West Lake Home Furnishings Ltd. free essay sample

West Lake Home Furnishings Ltd. Composed Analysis and Communication II Instructor Submitted by Section-D 2/08/2008 Date: May 30, 2007 To: Charles Bowman, CEO, West Lake Home Furnishings Ltd. , Ontario, Toronto. From Subject: Advice on whether to acknowledge the proposal of diminishing the cost of mark item to $29. 99 for a year. This report is a synopsis and investigation of current circumstance on West Lake Home Furnishings Ltd. (WLHFL) The investigation depends on the essential goal of financial matters that is benefit expansion. In light of the current pattern of customer salary and inclination it is suggested that WLHFL ought to acknowledge the proposal to lessen the unit retail cost to $29. 99. As an understudy of WIMWI, I thank you for giving chance to find out about the circumstance at WLHFL. This has shown me a ton. Official SUMMARY Whether to acknowledge the proposition of one of the retailers, to decrease the cost to $29. 99 by WLHFL, in this manner boosting the deals, must be assessed on the fundamental target of financial aspects of a firm. We will compose a custom paper test on West Lake Home Furnishings Ltd. or on the other hand any comparable subject explicitly for you Don't WasteYour Time Recruit WRITER Just 13.90/page The principle target of the firm is to boost the benefit. So as to accomplish this at retail cost of $29. 9, amount of deals should increment to a generous level. The current circumstance at Canada, higher discretionary cashflow with Boomer populace and marked down value prompts more popularity of amount are agreeable to higher amount of deals. The proposition guarantees the necessary amount of deals. Henceforth, tolerating the proposition is suggested. Word Count: 107 Table of substance SITUATION ANALYSIS.. 1 THE PROBLEM STATEMENT†¦. Alternatives 2 CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION 3 EVALUATION OF OPTIONS.. 3 RECOMMENDATION. 6 ACTION PLAN.. Show 1†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. I EXHIBIT-2†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚ ¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. ii EXHIBIT-3†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. ii EXHIBIT-4†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. iii SITUATION ANALYSIS Outlook of Lighting and light installations industry in Canada The market for Lighting and light apparatuses in Canada hushes up serious. There is huge number of firms having little piece of the pie. Henceforth, this market can be considered as a Monopolistic rivalry. Item separation empowers West Lake Home Furnishings Ltd. WLHFL) to rival different firms in three territories: item quality, cost and advertising. Value assumes a significant job To affect value, the vast majority of the or ganizations have redistributed creation to Asia, particularly China. There are two new participants in 2006, suggests that still in the market there is degree for winning. Value assumes a significant job. It is reflected by normal costs for home outfitting things had tumbled down during 2002 to 2006 yet deals had developed at 6. 1% of exacerbated normal development rate. Customers in Canada Consumers in Canada are at the Esteem and Esthetic needs level (see Exhibit 1). Because of which buys from enormous â€Å"big-box† retailers get disparaged. This makes huge retailers in a deliberately significant situation for the maker like WLHFL. Huge pattern which is at advantage for the business is the Baby Boomer; they are presently having higher discretionary cashflow and interest for home goods. Show 2 recommends that Boomers’ acquiring will top in 2015 for the Early Boomers (conceived from 1945 to 1954) at $90,000 per family, and in 2025 for the Late Boomers (conceived from 1955 through 1964) at $106,000. Current circumstance of WLHFL Sales Boost Thinking about the proposition of one of the best three discount clients, Sales support is evident as WLHFL will get the noticeable rack space. Be that as it may, we have to exchange off between boosting deals and lessening retail cost of mark item for all organizations. Target of the firm The principle goal ought to be augmenting the benefit. To augment the benefit, WLHFL should set a cost and amount where the negligible income rises to the minimal expense . The display 3 shows the chart at the yield and cost in since quite a while ago run for a firm in Monopolistic rivalry. Significant block The significant obstruction in the cost augmentations are higher stock as much as $1. 6 million, increment up to 20% in Sales, General, Administrative costs (SGAE) and increment up to 150% in Shipping and Warehouse. Issue Statement Whether WLHFL ought to acknowledge the proposition of diminishing the retail cost of a mark line of brightening lights from $69. 99 to $29. 99 for a time of one year? Alternatives 1. Acknowledge the proposition to diminish the retail cost to $29. 99. 2. Reject the proposition to diminish the retail cost to $29. 99. Standards for Evaluation 1. Benefit augmentation of WLHFL This is the essential model as the ramifications on the conduct of the WLHFL can be sensibly precise and maintain a strategic distance from pointless investigative ramifications. 2. Impact on Large Chain Retailer’s relationship After assessing the essential rule, assessing this basis will have a drawn out impact on business of WLHFL. 3. Impact on Cash streams of WLHFL for the year 2007 This is a vital model yet can be viewed as simply subsequent to assessing the Retailers’ reaction to the adjustment in unit retail deal cost. Assessment of Options 1. Acknowledge the proposition to decrease the retail cost to $29. 