Month: July 2017

My medicine and health assignment is about “IDIOVENTRICULAR RHYTHM”
Basically, What is IDIOVENTRICULAR RHYTHM, Its signs and symtoms, Causes, and Medications. Also, I want you to write about who has this? Why does this happen? How does this happen? When does this happen? What is the underlying causes for it? What is the pathology and the pathophysiology? All these things should be mentioned.
Also I want a diagram and link to go through and allow other students to read more.
“The Aim of this medicine and health assignment is to teach other students about this topic, and that should be good and easy to be read and understood by other students”.

In the last 2 chapters of Business Model Generation, the authors describe and analyze the strategy and process for developing successful business models. After carefully reading and understanding these chapters, answer these research questions:
• RQ1 What role should external factors of demand play in successful business models? NOTE: First, fully define the role and then analyze or discuss. This must be at least 4 paragraphs.
• RQ2 What is “Business Model Design and Innovation”? Provide examples and discussion for each factor listed. This must be at least 3 paragraphs.
• RQ3 What are the challenges to “Business Model Design and Innovation”? This must be at least 3 paragraphs.
Deliverables:
• This assignment must be in a business professional format with a cover page in current APA format and must contain at least 600–800 words. This assignment must also include current APA citations and references.
• You must post the final draft of this assignment in Blackboard using the SafeAssign link provided. Before submitting your final draft, check for any plagiarism issues with the SafeAssign Draft link provided. NOTE: All SafeAssign scores must be less than 28%.
BUSINESS MODEL GENERATION EXERCISE 2 STANDARDS
Criteria Levels of Achievement
Proficient
RQ1 (4 Paragraphs) Analysis clearly relates to the main topic. It includes several supporting details and/or examples.
RQ2 (3 Paragraphs) Analysis clearly relates to the main topic. It includes several supporting details and/or examples.
RQ3 (3 Paragraphs) Analysis clearly relates to the main topic. It includes several supporting details and/or examples.
Current APA Format All sources (information and graphics) were accurately documented in the desired current APA format.
Mechanics Minimal or no grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors.

• Prepare a 3–5-page executive report that analyzes target market segments, evaluates the effectiveness of a marketing strategy, and recommends an alternative strategy.
Note: You are encouraged to complete the assessments in this course in the order in which they are presented.
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Context
A given product may meet the needs and wants of a variety of customers; however, different types of customers may think about and use the product in different ways.
Market segmentation is an information-driven analysis that enables a company to tease out these differences among customers. In this analytical process, a company gathers detailed information about customer needs and wants in relation to how customers use, or could use, a product. The emphasis is on identifying customer characteristics.
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Questions to Consider
As you prepare to complete this assessment, you may want to think about other related issues to deepen your understanding or broaden your viewpoint. You are encouraged to consider the questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend, or a member of your professional community. Note that these questions are for your own development and exploration and do not need to be completed or submitted as part of your assessment.
• Because customers’ needs vary, the same product may be used in different ways by different customers. If the product is fully capable of meeting all of the varying needs, the marketing challenge may be to make sure that each market segment receives the right messages about the product. In some cases, though, some attributes of the product may be critical to some customers and less important, or even irrelevant, to others. In these situations, what alternative product marketing strategies might be most effective? What limitations might the company face in attempting to meet the divergent needs involved?
• In addition to product capabilities, some companies may segment their markets based on characteristics such as demographics or psychographics. To explore this concept further, apply this thinking to a personal situation. Consider a product you have purchased. To what different market segments is this product marketed? To what extent do you see yourself fitting the characteristics of any of those market segments? How did the company reach or communicate with you? To what extent has the product met your personal needs?
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Resources
Suggested Resources
The resources provided here are optional and support the assessment. You may use other resources of your choice to prepare for this assessment; However, you will need to ensure that they are appropriate, credible, and valid. They provide helpful information about the topics in this unit. The MBA-FP6012 – Integrated Global Marketing Library Guide can help direct your research. The Supplemental Resources and Research Resources, both linked from the left navigation menu in your courseroom, provide additional resources to help support you.
Product Strategy
The resources below provide information about product strategy.
• Cuellar, S. S., & Claps, M. (2013). Differential effects of brand, ratings and region on willingness to pay: A hedonic price approach. Journal of Wine Research, 24(2), 138–155.
• Thellefsen, T., Sørensen, B., &Danesi, M. (2013). A note on cognitive branding and the value profile. Social Semiotics, 23(4), 561–569.
• Marshall, G. W., & Johnston, M. W. (2015). Marketing management (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
o Chapter 7, “Product Strategy and New Product Development,” pages 198–234.
o Chapter 8, “Building the Brand,” pages 238–261.
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•Assessment Instructions
Now that the competitive analysis has been completed, the company’s senior leadership has asked you to analyze market segments and evaluate the strategy currently being used to market the product globally.
Preparation
As you prepare to complete this assessment, what types of information will help you to segment target markets? What type of demographic information will you need? How will you determine the psychographics of your target customers? How can you use the information from the competitive analysis you completed? What questions do you need answered in order to develop a product-market profile?
Format this assessment as an executive report and include a title page and reference page. Follow APA guidelines for citations and references.
Assessment Requirements
Within your Market Segmentation and Product Strategy report, include the following:
• Analyze the target market segments in relation to the product.
o Identify the market segments (at least 2) you believe would be effective to target for the product.
o Explain how the product serves the wants and needs of each target segment.
o Evaluate the growth potential of the product within each target segment.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the company’s current marketing strategy being used within each target segment.
o Provide examples of how the strategy is and is not effective.
• Based on your analysis, recommend an alternative strategy that would better position the product for each target segment.
o Explain the types of challenges the company is likely to face in trying to reposition the product and change customers’ perceptions of the product.
o Explain the importance of branding/positioning in an effective marketing strategy.
• Support your recommendations with marketing theories, models, or principles.
Additional Requirements
• Include a title page and reference page.
• Length: 3–5 double-spaced pages, not including title page and reference page.
• Resources: At least 4. Resources must be formatted according to current APA guidelines.
• Font: Times New Roman, 12-point.
Market Segmentation and Product Strategy Scoring Guide
View Scoring Guide Use the scoring guide to enhance your learning. How to use the scoring guide
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Power of One (Part II)
Create a two- to four-page EDUCATION RESEARCH paper (excluding the title and reference pages) that provides:
A reflective narrative on how you arrived at your initiative. You will want to include:
How you accessed necessary supports
Evaluate what barriers you faced in the development of your initiative. Examine how you overcame the barriers identified.
Summarize how you were able to recruit committee or group members.
Illustrate how you were able to secure school or community support.
Your process for developing your mission/vision statement
Analyze what barriers you had to overcome in the development of your mission and vision statement.
Evaluate how you were able to reach consensus.
Specify what community needs are focused on in your initiative.
A design of a graphic or narrative that outlines the steps that you have taken or will take to achieve your mission/vision.
A defense of how your initiative will include at least four of the Five Action Strategies.
Your paper must be formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center, two to four pages in length, and cite at least three scholarly sources in addition to your textbook.

Critical analysis big success of VIPShop in China
the company I choose is a Chinese company: VIPShop.I have already written the literature review part. the methodology should be secondary data. please write the rest of the dissertation. thank you
i want to add: the methodology should be qualitative approach
Table of Contents
1. 0 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………1
Table of contents………………………………………………………………………………………………2
2.0 Literature Review……………………………………………………………………………………….4
2.1 Overview………………………………………………………………………………………………..4
2.2 Trends in current luxury goods market in China………………………………………….4
2.2.1 stable and sustainable growth in purchase………………………………………….4.
