Visual culture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Visual culture - Essay Example They also play a big role in deciding what kind of attitude we develop for our values and how we manage and develop social relationships in practical terms. While different visual media have been examined independently, â€Å"there is now a need to interpret the postmodern globalization of the visual as everyday life† (Mirzoeff, 1999, p. 3). The power of visuality is enormous in many aspects. It is an undeniable reality that visual culture specifically visual imagery in the form of different advertisements, comics, television plays, and internet has a lot to do with almost all actions we take in everyday life which is why contemporary culture is widely considered to be a visual culture. â€Å"Visual culture does not depend on pictures themselves but the modern tendency to picture or visualize existence† (Mirzoeff, 1999, p. 5). The ability to interpret visual information is so remarkable that it is claimed to serve as â€Å"the basis of industrial society and is becomin g even more important in the information age† (Mirzoeff, 1999, p. 5). ... In fact this interaction is so huge in terms of internet used and television daily watched etc. that one cannot remain oblivious to it. This essay is primarily based on contemplating the effects produced by visual images on managing behavior, values, and relationships. Throughout this essay I will discuss the role played by modern technology in our daily lives and explore multiple ways in which visual imagery prompts us and restricts us to perform any activity or in any social relation basically identifying the benefits offered by visual images. I will also make use of examples augmenting my argument to discuss how and why visual culture holds such fundamental importance in our lives presently. General consensus is that visual images form a rich and dense source of cultural information and encode the obvious relationship between culture and behavior management. The trend towards dominance of image continues to foment with the rise of visual reality and the Internet â€Å"combined wi th the global popularity of television, videotape, and film† (Mirzoeff, 1999, p. 9). A culture dominated by visual has often been criticized to be second-rate and this criticism has long history â€Å"for there always has been a hostility to visual culture in Western thought. All such criticism implies that a visually dominated culture must be impoverished or even schizophrenic† (Mirzoeff, 1999, pp. 9-10). Presence of visual images is so profound now thanks to the Internet facility available everywhere at quite cheap rates that many systems have started depending solely on different visual mediums. â€Å"Internet has come to function as a commodity-delivery system for vastly expanded media companies† (Stratton, cited in Nakamura, 2007, p. 3). It is true that some visual images

Cultural Makeup Of China Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Cultural Makeup Of China - Essay Example It is essential to outline that there is a significant set of cultural features affecting the business behavior in China. China has a record population of more than 1.3 billion citizens (Fabbi 8). Due to hardworking nature of the Chinese society, a large portion of their population is involved the daily business operations. Based on this, Chinese have been putting most their cultural business practices into use. In addition, fifty-six (56) ethnic groups are officially recognized in the country. These ethnic groups include the Han and Zhuang. The Chinese culture and civilization has been influenced by three main religious movements, which are Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism. In this sense, China’s prominent religions thus include Islam, Christianity and Buddhism (Alon 24). The country’s demographic values reveal that about 10% of China’s population lives on $1 a day (Fabbi 30). This small value has resulted into most Chinese doing their best to excel in business. 91.51% of the Chinese people belong to the Han ethnic group (Fabbi 12). Of the remaining 55 ethnic groups, only one has a population of over of 1%. This is the Zhuang ethnic group. In essence, the Han ethnic group creates the largest business oriented population in the country. In terms of religion, 2% of the country’s population is made up of Muslim while the Christian population stands between 3.2% and 5%. Additionally, Buddhism is practiced by 10% to 18% of the Chinese population. Lastly, 30% of the Chinese practice local folk religions. Since China is an atheist, it officially does not survey its people based on religion. On this regard, the Chinese culture does not consider religion to be of any effect on their respective business behaviors (Fabbi 128). The other sets of crucial Chinese cultural characteristics in business are about prosperous entertainment. A key part of China’s business culture is that evening banquets are

