Pepsi co Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Pepsi co - Essay Example Later the company was purchased by an individual named Charles Guth who already owned a candy producing business recognized as Loft (Pepsico.com, 2015). Guth later merged both the companies and started selling Pepsi-Cola in his own stores that were developed to sell candy. The company’s name was once again altered to Pepsi Co. when the company experienced a merger with Frito-Lay. Pepsi Co. no longer only deals in the sale of soft drinks and has expanded its business in various areas of food production and processing. It sells several carbonated drinks under its name such as Pepsi and Mountain Dew and it even sells several soft drinks for people who are concerned with their weight and diet (Pepsico.com, 2015). It has even been producing and distributing energy drinks as well as sports drinks and is even serving the community with food items such as Lay’s potato chips as well as Cheetos. The company is operational throughout the world such as in European as well as Asian regions and is one of the most profitable

Intercultural Communication in the Workplace Paper Essay

Intercultural Communication in the Workplace Paper - Essay Example It has become the common practice for the international companies to invite foreign partners to work on the projects. For example, if IKEA plans to expand its operations to the Korean market, the top management might consider an option of cooperation with Korean sales representatives who have both the knowledge and skills to make the integration more successful. Such cooperation is not always successful, unfortunately. The major problem is caused by the lack of cultural understanding. The American company plans to start the new marketing campaign to be used both in United States and in Japan, one of the key target markets. Being aware of cultural differences and willing to avoid wrong perception or translation of the slogan, it was decided to invite the group of marketing specialists from Japan. Five Japanese specialists came to United States and joined the company's marketing team. It was the well-thought-of decision to invite them; however, the project initiator has not paid enough attention to a very important issue - intercultural communication in the workplace setting. So, what was the problem The American member of the team presented his proposal to the Japanese member. While explaining his ideas, the American points to the paragraph he considered the most important. The Japanese draws in his breath and says that this idea needs special attention. The American decides that his idea is considered favorably. The misunderstanding here is that the American spec ialist concluded that the meeting is successful while the Japanese specialist wanted to point out that there are serious difficulties. Miscommunication is the major source of discomfort and conflict at work. More women, ethnic minorities and foreigners are entering the workforce and, as the result, the workplace is getting increasingly multicultural. Communication is more than what is said, written or expressed. Representatives of the different cultures have different communication styles: it means how, when and why the information is said. Misunderstanding occurs when the communications style of one individual differs from communication style of another individual (Ting-Toomy 2001). The problem becomes more complex when the communication styles differ based on the cultural heritage and both parties lack the knowledge of these differences. Americans v Japanese Americans are more direct in communication and if there is the problem, they expect to hear it in forthright manner; while the Japanese specialists prefer indirect communication style: less assertive. Sayings like "special attention is needed" might indicate that there are serious problems. In addition, Japanese are more reluctant to say "No". For example, the indefinite answer in perceived as undesired to cooperate by American business people, while Japanese are willing to say "Yes" as the sign that they are listening. When is comes to making an agreement, Japanese are not likely to say unconditional "Yes" or "No". This small cultural peculiarity might lead to

Outline Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 9

Outline - Essay Example The introduction part points out that some of the basic economic factors like price, income and unemployment can largely affect the whole social and political systems within a country. The body part of the paper analyses aggregate demand curve and aggregate supply curve, with emphasis on how price and other determinants like technology, consumer spending and wealth, exchange rate, investment and government spending etc affect aggregate demand and aggregate supply curve. With the help of diagram, the paper emphasizes that the curve of aggregate demand will always be downward sloping because of major three factors that are real-balance effect, interest rate effect and foreign purchase effects (McConnel and Brue, 194- 195). With the help of both short run and long run aggregate supply curves, the paper addressed key factors that can shift the curves. The paper concludes with opinions from author’s point of view and with suggestions for conducting further analysis on the effects of exchange rates and impacts of unused resources on long run aggregate supply

Online bidding Essay Example for Free

Online bidding Essay E-bay means you can search for items on the internet through its search tool bar. To access E-bay you go on www. ebay. co. uk here you can search for items you may want or need using the search tool bar and typing in key words. This will then bring up matching items that other people have put on e-bay to sell. From here you can view prices, details on the items and many have images for you to view the product. If you have found something you would like to bid for you put in your bid. When the time period for that item on sale ends, usually one week the person that has put in the highest bid for it gets it for that amount. However the seller can put on a reserve, if the reserve is not met the seller does not have to sell. Payments can be made by credit card or by sending a cheque in the post. Pay pal is the most popular way of paying for goods as it is well protected and secure. Goods are then posted or shipped out to the highest bidder. It is open to the whole world and you can therefore purchase things from other countries like China or America. You can purchase anything from kids toys to cars on eBay. One of the things that more and more people are buying on ebay is holidays. Some advantages of using online auctioning are; firstly you can shop on the internet from the comfort of your own home. This is a lot more relaxing, saves energy and time having to go in and out of shops. Another is that on ebay you can search for virtually anything and find what you need for example if you want to buy a perfume, a new handbag and look around for a new car you can look for all of these on one site. If you were to go out looking for these if would mean a lot of walking and travelling as there is not a shop that does al these. Another advantage of shopping on ebay is that you get special