Knowledge Management Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Knowledge Management - Coursework Example AUTHORITY 9 4.4. ACCESSIBILITY 10 5. CONCLUSION AND SUMMARY 10 5.1. COMPARISON AND CONTRAST 10 5.2. RELATION TO THE MODULE 14 6.0. REFERENCE LIST 16 1. INTRODUCTION Organisations formulate strategies and processes for identifying intellectual assets which enhance the overall performance of the organisation. The objectives of the organisations are easily accomplished and overall performance, competitive advantage and continuous improvement of the organisation are enhanced through this practice (Zheng, Yang, & McLean, 2010). In this report an evaluation of three different articles related to knowledge management will be presented. A comparative analysis will be presented which will show the relative significance of knowledge management in an organisation. The three articles which will be subject of discussion in this report are 1. Developing a corporate knowledge management strategy - Paul Oluikpe (2012) 2. Local Social Knowledge Management: A case study of social learning and knowledg e sharing across organizational boundaries - Johanna Lahtinen (2013) 3. The interactive relationship of corporate culture and knowledge management: a review – Julia Mueller (2011) Understanding the relative significance and importance of knowledge management in an organisation is very important in this age where workforce is treated as an essential asset by the managers. A combined overview and major emphasis of discussions presented in the articles will conclude this report. 2. LOCAL SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: LAHTINEN(2013) 2.1. KEY POINTS Lahtinen has discussed a range of important aspects of social knowledge management. The main points of this article by Lahtinen are related to How communicating and interacting socially helps in improving knowledge. The importance of inter-organizational networks is important in improving the knowledge. The learning process which enables the individuals to interact socially and enhance their knowledge is referred to as social knowledge management. The emphasis has been built on signifying the importance of communication in the organisation. Social learning plays a significant role with regional networking of the employees working for the same organisation (p.13). This research paper discusses about the role of social learning in knowledge management. This is important for managing inter organisational networks is significantly important. As employees interact within the organization, it helps the employees in better understanding the knowledge practices adopted in the organisation, mixture of differing applicability practices and general confusions which are part of the knowledge practices (p. 4). The three forms of networking which take place within the organisation are elaborated. These include the operational, personal and strategic roles which take place in the organisation. For this assessment data from several different organisations were collected to develop a conclusion about the relative importance of Soc ial knowledge management. Social knowledge management enhances the individual learning capability as an individual learns by sharing information within the organization (Lahtinen, 2013). 2.2. VALUE TO KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PRACTITIONERS This topic is of great value to the practitioners of knowledge management. This is because it signifies which strategies the managers can use for initiating social learning and transferring knowledge within the organisation through interaction of the employees. Understanding the issue

Involvement of USA in Korean War Essay Example for Free

Involvement of USA in Korean War Essay Different from its involvement in the Vietnam War? In the 40à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½s onwards USA got interested in Asian affairs. Taking into account the fact that they were not defending themselves or any other American ally, they had to further extend territorial boundaries to fall on political-ideological frontiers. Indeed, they were defending its territory from enemies in a new scale: the fear against the developing communism over the world. In these lines, Korea and Vietnam portrayed two international hotspots now focused on Asia, as the stage within the fight of the two global powers: USA and the Soviet Union. Anyways, were the circumstances by which USA faced communism in both countries different? First of all, the background in South-East Asia determined in great scale American intervention in the area, since either country were occupied by other foreign powers: while Korea was under Japanese domination, Vietnam still remained part of the French empire (later becoming member of the French Union). The first case of Korea was already been the stage of the war between democracy and communism. USA was quite anxious since the conflict that had already happened in Germany and the one that was going on in Turkey and Greece, both cases falling under soviet beliefs. After the defeat of the Chinese Kuomintang in 1949, by communist Mao, American leaders began fearing that the rapid spread of the system around the world would be successful one more time in Asia. Thus, USA decided to risk and try obtaining new territory that would give them an ally in East Asia, which, in turn, would give it time to plan more attempts and new victory against communism. Thus, they fought against the Japanese settlement as an excuse to free the territory in the name of democracy. However, the Soviet Union was also very interested in the area for the same reasons: a new ally and victory against capitalism. Anyways, the whole territory was firstly freed under the name of United Nations, towards democracy, for support free peoples who are resenting attempt subjugation. However both powers claimed their part very soon. Both powers set up a divisor line along the 38th parallel, where the North would be under Soviet aim and the South by American intervention. Then, although elections were held in South Korea (August 1938) supported by UN, Russia rejected to do so in the North. The South became the independent Republic of Korea and the North adopted the name of Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, very much in the lines of Chinese system. The tension now remained very high at either sides of the line. Since the president of North Korea by the time, Kin IL Sung might have been encouraged by the Chinese government and Russia with military supplies to test USA President, Trumans determination, showing him that communism was the dominant power in Pacific Asia, also with the promise of spreading further very soon. At that stage, the domino theory was beginning in American minds. This concept applies to the idea that the fall of one state to a common system would lead inexorably to a series of the same. Therefore, if communism triumphed in China and Korea was already under its influence, the wave