History And Background Of Amazon Marketing Essay

History And Background Of Amazon Marketing Essay There are so many reasons for adopting mergers and acquisitions strategies in companies. However, in general, the main reason for takeovers is company is seeking improvement in its financial performance. Mergers and acquisition take place when company takeover its potential competitors to reduce its competition and try to increase or gain market shares in the market. Another reason could be because of the company want to branch out its brand name either into related or unrelated area to increase its size. To gain another companys resources, operation technology or its brand name so that it would be more secure when entering new markets or introduce new products, could be one of the reasons for adopting mergers and acquisitions in business (OHara, 2012). Kraft foods is the second largest food company after Nestle in the world and it produces chocolate, candy, biscuits, gum, coffee and powdered beverages. It is trying to become a world leader in snacking environment with good quality products. The significant acquisition and divestitures of this company are the purchase of Cadbury which is a British confectionary company on June 2010 and the sale of its frozen-pizza business to Nestle on March 2010 and the author will be going to present about why the company did acquisition and divestment. First of all, according to the CEO of Kraft, the reason for Kraft buying Cadbury Company is to make it big its brand name into the foreign markets such as India and Brazil as the Cadbury has already had its brand image in those markets (Namazi, 2010). Furthermore, the intention of the acquisition of Cadbury was to present Kraft a strong presence in confectionary and chocolates business and to develop their snack products power across the globe and to expand its company portfolio. Secondly, no doubt every business has to face competition in its respective area. Especially when it comes to foods company, there are so many rival companies either local companies or international companies that the company is going to face. Cadbury is a British iconic brand of confectionary and it probably would be rivals for Kraft foods too if Kraft wouldnt decide to acquire. But as Kraft foods acquired the Cadbury, not only Kraft foods gain the place in confectionary products but also they enter the Euro markets and it has less competition in confectionary products area. After Kraft and Cadbury joined together, according to Jones (2010), Nestle, which is the worlds largest food group as well as always holds the first or second places in all food categories, falls to the third place in chocolate world after Mars-Wrigley and Kraft-Cadbury. Last but not least, Ruddick (2010) states that another reason of acquiring Cadbury is Kraft foods is trying to grow its product broadly in market, expand its product range and to become world leading brands in sweets, chocolate and chewing gum. Cadbury itself has achieved a great product quality and brand image in chocolate world as well as Kraft foods itself has got its brand name in the snacking environment such as Ritz, Oreo cookies. With those products, Kraft foods has achieved fairly in peoples taste and already has a firm position in the biscuit market though it is still weak in chocolate field. However, with the Cadbury besides dominating the top positions in chocolate field is no longer a problem for Kraft and even this would make Kraft to become one of the leadership in chocolate brands. However, there had been a divestment of one of its own pizza business to its rival Nestle Company just before Kraft foods acquired Cadbury on early 2010. In the financial news release of Kraft on Jan 2010, the company announced it agreed to sell its frozen pizza business to Nestle. The reason for this divestment is the company want to focus on the products which can take international markets place swiftly and effectively. Unlike confectionery products, frozen foods are not easy to deliver across the globe efficiently and it would delay the goal of Kraft which is to become the largest food company worldwide. Andrejczak (2010) outlines that owing to a thought it could get a bit closer to purchasing Cadbury, the Kraft foods sold its frozen pizza business to its largest competitor, Nestle. Both in a sense to waste the Nestlà ©s competition power in bidding the Cadbury and also in one that it could get money to raise for the Cadbury bid. Birchall (2010) as well as in the Financial News release of Kraft mention that it is clear that Ms Rosenfeld, the CEO of Kraft, is keener to focus on confectionery products which have high profit margin and can be marketed globally rather than frozen pizza business which is limited global potential and Kraft is trying to boost its company profit and gain its brand name in everywhere. Thus, the company is prepared to get rid of its lower margin and low growth business to sharpen its products portfolio in emerging markets plus global markets. This is one of the reasons why Kraft sold its frozen pizza business to Nestle. Amazon.com Inc Amazon.com Inc is established on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and it is the largest electronic commerce company to date where customers can buy almost everything they can imagine online and the company is always trying to provide the lowest possible prices to its customers. On March 2012, Kiva Systems Inc agreed to be acquired by Amazon.com Inc for $775 million in cash and it is the second biggest takeover of Amazon. Kiva Systems Inc. is the manufacturer of robots that move around warehouses, grabbing and moving shelves and crates full of products. On the report of Barr (2012), it is cited that the reason of Amazon takeover Kiva is that the acquisition of Kiva took place when Amazon adds a lot of new distribution centres in recent years to service its rapidly growing business. Dave Clark, the vice president of Amazon of global customer fulfilment said in a statement that Amazon has long used automation in its fulfilment centres, and Kivas technology is another way to improve productivity by bringing the products directly to employees to pick, pack and stow. Therefore, Kiva warehousing technology is making retailers fulfil online orders quickly and with fewer workers. The author also believes that the competition within rival companies is one of the motives for Amazon to buy Kiva systems. Kiva is an innovative product and since Amazon acquired Kiva, the company is supporting Kiva systems to get the best methods to provide a better service in coming years. To cope with its rival companies such as eBay or Apple which are largest companies in e-commerce fields, the company has to be more innovative in technology operation and always has to find an efficient system to delivering the products