online prices; prices on ebay are usually a lot cheaper than in shops. Ebay alerts are useful as it emails you if your bids have been successful or if they have been out bid. Disadvantages of using online auctioning are; credit card fraud. One of the main things that put people of bidding for items online is that credit card fraud is a risk they will have to take, as there are many hackers out their who can brake the best security codes. Another disadvantage is that you have to keep checking the status of your bid because some one may have out bid you and you will then not get the product unless you out bid them. You also have to wait for what you have bought. Firstly you have to wait for the payment to go through which may take a few days and then you have to wait for it in the mail, depending on how far you have ordered from and the conditions arranged with the seller you cloud wait a very long time or a really short time for your products. Another disadvantage is that you do not know who the seller is and although the auctioning company will have their details people can still get away with fraud by taking payments and not sending anything out. Also faulty items can be a pain, if you product is not working properly or at all you have to send the goods back to the seller and then claim money back. This can turn into a very long process and can lead to court if it turns into disputes as the seller can claim it was working and refuse to refund. I think the target audience for online auctioning is for older people from about the age of 20 and upwards to about age 45. I think this because you need a credit card to be able to auction therefore you will need to be over the age of 18. I think male and females will use it, I also think more people without children will use it as you will need time to sit and search, with children this may be difficult. To auction online you will need to register with a credit card. If you do not have a credit card you will not be able to do it. Once register you can bid but also sell your own items.

How have cultures from the ‘west’ been represented in the ‘east’ Essay Example for Free

How have cultures from the ‘west’ been represented in the ‘east’ Essay Fundamentally the term culture means to cultivate but on other hand this word also contains some other meanings and definitions as well. Number of writers and author worked and surveyed on the actual definition of culture and in year 1952 Alfred Kroeber and Clyde has presented approximately 164 defamations of this word â€Å"culture†. If we focus these definitions and research work by our well-known authors then we can came to know the fact that culture is simply the critical review of concepts and definitions that people have. Along with this the fact has also been revealed that culture can be presented and illustrated with three different approaches like the taste in fine arts and humanities is one of the significant ways of defining one’s culture or perspective. Similarly values, goals and attitudes are also used in illustrating the cultural values. (Bryan 1963) Beside above mentioned points the human knowledge , belief and the attitudes are also used in promoting culture as these things has the power and capacity to define the thoughts and ideas of people. Later after finding numerous definition of culture in twentieth century this word emerges out with new concepts as the focus point of anthropology, which means that culture is a word that is actually composed of all the actions and thoughts that is performed by human anywhere in the world and all these behaviors does not have any sort of relation with the genetics. In West, this word has its own meaning as they have their own approaches and thoughts regarding this term, as according to them culture basically defines two things that include the human experience, imaginations and incidents which occurs with them and later they present those things according to their art and used their power of creativity as well. (Alan Bryan 1963) Similarly they illustrated the meaning of culture by presenting the idea that in this entire world there are number of people who have their own way and manners of living and with their own ideas, experience and conditions they define their own meaning of culture as the way of defining culture varies from place to place and from people to people as well. But later after the World War 2 numerous authors reformed the definition of culture and the style they had presented it was also changed and among those authors albeit played a significnat role as in this era his work and ideas are still followed and apprectiated. Besides these above mentioned definition when we go though numerous research paper and studies of different authors from all over the world we came to know the fact that number of artist were born in west side and presented beautiful and unique work that portrayed their thoughts regarding culture and numerous other things. Among these beautiful and talented artist Hansen is a significant name. This man was born in year 1960 in West area where the natural beauty, purity and environment was so attractive that form the early stage this boy started visioning, drawing and portraying his cultural beauty in a marvelous manner. Hansen completed his educational career and returned to homeland in 1990, but during his early days of schooling this young boy started painting in year 1969, after that he went abroad to study mechanical design as well. Later he came back to America and served this country as a technical drawing specialist. Ms Georgian was the lady who impressed Hansen and he want himself to work and serve the idea of culture through his talent and skills of painting and drawing. He has developed his own unique sense of styling which reflects his philosophical mind as well. As time passes this young boy’s skills in promoting culture were notified by numerous people and his professional career started in which he designed numerous spectacular designs in the boating industry. The concept of portraying culture in such manner was so much appreciated by people that the technique of introducing abstract and cubist was later adopted by the artist of East as well. Beside Hansen’s work numerous other artist work and thought are adopted by the people of East. Christians also played a vital role in promoting cultural values and portraying them in such a manner that it was appreciated by the entire world. And among there marvelous work the oldest and the most symbolic thing is the cross sign which is known as the sign of Christian’s faith. The idea of presenting cross sign has played a significant role in numerous other cultures as well. People from different region especially from east side have adopted it as well and defines their own meaning of this symbol. If we go through to the detail and deep knowledge of this cross then we came to know numerous facts regarding it as it was revealed that through ages and centuries people are using and following this cross sign to protect themselves from illness, to have good fortune, and to show their respect to their religion and numerous other things as well. After the great success of promoting culture is such manner numerous other artists has developed countless