2.2.3 Growing requirements for user experience………………………………………..5
2.2.2 Emerging markets in the second-tier and third-tier cities…………………….5
2.2.4 Emphasis on brand images………………………………………………………………4
2.2.5 Current situation in luxury goods consumption in China…………………….6
2.3 Competitive advantage…………………………………………………………………………..6
2.3.1 Introduction to competitive advantage……………………………………………6
2.3.2 Value chain………………………………………………………………………………….7
2.3.3 Implications for e-commerce in competitive advantage…………………….8
2.4 Core competence………………………………………………………………………………….9
2.4.1 Introduction to core competence…………………………………………………….9
2.4.2 Various focuses or views on core competence………………………………….9
2.4.3 Features and identification of core competence………………………………10
2.4.4 Methods to core competence cultivation………………………………………..11
2.4.5 Core competences of VIPshop………………………………………………………12
2.5 Customer loyalty………………………………………………………………………………..13
2.5.1 Introduction to customer loyalty…………………………………………………….13
2.5.2 Previous research on customer loyalty…………………………………………….13
2.5.3 Methods to establish and enhance customer loyalty…………………………..16
3.0 Research Methods
4.0 Findings
5.0 Contributions
6.0 Conclusions
7.0 References
Chapter Two Literature review
2.1 Overview
In an era of internet, e-commerce is increasingly popular and an increasing number of online stores or retailers are springing up one after another. Among the numerous online retailers, most of them failed because of a series of problems, while as a newly emerging online retailer VIPshop survives the cutthroat competition and develops at a good momentum. As the competition among online discounter retailers is increasingly fierce, VIPshop does not fail but develops vigorously and has become a leading online retailer in China within only less than 10 years. Its development is really miraculous and it makes the public confused why VIPshop can achieve such huge accomplishments within such a short period. Hence, this research will focus on the reasons contributing to its success. After a research and analysis, the success of VIPshop can’t be separated from the following strategies: competitive advantage and strategy, customer satisfaction and loyalty, branding, core competencies, and core resources and capabilities. Based on relevant theories, these strategies leading to VIPshop’s success would be analyzed in detail in the following.
2.2 Trends in current luxury goods market in China
2.2.1 stable and sustainable growth in purchase
In current years, with the Chinese economy developing prosperously, the demands for luxury goods are on the rise in China and such a growing trend can be associated with several reasons. For example, driven by the huge demands for luxury goods in the Chinese mainland market, the number of stores with various brands keeps increasing, which stimulates consumers to purchase with a wider range of selections available(Carmine, 2012). The luxury goods supply of foreign brands to the Chinese market is considerably enhanced, which vastly improves the consumer consumption experience. Due to the operational cost reduction, various foreign brands narrow down the price differences of their products in Chinese market and foreign market, and at the same time they rely on the diversity and variety of products to appeal to Chinese consumers.
2.2.2 Emerging markets in the second-tier and third-tier cities
In the second and third-class cities, there are a large number of consumers with strong purchasing power, and they have something in common with the consumers in the first-class cities in China. In recent years, the prosperous development of economy in these small and remote cities also stimulates the booming of demands for luxury goods.
2.2.3 Growing requirements for user experience
In Chinese market of luxury goods, the majority of consumers are increasingly mature about the attitude towards and awareness of luxury goods, and what the emphasizes more is the user experience (Kwon and Lennon,2009). With regard to this trend, various brands open their large-scale flagship online and physical stores, to better facilitate consumers and better perfect the after-sales service. Currently, many people use luxury goods as gifts to present to friends, relatives and colleagues or even familiars, which requires various types of luxuries goods to be developed based on the occasions.
2.2.4 Emphasis on brand images
At present, a wide selection of luxury goods brands are expanded to Chinese market and they stress their brand image establishment. A large number of brands actively advocate and support the activities for public welfare and charities, to enhance their brand image (Carmine, 2012). In addition, in order to deepen the brand image, many brands of luxury goods transfer their global marketing center to China, for example, Chanel chose Shanghai City as the marketing center in China, and cooperated with the Museum of the Contemporary Art to establish the Cultural Chanel, and hold various art exhibitions.
2.2.5 Current situation in luxury goods consumption in China
As the Chinese economy develops prosperously, the disposable personal income considerably increases and people have higher requirements for living standards, along with the attitude to luxury goods changing from blindness to acceptance, identification and pursuit. The brands of luxury goods started to enter Chinese market in the 1980s, and after more than 30-year development, these brands of luxury goods witness the changes in consumption philosophy and behavior among Chinese consumers. In the recent seven and eight years, great changes have take place in people’s consumption of luxury goods, and the luxury goods industry has taken a great leap in development, with the consumers increasing at a good momentum within the latest 3 years (iResearch, 2016).
2.3 Competitive advantage
2.3.1 Introduction to competitive advantage
The concept competitive advantage was put forward by the American economist Michael Porter in his book Competitive Advantage, and there has two basic schools about the competitive advantage theory, of which one is the structural school with Porter as a representative, and they believed that the competitive advantage comes from the series of interactive activities in the enterprise value chain, and it is this structural school that argued the competitive advantages from the cost leadership and differential competition(Porter,2004). The other is the resource school represented by the American strategic managerialist C.K.Prahalad, and they considered that the competitive advantage comes from the unique resources and competence or core competitiveness within the enterprise, arguing that the core competitive advantage was the outward manifestation of the core competitiveness.
A clear or comprehensive understanding of the competitive advantage should keep in mind two key points: first of all, competitive advantage is a comparative advantage, which means that the competitive advantage can be found through a comparison with the competitors(Gourlay, Rita, 2013). Thus, the competitive advantage is a dynamic comparative advantage, which would take into account the realistic interest and potential interest.
In addition, the competitive advantage can be analyzed in both a narrow and wide sense. Specifically, in a narrow sense, the competitive advantage refers to the advantage gained through a comparison from the perspective of the market and Porter from the marketing perspective analyzed the competitive advantage, arguing that the competitive advantage originated from the extra valued created by enterprises much more then the cost(Barney and Delwyn,2007). The value refers to the price the clients are willing to pay, while the excess value is created due to lower prices than the competitors for the same effects or benefits. Porter also pointed out that the competitive advantage has two major forms: cost leadership and otherness or difference, and these two basic competitive advantages originated from the competition about product or service marketing(Govindarajan,2008), thus, it is a concept in a narrow sense. The competitive advantage in a wide sense should start from the perspective of the enterprise comprehensive competitiveness and make a comprehensive analysis and comparison, which is usually required to make a comparison from the perspectives of system and market, to gain the core or comprehensive advantage. It is considered that the internal competence, resources and knowledge accumulation are key for enterprises to gain excess earnings and keep competitive advantages. The competitive advantages can be gained through price and quality competition of products, services and sales process, new products, technology, supply channels, and new types of competitions(Barney, 1991). Hence, seen from the internal system within enterprises, the competitive advantage is also closely related to technological innovation, product innovation, systematic innovation and management innovation.
2.3.2 Value chain
Porter creatively took the value chain as the basic tool to determine the competitive advantage and seek new methods to strengthen the competitive advantage. According to Porter, the competitive advantage came from the series of independent and interactive activities in the whole operational process, and each activity was favorable to the enterprise’ relative cost position and laid foundation for the differentiation image(Porter,2004). Porter took the value chain to express these activities and he further divided the value chain into value activities and profit, of which profit is the balance or margin between the total value and the total cost for value activities.
The value activities are classified into two categories: basic activities and secondary value activities. The basic value activities refers to activities of product production, sale, delivery and after-sale service in the physical form, including internal logistics, manufacturing, shipping logistics, marketing or sale, and service(Gourlay and Rita, 2013). The secondary value activities support the basic activities, including procurement, technology development, human resource management, and infrastructure. All these value activities become the foundation of enterprise competitive advantage and each value activity’s importance to each company varies from one to another. The competitive advantage comes from each single activity as well as the interaction of all value activities.
At the same time, Porter argued that the value chain is not simply an integration of a series of independent value activities, but an interdependent and interactive system, which consists of the interaction among various value activities, the vertical linkage between the enterprise value chain and the supplier value chain, as well as client value chain.
2.3.3 Implications for e-commerce in competitive advantage
In an era of e-commerce, the wide application and popularity of the internet, computer technology and communication technology provides new key factors for e-commerce enterprises to gain competitive advantages, whose sources would be enlarged and widened by the technological innovation and competition changes. The e-commerce can gain competitive advantage through cost leadership, differentiation, fast reaction and information, of which information may be the major source of competitive advantage for e-commerce(Power and Micallef,1997).The prosperous development of the internet and online technology speeds up the sharing and exchange of information, and it has increasingly become a determinant for an online retailer to succeed whether it has powerful information network, fast and convenient information channels, and complete information infrastructure including the platform for information sharing and database.