to its customers in much better way than its rivals. Kiva technology is helping not only to simplify the tasks but also reduce cost while maximising flexibility of the warehouses tasks from receiving orders to picking the products to shipping to stay ahead of its rivals. Finally, another reason for buying Kiva is to reduce costs. According to Trefis Team (2012), Amazons earning with revenues was up 29% year after year, reaching to $12.83 billion in the second quarter of 2012 report of Amazon. Most of its revenue was coming from the increasing sales of general merchandise and electronics. It increased 34% in international markets and around 41% in the North American markets. On the other hand, the operating margins of Amazon were remarkably declined because of the margin pressures as it has been spending money on its expansion of fulfilment centres continuously in recent years to enable to carry on its rapid growth of business. Since the company is a retail business and furthermore it is growing rapidly, it needs a large amount of storing place to hold the different types of goods. It is not very easy task to do for labour in locating the goods in the warehouse and carry the correct goods swiftly and efficiently whereas the robots can easily identify the goods with bar codes. Thus, by using Kivas automated warehousing technology systems at the warehouses, things will get done faster than before and it will boost the speed of productivity which will lead to reduce the cost of company. Another acquisition of Amazon that the author is going to present is Zappos. Zappos is online shoes and apparel retailer which has become a leader in online market giving the best possible service to its customers. Zappos agreed to be acquired by Amazon on July 2009. All the reasons, that are going to present about why Amazon acquired Zappos by the author, are referred to YouTube video from (07272009july, 2009) Jeff Bezos about Amazon and Zappos. The reason why Amazon interested in Zappos is that Zappos is unique. Jeff Bezos said in the video that Zappos has a unique culture that no one has and it is a very significant asset. It has its own reputation, brand representation and its employees and it is the main reason for Zappos to maintain its brand since it has gained the customer trust and known as the customer based business. Amazon is customer based business and so does Zappos. As both businesses go to the same direction and focus on giving the best service to their customers, it is important for both companies to give customers a good representation of their products. Jeff Bezos also said that Zappos is under the great hands of great leadership. It can be one of the reasons why Amazon acquired Zappos because it is not easy to find good leaders though it is easy to find an achieved business. An Achieve business cannot secure a good future but good leaders can promise a bright future. In this case, the author would say it is a bonus for Amazon since it acquired Zappos which is under the great leadership with a good brand image in its market area at present and with a lot of potential growth ahead in the future. Another reason could be that not only Zappos has great leaders it is also connected to Amazon for being a customer obsessed company. In addition, there are even more amazing things. Because of the images of both Amazon and Zappos, it will affect greatly on Amazon which is also a customer based and at the same time Zappos image will also be greatly affected since Amazon is one of the most achieving online retailer businesses which means it has broad market. When Amazon merged with Zappos, they can approach customers from both sides which double the customer, make the companies to enter the market broadly and expand their existing business. As synergy which is two plus two equal five, both companies have good image and good service in their respective areas and thus, joining and participating companies together can enhance the value and brand of both companies in the market positions. Furthermore, both companies can share their strategies, technologies and operation experiences as the best as they could to achieve both brands reputation and services and even grow faster in the market. Part 2: Key Opportunity Kraft foods Kraft sold its own frozen pizza business and made a far wider move in confectionery area by acquiring Cadbury. Both Kraft and Cadbury already have their own brands, values and customers in snacking markets. In addition, early this year, Kraft- Cadbury has established a new research and development centre in Birmingham. It is an opportunity to explore new product technology and new product development and best practices for its brands. Besides, there are plenty of things they can do together. They can share the ways they operate, create new ideas for product design and explore new tastes for its customers to gain customers attraction. Together they can make more innovative products not only to expand its products range but also to compete with its rivals. Therefore, they both have opportunities to enter new emerging markets together bringing new products and dominate the confectionery market in the upcoming years. Amazon As Amazon acquired Kiva robotic warehousing systems, there will be a great impact on labour in the future. Manual workers will be being replaced by robots which means, this will lead reduction in labour cost in coming years and thus, the annual labour costs for the company will decline in the upcoming future. Instead of labour costs, the company will only have to pay for the maintaining cost of the system. However, the initial planting cost for folding the system into Amazon will probably be quite a big cost for the company, even so Amazon has bought Kiva which means it buy its own product to enhance the system so there will be not much cost compared to buying external supplier. According to Stynes (2011), $2.4 million was spent by Amazon in installing air conditioners in four of its warehouses due to the collapse of workers by high temperature in summer. In the warehouses that use Kiva system need only a few workers and Kiva robots dont need the same level of climate control, meaning that Amazon can reduce its overhead cost. As not like human workers, Kiva robots can work without light (Madrigal, 2012) and this is another lightning overheard that Amazon can reduce and boost its profit margin. Nevertheless, if Amazon planned to replace the Kiva system once and for all, Amazon could face a pinch. Not only it is going to cost a big amount of initial cost but also the labour turnover cost. The biggest problem may be concerned with redundancy. Firing labour might combine and bring the Amazon a protest since it holds a considerable amount of labour. So the government will not stay still and the governmental involvement must be considered too.