version of its, which include X-Shaped St. Andrews cross and the T-shaped teau-cross as well. Beside this, the people of Greek have used this symbol in order to represent the four cardinal directions as well or we can say that they tried to represent the four basic elements which include earth, wind, water and fire. Other than this, the people of India have used this symbol as well in order to show the four main directions of heavens. Similarly, the people of Africa has designed cross roads and there concept of it is that these crossroads are places where the world of living and dead meet. In addition with this, numerous Eastern artists used this shaped to promote their cultural jewelry as well. Along with above mentioned things, Eastern people have also discovered new and interesting things in Japan by following the writings of Shakespeare as they had focused the plays of him and started studying the canonical values of his theater and implement the thoughts and ideas in order to promote the cultural things. Similarly, the people of Japan also have a great history in promoting cultural things through different and unique ideas such as the monster is one of the significant thing that Japanese promotes in their culture which was actually the creation of human imagination which resemble numerous things at different points like people, other animals or well –known objects as well. (Kuncaraningrat 1985) The artist of West promote their cultural values and things by numerous ways and among them music is the major source. With the help of unique and different musical instruments they define their thoughts and ideas regarding their culture. All sort of music either rock, pop or slow all were used to promote culture. In addition with these the artist of West also launched numerous sort of games that have music like Krongcong is one of the famous and well-known musical game that was designed in a manner that the music lovers start playing them and the main focus of promoting culture with the help of music will also go on with such innovative discoveries. Similarly along with music, dance is another thing that is used in order to promote culture of West, as it is the best approach of reflecting and showing the diversification of different ethical groups that compose the entire West portion of the world. This technique of promoting culture was adopted by the artist of East as well, as this gave great opportunity to show the traditional and cultural values of one’s states. The people of West also use the source of drama and theaters in order to promote their cultural values, and this technique really works as people form all over the world came to watch such sort of drama that promotes culture and things regarding traditional values. Along with this the people of East represent the culture of West in their region by using the traditional arts things which includes paintings, sculpture and numerous sort of architecture as well. Not only this they also used literature and poetry in order to present the idea and thoughts regarding the culture and traditional values of West. For people who loved food the Eastern group facilitate them by provding and presenting the Western dishes, along with this the more powerful and source that the Eastern people used in order to represent the culture of West in the media, as there is a great number of cinemas within East and these cinemas has played a significant role in spreading every bite of cultural things and cover all the traditional values of the entire West. In previous days, this source did not work as much but at the beginning of year 1980 this platform reaches the peak and concurred the highest level as well. Beside this cinema’s role numerous Eastern artists have played a significant role in order to promote and represent the culture and traditions of West within their country and this medium of representing the culture is very much appreciated by all as in this every age group can find its own interesting things to go for. Other than this, radio network which was formed in year 1945 also played a significant role, especially after 2006 numerous radio channels are launched using Digital Audio Broadcasting and Hybrid system that are also facilitating in promoting the cultural values all over the East. But all these above mentioned approaches had a positive result till political issues do not arise. In early days if we go through the detail representation techniques of promoting and showing culture of West in East we came to know that its result is very much effective as long as it was concerned as the homogenous population things towards mass production. This multiculturalism has worked for a long time in order to show the Western European society. The people of French also liked and welcomed this sort of representation and wrote numerous theories on it and named such things as a class struggle which highlighted the real charm, beauty as well as the weakness, along with this such representation also include ethics, religion and race issues but this thought of promoting culture is no more seen due to numerous political issues. Adams 2006) As now people have the idea that political, cultural, social and economical dialogue projects are addressed but should not be exclusively shown in Muslim countries, beside this according to the political rules the training programs, information of technologies and other things should not be shown and promoted on other side rather than West as this cause great trouble to the citizens of the west. Beside this the global conflict is also one of the major reason of promoting culture and traditional things in such a way, as the people of other country did not have the actual idea or right to promote each other cultural values as by this they often show our cultural things in a wrong manner and this cause big issues. According to a survey and research numerous authors wrote things about politicians idea that they have an idea that assimilation model can’t work longer because he people who are from different state are not like us and they have different skin color, they have other religion whose rules are not applicable on us, as we are not of same group, culture, and we does not have same social and traditional values. Similarly the political rules that are governing West also have the idea that we people are from different type of population and thats why we cant work on same issue with hand in hand as these people are living in a territory which has no political representation and they wants to copy our theories and approaches by promoting our cultural and traditional values. (Adams 2006) In a nut shell, we can conclude our paper that the idea of presenting and promoting culture and traditional values of each other provide us great benefit as by this we can come to know the real concepts and ideas of each other, and this thing also facilitate us in getting new approaches as well but this concept that arises in this era that by doing so we people can face numerous difficulties and political issues is not good for both the citizens of West as well as East so we should cover up such issues and focus on the growth and development of cultural as well as other things which is a great need for all of us.