9. 1. Benefit expansion of WLHFL As appeared in the display 3, to accomplish the benefit boost peripheral income ought to be equivalent to minimal expense. However, because of absence of complete data about the absolute interest in Canada for lighting and light installations, a large portion of the estimations are approximated. The situation I proposes that ther e is significant increment in the net income and henceforth benefit amplification is accomplished. 2. Impact on Large chain Retailer’s relationship By tolerating the offer, the Retailer who has proposed the offer will keep on working with us. Customers for the most part favor huge retail affixes to buy Home outfitting items, this move will guarantee that we stay in the business with great size of piece of the pie. The scaled down value data to different retailers just as the purchaser will reach in a matter of seconds. What's more, subsequently WLHFL will be compelled to decrease the retail cost for the wholesalers as well as for customers, who buy at retail location as well as by means of web. This thus will have solid positive effect on Cash stream. 3. Impact on Cash stream of WLHFL for the year 2007 Taking a gander at show 4, the income of the organization with tolerating the offer can bring about two situations. One, in which the business develops as envisioned and second business develops at decreased foreseen rate. These are appeared as Scenario I and Scenario II separately. It has been seen that Scenario II prompts misfortune. Yet, there is a motivating force to think about the Scenario I. The high discretionary cashflow with Boomer populace and decrease in cost builds interest for the item guarantees that Scenario I is more plausible than II. 2. Reject the proposal to lessen the retail value t $29. 99. . Benefit amplification of WLHFL By dismissing the offer, at present creation level of WLHFL isn't at the benefit augmentation level. That is still there is a chance of selling more items and amplifying benefit. There are two new participants in 2006 which are explicitly concentrating on this chance. As opposed to, they get the chance, WLHFL should snatch the chance. 1. Impac t on Large chain Retailer’s relationship Retailer who made the proposition will be hesitant to give better retire space thus do different retailers, as the volumes gave by WLHFL are not high. Because of this, there is less chance of coming to the consumer’s mind. Henceforth, there isn't expectation of development in deal in long haul. Indeed, even there is a likelihood that the retailer can buy straightforwardly from Chinese producer which can be profited at less expensive cost. Opportunity cost is high, and henceforth dismissal to offer isn't suggested. 3. Impact on income of WLHFL for the year 2007 If the WLHFL develops at normal 10%, at that point there is certain income. As retailers won't offer the better rack space, it is hard to achieve. Additionally, because of new participants or potentially retailers themselves buys legitimately from Chinese maker will power to decrease the cost. At this creation level, decrease in value implies negative income. Suggestion Evaluating the alternatives recommends tolerating the proposition of decreasing the retail cost of a mark line of brightening lights from $69. 99 to $29. 99 for a time of one year. Activity Plan †¢Communicate to the retailer about the acknowledgment of offer. †¢Communicate to different retailers about the decrease in cost and haggle on increasing better rack space, lesser edge and more volume. Keep the working capital prepared, to deal with the high stock level. †¢Prepare an anticipated creation amount and organize the assets as needs be. Word check: 1098 Exhibit 1: Different stages in need pecking order. Adjusted from Maslow’s Hierarchy Needs. Display 2: Boomers have earned more at each age than earlier ages Source: http://www. mckinsey. c om/mgi/distributions/Impact_Aging_Baby_Boomers/slideshow/slideshow_2. asp Exhibit 3: Output and Price over the long haul for Monopolistic Competition. Source: Cowell, F A. (Dec. 2004). Microeconomics: Prin

Mean Girls Movie Review free essay sample

This film is one of the better high schooler comedies I have viewed. Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) is a 15-year-old young lady who is going to secondary school just because, in the wake of being self-taught for as long as she can remember. Cady’s first companions are Janis Ian and Damien, school pariahs. Janis and Damien caution Cady about the Plastics, the vainglorious mainstream young ladies comprising of Regina George (Rachel McAdams), Gretchen Weiners (Lacey Chabert), and Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried). Cady is then welcomed to sit at the Plastic’s hallowed table where she is welcome to join their club and Cady’s companions support it so they can find and control the plastics. Janis, Damien and Cady at that point think of an arrangement to demolish Regina George’s (The â€Å"Queen Bee†) life. Lindsay Lohan plays Cady, the fundamental character in Mean Girls. Lindsay played her character gloriously in this film, and her look fit the character she was playing. We will compose a custom article test on Mean Girls Movie Review or on the other hand any comparative subject explicitly for you Don't WasteYour Time Recruit WRITER Just 13.90/page All the on-screen characters in this film were exceptionally cliché, for instance, all the plastics were gorgeous and thin though the ‘girls who eat their feelings’ are generally not as appealing and overweight. The setting on this film wasn’t that tremendous, however it should appear as though a normal secondary school so it fit it very well. The camera work utilized in this film was shrewd; they shot from great points and moved around the set well. The outfits in this film were likewise cliché. For instance, the plastics could just wear certain things of apparel on specific days and consistently wore tight tops and short skirts. The content of this film was the most significant element as it was conspicuously ridiculing young inner circles and had bunches of mocking amusingness. I completely delighted in this film and would give it a rating of 8. 