2.4 Core competence
2.4.1 Introduction to core competence
The concept core competence was first put forward by Prahalad and Hamel in 1990, referring to the collective learning within the organization, especially how to coordinate diverse production skills and integrate multiple streams of technologies(Prahalad and Gary, 1990). Core competence is the communication, participation, and the promise to the collaboration depth of work across the organizational boundary, and it will not reduce with the increasing use, but needs cultivation and protection since knowledge would fade away without frequent use and the core competence is the source to keep competitiveness. Prahalad and Hamel (1990) also gave out three basic principles to identify the core competence, of which the first one is that core competence can offer potential to enter various markets, another is core competence contributes to users’ perception of value from the ultimate products, and the third principle is that core competence can be hardly imitated by competitors.
2.4.2 Various focuses or views on core competence
Though Prahalad and Hamel put for ward the concept of core competence, they did not give a clear definition to it, but only gave a descriptive concept. Up to now, it still hasn’t had a complete theoretic framework or a consensus in terms of the core competence, and there were five major views about the this concept. The first view is the concept of integration and the representatives are Prahalad and Hamel (1990), who argued that the enterprise core competence lies in the knowledge accumulated within the corporation, especially the knowledge involving how to cooperate various production skills and integrate multiple technology flows.
The second is the cultural perspective and the representatives are Rafa and Zoll, who believed that the enterprise core competence not only lies in the enterprise operating subsystem, but also in the cultural subsystem permeating the entire organization, of which the consensus lays the foundation to the integrated and inimitable core competence(Alastair,2010). Another one is the competence-based view and the representatives can be Coombs and Coyne, who deemed that competence as an essential factor is the main element of core competence, and believed core competence as the integration or synthesis of various competences(Jay and Hesterly,2007).
The fourth view the resource-based and the representative is Jay Baron, who argued that the continual core competence can be created only when the enterprise resources are equipped with the four major characteristics, value, rarity, inimitability and irreplaceability(Wernerfeit,1994). The resources include the enterprise asset and knowledge information, ability features and organizational procedures, while the core competence means the unique ability of enterprise to obtain and own these special resources. The fifth view is knowledge-based, and Barothy Leonard-Barton is the representative, who considered that the basis or prerequisite of core competence is knowledge, and establishing a learning-oriented organization is an important approach to enhance the enterprise core competence(Anthony,1996).
Hence, it can be seen that the enterprise core competence can be interpreted from various perspectives and the core competence can be created through multiple methods, on condition that the method is suitable to the real situation of the enterprise.
2.4.3 Features and identification of core competence
According to Prahalad and Hamel, core competence is featured with three characteristics, ductility, value and inimitability, while Barney defined another four features of core competence, value, heterogeneity, inimitability and irreplaceability(Klein and Gee,1998). In addition, it is considered the core competence has another significant features, like the key to support enterprise, favorable to explore business opportunities, long time to be formed, and ductility(Rasoava,1999). Other scholars argued that there are three outstanding features in core competence, of which the first one is core competence definitely has extraordinary contribution to the value stressed by customers, another is that the enterprise owns the basis or foundation to create core competence, and the third one is that core competence is the effective tool to explore the potential market.
An appropriate identification of core competence is the prerequisite and foundation to cultivate and apply the core competence for an enterprise. It is considered that six methods can be used to identify the core competence, value chain analysis, skills and strategies analysis, asset analysis, knowledge analysis, customer contribution analysis and competition difference analysis(Jay and Hesterly, 2007).
2.4.4 Methods to core competence cultivation
Generally, three are three major methods to cultivate core competence, of which the first is to cultivation within enterprise(Anthony, 1996). In this method, the enterprise can organize a team specially designed for core competence cultivation. When setting the target of core competence development, the team should combine the development tendency of this product at home and abroad and the real situation of the enterprise, make a comprehensive analysis of its overall competence and evaluate whether such products are unique.
Another method is merger&acquisition outside the enterprise. Theoretically, the core competitiveness can not be transplanted, but through merger& acquisition the enterprise can bring in the core external technology and apply it into the internal enterprise(Alastair, 2010). Based on asset reorganization and structural adjustment, the enterprise is able to make the technology of the merged or purchased company transform into new competence of the enterprise, and ultimately become the specialty and core competitiveness.
The third method is innovation imitation(Rasoava,1999). The effective and rapid way for enterprises in developing countries in particular to enhance core competence is to imitate innovation. Though core competence can hardly be imitated, the key technology can be similar at the maximum and imitation enables enterprises to keep track of the latest technology, development tendency, to realize innovation at low risk and low cost.
2.4.5 Core competences of VIPshop
Established in 2008, the website establishment of VIPshop looked reference to the business model of Vente Privee and Gilt Groupe, and it has kept the about 30% increase in the past few years, and has owned more than 2 million members and its commodities cover a wide range, like fashion clothing, ski care products, accessories, and perfume. VIPshop owns a large number of favorable advantages, which can contribute to core competences. First of all, though VIPshop cooperates with a wide selection of brands, it will cooperate with one brand for less than 8 times to guarantee not to influence the sales in the physical stores and the off-line sales channels of these brands, at the same time to keep the feeling of freshness among the members who will hold expectation to the promotional brands.
Another advantage lies in its own platform for members interaction. VIPshop creates the platforms specially designed for its members to communicate and give their ideas, like the information platform, blogs and message board. Through these communication platforms, the members can freely express their ideas and give their suggestions, while the VIPshop can obtain the needed information from its members and make discussion about the topics or commodities concerned about by the members, to form the guiding mechanism based on the public members’ preferences and views, to ultimately guarantee their products marketable. In addition, VIPshop also relies on various methods to realize its market expansion or promotion, for example, once you purchase from VIPshop, you will gain points and these points can be used to exchange gifts and members also have opportunities to be offered gift voucher, which are all quite attractive to the public.
Compared with the websites of other luxury goods, the website design of VIPshop has a great advantage. On the website of VIPshop, consumers can see the advance notice of new brands, and the column “date with brands” clearly displays the brand names, discounts, and the sales situation, which can be shared to whoever you want whenever browsing the information on the website. Such a design on the website enables consumers to have a better mastery of the brands they are interested in and to do shopping in a pleasant and easy way.
In addition, more advantages of VIPshop lie in its value chain and the value chain plays a leading role in an organization’s sustainable development in the long run(Normann and Ramfrez, 1993). For example, as to the supply chain, up to now, VIPshop has had more than 200 brands, and more than half of the brands are directly from the branding business and the rest come from the agents, and it also has special personnel in charge of procurement in the foreign markets. VIPshop has an advantageous capital or fund flow. On 8th December 2010, VIPshop declared the completion of the first-round financing, gaining the venture investment as much as 20 million dollars from Sequoia Capital and DCM, which was also the largest amount of the first-round investment in the domestic B2C field. The logistics can be another major advantage of VIPshop. It has its own warehouse and a logistic center covering an area of 20 thousand square meters is located in the South China and another two large-scale logistic centers were set up in East China in 2011, with the logistic center in the North China under planning.
2.5 Customer loyalty
2.5.1 Introduction to customer loyalty
Newman and Werbel defined customer loyalty as the repetitive purchasing of the same brand and consumers’ only selection and preference for this brand, without any consideration of other brands(Rober and Jill, 2002). Oliver (1997) believed customer loyalty can be represented from three perspectives, the consumers’ willingness or intention to do repetitive purchasing, purpose of cross-buying and customer referrals. He also argued that customer loyalty is the effective promise made by consumers to the enterprise and brands they love, which would drive them to do repetitive purchasing in the future for a long time, regardless of the sales situation or the marketing strategies(Carmine, 2012).