Factors affecting customer perception

Factors affecting customer perception CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Introduction This is a report on the survey of the factors that affecting the customer perception in choosing their mobile service provider. The use of customer perception is to require the company figure out what their customers think. Customers always evaluate the perceived benefits before they decide to purchase a particular product. They also include costs of usage, the lost opportunity to use other offering, potential switching costs etc. Consumers always value these added benefits when making a purchasing decision. Therefore this is making it important for company to understand the customers need when marketing to their customers. Recently, the hottest topic in the Malaysias mobile industry which is Mobile Number Portability (MNP) are discussing by everyone. In simple, Mobile Number Portability (MNP) is taking our Mobile Number from one mobile phone network to another. It enables us to maintain their existing mobile phone numbers when changing from one mobile network operator to another mobile network operator. This removed one of the major restrictions on changing mobile network operator, and allows users to freely select from among the mobile network operators on offer. In Malaysia, there are four main mobile service providers Celcom, Maxis, DiGi and U-Mobile. A desire for cheaper calls is the reason that most consumers cite for possibly changing to a new network. Everybody is looking to change networks give a heavy weighting to four major factors: cost, coverage, technology and service options. This indicates that service providers need to take a multidimensional approach to managing their corporate custom er bases. MNP will allow further flexibility in the mobile phone market, as a result of which mobile network operators will be subject to other competition. This will cause mobile network operators to clarify their features in various policies such as fees and services. We have seen some of the mobile network operators introducing measures such as fixed price for calling other users of the others mobile network operator. There are five factors that has been found out how on what factor that influence the customers to select the certain telecommunication service provider- peer influence, product quality, customer service quality, promotion and network coverage. The consumer are getting the benefits from the result of this fierce competition among the telecommunication service provider in Malaysia because these company will keep improving and offer more attractive promotion in order to maintain and attract the new customers. Background of the research Malaysias telecommunication infrastructure market was opened in 1989 when a second mobile operator, Celcom, launched service. From 1993 to 1995, the market was further opened when three additional companies were granted various operating licenses such as fixed, long distance, mobile cellular allowing them to compete as full service operators. The telecommunication companies are competing among each other and create a competitive environment in the telco industry. There are some of the companies had merged with others big company and some of them gone bankruptcy. Today, four companies make up the major telecommunication market segment. The companies are DiGi, Maxis, Celcom and U-mobile. Celcom (Malaysia) Berhad is the oldest mobile telecommunications company in Malaysia that was established in 1988 and Celcom had transform itself as the market leader by offering the quality services to the customers. It continues to spread its wings and is undeterred by the dynamic nature of the mobile communications industry. Currently, Celcom offers its mobile postpaid and prepaid services under the access codes 019 and 013, serving a combined customer base in excess of 5 million with network coverage spanning over 95 per cent of the populated areas in the country. Furthermore, businessman was the major user of this Celcom service provider due to the stable network coverage. According to the Maxis website, Maxis Mobile Sdn Bhd, which started operations in 1995, Maxis has steadily built up its role to become leading telecommunications service provider in Malaysia by focusing its core business, adding 600 base stations during 2003. In 2003, the company acquired an additional 25 MHz spectrum in the 1800 MHz band and with a 3G license which launched by 2006. Being the leader within the telecommunication industry, the corporation is the fifth largest Public Company in Malaysia with total subscribers of 6.4million, providing a wide range of innovative mobile, fixed and international network services to their customers. Maxis Mobile Sdn Bhd first used the Cardax System (CC Unix) since 1998 when they moved their operations into Menara Maxis, owned and managed by Tanjong City Centre Property Management (Tanjong Plc Group of Companies). DiGi Telecommunications is smallest of the major mobile service provider that is majority controlled by Telenor, is holding its own in the face of its two bigger rivals. DiGi is supported by Telenor with the financial and technical stability. DiGi as the smallest of remaining mobile cellular companies has benefited from the sustained growth in market demand for cell phones in Malaysia. DiGi tend to serve their customers with high quality services and products by offering an affordable price, convenient and easy to access the broadband services in order to enrich the customers life. DiGi is the first mobile service provider to launch the prepaid concept for mobile services in Malaysia and till today, DiGi Prepaid remains the market leader. To achieve the quality and innovation services, DiGi is placing a lot of emphasis upon backend systems, efficient billing system and customer relationship management system. Now they had come out the broadband package which has a higher speed so cal led 3.5G. U mobile Sdn Bhd is Malaysias new established mobile service provider by offering value added services such as 3G video call to attract the youth market. U Mobile is using 018 prefix and provide the call charges with per second per block charges. This uniqueness had become their strength and a point to attract the light users of mobile. They just need to pay as how many second they are using. In April 2007, U Mobile signed Malaysias first ever nationwide roaming memorandum of understanding as a precursor to an agreement with Celcom (Malaysia) Bhd. This initiative allows U Mobiles customers to experience nationwide coverage from day one of service availability, whilst U Mobile continues to progressively rollout its own unique HSDPA driven mobile network. KT Freetel of South Korea and NTT DOCOMO of Japans combined investment of USD$200 million in December 2007 marked an exciting new chapter for U Mobile. This strategic partnership supports U Mobiles rapid go-to-market