5/10. I would prescribe this film to individuals who appreciate films with a very comedic content and high school subjects. My solitary admonition is that is exceptionally politically off base, it ridicules subjects, for example, homophobia, prejudice and oppresses overweight individuals.

World War II and the Holocaust Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

World War II and the Holocaust - Assignment Example ine limitations and conditions put upon them as the repayments and different punishments, the way that Adolf Hitler considered Jews and the Austrians as the primary specialist and factor of tenderizing about thrashing to Germans in the First World War sow the seeds of insidiousness and scorn inside. At first when Adolf Hitler and Nazi gathering came to control, they professed to target reestablishing the pride, respect and intensity of the Germans, yet the endeavor of the Jews under an officially affirmed program of annihilation for the sake of Holocaust made ruin and ran counter the at first put forward standards and tenets under the flag of National Socialist capacity and order they had gotten. Notable just as social components were joined into the announcement and activities against the Jews. On the notable front, they were being held as the liable party for having achieved disgrace and destruction upon the Germans in the First War, on the social and cultural front, the Jews were being named as the second rate race that with their quality realized defeat upon different clans and social orders. Considering the Aryans as the better clan drove than the formation of the idea of disdain for other people (Blain, 2009, 79). An extreme sentiment of ethnocentric character won. The result and the future possibility were horrendous to the point that it prompted the express scorn and obliteration of the Jews by the German Nazi gathering. They were to be annihilated advance astute and the gagging was so finished they their writing, their legislative word related posts, their accomplishments, their personality everything was evacuated step shrewd. Officially affirmed control communities and Gas Chambers were presented (Breitman, 2013). Assigned posts of Ministry of Propaganda and spread of scorn against Jews were officially settled. Procedures were being formulated in the early periods of system strengthening; formal activities happened towards the beginning of the Second World War. Before the Second's over World War, the idea of

Marketing Mix Dell

promoting opporunities and MARKETING MIX ASSIGNMENT LENOVO VS DELL BRANDS: Lenovo:The organization was established in 1984 by a gathering of eleven architects, headed by Liu Chuanzhi, in Beijing. This organization had become the greatest PC maker of household and appropriated outsider items through its discount business. Today,these two organizations lenovo and IBM are joined under the Lenovo name. With Lenovo's milestone securing of IBM's Personal Computing Division in May 2005, the new Lenovo is a pioneer in the worldwide PC market and items serving undertakings and buyers the world over. Dell:Dell Computer was established as PC's Limited in 1984 by college understudy Michael Dell. The organization was effective to the point that inside two years PC's Limited had appropriation workplaces in Europe, and changed it's linguistically off base name to Dell Computer Corporation. Selling gathered PCs from his residence room, By 1991, seven years in the wake of selling it's first PC, Dell Computer Corporation was recorded in the Fortune 500. Dell was one of the principal organizations to offer PCs for mail request through the Internet. The Dell Coupon program made numerous Internet models less expensive than different brands, and keeps on being mainstream right up 'til the present time. MARKET SEGMENTS From landing page of Lenovo , we can see, there are two fundamental piece of his market portions : Professional-evaluation and Lifestyle. Proficient evaluation like server PC , the top-level work area and workstations. These items consistently make for the expert staff or in-your-face players (hot game players). They are pricey , in excess of fifteen thousands RMB. Be that as it may, ways of life are less expensive and shut to our wallet . You can just compensation around five thousands RMB. To dell, they are partitioned into four levels. For home. For little and medium business For open area and For huge endeavor. So we can picked the correct level that is ideal for us. From previously mentioned, we can see Dell is more refinement than lenovo thus helpful that picked we need from their landing page. Lenovo's PCs on the fundamental preferred position reflected in the cost for China's national conditions, yet Dell's PCs