could have an unlimited repercussion in the entire area of South-East Asia. Thus, behind these ideas, American troops were ordered to Korea to withdraw North Koreans troops after their invasion in the south republic, together with forces from another 14 countries all under the command of General McArthur. However, afterwards, South Korea was almost taken by North Korea troops but American troops regained control in the territory later and also two thirds of North Korea, in its advance northwards. With this movement, they eventually placed a fleet between Taiwan and China mainland. Thus, China now feared them to help Chiang Kai-Shek troops from the island to come again and conquer the region of Manchuria as the most important industrial and strategic area. This attempt, if successful, would cut off the problem of communism in Asia, since China would turn back to democracy and therefore either North Korea would remain isolated or without Chinese help, she would not be able to survive in the area for long. These reasons made the Chinese government launch a massive counter offensive in 1951 that captured South Korea capital again. Now McArthur was afraid of Chinese power and thought that the best strategy to defeat communism in the area was only possible with atomic bombs. With this new horizon within the fight, president Truman feared a large-scale war that would provoke a nuclear war, which USA did not want. It pointed out the American limitations that would enclose them within the fight: they feared communism because the nuclear power that could destroy them, but the only force capable to defeat it was their nuclear power, something that, however, they could not use since it would drag them into a fatal war. Thus, now, the only American possibility focused to settle in East Asia to contain communism there: in January 1951 UN troops expelled the North Koreans troops from South Korea and fortified the frontier, until in July 1953, both countries firmed a peace agreement that stated the limit at the 38th parallel. After American impossibility for annexation of territories in East Asia, the new step had to be focused in the South, due to the independence of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from the French Union (Geneva Agreement, 1954). Then, Vietnam was temporarily divided into two countries, and analogously as Korea, the frontier was established at another parallel, in this case the 17th one. In 1956, elections were to be held in the whole country, but they never were and only in South Vietnam a referendum was held in 1955, which gave Ngo Dinh Diem as the president. He did not want to hold elections for the whole country and USA, with Eisenhower as the new president feared much more intensely the domino effect. Moreover, Diem was unable to rule the country, mainly because he was very unpopular among the peasants, which furthover, in the future encouraged unwilling towards American presence in the south and appetence for communism. At this stage the Vietcong (the guerrillas) in the south were receiving supplies, equipment and troops from North Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh, who was leader of the resistance against French Union and who wanted communism to rule the country, thought that giving aid to South Vietnam against Diem, national elections would not be held and to unify the countries forces would be necessary. Thus, the next American presidencies had to launch a very strong campaign to stop the communism wave in Vietnam: -Kennedy (1961-3) tried to keep American involvement against the guerrilla, by sending advisors, military equipment and enclosing local peasants into fortified villages to isolate the Vietcong outside. However, this failed since most of the peasants were members of the Vietcong. -Johnson (1963-9) decided to bomb North Vietnam (1965), as he thought that Ho Chi Minh controlled directly the Vietcong. He also sent half million troops in the south. However, due to the great pressure of American public against the war, since they saw the conflict as a total failure, Johnson stopped the bombing in March 1968, although he did not want to withdraw. -Nixon (1969-74) based his plan in the new concept of Vietnamization: As public opinion did not allow him to send more troops to Vietnam, he would use the ones that were already there to re-army the Vietnamese army keep their own defence. That would allow gradually American troops to withdraw. However, he began a new wave of bombing in the north, but this time including Cambodia and Laos, as they were receiving supplies and troops from North Vietnam. Despite all the measures and policies, at the end of 1972, the Vietcong controlled almost the entire territory and several factors obligated the American intervention to reach the end. Eventually a ceasefire was agreed in January 1973. Then, American troops were withdrawn and in 1975 the Vietcong unified the whole country under a communism government by occupying Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam. Also in Laos and Cambodia the system was established the same year. Taking all these explanations into account, I can state that there were slight differences between the American policies in both the Korean and the Vietnamese wars. The main reason was the potential force used in each one, and China played an important part. It applies to the fact that the attack against them was not as ruthless as in Vietnam, mainly due to Chinese power. While in Vietnam neither China nor Russia supported the army as directly as in Vietnam, in Korea China was directly involved since the problem was slighted related with the relationship between USA and Chiang Kai-Shek troops. For China, American troops recovered Manchuria, they would give back China mainland to them. Communist China was not willing to accept that, and USA knew that she was capable of fighting bravely to an extent that USA did not want to test, since the split of the Sino-Soviet agreement left China in an uncertain situation from the international point of view: We do not want the fighting in Korea to expand into a general war. Therefore, American government did not risk indeed and the only price was to lose North Korea. Nevertheless, in Vietnam they could use a more violent system as they communist China was already established and did not fear USA any more. Moreover, the conflict was seen under UN eyes: solely for the purpose of restoring the Republic to its status prior to the invasion. For international support, it was a fight towards the human rights, since North Korea under communism did not want to hold elections. However, UN never supported the war in Vietnam and the international view of the war and American methods to be victorious pressed the government to reach the end of the conflict. Therefore, differences between the both wars was mainly due to internal factors of each country, but especially the foreign intervention that encouraged or restrained American actions to act in one way or another.