and product enha ncement and diversification plan. U Mobile introduced 3G mobile phone bundling packages for its U38, U68, and U98 Postpaid plans at attractive prices in August 2008. These few companys core business is segmented of the Malaysia telecommunication market, mobile markets and also the broadband markets. Besides, the telecommunication companies are also provided mobile services such as Short Message Service (SMS), Wireless Application Protocol, subscription services, General Packet Radio Services (GPRS), and Third Generation known as 3G that enable the customer to connect with a video call. These companies are offering the price promotion in order to attract the customers. Now there is an aggressive competition among these companies, so the company should figure out the factors of playing a vital role to choose the telecommunication service providers The Malaysia mobile industry is going the new era of competition. Therefore, all these mobile service provider need to differentiate themselves from others and presence itself well to become the one of the market leader in telecommunication industry. They can differentiate themselves by delivering more value added service such as the superior call charges and quality and improve their network coverage to maintain their market position and generating more innovation in their performance to meet the customer expectation. Problem Statement To what extent do the peers influence, customers services quality, products quality, promotion and network coverage affect the customer perception in choosing their mobile service provider? Research Objective The overall goal of this study is to determine and identify the factors that affecting customers perception in choosing their mobile service provider. The following objectives are built to achieve the goals of this study: To access that how peer influence, customer service quality, product quality, promotion and network coverage going to become the factor for customer to using specific telecommunication service provider. To determine whether the customers like the mobile service providers marketing activities To determine the mobile service provider positioning strategies in serving their customers. Justification for the research The telecommunication industry is undergoing in a dramatic changes. The value of the paper will indicate the consumer behavior in the competitive market. This study provides insights of the factors that affecting the customer perception in choosing their mobile service provider nowadays. This research is done for the contribution that will bring for the family; society, country, and it also lead us to a better living environment with advanced technology. The result of this research will be beneficial for the telecommunication operator to serve as a guideline in implementing their business strategy. With the information, those telecommunication provider will be able to design packages that satisfying consumers to improve their company performance as well as to maintain their market share. This research is important because it can outline what the factors that affecting the consumers perception in choosing their mobile service provider. Also, this research able to provides the factors that cause the switching behavior. When service provider understand what is the wants and needs of the consumer. Thus, it helps to reduce their cost in research and development. By then, service provider can focus to increase their product features or quality that serves to the consumers. Superior customer service and products quality can affect customers perception in choosing their mobile service provider. Through this study, service provider can focus on what is the best business quality and services to consumers in order to maintain their life long relationship to create maximum life time value to the company itself. This research can figure out the relationship between product and service quality with the customers perception in choosing the mobile service provider. Therefore, Telecommunication Company should emphasis on its product quality and customer service aspect in order to improve customers satisfaction. Before taking any actions to change the customer perception, the most crucial thing is to understand what factors influence customer satisfaction, and then try to make improvements in these critical areas so that they can have more satisfied and loyal customers. Methodology The methodology used for the survey to collect data in this research is through questionnaire. The population of this study is individuals who are mobile users in Malaysia. It is impossible to get all mobile users to conduct the survey; therefore survey will conduct to selected samples to gather the data. Besides, non-probability purposive sampling method will be used as this is an exploratory study. Other than that, the questionnaire conducted would be self-administered and made from secondary data obtained from journals from other researchers due to the lack of local research on the topic. The methods used for this research also come from review of literatures and books from the internet as it is more time saving and less costly. Limitations of the research Despite the useful findings of this study, this empirical study has several limitations to be acknowledged. First, the findings in this study depend on the honesty of the respondents. It is known individuals would agree more on socially desirable answers and disagree more towards socially undesirable answers rather than fully and truly express the feeling and opinions. Next, the limitation of this research is that the data of this study is collected through the surveys, so there is a high probability of inaccurate information. The sample size of 300 is not enough to determine the actual factor. There are too many factors that will affect the customers perception. More researches need to be conducted on the higher population in order to get the actual factors. Outline of the research project report This research paper is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1: Introduction The background of study is mentioned in this chapter. The discussion of the overall question and the relevance topic are being carried out. This chapter includes the objectives and the problem statement of this study. Besides that, the explanation of who is gaining benefits from this study is included. Lastly, important terms are clearly defined to avoid confusion amongst readers. Chapter 2: Literature Review This chapter is the part to cite those relevant studies from authors and year of the study. Both dependent and independent variables will then be identified and highlighted as the foundation to build the theoretical framework and hypotheses development. Arguments and opinions from different authors are included to support the study. During this chapter, readers will have a clear idea about the problems and the possible solutions