principle advantage is customized for every shopper to redo their PCs. DELL is basically immediate web based advertising, so he spared a ton of center expense in the connections, so if a similar value DELL is better than the Lenovo’s . Yet, Lenovo is the state-claimed brand, he has the town level vendors , so guarantee is increasingly helpful . Despite the fact that dell and his comparative items in the significant expense, however he has little vendors, and just at the common level can guarantee. Conveyance: Both of them are worldwide global enterprises. They work on the planet, items are sold in all nations. Lenovo is headquartered in New York, Purchase. Two primary tasks place set up in Beijing and North Carolina. The business system of Lenovo's all through the world. Lenovo has in excess of 19,000 representatives on the planet. Lenovo,the biggest IT provider of China, is making moves to combine its appropriation channels across the country to smooth out its deals in retail divisions and flash gainfulness. Dell has 13 markets in the area to do direct request business at present. Counting Australia, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. Dell's new plant in Xiamen, is the subsequent creation base in China. It is the fifth biggest market for Dell on the planet and the quickest developing markets business advancement. Advancement: Commercial work areas are probably going to be the foundation of the global market Lenovo race, and China is the biggest part of â€Å"experimental field. † Lenovo has operators through the dispersion to the areas. Through expanded the impact of brand to urban communities to open up new markets. The achievement of Dell's immediate model is that the fundamental components: first, quick reaction, on-request production,Powerful request preparing framework and creation framework; Second, incredible information handling capacities and propelled data the board innovations; Third, the fantastic client support, solid call place administrations; Fourth, a solid and effective gracefully chain; s Fifth, minimal effort and value wars. Ends: Lenovo's corporate culture is individuals arranged. Lenovo accepts that ability is the improvement of the profitable powers. In this way, the affiliation proposed for every worker to give equivalent improvement openings. Workers and business are associated and commonly strengthening . Dell's corporate culture, summarized by the organization as â€Å"Dell soul†, which depicts how Dell is a sort of organization, it is the Dell administration implicit rules for clients around the globe, it in the long run turned into Dell's â€Å"winning culture† premise. Distinction: Lenovo is the method of appropriation . Dell is the immediate model. Lenovo's center thought: the quest for singular workers into long haul improvement into the undertaking. Dell's center capabilities: No immediate deals, direct deals model depends on minimal effort working framework for parts flexibly and get together of the execution of limit. Both the Lenovo or Dell are gazing at one another firmly, while Lenovo is lingering behind Dell now. Plainly, Dell and Lenovo are the genuine heart of the contenders of the opposite side. Lenovo is the main of Asia-Pacific area, while the district's development and improvement potential can not be overlooked by Dell, dell is likewise center around the worldwide market. Lenovo cause Dell to feel increasingly more weight . â€â€â€â€â€â€â€â€ [pic]

Independent Work No1 essays

Autonomous Work No1 papers The one site that I am resolute about visiting consistently is the computer game production Next Generation's site, situated at next-generation.com. It is, the thing that I accept, to be the most extensive site dedicated to video games, both PC and comfort, their turn of events, and up to the moment news concerning discharge dates, organization mergers/buyouts, and historic innovation. People to come, the magazine and the site, are the two offshoots of Imagine Media. Cutting edge's site is refreshed twice every day, six days per week (Monday through Friday) barring occasions. The principal update of the day is at 10:00 a.m. with the subsequent update happening at 7:00 p.m. pacific. The landing page consistently shows the spread to the most current issue of Next Generation, a couple of patrons, a connect to the online website, and in the present case, a touch of technical support for their most present giveaway demo CD-ROMs. In the event that an alternative isn't picked on the page inside ten seconds, it will consequently stack the present most current news refreshes. When associated with the present day's news, there is a choice accessible to permit to survey the updates on the previous week, and a couple thumbnailed articles that might be specifically noteworthy to guests of the site. The most huge reports are joined by a thumbnail, situated close to the highest point of the page. Some contain connections to downloadable pictures and films of games or potentially meetings. To the upper left of the page is a somewhat broad record. The accessible alternatives in the file are as per the following: Sneak peaks will give the watcher connects to Next Generation's inclusion of up and coming works in progress. This zone will likewise permit players to see filed sneak peaks. Surveys will permit the watcher access to NGO's (Next Generation Online) most recent and documented audits of discharged games for any framework. Stockwatch gives the watcher state-of-the-art status on game related stock. This does n ... <!