Genetic Algorithm (GA) as Optimization Technique

Genetic Algorithm (GA) as Optimization Technique Preference learning (or preference elicitation) is a critical problem in many scientific fields, such as decision theory [1,2], economics [3,4], logistic [ref] and database [5]. When modeling user preference, researchers often model the preferences as a solution to an optimization problem which maximizes some utility function. In reality, however, we are not a-priori given a utility but have only access to a finite historical user choice data. Therefore, the passive preference learning problem, that is, how to learn user preferences using her historical choice data, has gained a lot of attention in recent years. When dealing with preference learning, it is often assumed that user preference over the values of each attribute is independent of the values of other attributes. However, this assumption is not a sound in many world scenarios. For example, as it is shown in Fig. 1 for cloth shopping problem, one might choose the color of her shoes depending on the color of dress she will buy, i.e. her preference over shoes color is conditioned by the available dresses. More formally, we say the preferences induced by the users behavior are intrinsically related to textit{conditional preferential independence}, a key notion in multi-attribute decision theory[20]. Conditional preference networks (CP-nets) have been proposed for such problems [4] and have received a great deal of attention due to the compact and natural representation of ordinal preferences in multi-attribute domains [8-12, 17-19,22]. Briefly, a CP-net, fig. 1, is a digraph, whose nodes correspond to alternative attributes and edges correspond to the dependency between nodes and each node is annotated with a conditional preference table which describe the preferences over that particular attribute (chapter 3). It is sometimes claimed that CP-nets are `easy to elicit [16]. That is, we first explain CP-nets to the user, and then ask her to write down the CP-net that best describes her decision-making process [18,30]. However, it has been shown that when facing the choices, people often act differently from what they described previously as their preferences [39,40,97,103]. As an example, Kamishima and Akaho [53] point out that when customers were asked to rank ten sushi items and then later to assign rating scores to the same items, in 68% of the cases, the ordering implied by the ratings did not agree with the ranking elicited directly only minutes before. Based on these experiments, several CP-net learning algorithms have been developed depend on the users choice data. Some algorithms work on the historical choice data [23,64], a process known as passive learning. Others actively offer solutions in an attempt to learn the users preferences as they choose [23,29,47,58].   The work of this paper falls into the category of passive learning, in which the learner uses the recorded users choices and then fits a CP-net model to the observed data. Formally, we collect the set of samples $S = {o_i succ o_i}$, where   $o_i succ o_i$ means that the user strictly prefers outcome $o_i$ over outcome $o_i$ and then find a model $N$ that can best describe $S$. Such set of samples may be gathered, for instance, by observing online users choices. Table1 shows the number of binary CP-nets up to 7 nodes, i.e. each outcome consists of 7 attributes [A250110]. From the values, it is evident that, even for a small number of attributes, finding the best CP-net is not a trivial task due to the huge size of the search space. textbf{inja np-completo begoo.} To the best of our knowledge, there is no existing approach that can perform well on problem with more than 7 attributes hence they are not practical when facing real world problems, in which the alternatives usually consist of tens or even hundreds of attributes. Another problem that rises when learning preferences from human subjects is the possibility of noise or comparison data that are ultimately inconsistent in the chose data-set $S$. While noise is results of the observation of the users behavior,   inconsistency is the result of randomicity of the users behaviors; that   is, the transitive closure of data-set may result in a cycle in which some outcome $o$ is seen to be preferred to itself. The objective of most CP-net learning techniques is to learn (i.e. rebuild) a CP-net that can describe the whole data-set[ref]. However, since the $S$ is not usually clean,   there is no possibility of finding such a CP-net, that is consistent with every example in $S$. This fact motivated us to frame the CP-net learning problem as an optimization problem that is, to identify a model that maximizes some objective function, $f$, with respect to choice data-set. In this work, we utilized the power of Genetic Algorithm (GA) as an optimization technique. GA is an optimization algorithm inspired from the mechanism of natural selection and natural genetics, which can work without any a-priori knowledge about the problem domain and have received a growing interest in solving the complex combinatorial optimization problems especially for their scalability as compared with the deterministic algorithms [1]. In this work, we investigate the feasibility of implementing the GA to solve the passive CP-net learning problem.