that can be made to solve. Chapter 3: Research Methodology Theoretical framework and hypothesis of study will be stated. Theoretical framework shows the relationship between variables. Next, testable hypotheses will be developed based on their relationships. These hypotheses are to examine whether or not the framework is valid by using appropriate statistical analysis. Chapter 4: Data Analysis Before proceed into this chapter, data collection is needed from respondents through various methods. The results will then be tested to analyze the response in order to get a clearer and more concrete result. Chapter 5: Discussions and Conclusion Chapter 5 contains the conclusions and justification on the hypothesis constructed in the research. Other than that, the chapter also summarized the research findings and suggestions on the future findings are given supported by assumptions made from the research. Figure 1 below shows the outlines of the research. Definition Peer Influence Past research shows that peer influence has emerged over the last 50 years to be the chief source of values and behavioral influence in adolescence, replacing the influence of adults. By examining the peer influence on the consumer perception, we can know why peer influence is a factor that affects consumer perception in choosing their mobile service provider. Customer Service Quality Customers service quality includes trust, reliability and responsiveness of the company in telecommunication industry. This study will figure out how this factor affects the consumers perception. Product Quality Product quality is the characteristics of a product that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs. Customers always focus on the product quality when they purchase a product/service. Promotion Promotion is one of the four elements of the marketing mix. Promotion able to attract the customers to disseminate the information of a product. This study will discuss how promotion works as one of the factors to affect the consumer perception. Network Coverage Network Coverage is the range of mobile network signal provided by the telecommunication mobile service provider. This study will also discuss about how the network coverage will affect the consumer perception. Scope This research is particularly interested in investigating consumers behaviors and perceptions such as motivations of changing or remaining with mobile operators with the introduction of MNP. This paper is tending to find out what are the factors that affecting customer perception in choosing their service provider through this study. All respondents are assumed to have basic mobile knowledge. There are many factors that cause the consumers to choose their mobile service provider. The study will also include the implications of switching cost on the telecommunication industry, service providers and consumers. Conclusion This research is aim to complete successfully within the time frame so that the result would accurate and will achieve the research objectives. This research had confirms the significant positive relationship of peer influence, customer service quality, product quality, promotion and network coverage to affect the consumers perception. It is expected to provide a broader understanding of mobile service provider in Malaysia and explore the real factors that affecting the consumers perception in choosing their mobile service provider. It is also hope that the successful completion of the survey would have positive impact on the mobile service provider strategies in order to grab the customers and maintain their customer relationship. Chapter 2 Literature Review Dependent Variable Customers perception in choosing their mobile service provider The understanding of consumer perception in a virtual environment is limited. It is important to develop an understanding of the factors that affect consumer perception in this market space. This will enable mobile service provider to develop more effective and focused strategies for optimizing the visibility of their product offerings and to attract more customers. There are various factors that can affecting the consumer perception when making buying decision on a product. Independent Variables Peer Influence   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Peer influence is commonly defined as the extent to which peers exert influence on the attitudes, thoughts, and actions of an individual (Bristol and Mangleburg, 2005). There will be some of the people will affect the perception of the customer when they decide to buy a product. When they decide using which mobile service provider, most of customers will think which mobile service providers are currently using by their friends and family. Peers influences include the spread opinions of friends, family, colleagues and reference group. Mostly individuals will be influenced and get into following their trend and take their opinions as a standard of their purchase decisions. Peers can influence each other either in a positive way or negative way. The potential power of WOM (Word of Mouth) as a form of promotion is generally accepted (Arndt, 1967; Buttle, 1998; Dye, 2000). WOM is a strong factor to affect the customers perception. If the customer is less well understood the product, he/she will refer to the people around them. WOM can be negative or positive, so the company should utilize the effectiveness of WOM as a good promotional tool and build goodwill of the product in order to enhance their company reputation. The influence that a sources word-of-mouth information exhibits on the receiver has traditionally been explained by models of interpersonal influence (Bansal and Voyer, 2000; Bone, 1995; Cohen and Golden, 1972). Within this stream of research, it has often been suggested that interpersonal or social influence can be categorized as either informational or normative influence (e.g. Deutsch and Gerrard, 1955). Word of mouth can operate through both channels: Informational influence occurs when information is accepted as evidence of reality (e.g. Burnkraut and Cosineau, 1975). In contrast, normative influence operates through compliance, which means that the individual conforms to the verbalized expectations of referent others (Kelman, 1961) Customer service quality Service quality had become an important attention to the company due to its strong impact on their business performance. Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction. That is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation. Customer service quality is the perceived quality of service obtained by a customer when using the current mobile service providers. Customer service is what an organization provides to its customers and is relatively easy to measure. Typically the measures include response time, time required to provide service, ability to handle a customers issues on the first call, procedures for handling customer complaints. Customer service is always important and companies should enhance all the ways in which they touch their customer, the service they provide and their measures to continuously improve that service. Superior service quality measurably increases a firms overall profitability. Mobile users always requested the fast connection either in calling or sending short message from the mobile service provider. They will make judgment based on the service quality given by their mobile service provider in order to change the mobile service provider or being loyal to their current mobile service provider. If the customers maintain loyalty to their mobile service provider, thus it will bring continuous revenue to the company. Service quality is associated with the relationships between server and customer, The customers will consider the politeness, helpfulness, speeds of delivery, and pleasantness of the service (Berry, 1987) when they received the services from their mobile service provider. Customer service is playing an important role in mobile service provider; it helps to maintain the loyalty of consumer towards the company. According to Taylor, 1992, service quality enhancement differentiates the service providers from competitors. Consumer often compares the service quality within other mobile service provider companies. There is huge amount of support in the service quality literature for a link with customer loyalty and future purchases. Customers always put the service quality they receive as the factor that affects them to do purchase of the product. If the service is bad, the customer will tend to change to mobile service provider.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Service quality is very important that companies have gone to great efforts to evaluate and keep records of service quality levels. Service quality is about the consumers judgment about the overall excellence or superiority of a service (Zeithaml, 1988). If the mobile service providers provide the bad services in handling the customers issues, it will leave a bad impact of the brand name in the customers mind. In order to have a better understanding about service quality, there are few attributes about services: services are intangible; services are heterogeneous, meaning that their performance often varies with respect to the provider and the customer; services cannot be placed in a time capsule and thus be tested and re-tested over time; and The production of services is likely to be inseparable from their consumption (Gronroos, 1990). The service evaluation can be associated with service delivery process, along with output (Cody and Hope, 1999). These two underlying processes generally explain the contribution of service quality to profitability. First, service quality is regarded as one of the few means for service differentiation and competitive advantage that attracts new customers and contributes to the market share (Venetis and Ghauri, 2000, p. 215). Second, service quality enhances customers intention to purchase again, to buy more, to buy other services, to become less price-sensitive and to tell others about their favorable experiences (Venetis and Ghauri, 2000, p. 215).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Reichheld and Sasser (1995) had proposed that the high level of satisfaction lead to increase the customer loyalty. There is growing evidence that customer perception of service quality they received when using the mobile service provider will affect their behavioral intention. Nowadays, the telecommunication industry is become more competitive and there are more new entrants of other small mobile service provider to grab the market. According to Melody (2001) public utilities is derived from the law in any country. Where the demand for a good or service is considered a common necessity for the public at large and the supply conditions are such that the public may not be provided with reasonable service at reasonable prices. Service is a form of attitude which is related to satisfaction and also leads to consumer loyalty (Johnson and Sirikit, 2002) and future purchase. In particular consumers prefer service quality when the price and other cost elements are held constant (Boyer and Hult, 2005). It has become a distinct and important aspect of the product and service offering (Wal et al., 2002). According to Leisen and Vance (2001) service quality helps to create the necessary competitive advantage by being an effective differentiating factor. Service qualit y was initiated in the 1980s as the worldwide trend when marketers realized that only a quality product could not guaranteed to maintain competitive advantage (Wal et al., 2002). Competitive advantage is a value-creating strategy, simultaneously which is not implemented by any existing or potential competitors (Barney, 1991). Service quality is essential and important for a telecommunication service provider company to ensure the quality service for establishing and maintaining loyal and profitable customer (Zeithaml, 2000; Leisen and Vance, 2001). Conversely, Johnson and Sirikit (2002) stated that service delivery systems have the ability to allow managers of company to identify the real customer feedback and satisfaction on their telecommunication service. Since, quality reflects the customers expectations about a product or service. Lovelock (1996) stated that this customer driven quality replaced the traditional marketing philosophies which was based on products and process. Product quality The quality of a product is a conceptualize service quality as the relative perceptual distance between customer expectations and evaluations of service experiences and service quality using a multi-item scale called the SERVQUAL model.(Parasuraman et al., 1988). The SERVQUAL model includes the five dimensions of tangibles which is the physical facilities and the appearance of personnel, reliability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately, responsiveness as the willingness to help customers and provide prompt service, assurance where employee knowledge base which induces customer trust and confidence, and empathy which is the caring and individualized attention provided to customers by the service provider.