Theres a First Time for Everything My First Week in the Classroom

Theres a First Time for Everything My First Week in the Classroom They are big, bad, and scary; they are loud and all-knowing and ready for battle. They are middle-schoolers. About three weeks ago, I began my early field experience as a student teacher, and boy has it been wild. Gif from Giphy.com I was placed at Countryside School. Each Tuesday, I make the 15-minute drive up Kirby to observe a seventh- and eighth-grade social science classroom. Before I get into my experience thus far, let me give a bit of background on Countryside itself. Countryside is a private K-8 school located in Champaign. There are about 60 students per grade level, which makes for small class sizes. The teachers focus on hands-on learning and project-based learning.  And the best part of the school? The students, of course! When I say these students want to learn, you better believe it. Of all the middle schoolers Ive seen, these kids, above all, want to be more informed. They focus on current events, politics, and ways to better the world we live in. They truly are wonderful. Photo from https://www.countrysideschool.org/page.cfm?p=538 My first week at Countryside was intimidating. It was my first time in a field placement, and I had to quickly learn the ropes. Luckily, my cooperating teacher (the teacher whose classroom I am observing in) is helpful, patient, and loves teaching. I have begun participating in small group activities with the students and am working up to teaching a few lessons myself. If I had to give advice to anyone looking to enter the College of Education, I would tell them to absolutely give education a try. Even if there is the smallest sliver of interestâ€"do it. Being in the classroom will only reinforce your love for teaching and all of the reasons that drove you to teaching in the first place. Rachel Class of 2020 I am studying Middle Grades Education with concentrations in Social Sciences and Literacy in the College of Education. Although I now reside in Champaign, I am originally from Vernon Hills, a Northwest suburb of Chicago.

Big Data and Supply Chain Management Essay

Big Data and Supply Chain Management Essay Introduction Big data has become one of the most important aspects of supply chain management. The concept of big data refers to the massive data sets that are generated when millions of individual activities are tracked. These data sets are processed to yield insights that help inform managerial decision-making. Supply chains in particular have leveraged big data because companies have been able to develop technology to not only capture hundreds of millions of data points, but to process them in meaningful ways to eliminate waste and promote efficiency in the supply chain systems. This paper will examine the concept of big data, how it has arisen and come to dominate supply chain management, and look at the different ways big data is transforming the supply chain function. Lastly, the paper will take a closer look at the future for big data with respect to supply chain management. As it becomes easier to gather data, and as there are diminishing returns to statistical robustness as the number of data points increases, are the competitive advantages of big data going to diminish? The Evolution of Supply Chain Management The field of logistics management was focused on controlling the flow of materials, in-process inventory and finished goods through a companys system from the time that it enters the system until the time that it leaves the system (Cooper, Lambert Pagh, 1997). As the field became more strategic in nature, it came to encompass other issues, such as sourcing materials and building in redundancy (Cooper Ellram,1993). More than simply moving things from point A to point B, the field became holistic in nature, where the quality and price of goods were factored into purchasing decisions as well as the logistics of getting those goods to the right place at the right time. Driving this change was the move towards a globalized marketplace. Globalization increased the complexity of the supply chain, adding longer transportation routes, border wait times, currency exchange, duties and tariffs, and a host of other variables that now had to be taken into consideration – logistics has rem ained important but it always viewed in context with the rest of the supply chain. Big Data The concept of big data really began to arise in the 1990s but has become increasingly important since that point. Big Data refers to the use of very large data sets to enhance managerial decision-making. The concept of big data arose as technology has developed to allow businesses to capture enormous data sets, and process them relatively easily (Boyd Crawford, 2012). Companies have long collected data at a rudimentary level. Loyalty programs and credit cards represented an evolution in the ability of companies to collect data and distill that data into consumer spending habits. This information is then made actionable by letting companies understand more about buying patterns. Big data is similar, but with a lot more data. One of the major advantages of big data is that it allows for complex problems to be solved. A modern supply chain can be exceptionally complex, and one of the important things about this complexity is that no one person can effectively make all the decisions â €“ decision-making tools are needed that can ensure not only consistent decision-making across the company but coordinated decision-making as well (Hult, Ketchen Slater, 2004). It is these coordinating mechanisms where the true power of big data lies – being able to identify things and make decisions that an entire team of humans working without big data would probably never be able to identify (Fugate, Sahin Mentzer,2005). Once big data gets to that point, a company can generate true competitive advantage. And