2.5.2 Previous research on customer loyalty
In an era of internet and e-commerce, customer loyalty is increasingly significant to an organization especially the online stores or retailer. According to Frederick, under the circumstances of the internet, it has been the key method for corporate to make profit and keep competitive advantages through establishing and enhancing customer loyalty(Justin, 2013). According to Keller, consumers’ repetitive buys of the same brand clearly indicate their loyalty to the brand. Gremler and Brown believed customer loyalty consists of behavioral loyalty, willingness loyalty and emotional loyalty(Luarn and Lin,2003), which is further extended and enriched by Oliver (1999), who argued that the customer loyalty can be divided into attitude loyalty and behavioral loyalty. The attitude loyalty is made up of recognition loyalty, willingness loyalty and emotion loyalty. Fornell considered that the customer loyalty can be evaluated from customers’ tolerance of the price increase and their repetitive buying. Smith (2001) also believed that the essence of customer loyalty is similar in online and offline stores, and the key lies in how the corporate uses the existing information technology to establish good relations with consumers. Seen from the findings in the research made by Luarn, due to the instability, risks and complicity in the online shopping environment, it is more challenging to gain the online customer loyalty(Wallace, Giese, and Johnson, 2004). Some scholars also found that the online customer loyalty is influenced by a series of factors or variables, such as interaction, communication, diversity and personality in goods.
2.5.3 Methods to establish and enhance customer loyalty
Enterprises not only provide goods or products for customers, but also help satisfy consumers’ other demands, to establish long-term and good rapport with customers(Wulf and Odekerken, 2003). In a times of internet, consumers can obtain and share information rapidly and the online consumers have more rights of selection, with the consumption mobility vastly enlarged. This requires the online retailers to strengthen its relations with the customers, to establish a reciprocal rapport with consumers, and gradually enhance the customer loyalty to guarantee the long-term development.
In addition, the online retailers should improve their speed of reaction and service (Smith, 2001). In the internet economical times, people’s life space has been vastly sped up, and online consumers continually reduce their time spent on online shopping, which poses higher requirements for online retailers in the reaction and service speed. The faster the online stores respond to consumers and offer corresponding services and products, the more likely they would be to win customers and establish customer loyalty. Hence, the online retailers like VIPshop ought to attach more importance to the improvement in the reaction and service-offering speed.
More importantly, the online stores ought to improve their emotional associations with customers (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). According to Schultz, compared with the relevance theory which stresses reliance on promises or unique marketing means to appeal consumers to purchase, the relationship theory emphasizes the post-trade customer retention or maintenance, to improve the customer loyalty. Seen from the 5A theory, a long-term relation between enterprises and consumers can be maintained by stressing the five points centering on consumers: Aware of the customers, making Acknowledgments for consumers, Appreciating customers, Analyzing customers, showing willingness to take Actions to serve customers to satisfy their demands, to ultimately cultivate a group of customers with high customer loyalty with low marketing cost but high marketing efficiency (Robert, 2002). Hence, as an online retailer, VIPshop should deepen its relationship with online customers, and strengthen its emotional communication with the consumers, to know their psychological demands and personal needs, to deepen the emotional ties between VIPshop and its customers, and ultimately improve the customer loyalty.
Last but not least, VIPshop can rely on reward to enhance customer loyalty. According to the 4R theory( relevance, reaction, relationship and reward) put forward by Schultz, relevance reaction refers to the speed for enterprises to make response to consumers’ demands, relevance requires the enterprises to provide products and services based on consumers’ practical demands, individual needs and the expected demands, while the relevance can be realized through the user association, production connection and interest interrelation. Relation has deeper connotations than relevance emphasizing the realization of the promise to appeal to consumers, and relation stresses relying on the customer maintenance after sales to improve the rate of second buying and develop customer loyalty (Kwon and Lennon, 2009). Reward means that enterprises can satisfy the stakeholders’ demands based a series of marketing activities, and it emphasizes rewards and the benefits for customers (Gefen, 2002). Therefore, this implies that VIPshop should pay more attention to create benefit and offer reward to customers, to enhance customer loyalty. This can rely on various methods, offer a wide selection of quality products, enhance service quality, guarantee products and service to be customer-oriented, carry out cost leadership strategy to minimize the expenditure and maximize customer shares to form the economies of scale, to reach a win-win situation between VIPshop and its customers.

It is an international affairs essay that deals with Liberal Peace Building
1.The international affairs essays should be answer the question with references, Arguments should be made with relevant examples.
The Topic has two major questions and the essay should be build on this (1) whats is liberal peace building?( 2) whose interest does it serve? The answers should be given based on arguments of scholars and examples to back it up.
The international affairs Essay should entail arguments and issues should be illustrated by reference to well documented, detailed and relevant examples.

Overall Customer Satisfaction in Carrefour hypermarket in relation to product assortment, variety, price and promotion.
Based in Dubai, U.A.E,
Chapter 1
Introduction and background of carrefour hypermarket,
Statement of problem,
Research background,
Purpose of this study,
Research objectives:
• To identify strategies to enhance the overall customer satisfaction
• To compare customer satisfaction of Carrefour against Lulu hypermarket
• To evaluate the impact of product variety,price, assortments and promotion on customer satisfaction.
• To provide suggestions and recommendations to enhance and improve customer satisfaction,
Importance of this research,
Methodology,
Limitations,
Chapter 2
Literature review and explain what is it, literature review,
Theories related to topic,
Case study related to topic,
Chapter 3
Methodology,
Research method,
Research approach,
Research plan,
Choice of data,
Sampling,
Population of interest eg: age, culture,
Chapter 4
Questionnaires,
Graph with notes,
Chapter 5
Point of view,
How to solve thing or better way to solve things,
Giving recommendations and suggestions to improve,
Conclusion,
Reference should contain index citations with 4 books, 3 journals and 10-15 websites per chapter,
I will attach some files for the writers referencing. I will also attach a file in which I have done research on the same topic but is plagiarism with incomplete content and theories missing, if writer uses my content it should be rewritten (words should be changed) and has no reference. Will upload a sample dissertation.
Thank you
Overall Customer Satisfaction on Carrefour in relation to product assortment, variety and promotion
Chapter 1
Introduction
Customer satisfaction is the key of differentiation in a competitive market place. Business those succed in a competitive market can be able to survive in the long run with advanced customer satisfactory level. Price, Promotion, Place and Product everything a company designs beauitifully to attract the customers and the aim works out behind this is just to gain the satisfaction of customers and consumers. Every customer look out for a good price, promotion and good customer care. The only way to attract and keep customers loyal to the company is to presuade them so they are loyal and keep coming back for eg; weekly promotion, bundle offers can increase sale and also keep customer satisfaction.
Background of Carrefour
Carrefour is a multinational retailer headquartered in France. It is the largest hypermarket chain in the world and is the 4th largest in the world. The major countries of its operation are Europe, Brazil, China, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The company started its operations in 1958 on the first day of the year. It converted to a chain of stores soon after its first outlet. Georges Plassat is the chairman and CEO of the company.
The group of Carrefour was the first in itself to open a hypermarket in Europe. The first supermarket was opened in France in 1968. In 1976, the company launched a private product line of 50 food stuffs including milk, biscuits and pasta. Carrefour followed different slogans all over the years from its foundation. The slogans have been different from France in other countries.
The head office of this company is located in France, but it operates in some of the other countries as well like Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Belgium and Brazil, China, Egypt, Georgia, India, Iran, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, Macedonia, Pakistan, Portugal, Taiwan, Turkey, UAE and United Kingdom. Carrefour sold all the 16 stores in Korea in order to exit the country. Even the Czech stores were sold in the same year. In the year 2010, the company took a strong decision to leave some of the countries like Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. But later on the operations in Malaysia and Singapore were continued. The company is also a popular chain in America. There are around 3 pes of retail distribution of the company. Hypermarkets, supermarkets and hard discounters are the distribution units of the company.
The brands popular in hypermarkets are Atacadao, Carrefour and Hyper star. The supermarket brands of the company include Carrefour Bairro, Globi, GS, Gima, Carrefour Mini, etc. Hard discount stores include Dia, ED and Minipreco.