A White Lie in the Heart of Darkness Essay -- Essays Papers

A White Lie in the Heart of Darkness â€Å"He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision, – he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath – ‘The horror! The horror!’† (Conrad, Heart of Darkness, pg112)1. After returning to Brussels, Marlow pays a visit to Kurtz’ intended and brings these final words of Kurtz with him. When asked to reveal Kurtz’ last declaration, Marlow offers this: â€Å"‘The last word he pronounced was – your name.’† (Heart, pg123). He lies. In this situation, with the possibility existing of inflicting severe emotional damage on an already grieving soul, should Marlow have lied? Of course, the answer is neither simple nor short, and depends heavily on who is asked. The most relevant perspective naturally comes from Marlow himself. Marlow makes his feelings about lying clear early in his adventure. â€Å"You know I hate, detest, and can’t bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appals me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies, – which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world – what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Heart, pp49-50). Marlow doesn’t hold much back here. He believes that lies are what is wrong with the world. That said, it seems that a third-person Marlow would severely disapprove of his actions, and would believe that he should have told the truth. This become s even more evident after a glance at Marlow’s reaction after he does lie. â€Å"It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head.† (Heart, pg123). Marlow obviously sees his actions as in err, and is waiting for his punishment from above. ... ...(see Sources). 2 This quote, and all other quotes from Immanuel Kant’s article, On the Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns, comes from the third edition of the James. W. Ellington translation. The citation numbers follow from the section numbers in that edition (see Sources). Sources Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. London: Penguin Books, 1995. Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978. Kant, Immanuel. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten). Translated by James W. Ellington. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1993. Kant, Immanuel. â€Å"On the Supposed Right to Lie because of Philanthropic Concerns† (â€Å"Uber ein vermeintes Recht aus Menschenliebe zu lugen†). Translated by James W. Ellington. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1993.

Compare Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson Essay

Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson all had similar values and ideas about America concerning politics and its economy. They all also had a knack for getting people to follow them. Benjamin Franklin, who had only died about 30 years before William Cullen Bryant wrote To Cole, the Painter, Departing for Europe, seemed to express different views about America vs. Europe in his letters. In a letter Franklin wrote to his grandson, he expressed how he wanted to return to America before his death but didn’t think he would be able to. He seemed so passionate when writing about America. It was as if there was nothing better than America. We also know that Franklin was very involved in politics and economics. He is one of the first people we read about who was very concerned with money and how it affected status and politics. Obviously wealth affects status in at least some aspect. Whether the wealth was measured by money or by land, it defined social class. Only people of the upper class took part in politics. Franklin was one of America’s founding fathers. He helped write the Declaration of Independence, which we still abide by today, over 200 years later. Benjamin Franklin listed 13 virtues with their precepts in one of his documents. He listed these to make sure he abided by all of them and just these 13. One of the precepts was ‘order’. He expanded on this by making a schedule of how his business and his life should run. It listed what should be done for the day, including when he should eat and sleep. He was definitely ahead of his time and set the standards for Americans today. Thomas Paine instilled his ideas onto others in Common Sense. He starts out by saying, â€Å"In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense†. Just by writing this, he has already captivated the reader and forced them to see his views and just ‘common sense’. Paine seemed to specialize in revolts and working for the ordinary person. This was Paine’s involvement in politics; getting the common person to see how they were oppressed and how things should change. He took action by forming revolutions. Paine felt that America should be free from British control. He stated, â€Å"We have boasted the protection of Great Britain without considering that her motive was interest, not attachment; and that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account, but from her enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and who will always be our enemies on the same account.† He used this to explain to Americans how Britain had created enemies for us because of their own personal reasons and when we were under attack, Britain didn’t care and sequentially, they had created enemies for both places. Thomas Jefferson took part in politics as well as Franklin and Paine and was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson, unlike Franklin and Paine, was born into his wealth. He was never a commoner and therefore never knew what it was like to be in that position. I find it interesting that someone of his stature would be allowed to help write the Declaration of Independence which helps guide everyone including commoners. He couldn’t possibly understand what would be best for them. This is probably why there are many things in the constitution that don’t seem fair to an ordinary person, such as the Electoral College. This system was basically created because a regular person could not have a vote left in their hands. Although Jefferson seems like he wants independence for America, it also seems like he doesn’t trust America to have this Independence. All three people that I have discussed seem to differ in their views of America vs. Europe from Bryant. Bryant seems to be thrilled that America is based on Europe. Places such as New York and New England were almost exact replicas of the originals. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson were trying to change the way America was to make it a better place to live. It is because of these men that America is everything it is today.