when a company is large enough that is has a data advantage, it will be able to sustain that advantage, which is why there has been such a rush in recent years with respect to big data. As the concept was being fleshed out in academia, businesses were just starting to learn what they could do with all of the information that they were collecting – and one of the applications was to move away from marketing and use data to make decisions about the supply chain (McAfee Bryjolfsson, 2012). One of the first steps that companies needed to make was to hire data scientists – the sort of people who could process these data sets and derive useful information about them. Data scientists suddenly became popular, for their ability to take vast quantities of data, and derive actionable findings from that data (Provost Fawcett, 2013). At the heart of the drive to adopt big data is competitive advantage. Companies have invested in their data programs because they can derive significant advantage from big data under two conditions. The first is that larger companies have access to more data than smaller companies. The incremental cost of data acquisition is lower, and the companys ability to use that data in decision-making is theoretically better. The second is that even among larger companies, there are first-mover advantages to be had. This is evident in the supply chain, especially among companies that are competing on price. Using the classic example of Wal-Mart, one o f the leaders of data-driven supply chains, the company competes on offering the lowest prices, as do most of its competitors. Thus, if it can lower the cost of getting goods to its stores, it can pass those savings along to customers. There is opportunity for competitive advantage under that scenario, if cost leadership is the chosen strategy. Even when cost leadership is not the strategy, making the groundbreaking decision early puts a company in a better competitive position than its competitors (LaValle, et al, 2010). Big Data in the Supply Chain As the largest non-oil company in the world, Wal-Mart is looked to as a leader, so the fact that they were first movers on the use of big data in supply chain management has ensured that the rest of retail – and other industries as well – have followed. Some of the technologies that Wal-Mart has adopted allow the company to track its inventory from when it leaves the supplier –if not before – all the way through the logistics channel. Once Wal-Mart takes possession of the good, that good is scanned regularly through the process. The companys trucks are tracked via satellite. Stores use automatic re-ordering triggers to ensure that goods can be received as soon as they are needed. The goals of all this are to lower inventory holding costs by reducing the amount of inventory that stores have. Goods are turned over more quickly, because Wal-Mart receives them only days before it expects to sell them. Big data plays a significant role in ensuring that this pro cess can be achieved. There are a couple of key areas highlighted for big data in supply chain management. Demirkan Delen (2013) note that data, and how a company uses its data, is one of the ways it can truly differentiate from its competitors. It can be difficult to truly and consistently attract superior talent, and it can take time to move the needle on brand image, but data has become a popular means of finding competitive advantage largely because it is new, and firms in many industries are basically in a data arms race to find innovative ways to use their data to extract competitive advantage. The first is predictive analytics. Data science often focuses on using past events to predict future ones, and that is one of the main uses for big data in supply chain management. For example, if Wal-Mart in Smalltown, OH is running out of shovels at the end of February, and it takes twenty days to order new ones from China, including manufacturing and shipping times, three things can happen. The company can order a lot of shovels and ensure that they have supply. If spring comes, those shovels will sit in a warehouse until next November. They could also run out of shovels, but a late-season snow could leave demand on the table if the store lacks inventory. Modelling both weather patterns and local buying patterns can help the company to settle on demand. Even when weather is not a factor, the company can examine past purchasing patterns to set order quantities. The earlier it can set these quantities, the better response it can get from suppliers. Wal-Mart knows already what the no rmal amount of hot dogs it sells on the 4th of July, for example, so it can feed that information to its suppliers to ensure that they have those dogs at the Wal-Mart warehouse, exactly in the quantity Wal-Mart needs. Predictive analytics is used in supply chain management to take the variability out of the system as much as possible. Inventory usage is reduced, as is the potential for waste, especially with perishable goods. The chances of disappointed customers is also reduced. It is almost impossible – and certainly it is impossible for a company like Wal-Mart – to have exactly everything delivered exactly when the customer needs it. That means that there is always room for improvement. The pathway to improvement lies with bigger data sets, better analytics, and at scale even small incremental gains in the robustness of data or the ability of the company to analyze the data can yield meaningful financial gains (Waller Fawcett, 2013). But using data for something like predictive analytics – managerial decision-making, essentially – requires having good data, lots of it, and the means by which to process it. This is where larger companies enjoy scale advantages in big data. First, the technology to track events is not necessarily cheap. It can involve scanners, and certain involves large amounts of servers, routers, cloud