Carrefour faced many controversies till now. One of them was in the year 2007 when around 30 employees were taken to the hospital as they got affected by CO2. It was later found that the basement of one of the malls had insufficient ventilation. The company was even accused of false advertising.
The company faced a boycott of supplies in China as well. As a result, the Chinese search engines were stopped to access the Carrefour website in China. The government stated that there may be some illegal content on the website, so it should not be displayed to the Chinese public. The retail giant then sold its 8 stores in Chile to the Walmart Chile in the year 2004. The company also sold the 11 stores in the Czech Republic to Tesco. Later the company closed stores in Hongkong in the year 2000. Carrefour then sold its stores in many countries like Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, South Korea, Switzerland, UK and USA. The profit incurred by the company as of 2012 was 1.233 billion European pounds. Carrefour holds a total of 361 billion pounds equi in the market.
A franchise agreement with one of the world’s largest retail chains, Carrefour, allowed Majid Al Futtaim Retail to competitively introduce the first hypermarket model to the region in 1995, providing shoppers with real variety and value.
Today, Majid Al Futtaim owns 100% of the Carrefour franchise in 38 markets across the Middle East, Africa and Asia which includes in UAE alone 21 hypermarkets followed by 31 supermarket.
Founded in France, Carrefour is one of the largest hypermarket chains in the world, and one of the popular hypermarkets in the region.
The brand ensures customer satisfaction and convenience while offering unbeatable value for money with a vast array of more than 100,000 products from home electronics and clothing, to fresh fruits from around the world and locally produced items. The Carrefour hypermarkets are the industry leaders in product selection and price guarantee, while the supermarkets are smaller in scale but still offer a great variety of products that cater to the everyday needs of the surrounding community,
Over the last 20 years, this brand has grown from strength to strength in the region, and at Majid Al Futtaim we are committed to growing it even further.
Statement of Problem
In todays present modern business market techniques business tends to move from traditional marketing method to modern relationship marketing methods. Throughout this process and strategy different components have different impacts on consumer’s satisfied. In addition to this relationship marketing and other concepts customer satisfied strategy and customer satisfied satisfaction also emerged. There are many theories and literatures that discuss about the importance of customer satisfied and how it can be implemented in a business and how to achieve a positive effect from these strategies. In this research the main purpose is to learn which factors have an impact on customer satisfaction of Carrefour. This thesis will use Carrefour as a case to investigate and discuss its customer satisfaction strategies.
Aims and objectives
The aim of this thesis is learn how Carrefour maintain customer satisfied and what kind of programs do they carry out to maintain their customers in a regular phase. How do they keep customers away from getting defected by the competitors’ products? What does the company follow to win a greater share of wallet from their customers and how do they motivate their consumers to do extra purchase from their store or brand.
The objectives of customer satisfied programs are:
• To identify strategies to enhance the overall customer satisfaction
• To compare customer satisfaction of Carrefour against Lulu.
• To evaluate the impact of product variety, assortments and promotion on customer satisfaction.
• To provide suggestions and recommendations to enhance and improve customer satisfaction
Significance of Research
Explaining the significance of this research in one statement would be a business cannot exist without customer satisfaction. Whether we have run a multinational company or a small firm customer satisfaction is very precious and valuable. Customer satisfaction can be defined as an attitude given by a consumer to buy your product or service over similar ones present in the marketplace. A strong business marketing strategy should be investing time behind customer satisfaction and it should be considered as an integral component. Business shouldn’t focus only in acquiring new customers; it shouldn’t overlook the fact of retaining its customers. Due to some factors customer satisfaction is an important factor and few of them are as follows:
Repeat business the customers who are satisficed to you would buy your product again and again overtime and it is also possible that you may sell more to the satisfacted customers more than 10 first time customers.
Greater Volume as strong relationships are built with customers it becomes easy to sell to them in higher volumes and higher volumes directly mean higher overall benefits and higher transactions.
Method
Research strategy that will be used to provide customers with surveys that has to be completed and this is how we will know how satisfied customers are with the prices and variety within Carrefour. The survey will include multiple choice questions related to how satisfied the customers are.
Research Strategy is a plan of how the research will go about answering the research questions that are set. Firstly, literature must be read and objectives should be finalized then a questionnaire will be conducted in the supermarket to know what makes customers satisfied.
I will conduct my research in Carrefour supermarket which is in Emirates Mall in Al Barsha, Dubai. Mostly customers in Carrefour supermarket will be targeted and around 20 customers will be given questionnaires with maximum of 10 questions. This will help in knowing the response of individual customers how satisfied they are with product assortment, variety, promotion and price. The questionnaires will be given to many customers and collected right away which later on will be used to analyse the data and reach to a final conclusion.
Research Methodology
It is the process that is usually used for collecting, analysing and knowing the purpose behind the research done for future business decisions. This may include questionnaires, interviews, surveys and other research techniques that could use either be primary or secondary data.
The process that is generally used for gathering, analysing and knowing the reason behind the research done for future business decisions. This might include questionnaires, interviews, surveys and other research strategies that could use either are primary or secondary data.
This study is done to investigate if the Supermarket makes the customer satisfied with the price, product variety and assortments and the area chosen for this survey are the individuals in Carrefour of Al Barsha. In this chapter we will discuss about the methods that are used to investigate this study.
The chapter defines and provide an understanding of the research methodology used in this study in an attempt to deliver efficient and comprehensive information related to the data collected.
Research is a formula of exploring, evaluating and understanding information in order to answer questions. Additionally, to attain a qualified research, the technique must have few assured and certain characteristics; it needs to be controlled.
Limitations
Towards the end of this report I the researcher gathered the data expected to give a legitimate report. Techniques included into this task are studies of the customers and some individual meeting with the chief and the representatives. Resources used as a part of this assignment are from the web, Carrefour general store, books and rest from my own experience.
The other limitation is the survey that will be conducted for this study; it is not going to be very large. The survey would be conducted for 100 people and there is always a chance that if it is conducted on 1000 number of people or more than that; there is a chance of receiving different results.
Chapter 2
Literature review
Literature review is among one of the most important chapters in this study. It is a research journey which helps in framing the questions, searching what is relevant to the context, manages the results, synthesizes the research literature and also helps in writing the assessment of the literature.
Customer satisfaction: Customer satisfaction is a perception that gauges the satisfactory level for the brand to the consumer. Customer requirements can be met by providing quality service and quality products. Business competes for customers in a competitive market and in this competition market satisfaction of the customers with the brand is most necessary thing to be considered. There are four different methods to gain the higher level of customer satisfaction, those are communicating the price to target the market, understand the customer it’s needs and wants, building it simple for every purchaser to purchase and making value for customer. Business defines customer satisfaction is the only way to make money and increase in sell can happen by having a loyal and satisfied customer base. Competition is increased because of companies going global. The growing companies plan their own strategy in consumer intended manner. According to Higgens (1997) products perveived performance can be compared to the result of a person’s feelings of disappointment or pleasure is known as satisfaction as a customer’s contentment reaction with a more prejudiced view. But Oliver (1997) stated satisfaction as a customer’s contentment reaction with a more prejudiced view. The service feature or product, or else the service or product itself, can be judged if it provide a satisfying fulfillment or level of allied consumption.
In additional precise terms, customer satisfaction is the inclusive intensity of satisfaction with a service/product experience”. As per Higgins (1997), Product achievement depends on the satisfaction and value delivered to the targeted customers.
Therefore, customer satisfaction is the contentment of the presume requirements of the consumers later than the consumption of the provided service or product as an effect of collection or combined behavior focused on the consumers. Consequently the main fact to expand the capacity of target sale and to develop marginal profit, firms should focus satisfying their consumer. Satisfaction of customers has a straight and encouraging influence on firm’s success. Therefore researcher as well as scholars stressed the significance of satisfaction of customers in theoretical literature. In the other precise words customer satisfaction is a individual reflection that joints leading the specific consumer hopes and beliefs concerning the product and service. Hence, companies should look into the desired needs of their consumers to earn more profit (Singh, 2006). Mainly when competitive advantages become main fact then strategy planners are supposed to constantly try to increase the satisfactory level of customers (Sutanto, 2009).