SWOT Analysis Tencent Limited Holding

IntroductionIn March 2010 McKinsey published an article dealing with the obsession of the Internet of the Chinese population by concluding the following statement „People in the country’s 60 largest cities spend 70 percent of their leisure time online. Seismic changes in the consumer market are likely as a result.â€Å"1 China’s Internet population increased at the end of 2012 to a total number of 564 million users compared to approximately 250 million users in 2008, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIN).2 The main reasons for this enormous growth is strongly connected with different aspects, as for instance the general growth of Gross-Domestic-Product (GDP), lower priced computers, more affordable telecom connection fees, government support to Internet usage, and low-cost entertainment aspects. This affected, that also lower income groups started to use the Internet.3 Answering to this fast development and growth of Chinas Internet p opulation, the Internet service industry is about to increase up to 17 percentages in 2013. In the last years, the Internet service industry achieved even annual growing rates up to 20 percentages, resulting of the booming demand.The Internet market seems to be quite satisfied for the moment but even in the next years researches forecast an annual growth of approximately 10 percentages. This is due to the expansion of existing offers in the area of e-commerce and advertisement services.4 Observing the numbers, 148 million people have already experienced Internet shopping since 2010 and it is expected that 30 million people will additionally make use of it by the end of 2015.5 The Economist stated, â€Å"the future of e-commerce is China†.6 Besides the e-commerce and advertisement services also the application services became more and more important over the last years because of the introduction of smartphones and tablets.7Recognizing the trends, Tencent Holdings Limited deci ded 20 years ago to enter the market and finally became the largest Internet Service Portal in China. Tencent still enjoys a quasi monopoly position, which is hardly endangered due to rising competition. That is the reason why they need to think about using new opportunities and fending upcoming threats. Consequently Tencent should carry out a Strengths-, Weaknesses-, Opportunities-, Threats-Analysis (SWOT-Analysis), which includes the study of their own weaknesses and strengths in the internal dimension and the resulting opportunities and threats giving from external influences.This paper will firstly give an overview about the internal strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore Tencent’s external environment will be analyzed and the results will be used for defining the opportunities and threats of the company Before starting with the literal SWOT-Analysis for Tencent the first Chapter gives a short explanation about SWOT-Analysis in general.2 Definition SWOT- Analysis As mentio ned in the introduction, there are two different parts of changes in the environment, which lead to affect the performance of companies. This chapter will explain the difference between internal and external environment and their interaction. Furthermore the next part will explain the so-called SWOT-Analysis in detail.Internal environment analysis points out strengths and weaknesses of a company that in turn, supports decision-making processes concerning the handling of upcoming threats and opportunities.8 Knowing which strengths and weaknesses the company has to face, the internal environment analysis studies aspects like assets, people or knowledge on the one hand and financial deadlines or gaps in capabilities on the other hand.9 Analyzing the internal environment is very important because it defines the capability of the company to deal with the threats and opportunities given by the external environment.10 External environment deals with all developments on the marketplace, inc luding political, economical, social, legal and technical conditions as well as customers, competitors, suppliers and the public. Changes in the external environment or the so-called STEEP (socialcultural, technological, ecological, economical, political/legal)  force the companies in most cases to rethink their actual strategy, to make use of the emerged opportunities and to prevent occurring threats.11 As for instance using the development of a new market as opportunity or dealing with threats as new competitors or decreasing demand.12 To use opportunities means to develop a best-practice strategy. Regarding this, companies have to decide, whether it is the best opportunity to offer something in short supply, to provide something in a better way what already exists, or to create a totally new product.13 Concerning to that, the company has to know if there exists demand, needs and wants for the product they want to provide.14 Facing threats and not trying to fend them often leads to decreasing profits or lower sales. On the one hand knowing these threats gives the opportunity to react and trying to avoid, that threats are going to influence the company’s performance.15 On the other hand firms often do not have control over the threats, which affects the company negatively like for instance new competitors are entering the marketplace. This results in giving up potential customers and thus decreasing demand.16Bringing the internal and external environment analysis together is what you call a SWOT-Analysis. The SWOT-Analysis evaluates all strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a company, which builds the base for a strategy formulation.17 Meaning that knowing the strengths and reduce weaknesses help companies to use opportunities on the one side, On the other side to use strengths and develop strategies to avoid that weaknesses will become the target of threats. After this short definition of the SWOT-Analysis the next step will be to work out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the Tencent Holdings Limited. 