storage – a lot of hardware. Larger companies are at an advantage in buying this hardware but they also have advantage in that they have many more data points. Wal-Mart can estimate sales because it has several years worth of sales, and can break these down by product, store, day, or even time of day. And instead of guessing for decision-making, the companys managers can look at the data and make the decision that on average delivers the greatest outcome. Data replaces decision-making heuristics when the data is sufficiently robust. Because the transference of big data relies on the Internet and communications technology infrastructure, that ICT infrastructure becomes a risk point for many companies but it also becomes a critical point of investment for companies that work with big data – how fast can the data collected on-site make its way to the decision-making tools matters in many businesses where time is of the essence in decision-making (Lu, et al, 2013). Predictive analytics has more than just value in ordering; it can help businesses to identify trends more quickly. This can be critical to advantage in some industries. Think of a fast fashion retailer – it needs to identify trends as soon as possible to get its knock-off clothes onto the market while the fashions are still fresh. Instead of anticipating, which is fraught with error, it can react to trends that have been verified with data. By understanding buying patterns and market cycles, companies can make better choices about what they make and when. This, in turn, is important to the supply chain, because companies also need to know what they need to produce their goods, and when. If there are fluctuations in availability, of if there is any variability among suppliers, then big data has the ability to point these factors out, and give the company an opportunity to deal with them proactively (Wang et al, 2016). Impact of Big Data When the concept of big data was first being elaborated, it promised major impact on business. Instead of guessing, firms would be able to make data-driven decisions that would reduce error, reduce waste and improve speed. As firms understand how to gather the data that they need, and to process it, they become more adept at this, big data has a bigger impact. Some leading firms have used the predictive powers of big data to help with their marketing. Amazon, for example, will recommend products to its customers based on what they have viewed and what they have purchased. Netflix does the same thing – and thereby encourages binge-watching of its shows. Both of these companies have become leaders in their respective businesses, and Netflix has done this specifically in the era of big data, by using that data to foster brand loyalty (Chen, Chiang Storey, 2012). If a company ends up as a first mover in big data, it will be able to gain advantage, and in many cases will make market share gains. Amazon faced a challenge from Wal-Mart a few years, ago, but has made use of big data to driver a high level of brand loyalty, while Wal-Mart fell short on its ability to use big data on the marketing side of its business. Netflix faced threat when major studios wanted to charge more for their content – so it created its own content and even more importantly used big data to improve the information architecture of its platform, allowing people to find content they want to consume. This increased the value of Netflix for many customers, thereby driving business value. Google uses data to target ads better, and charge its customers a premium. Customers are willing to pay more for a Google ad because they know that they will get more traction. So it is important that companies understand data on a conceptual level. One of the reasons that this is so important is that data today comes from a variety of different sources. This ties back to the concept of supply chain management, where the supply chain is a highly-integrated system with many parts from one end to the other. Understanding how the different variables within this system interact so that supply chain systems can be redesign in a more optimal way. Consider the way FedEx used the hub-and-spoke model before passenger airlines thought to do so. Consider how Wal-Mart designed its entire logistics network around lowering the amount of time that it takes for stores to restock. There are different approaches, but the innovations should derive from analysis of the data that identifies areas where the company might potentially perform better. Maybe sourcing goods from a certain country is no longer the lowest cost method, given how long it takes to get those goods to marke t. There are different ways of conceptualizing a supply chain, and now that companies are able to use data analytics to make those decisions, it is likely that many firms will start to restructure their supply chain (Tan et al, 2015). Total cost will become more important, but so too will overall responsiveness. Sourcing locally might provide a company with the responsiveness it needs for certain products that have higher variability in demand, for example. Future Directions While there is presently a shortage of people who have strong data analysis skills, these skills are becoming increasingly in demand, and schools are starting to train more students in the use of big data. One of the important factors here is that data has become much cheaper – big data arises because the cost of acquiring any given data point is very small, and continuing to shrink. Retailers in particular have been able to reduce their cost of data acquisition dramatically (Chen, Chiang Storey, 2012). Key to learning about the use of data is how to identify the problems that can be solved with data, how to match the data you have with the problems that you want to solve, and then developing systems to acquire the data that you do not have. At this high level of understanding, a company