems of beliefs that determine how people live their lives. Well I have my own story. I'll start by talking about my mother's side of my family. As far as I know both my grandparents grew up and lived in Detroit. They raised my mom and Uncle there too. My grandma stayed at home while my grandpa fixed airplanes. It's kind of cool because he was in WWII also to fix the fighter planes. They were fairly well off and had a boat on the river. They're background is Irish and German. Although they never personally told me there was German,I'm taking an educated guess because the last name (Volkening) looks really German. My dad's side is German and Native American. I've been told I have relatives in Germany with the same last name although I've never met them or know their names. My grandma also stayed at home and my grandma worked in a factory. They too lived in Detroit and raised my dad and my two Uncles in a two-bedroom house. My dad slept in the laundry room next to the water heater because there wasn't enough room in the other two rooms. My parents both met in Detroit and lived there for about twenty years. Both my parents worked through college to help pay for each other's tuition.

Proposal for Artemis Sportswear Company Essay

Proposal for Artemis Sportswear Company for cutting operational expenses to increase profit margins; some ideas. As a business, Artemis can cut down the operational costs by down-sizing the labor force so the company can compete with other sportswear companies. There are two ways a company can down-size the labor costs, one of these is down-scaling the direct labor, and the other one would be to relocate the labor and obtain cheaper labor force. Reduce Employee Costs. Outsource any jobs where a full-time employee is not necessary. This will cut your payroll expenses, health-care costs and space requirements. Introduce a reward scheme for employees who do not take any sick days in a year or six-month period. The cost of the reward is minimal compared to the savings made by the company. Rather than pay overtime rates, try re-organizing the work rosters and routines to prevent the need for overtime. Offer staff incentives for reducing their personal days and sick leave taken. Hire college students or interns-Internship programs are a win-win for both sides. You get an ambitious employee who will do monotonous work and they get college credit, experience and hopefully, an excellent reference. Cutting everyday expenses can lower operational expenses. When purchasing office supplies, generic is going to be less expensive than brand name. Buying the store brand is generally sold at a lower cost. Buying supplies in bulk is cost effective over a long period of time. Leasing equipment is better than buying equipment. When leasing you have the opportunity to upgrade or downgrade when necessary. Technology is always changing and improving, so by leasing there is the option to stay current with the new changes in the equipment. Smaller equipment such as telephones, printers, fax machines and calculators should be purchased not leased. Smaller equipment will hold its value over time and can be easily replaced if needed. Try shopping for bargains or sales whenever possible. Company could go green by using products that produce less waste, or less energy. Curb your business travel — and cut costs where you can. Meeting with long-distance clients is costly and it can be expendable for some businesses, but travel can also be the most beneficial expense for a business. Fortunately, modern technology can replicate the experience at a much lower cost; such as communicating through Skype or some other form of video chat link. Cut out the landline and fax line — with Blackberry’s and iPhones, and everything compatible for email, who needs them? Conceder free advertising whenever possible, try piggybacking your advertising. Including advertising material in other mailings, such as in invoices, saves postage and other costs, says J. Donald Weinrauch, co-author of The Frugal Marketer. Likewise, make the most of your point-of-purchase opportunities by tucking coupons, newsletters or other promotional fliers in the bag with customers’ purchases. Hire independent contractors or temporary workers as needed. Outsource your payroll, benefits and HR. Consider a virtual assistant or answering service to reduce payroll. Some IT Department solutions, Process Automation allows a smaller management team to effectively handle a larger number of systems Intelligent Software Delivery allows companies to more accurately assess how many licenses they will need when purchasing software Endpoint Virtualization reduces downtime for application conflicts and provides a secure workspace when roaming Power Management Capabilities documents compliance with energy consumption policies and may provide rebates from local power companies Remote Diagnostic Tools reduces required IT travel time and travel budgets.

Analize a Conflict in “Rip Van Winkle” Essay

One of the main conflicts in the story â€Å"Rip Van Winkle† is about Rip falling asleep for 20 years. To escape the verbal abuse of his wife that he had to deal with every day, Rip left to the forest with his dog Wolf. While he was enjoying a calm view at the top of the mountain, a strange man yelled his name over and over. The man reached Rip’s location and asked him if he could help him with the bags he carried. Rip helped the man and they headed to the mountain torrent. When they got there, they found a group of strange men playing nine-pins. Rip drank some Dutch gin that the men gave him, got really drunk, and fell asleep. When he woke up his dog was missing and his gun had blemished. He decided to go back to his town, but all the routes to get there had changed. He finally got to his town and saw that everything and everyone had changed. Rip even noticed that he had grown a one foot long beard. Nobody recognized him so they thought he was a spy, since he was talking about the king while others were talking about George Washington and the war. A girl approached him and he started asking her who her father and mother were. She said Rip Van Winkle and Dame Van Winkle. Rip figured that was his daughter so he told her that he was her father. She was very happy so see him again and brought him to live with her. Rip’s sleep’s real meaning is that he is escaping from his family and his responsibilities. Irving, the author of the story, had Rip draw in to sleep in the first place, so his character could have an adventure when he woke up, not just so he could escape the present. It’s important to see both points because Rip going into the spiritual woods means both escape and adventure. The point that Irving was making was that slowness will cause you to miss out on the things of the future. This story is like showing us what would happen if we could escape our responsibilities and come back at a convenient time. The fact that Rip’s wife had always nagged on him didn’t make him sorry that he slept for as long as he did. He was actually relieved because he escaped the snatch that his wife had on him. It seemed that she took away a part of his man-hood by always telling him what to do and what not to do. Rip then returned back to the town square and realized what had happened. Not too many people believed his story but reality struck and people started believing him. He was no longer looked at as a lazy irresponsible man, but as a hero. During the Romantic Period of American Literature it was believed that imagination is greater than logic and that imagination is the greater solution to finding truth and beauty, what most authors valued. Romantic writers also believed that cities led to corruption; therefore nature is a safe place to become more spiritual. This is why Rip Van Winkle schemes into the forest with his dog to escape the attack of his wife. Sleeping for 20 years is where the â€Å"imagination is greater than logic† part comes into play. The moral of the story, however, is to have your priorities in order. Rip helped neighbors whenever possible, yet was unwilling towards his family. Of course sleeping for 20 years isn’t reasonable for us. Whether Irving is romantic or not, the point is to display to every reader throughout time that we cannot sleep through a revolution, or shrink our responsibilities.