3 SWOT-Analysis of Tencent Holdings Limited3.2 Internal Environment AnalysisAs mentioned in the Introduction the Internet Industry in China is booming. To cover all possible marketplaces in the Internet Tencent offers a broad range of products and services. Besides the most popular service, the instant Messenger called QQ including numerous added services, Tencent provides online media, (wireless) internet value added services, interactive  entertainment services, especially in the online-gaming sector, e-commerce platforms and services as well as online advertisement services.18 Tencent also follows latest trends, as for instance launching a mobile application of a messaging service and added games and a mobile payment system, because of the latest development of using smartphones and tablets instead of personal computers.19 Tencent is one of the oldest Internet corporations in China and wi th its QQ platform the company reached 798,2 million user accounts by the end of 2012.20 As a result, Tencent influenced the communication world in China fundamentally. Another strengths lies definitely in the broad product and service offer of Tencent and the way in which they create synergies. The company offers seven main business lines, starting from instant messaging to online advertisement services. Besides just offering free services, Tencent tries to bind their users to the company’s value-added and paid services, in order to make profit.21 The strategy aims to offer the Internet population the possibility to use a wide variety of services in one company.Furthermore Tencent could gain a lot of experiences and knowledge over the past 20 years as one of the first providers in the Internet service sector, which significantly strengthened the company’s research and development abilities. Despite having already the mature technology in the market, half of the employ ees of Tencent belong to the Research and Development department, to ensure Tencent’s current market leading position and sustain this competitive advantage. Additionally to that the Tencent Research institute, which is China’s first Internet institute with the main goals in research and development of core technology on the Internet, supports the corporation in being innovative.22 Another strength of Tencent is their workforce as Tencent sees them as the â€Å"most precious asset and emphasized on the training of employees† by using different Training Systems.23 Moreover Tencent Holdings Limited is the third largest Internet operator in the world and the largest listed company in China.24 Benefitting from many advantages due to the companiescompany’s size there are also weaknesses the company has to face. In the following part the internal environment focuses on revealing the weaknesses of Tencent.Regarding the large variety of the product range Tencent, Tencent faces the fear of cannibalization because it creates a competitive situation in between their products. An example can be giving by the different instant  messaging services WeChat and QQ or TM and RTX, which serve the same purpose. Besides that QQ mobile messenger gets more and more the look of WeChat, which makes it even more competitive and leads to higher confusion for the consumers.25 Moreover Tencent greatest weakness is being not really innovative rather than being a â€Å"copy cat†. This occurs with the fact, that Tencent copied a lot from successful western companies. QQ for example is a copy of the Israeli invention ICQ and SOSO, the search engine of Tencent uses especially Google as a model.To conclude the internal environment analysis, one can summarize, that Tencent is a highly developed company with a lot of market power due to their long existence. On the opposite Tencent can notcannot convince with real innovative power. To get an idea what influence s TencentsTencent’s decision externally the next step will be to analyze the current market situation of the Internet market in China.3.1 External Environment AnalysisTencent operates in a highly challenging and rapidly changing environment. To get an idea what external impacts Tencent has to face it is important to know, what external factors the Chinese Internet market is about. As already mentioned China, faces a fast growing market in e-commerce because of the increasing number of Internet shoppers. The government noticed the importance of this growing market as well and plans to â€Å"upgrade the technological capabilities of e-commerce†.27 Another importance opportunity lies in using the governmental support, which is communicated in the 12th five-year plan and includes the support for the â€Å"new-generation IT† and additionally the advance of the information networks, mobile communication and the Internet.28 China is nowadays the largest Internet market in the world, which implicates that it is also one of the most competitive markets in the world.In addition to the high development of the Internet scene many companies entered the market in the last years, which leads to a highly competitive situation in general. Chinas Internet population is still growing but the annual growing ratio halved already from 20 percentages in the last years to 10 percentages as forecasted. Besides that, more and more  startups enter the markets, which results sooner or later in a fully satisfied market and a loss in profit and market share.As an example for the highly competitive market, the image below shows the current competition situation on the search engine market in China.There are already eight providers only for search engines on the market including international companies like Yahoo and Google. The low market share of these international companies underlines the fact, that there are still restrictions from the government concerning the fu lly market entry of these companies.Image : China Search Engine Market Share in August 201330Even if governmental