that thinks a good data game is in a much better position because having the right data matters just as much as knowing what to do with that data (Hazen, et al, 2014). The cloud and the Internet of Things (IoT) are driving a lot of changes in the way companies do business, and big data is playing a significant role in this restructuring of business. Zaslavsky, Perera and Georgakopoulos (n.d.) note that data is becoming a service function, with companies preparing to offer the means by which data can be acquired as a service, and the same for data analytics. We know that data is cheap to acquire, but combine that with lowering costs of processing data and there is a business model here, as well as one that focuses on using data to enhance business. The IoT will be more engaged in the data gathering process. For example, while convention supply chain data gathering might involve devices at the store level, the IoT might drill down further, to the individual level. Ovens could know how many people are cooking a frozen pizza and this information could be sold to frozen pizza makers, so that they can get a better sense of not only the performance of the ir products but of their competitors as well. This is the example a hungry person thinks up, but with more devices having some internet capability, it seems likely that type of application will emerge. Tesla is already a leader in gathering data about driving from its cars (Edelstein, 2016 Hull, 2016). Another progressive idea is that of big data benchmarking. If it is possible to buy and sell data to the point where a company can learn about the best practices at all levels for multiple companies in an industry, that would be incredibly valuable information to any firm in that industry. With the data explosion has come a rapid pace of innovation in the gathering and use of data. With this will come firms that buy and sell data, without actually gathering their own. Until now, data has largely been proprietary in nature, as a key source of sustainable competitive advantage, but as the cost of data acquisition declines, this might not be the case much longer. Secondary markets for data are already emerging and ultimately data will become commoditized – this process might take many years but it will happen and that will make for interesting analysis about the future of data , in particular the extent to which data can continue to be a driver of competitive advantage going forw ard (Ghazal et al, 2013). Finally, big data is also becoming a competitive weapon, which makes security of big data a major issue. Companies that gather and own data sets, and in particular the usable intelligence that has been gathered from those data sets, are increasingly going to be targeted with hacks. Security of big data is going to be an issue going forward. This is especially true of supply chain data, because that is powerful business intelligence. So it will be necessary, especially when using remote or cloud solutions, that data security is paid attention to, as the more that data becomes a source of competitive advantage the more at risk it will likely be. Conclusion Supply chain management had already emerged as a force in business, a holistic view of the supply chain that started with logistics but incorporated purchasing, product design and marketing as well, in order that supply chain decisions were not just based on a simply understanding of cost, but a complex one that took into account a number of different variables. Ultimately, supply chain management required significant amounts of data to be effective, and this realization occurred at just the time that managers realized they had the ability to gather, store and process data much more cheaply and easily than before. The transactional value of data grew at precisely the time that the acquisition cost declined. Data is typically used to aid in managerial decision making. Some companies have focused on the low-level decision where they seek out incremental gains on repeatable processes, knowing that those processes and other companies have sought insight that will allow them to completely transform their supply chains. Big data has become so important because the companies that are using it tend to be the market leaders. It is apparent that there is a scale value to data, which means that the largest companies, ones that have more data and lower data acquisition costs, are going to have sustainable competitive advantage. This has driven demand for data experts, such that there is a shortage of such individuals. Big data is going to continue to influence supply chain decision-making. There will be more points at which data is gathered, and the cost of processing data will continue to drop. There will still be a strong need, however, for talent that can conceptualize how that data should be used – after all, companies need to ask the right questions to get the most out of their data. If they can do that, they can sustain competitive advantage. In addition to there being an increasing ability to gather data, another reality is that many companies are going to be in the business of selling data. A company like Google sells data by proxy with its advertising, but as data becomes commoditized, the market for data will become more developed. An interesting aspect of this is that competitive benchmarking will be more common with respect to data practices. Firms will need to be careful to ensure that their proprietary data is secure so that they can maintain the competitive advantages that their data is giving them. 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Sensing as a service and big data. https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1301/1301.0159.pdf View or Download this full document in (.docx) format. --> Open Full Document Open full document and source list OR Order A Custom Written Essay Order a one-of-a-kind custom essay on this topic