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  To get products or services in good quality is a must in customers perception. Especially for telecommunication industry, customers cannot touch the physical product before they make their decision. To gain trust in consumers, it is necessary for the mobile service provider to provide the identity and complete information of the company such as their physical location, pass record, product quality approved. Besides, telecommunication company have to ensure they provide only good quality product or service to consumer because can gain word of mouth. Once they fail to do it, they will suffer it. According to lemons model (Akerlof 1970), product quality is the basic idea in a competitive market. Products only differentiated by their exogenous quality. If product quality is undistinguishable beforehand by the buyer, then there is one price. If cost are increasing in quality, then at that price the highest quality products may not be offered, and as a result buyers become reluctant to pay high price. They learn to expect low-quality products which mean the price must fall. Product quality is always an important aspect of a purchasing decision and in market behavior. Since, consumers regularly face the task of estimating product quality under conditions of imperfect knowledge about the underlying attributes of the various product offers with the aid of personal, self-perceived quality criteria (Bedeian, 1971 adapted by Sjolander, 1992). According to Sjolander (1992), the consumer behavior in modern market is different from the theoretical case of consumer decision making in free markets. Promotion In order to promote a companys product, a company often uses advertising to create brand and or product differentiation in order to soften the price competition. To the extent that persuasive advertising create customer loyalty through perceived differentiation over essentially identical products, they create market power in the sense that consumers may be willing to pay more for preferred brands, thus allowing Telco Company to raise prices above marginal costs. The most preferred outcome by firms is where one advertises while its competitors dont, leading to market share and profitability gain at the expense of its rivals. In the price promotion, the Telco companies are using game theoretic model (Axelrod and Hamilton, 1981) to provide a homogenous product and have sufficient capacity to serve the market demand. It is a non-cooperative game as there werent any enforceable agreements between them as they compete in the marketplace. It is a repeated one-shot simultaneous game as they were driven by quarterly performance accountable to shareholders. As such, they would decide on their pricing strategies independently and aware of rivals prices in the market while forming certain expectations about rivals pricing strategies. Actions available are Maintain Price and Undercut Price. Payoffs are ranked in order of preference (higher number is preferred). The most preferred outcome by firms is where one undercuts price while its competitors maintains price, leading to market share gain at the expense of its rivals. When all firms maintain prices, there is no change in market-share and profitability. When all f irms undercut prices, market-share remains with reduced profitability. Price plays a vital role in telecommunication market especially for the mobile telecommunication service providers (Kollmann, 2000). Its included not only the purchase price but also the call and rental charges. Generally, a price dominated mass market leads to customers having more choice and the opportunity to compare the pricing structures of different providers. Therefore, the company that will offer lower charges, the more customers will commit themselves to the telephone networks, so more call minutes will achieved. It will be interesting to study the impact of the two or more mobile service provider having price competition. One of the impact will be the customers will keep switching from one mobile service provider to another one. For example, there is a new customer will think of reducing its switching cost. The customers that keep changing their customer due to price promotion offered by the mobile service provider

Postmodern Poetry - Confessional Poets Essay -- essays research papers

Postmodern Poetry - Confessional Poets With World War II finally over and a chapter in history written, the next chapter is about to begin. The twentieth century brings with it a new literary movement called postmodern, where poetry is "breaking from modernism" and taking on a whole new style Within postmodern poetry emerge confessional poets whom remove the mask that has masked poetry from previous generations and their writings become autobiographical in nature detailing their life's most intense personal experiences, therefore becoming the focus of their work. Considered to be the "mainstream of postmodern poetry" confessional poetry did not hit its peak until the late twentieth century. Confessional poetry is in direct contrast to the poetry of William Butler Yeats. Yeats poetry, Romantic in nature, depended on symbols and images to convey his themes. Confessional poetry is very direct and conveys the inner most feelings of the post modern poets. The twentieth century brought forth many confessional and post confessional poets who appeared to be embarking on unmarked territory. Confessional poets Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roehtke and post confessional poet Adreinne Rich all dealt with taboo subjects. Their life held an intensity of personal experience that became the focus of their work. Confessional poetry does not simply touch upon emotion. Confessional poetry allows emotion or looks at emotion through an examining eye rather to drive poems, permeating each poem with an air of necessity, the necessity of conv eying and aiming to understand emotion through confession. Postmodern poet, Robert Lowell's poetry really captures the true essence of confessional poetry by sharing his own raw emotions with the reader. The mask that once was placed upon the influence of the symbolist, Eliot and Pound, Lowell removes. The speaker of his poems is unequivocally himself. Lowell does not spare himself in his poetry. In his poem "Man and Wife" he deals directly with his own marriage. The reader gets grotesque glimpses into his marital life. He begins "Tamed by Miltown, we lie on mother's bed." And later tells how "All night I have held your hand,/ as if you had/ a fourth time faced the kingdom of the mad-/ its hackney... ...bsp;The thing itself and not the myth. Diving deep into the inner most recesses of her self, exploring the wreck of her own life, Rich feels compelled to map the geography of her self. Rich declares in a forward to her poems "with the failure of patriarchal politics" and "to be a woman at this time" is to know extraordinary forms of anger, joy, and impatience, love and hope. Poetry, words on paper, are necessary but not enough; we need to touch the living who share†¦ our determination that the sexual myths underlying the human condition can and shall be †¦ changed. Rich's work is personal, intimate and confessional. Confessional and post confessional poets clearly chose to write about subjects that were taboo. That took their private lives and deep inner thoughts and made them public. Confessional poets took the baton from the moderns such as Yeat's and Eliot and took poetry to another whole level. They opened up their heart, mind and feelings to a society that was able to relate.