regulations already have relaxed a bit, Chinese Internet sector faces still a lot of restrictions. Chinas Internet companies benefit by this, because many foreign websites are still blocked and they are not exposed to powerful competitors like Facebook. This in consequence creates the possibility to develop and strengthen own applications. On the other hand it could become a threat as soon as the government decides to abolish this restrictions. Chinese Internet companies then have to face the full international competition against global players as for example Google.31 After giving this overview about the external and internal environment the next chapter will use this information by concluding recommendations about Tencent’s future strategy.3.3 SWOT-Analysis and RecommendationsTencent entered the Internet market in many different dimensions and accordingly place s their product and service offering. Due to the previous analysis, there are especially three main product categories where Tencent should use their opportunities in further expansion. Firstly, Tencent should, due to the growth-intensive market segment, expand their e-commerce offer by developing for instance their website Papai.com. To even attract more possible Internet shoppers, they also should expand their online advertisement services. Thus, they can make use of synergies they already created through their broad offers, by linking their advertisements services with the shopping sites they own. This second measure, leads to the creation  of new potential profit zones.Thirdly, Tencent should not only focus on expanding existing offers but also develop new products, as for instance in the sector of cloud computing. By doing so, they can fully exhausting governmental support. Taking into consideration, that the market will be opened up in the long-term, Tencent should emphasis their innovation process on new products and services for the national and also international market. This should not be very difficult to accomplish, since Tencent disposes of a highly experienced workforce in Research and Development. This in consequence will enable the company to expand international and compete with other global players. If Tencent wants to keep their position as the third largest Internet company in the world they have to continue growing their business. Considering the slower growing Internet population in China, Tencent needs to go international to keep their growing position.Tencent did this by investing in foreign companies as for instance in the case of FAB.3233 This expansion should be continued in order to gain international market share and increase their portfolio in other Internet based services, as well as to improve their overall operational capability. Another possibility to do so is by expanding through strategic alliances†¦ By building strat egic business partnerships within China and gaining market share in several sectors Tencent is also able to fend the threat of market entry by international Internet companies in turn. Tencent furthermore has got a highly influence on the communication world in China as one of the oldest Internet company and built already a lot of barriers for international companies.Taking the messenger service QQ as an example for the mostly used messenger in China it enjoys a very high customer liability. Consequently Tencent could prevent loosing their position in China because although of the feared abolishment of several governmental restrictions concerning the entry of international companies. Additionally Tencent should try to avoid that QQ gets more and more the look of WeChat. As already explained, this could tempt users to change to competitors because of confusion. In this case, Tencent should favor cannibalization by offering differentiated products of the same purpose, to avoid losing costumers to competitors. The image below shows a summery of the named points and what the SWOT-Analysis and recommendations for the Tencent Holdings Limited contain.Image 2: SWOTs of Tencent Holdings Limited344 ConclusionInternet business in China is still one of the fastest growing industries in the world and Tencent used and uses this opportunity a lot in expanding existing products, launching new services and developing better solutions for the internet population in general. These actions are supported by the try of going more and more international. Even though the external environment analysis showed that the Internet market is influenced by many factors, which co-determines the performance of Tencent an all the other Internet companies. To reach the best performance they could get, Tencent has to use its strengths and to improve its weaknesses to make the best out of every trend, meaning using opportunities and fending threats.To summarize what the work pointed out in the pr evious chapter, Tencent shouldTencent should expand their e-commerce and their online advertisement services. Moreover there is a big opportunity to create national and international strategic businesses trough the investments or the development of own innovations, which should be easily possible due to he strong research and development activity of Tencent. Additionally to that, Tencent already is the third largest Internet company worldwide, which makes it easier for them to enter international markets and gaining new customers all around the world.Regarding the governmental aspects, Tencent needs to use the supports given by the government and stress the development of new systems. Furthermore Tencent should definitely try to further build their market entry barriers. As a conclusion, the SWOT-Analysis of Tencent Holdings Limited showed, that the company is rightly positioned at the top in the world ´s largest Internet market, due their numerous strengths. But in times of liber alization, globalization and an almost satisfied domestic market, Tencent has to fight against the identified threats in the upcoming years.