Service features: Service features can be determined as the quality or the customers demand allied to the factor such as regularity, frequency, reliability, location, suitability, convenience and safety (Lubbe, 2003). Amongst each and every aspects, reliability is considered as the main service feature in a tactic to increase satisfaction of customers (Smith et al., 2007) but according to al. service as well as convenience particular factors (e.g. economical interest rates) are the two essential features to gain customer satisfaction. If service benefactors not succeed to well tackle such activities, the firm may have difficult consequences. However service features be different from environment to environment. On the other hand, in view of hypermarket environment, service features such as, service advantage of assistant; background and layout are the factors that gain satisfaction of customers (Shi and Su, 2007).
Service Quality: Quality of service is a consumer insight of the level of customer expectations depending on the service (Czepiel, 1990). This is measured as the main reason for increasing satisfaction level of the customers with brand (Geetika, 2010). However the investigation of the Cronin and Taylor (1992) found customer satisfaction as the key originator. Besides satisfying customers service quality (Grzinic, 2007) also measured as a value determined for customers and a way to locate products in a vigorous background (Kaul, 2005). Considering the consumers demands concerning the products and quality of service are beneficial for the organization (Sutanto, 2002).
Future Intentions: A future intention mainly depends on the satisfactory level of the customer from previous service quality or product (Boulding et al., 1993; Soderlund and Ohman, 2003). Many researchers have found different reasons having direct negative or positive link with future intentions. According to Ewing (2000) found product or service loyalty having strong effect on purchasing different or same brand and as per Singh. (2006) product consciousness and business image improved the consumer’s future intentions. According to Fen and Khan (2010) satisfaction of customers are directly affected by the customer support intentions. Purposeful service quality and purposeful service value are having strong influence on performance intentions while purposeful service price did not affect the future intention of the consumers (Khan, 2010). Satisfaction is determined as an emotional position consequential from a consumer’s relations with a service provider on time (Cronin et al., 1992). As per Oliver (1987) satisfaction is a function of perceptive judgment of expectations subsequent to consumption with the real practice. This procedure is frequently stated to as the disconfirmation model, therefore customers make a re-purchase comparison among actual performances received and repurchase expectations (Oliver, 1987).
Positive disconfirmation occurs and leads to satisfaction when real performance surpasses prospects, while real performance prospects results in undesirable disconfirmation and unhappiness. There are two main conceptualization of satisfaction those are mentioned below: cumulative satisfaction and transaction-specific. Appraisal of cumulative satisfaction mainly depends on the organisation’s current, past, and futre service performance. Besides, transaction-specific satisfaction may present particular analytical information about a specific service performance. Many studies in the service marketing literature have assumed and validated empirically the link between customer loyalties such as customer recommendations; re-purchase intentions, usage of a service, share of wallet, and retention and satisfaction.
Numerous scholars have found that Customer Satisfaction is complicated. In general, providing consumer values is the key factor for business to satisfy their consumer requirements. It is the main factor for Customer Satisfaction of Supermarkets and hypermarkets. A promotional strategy is a type of encouragement for customers to purchase products and services. Promotional strategies can be a special package discount, coupons, bonus gifts etc. It offers an extra savings for customers, and thus makes some financial value. In other precise words, promotion value is a contrast among the real financial profits received by customers and the financial cost of the service. Numerous scholars have shown an important part of customers perceived economic value concerning future decisions as well as satisfaction. The company can frequently innovate products, and distinguish itself from rivals by applying different promotional strategies. Promotion can increase sustainable value and uniqueness to attract customers because it can be more challenging to reproduce for maintain affortable price for the consumers as well as the product quality. While defining the relationship between Customer Satisfaction and Promotion, Oliver (1993) first recommended that promotion can be the key strategy used to gain customer satisfaction. Many investigations analytically support the statement that customer satisfaction is influenced by promotional strategies. Moreover, many studies also support the progressive impact of the real expressive value of customer satisfaction. Brand image states to some characteristics, such as being friendly, reasonable, adaptable, dependable, modern, responsible to society and adaptable to the changing environment. According to Martensen et al (2000) designate this brand image as an key element of the customer satisfaction theory. While describing, Saeed, Khan and Hussain (2009) recommend that brand image, expectations and loyalty have a great influence on satisfaction. Andreassen et al (1998) suggest that brand image, through a filtering consequence, influences a consumer’s evaluation of service quality, satisfaction and value. In additional words, brand image creates a high effect on customer satisfaction. In this research, an increasing or relational level measure reflects a consumer’s overall satisfaction, and the satisfactory level of the firm represents the brand image (Bloemer et al 1988). As such, brand image has been imagined to have a important, optimistic influence on customer satisfaction. The elements of the customer satisfaction are hypothesized in this research. They are as: hedonic benefits, brand image, customer values of functional benefits. These functional benefits talks about the instrumental, practical and functional benefits of consumption offerings (Perreault and MacCathy, 2005).
Product variety and assortments
Product variety and assortments are vital in any supermarket because the more the customer have choices to choose from the more satisfied the customer is and needs are. People need to know about the products and be persuaded to buy it. It is the act of spreading awareness of larger variety of products than its competitors. There are 4P’s in marketing mix which are price, place, product and promotion. Customers get to know about place and products through advertisement, posters and displays. Short term sales are helpful to make customer aware of place in the market which uses competition and contests to market their product. This helps in maximizing the customer’s satisfaction and results in higher sales and market share.
Supermarkets have a wide range of imported food and non-food product assortments and variety with different types of items. It became a stronger competitor with smart, effective and more personalized variety. Activities like points based loyalty programs and coupons make the relationship between the supermarket and the customers even stronger.
Brunner and Mason (1968) investigated the importance of driving time upon the preferences of consumers towards regional shopping centers. They expressed that although it is recognized that population, purchasing power, population density, newspaper circulation, and other factors are influential in determining the shopping habits of consumers, a factor which is generally overlooked is the driving time required to reach the center. In this study, it was established that the driving time required to reach a center is highly influential in determining consumer shopping center preferences. The most consistent and significant driving time dimension in delineating shopping center trade areas was found at the 15-minute driving points, as three-fourths of each center’s shoppers resided within this range.
Jackson, Stoel and Brantley (2011) in their paper expressed that the customer segments seek out relevant shopping venues based on their shopping wants and needs. Knowledge of the preferences of distinct consumer groups is useful in the development of marketing communications, as well as for designing mall configurations that are likely to generate patronage and repatronage due to the value creating potential. Advertising materials could express the specific attributes the mall has to offer to the cohorts comprising its customer base, either by gender, generation, or both. When a retailer or mall owner finds that a large segment of its consumers are from particular segments (e.g. generation, gender), the company can focus segment relevant ways to facilitate and promote a shopping experience that will drive shopping value and create potential.
Defining product assortment and variety
Product assortment is the different types of products lines and items that a business makes or a retailer offers for sale. Product assortment consists of the following characteristics:
• Breadth: The breadth of a company’s products relates to the number of product lines a company produces or a retailer carries.
• Length: This refers to the number of products in a particular product chain or line.
• Depth: A product line’s depth relates to the different versions of the same product that may exist in each product line.
• Consistency: Consistency is the degree to which the product lines relate to each other.
Variety is basically a number of different types of things, especially the once in the same general category.
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Techniques that can lead customers to shop again at Carrefour
We all know every company has competitors but supermarkets like Carrefour are heavily competitive by rival supermarkets, it is tough to be in the market and not easy thing to make customers come back to shop. This is where product assortment and variety comes, loyal customers shop again because what people get in Carrefour are the brands and products which are mostly not available in other supermarkets. Also there is a section of non-halal products in some of theCarrefouroutlets; this too attracts non-Muslims to come at Carrefour again.
What makes customers shop again is not only because of the variety and price but also the place, how convenient it’s for customers to access the outlet, the availability of parking space, cleanliness, return policies and conditions, friendly and helpful staff, staff having basic knowledge about products, items displacement, payment options these all things also do matters in customer satisfaction and can also help Carrefour get loyal customers. Putting offers and promotions can help get more loyal customers and if they like the environment and products, most probably customer would like to shop again.
Secondly Carrefour can make an online grocery website which can be very helpful for potential customers, like this customer doesn’t need to drive or walk to the Supermarket but instead customer can get the things wanted at doorstep by home delivery and also by having an website customer doesn’t need to hassle around to find the item he/she wanted in Supermarket, they can simply search it in search box in website. These techniques can surely make customers to shop again at Carrefour.
Promotion
Promotion is a term used frequently in marketing and is one of the market mix elements. It refers to raising customer awareness of a product or brand, generating sales, and creating brand loyalty. It is one of the four basic elements of the market mix, which includes the four P’s: price, product, promotion, and place.
Promotion is one of the strategies used by companies in order to draw customer’s and fill the aim of the organization. This research will focus on the impact of promotional strategies to gain customer satisfaction. In the framework of the marketing mix, promotion signifies the various characteristics of marketing communication, which is creating a positive response of the product in customers mind. Promotion signifies all the communication strategies that are inserted by a marketer in market place.
These communication strategies may include radio, TV and print advertising, as well as billboards, coupons, online advertising and direct mail. One of the less precise parts in promotion is the part of a human sales force. Besides, customers can buy the product only when sold by the support of a well-known salesperson. This perceived service of the product can be stated as the main feature of the product (Perreault and MacCathy,2005).
Promotion is also defined as one of five pieces in the promotional mix or promotional plan. These are personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, and publicity. A promotional mix specifies how much attention to pay to each of the five factors, and how much money to budget.
Promotion covers the methods of communication that a marketer uses to provide information about it’s product. Information can be both verbal and visual.
There are three objectives of promotion. These are:
1. To present information to consumers and others.
2. To increase demand.
3. To differentiate a product.
The purpose of a promotion and thus its promotional plan can have a wide range, including: sales increases, new product acceptance, creation of brand equity, positioning, competitive retaliations, or creation of a corporate image.The term ‘promotion’ tends to be used internally by the marketing function. To the public or the market, phrases like “special offer” are more common. Examples of some fully integrated promotion are deal of the day, part time sale, crazy deals etc.
Promotion has many elements those can be well considered while implementing. Such as:
1) Advertising: Advertising the product or explaining the brand features can be considered as attracting customers and creating a high trademark image to them. Advertisements can be done through many ways, TV, Radio, Billboards, Transports, Banners in shopping malls, Newspaper and social media etc. Highlighting the special collections and the quality of the product in such Ads can easily attract customers.
2) Personal selling: The verbal communication between the purchasers and the sales person is known as personal selling. Personal selling has a great impact on fulfilling the target sales. Sales person are recruited to deal with the customer and make them understand about the usefulness of particular product or service. Sales person are also necessary to provide customers with detailed knowledge about the product. Way of communication of the sales person should be considered in case of personal selling.
3) Sales promotion: This special feature of promotion strategy can be used to target buyers, create an incentive for purchase, respond to special occasions. Sales promotion can be targeted towards consumers. This strategy can be used as “Buy 1 get 1 free”, bundle packs and special discounts on large pack buying.
4) Internet marketing: Internet marketing can be considered as one of the dominant strategy applied by the multinational companies. Nowadays people are addicted to social media and internet. People like to browse online webpage than visiting stores directly to check variety and range of products. Internet can be used to promote products and advertise variously to attract customers. Internet plays an important role to be one of the communications programs. Social media, internet webpages, blogs, journals, video servers etc can be used for promotion and internet marketing.
5) Public Relations: Public realations is an organisation’s communications that seek to build good relationships with an organisation’s publics, including consumers, stockholders and legislators. It includes obtaining favorable publicity, building up a good “corporate image.” And handling or heading off unfavorable rumors, stories and events. Publicity is unpaid communication about an organisation that appears in the mass media. Public relations may consist of writing press releases, holding special events, conducting and publishing consumer surveys about a product or the company, and efforts to put a positive spin or negative company news. Unlike sales promotions public relations activities do not usually seek a short-term increase in sales. Instead, they try to craft a long-term positive image for the product or the organization. Compared with personal selling, advertising, and sales promotions, expenditures for public relations are usually low in most organisations. Since companies do not pay for publicity, they have less control over the publications for good or bad company news. But this often means that consumers find this type of news source more believable than if the information were disseminated directly by the company.
6) Direct marketing: Direct marketing also plays an important role for the promotional strategy of a business. Catalogs, telemarketing, direct mail, direct phone call/messages can be used to promote the brand products to the consumers (Perreault and MacCathy, 2005).
Chapter 3
Research Philosophy
Research philosophy is known as the outermost layer of the research onion. It is characterized in to epistemology and ontology. Epistemology is complicated through the viewpoint of knowledge. Usually it is well-defined such as “Knowledge that” by means of comparing to “Knowledge how” (Fleetwood and Ackroyd, 2009). While doing the theoretical study philosophy it compacts with the matter regarding how information is resulting and how it is supposed to be verified or legalized. However, Ontology is mainly a logical philosophy studying the ordinary presence of something (Audi, et al, 2005).
As per Wilson (2013) research philosophy is a faith regarding collecting of data, analyzing of data, and interpreting the data needed. The core of research philosophy lies in these mentioned processes. Different kinds of research philosophy lies in these mentioned processes. Different kinds of research philosophy have been described in research onion. Furthermost key ones are interpretative, objectivist, Realism, Subjectivist, pragmatism, radical humanistic, radical structuralist and functionalist.
As per the topic, Overall Customer Satisfaction on Carrefour in relation to product assortment, variety and promotion, Interpretive is deliberated to be more in effect because interpretive research consisted of subjective social reality. The philosophy of interpretive research is every person has different sense and ideas and considering them to the final result is the reality. However, in an interpretative research it is entirely constructed on the preferences as well as investigation of the researcher but positivism is constructed on the statement that “reality exits independently of the thing being studied” (Hale et al, 2013)
The Research Approach:
After philosophy the next layer in the research onion is research approach. The research approach is constructed based on the scheme of research study. The research approaches are of two types mentioned below: Inductive, Deductive.
According to Collins (2010) Deductive approach is consisted of raising a hypothesis and a theory and to develop a research strategy to outcome hypothesis but, Inductive approach is constructed with the development of new theories by developing from the data collected. On other hand quantitative data cannot be indicated as a quantity and cannot be calculated.
According to our research objectives are based, using the combination of deductive and inductive approach is deliberated to be more in effect. Using both deductive and inductive method can balance the control of one type of approach in this research.
According to Glase (2014) applying both deductive along with induction approach is deliberated as a considerable fact in interpretive research.
Research Strategies:
According to Breckon (2004) there are various types of strategies that a researcher can select for precise investigation. Research strategies mainly depend on the researcher and the type of research. Those strategies are case studies, surveys, experiment, action research, grounded theory, archival research and ethnography.
Investigational research implicates the strategy of generating investigation process that will evaluate the outcome of a research in contradiction of the expected outcome while action research is defined “as a practical approach to specific research problem within a community of practice” (Woszczynski et al, 2004).
Though, in this certain research all the information and data is collected from Carrefour, and distributing the questionnaires to the customers and individual/group interviews. Amongst all other approaches survey is most appropriate for this research.
Research Methodology:
Methodology is the technique that can be utilized to collect information. Research methodology used to support work and strategies utilized as a part, in order to collect data. Collecting quantitative information is measuring variables and confirming existing hypotheses or theories or addressing them. Information is regularly used to produce new hypotheses based on the data collected about different variables. And quantitative information is additionally collected in accordance with certain analysis vehicles and underlying analysis questions. Even the production of numbers is guided by the varieties of questions asked of the topics, thus is basically subjective, though it seems less thus than qualitative analysis information. There are 2 main pes of strategies which are quantitative research and subjective research.
• Quantitative research is used to produce statistics results and it is also important to survey a large number of people so that it’s fair and it’s a representative sample for target market.