Trap-Ease America Essays

Trap-Ease America Essays Trap-Ease America Paper Trap-Ease America Paper Has Martha identified the best target market for Trap-Ease? In other to ascertain whether Martha has identified the best target market for Trap-Ease we will look at what is a market and what does target markets involves. A market is the set of actual and possible buyers of a product or services and marketing involves the process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and values with each other. Before targeting a market segmentation has to take place. The division of a market into different homogeneous groups of consumers is known as market segmentation. Rather than offer the same marketing mix to vastly different customers, market segmentation makes it possible for firms to tailor the marketing mix for specific market, thus better satisfying customer needs. A market segment should be: -measurable -accessibly by communication and distribution channels -different in its response to a marketing mix -durable -substantial enough to be profitable The four primary bases on which markets are segmented are: geographic – this is based on regional variables such as region, climate, population density, and population growth rate -demographic – is based on variables such as age, gender, ethnicity, education, occupation, income and family status -psychographic – based on variables such as values, attitudes, and lifestyle -behavioral – based on variables such as usage rate and patterns, price sensitivity, brand loyal ty and benefits sought When the market has been segmented the firm now has to choose its target market. A target market is a set of buyers who share a common need or characteristic that the company decides to serve. The firm does that by evaluating the attractiveness of the segment and the fit between the segment and the firm’s objectives, resources, and capabilities. Martha has chosen women as its target market but Martha has to consider whether the woman is the decision maker when it comes to home improvement items like mousetraps. Martha could try targeting males. The men who see it as their role/duty to deal with pest control in the home thus protecting the women from the gruesome nature that is usually involves in the process. In the case of Trap-Ease the mouse maybe trap alive in the trap and women may not want to deal with that aspect but the man may have no problem of disposing the trap with a live mouse. Businesses such as offices and warehouses are another option Martha may wish to consider. Business owners who need to safeguard their supplies and equipment can well be served by the Trap-Ease. Martha should appeal to these people showing them the benefit of using the Trap-Ease instead of poison or the traditional mousetrap. One of the benefit is when poison is used the mice may end up dead anywhere and stink up the office environment before it is found whereas the Trap-Ease you would know exactly where you place it and can dispose of it in a timely manner. The food service industry such as restaurant, canteens is yet another market Martha can target. The food service industry has to maintain certain health standards one of which is maintaining a pest free environment. Martha can show them the benefit of using the Trap-Ease to achieve these standards thus better serving their customers and at the same time protect their food supplies, ingredients and their business from being infected by mice. Pest control companies would make a great target market for Martha. These companies specialize in finding solutions for their customers and Martha needs to convince them that Trap-Ease would be a great product for their clients. Since a rancher invented the Trap-Ease, ranchers could be a target market because it seems that the inventor was having a problem with mice and other ancher like him can be experiencing the same problem. Martha could use the retired rancher to reach this target market. Describe the current marketing mix for Trap-ease. Do you see any problems with this mix? Marketing mix are the variables that mangers can control in order to best satisfy customers in the target market. A typical marketing mix includes the product offered at price, with some promotion to tell customers about the product and a way to reach the customers’ place. This is often referred to as the 4P’s: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. The product is the physical product or service offered to the consumer. Price is the amount of money the customers have to pay obtain the product. Promotion represents the various aspects of communicating information about he product with the goal of generating a positive customer response. Place is about getting the products to the target customers. The following table summaries the marketing mix, including a list of the aspect of each of the 4Ps. ProductPricePlacePromotion FunctionalityAppearanceQualityPackagingBrandWarrantService/SupportList PriceDiscountAllowancesFinancingLeasing optionsChannel membersChannel motivationMarket coverageLocationsLogisticsService levelsAdvertisingPersonal sellingPublic relationsMessageMediaBudget The marketing mix for Trap-Ease is: Product:Trap-Ease innovative mousetrap Price:Retail = $2. 49 Place: Large Retailers, Safeway, Kmart, Hechingers CB Drugs Promotion:Trade shows, Home-and-Shelter style magazines, Publicity. The Trap-Ease is an above average product that provides a much needed customer solution. There is no variety in the packaging therefore customers do not have a choice as whether they want a package with one or two. There is no mechanism to ascertain whether customers are satisfied with the product. The price is very high when compared to its closest competitors and from the customer’s point of view that may not be worth the added value in the product itself. The retailers are given no motivation to sell the product in their stores and no incentive is offered to entice consumer to purchase. Promotion is one in a medium that is not communicating the message to the correct targeted market. Women are a small segment of the total â€Å"hardware† customers. Good housekeeping and other home and shelter magazines may not appeal to many persons in the targeted market. As it stands right now the product has to sell itself because limited advertising is being as a result the public may not be aware of the product. There is not sufficient communication between Martha and customer or potential customers. Trap-Ease is located in the top hardware, grocery and drug chains; this is not offering enough market coverage. Transportation of orders to retailers is not being done in a timely manner. The Trap-Ease is not sufficiently expose to the customer. The proximity of the stores where the product is sold in relation to where the customers are maybe impacting on the availability of the product to consumers. How would you change Trap-Ease’s marketing strategy? What kind of control procedures would you establish for this strategy? I would use the product innovative aspect to promote it to a larger potential clientele. I would change the fact the design just a little to ensure that once the mouse is trap it dies instantly or offer the customer a choice of purchasing one where the mouse dies instantly or it is caught alive. I would also look into the possibility of packaging the Trap-Ease with the bait as part of the package. Customer may only need one Trap therefore I would offer packages of one and packages of two. I would lower the price for the initial market penetration. This will help to increase sales by attracting new customers or attract them from the traditional product. Once