• Qualitative research is an open ended interview. It is valuable when new products are developing in the market and want to test reactions of the customers. In this research opinions of the people matter to understand their feeling and to get to know about their thinking.
The method that is used in this survey are both quantitative and qualitative since it is logical and easy way of collecting information from people to make a final decision but is followed by both methods to explore further.
Process of the Research Methodology.
In this study we need to consider the process required for this research. Here, this research methodology has steps which are:
Choices of data:
Data choice mainly depends on the type of research. There are three different types of data such as, mixed method, mono method and multi method. In mono method the researcher can use only one method of data in the research. Mixed method is used to use both quantitative and qualitative methods. Multi method is used to apply several methods in a particular research (Jackson et al, 2012).
As per our research objectives are based on so using mixed method is appropriate for this research. Mixed method will benefit the researcher to collect both qualitative and quantitative data for Carrefour.
Time Horizon:
Time horizon is known as the structure within which the research project is supposed to be concluded. Time horizon can be of two different type, such as longitudinal and cross-sectional.
Cross-sectional time horizon involves the study of particular topic at a specific time. Cross-sectional takes less time and this allows the researcher to complete the whole research in a shot pan of time. Longitudinal time horizon included the collection many times and it takes more time for the researcher to complete the research (Carrol, 2010).
According to this research Cross sectional time horizon is appropriate because this research needs to be completed in a very short time.
Techniques and procedures:
Techniques and procedures is mainly how a researcher plan out the steps to collect the data/information needed to finally prove a result based on the topic and research questions. The validity of the research depends on the process of this stage in a particular research (Jupp and Sapsford, 2006).
Population of Internet:
Population of interest is the main part of a research project. Researcher should target a specific population those who will be distributed the questionnaires and involve in the surveys conducted. This step includes the people of a specific age, gender, children, nationalities etc. Population is differentiated in two categories; Accessible population and target population. Accessible population can be used by the researcher by the researcher to apply the research conclusions with their opinions. But, target population involves individuals to whom the research is conducted (Lowery and Grey, 2000).
As the research is based on, hence the study will be conducted on the customers visiting Carrefour in MOE (Mall of the Emirates)
But, conducting the research on all customers may be tough for the research to compete the research in short time. So, the researcher will use sample techniques to consume less time to conduct the research.
Data Collection Method:
Data collection technique is used to complete the study in an operative or in well-organised tactic. Data collection is divided into two parts such as, Primary data and secondary data.
Primary data is the data collected by the researcher through questionnaires, surveys, personal interviews etc. Primary data includes both qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative data is known as the case studies, and personal interviews. Quantitative data is collected from surveys, and questionnaires.
The data conducted by other scholars/researchers can be collected from articles, newspapers, blogs, and different research papers etc. is known as secondary data (Pawar et al, 2004).
As per the research topic using the primary method would be more effective. But, according to Pawar (2013) using both primary and secondary data makes it easy for the researcher to test the validity of research.

You are the nursing representative on a working group that is providing advice to a Maternal and Child Health Centre on implementing a program designed to prevent infant sleep problems and postnatal depression. You volunteer to search the literature and find the following article:
Hiscock, H., Cook, F., Bayer, J., Le, H. N., Mensah, F., Cann, W., Symon, B., and St James-Roberts, I. (2014). Preventing Early Infant Sleep and Crying Problems and Postnatal Depression: A Randomized Trial. Pediatrics, 133(2), e346-e354. doi: 10.1542/peds.2013-1886
You wonder if the article is any good and whether the approach they take would be useful and suitable for your Maternal and Child Health Centre.
The aim of this assignment is for students to critically appraise a selected published randomised controlled trial (RCT) and to apply what is found to a clinical scenario. Students are required to complete the following activities.
Summarise the provided study using the PICOT framework
Critically appraise the validity of the study using an established framework • Explain the primary study results
Relate appraised study evidence to the clinical scenario

I DO NOT HAVE A COPY OF THE BOOK
Guidelines for the Essay Assignment:Read the book: Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882, by RogerDaniels. Answer the following questions based ONLY on the book: 1.Discuss the attitudes toward immigration of both politicians and the public prior to the Civil War.2.Explain the major changes in immigration policy from 1882-1965. Include the reasons (political, social,or both) for those policies, and the consequences of those policies.3.According to the author, what influence did 9/11 have on immigration policies? Does he offer implications or suggestions for the future? Writing the paper: 1.In the upper left hand corner, include your name, class time, and date. This should be single spaced. 2.Include a title, centered on the page. (DO NOT include a title page)3.Use 12 point font, left alignment for the main body of your text. The body should bedouble-spaced. 4.You must include an introduction, no more than one page, and a thesis statement. Here, you want to introduce the topic, you can use information from the book itself or your textbook. 5.You must have a conclusion. 6.Your paper must be at least 5 full pages. 7.Use quotations sparingly, you should have no more than 4 in your paper. Each quotationMUST be cited. (i think the best place to start is the chap twelve and the epilogue to the answer to the question number 3
i will do the first page.

Module 4 – Case
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND CULTURE
Assignment Overview
The format of this case differs from the previous three modules and resembles more closely the format of assignments you will see in many of your courses going forward. This is not to say that you should abandon what you have learned about the analytical process of alternating between the abstract and the concrete, the reflective and the active, but this paper will not follow the format of a section on concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. Each of these aspects of analysis should be present, but integrated into the paper as a whole, rather than broken out into distinct sections.
The topic of this case is organizational design. To complete this assignment, we will begin as before, and you should identify an organization you know very well. Then conduct your analysis by addressing the topics below. Do not line up the questions and address them one at a time as in a short-answer test, but rather integrate them into a single coherent commentary and analysis of the organization. A critical part of successful completion of this assignment is for you to demonstrate your ability to employ the concepts introduced in the background material in describing and evaluating the effectiveness of the organizational design. To do this, you will need to draw on the concepts from at least three readings/videos. This paper should be minimum 4 pages long.
Case Questions:
1. Diagram the formal structure of your organization. Identify the various management positions or titles on the chart and indicate the positions/jobs that would report to each. Identify the various management positions or titles on the chart and indicate the positions/jobs that would report to each.
SmartDraw.com (https://cloud.smartdraw.com/) provides free examples, though others are also available via Google. PowerPoint also has templates for organizational charts you can use.
2. Describe how work is divided (specialization and departmentalization), coordinated (chain of command and span of control), and controlled (centralization and formalization). Is the structure more mechanistic or organic?
3. Describe the informal structure of the organization. How does work actually get done?
4. How does the organization deal with the differentiation-integration issue?
5. Having completed this analysis, identify three strengths and three weaknesses of the organizational design.
6. If you could suggest one major improvement to the organizational design, what would it be?
Assignment Expectations
Your paper will be evaluated using the criteria as stated in the Case rubric. The following is a review of the rubric criteria:
• Assignment-Driven: Does the paper fully address all aspects of the assignment? Is the assignment addressed accurately and precisely using sound logic? Does the paper meet minimum length requirements?
• Critical Thinking: Does the paper demonstrate graduate-level analysis, in which information derived from multiple sources, expert opinions, and assumptions has been critically evaluated and synthesized in the formulation of a logical set of conclusions? Does the paper address the topic with sufficient depth of discussion and analysis?
• Business Writing: Is the essay logical, well organized and well written? Are the grammar, spelling, and vocabulary appropriate for graduate-level work? Are section headings included? Are paraphrasing and synthesis of concepts the primary means of responding, or is justification/support instead conveyed through excessive use of direct quotations?
• Effective Use of Information: Does the submission demonstrate that the student has read, understood and can apply the background materials for the module? If required, has the student demonstrated effective research, as evidenced by student’s use of relevant and quality (library?) sources? Do additional sources used provide strong support for conclusions drawn, and do they help in shaping the overall paper?
• Citing Sources: Does the student demonstrate understanding of APA Style of referencing, by inclusion of proper citations (for paraphrased text and direct quotations) as appropriate? Have all sources (e.g., references used from the Background page, the assignment readings, and outside research) been included, and are these properly cited? Have all sources cited in the paper been included on the References page?