Examine the way that the two scenes from the Sixth Sense are presented

The intriguing supernatural thriller, Sixth Sense, combines a mixture of honesty and deception to create a film which is renowned as having one of the most unpredictable and satisfying endings, at least in recent cinema. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, the film reveals the tortured existence of Cole, a very unique little boy, cursed with a unique but sinister gift, a sixth sense - the ability to see the dead. Haunted by these apparitions since birth and unable to share his troubles for fear of suspicion of his insanity, Cole struggles under the burden of his gift, leaving him disturbed and isolated from those around him until the more obvious signs of his mental turmoil begin to appear in his behaviour. However, shortly after a violent attack on a successful child psychologist, his life unexpectedly takes a turn for the better in the form of disheartened psychologist Dr Crowe, who conveniently appears on the scene. After developing a trusting repor between himself and Cole, Dr Crowe is able assist Cole in overcoming his terrifying haunting by the restless souls of the dead, in what initially occurs as the conclusion But after being comfortable in the knowledge that we too are aware of all the factors in play (through the dramatic irony in which all characters but ourselves and Dr Crowe are unaware of Cole's gift) the audience is again plunged into uncertainty as the plot truly culminates in a dramatic twist, in which it is uncovered, that, perversely, Dr Crowe is himself a lingering soul from beyond the grave. In a film in which the plot is based almost entirely on our own assumptions, the Director has ingeniously crafted body language, facial expression and the specific use of particular camera shots and angles to create the vi... ...iences in the film. Characteristics such as being invisible, unheard and being unable to communicate are simply not apparent in Dr Crowe. Techniques including the use of specific camera angles and shots, body language and facial expression are used not only to manipulate the audience to believe that he visible etc, but also to create empathy and understanding with the character, so that he is trusted implicitly and the audience will accept at ?face value? his existence because he is so close to humanity, especially in comparison to other ghosts within the film. Throughout the audience is given only a snapshot of the bigger picture and only from the particular angle that the Director wishes them to view it from and it is this ability to manipulate the perceptions and feelings of the audience that make such a deception possible.

Warehousing and Logistics

This spreadsheet package will help you implement the principles in  Achieving Effective Inventory Management. Completely updated and expanded, this third edition of the spreadsheets features the newly designed Inventory Performance Simulator, which combines the analysis performed by several of the previous spreadsheets. The spreadsheet package includes a CD-ROM, sample print-outs and detailed instructions for use. You’ll find the following easy-to-use spreadsheets: Spreadsheet 1: The Inventory Performance SimulatorThis spreadsheet allows you to perform forecasting, replenishment, and investment analysis on up to100 items at a time by loading your data into a single worksheet. Areas of analysis include: †¢ Differentiating types of usage. †¢ For items with recurring usage, identify the best forecast formula from among nine methods preloaded into the spreadsheet; calculate the forecast and suggested replenishment parameters. †¢ For items with sporadic usage, calc ulate normal quantity sold/used in one transaction as well as minimum and maximum quantities. Compare your current inventory value, turnover and return on investment to potential â€Å"ideal† values. You can then see how varying safety stock and other parameters will affect your service level and inventory investment. †¢ Employ user maintained controls to smooth out unusually high or low usage. †¢ Graphically review the history and suggested replenishment parameters of a specific item comparing the results of all 11 forecasting methods. †¢ Compare the current and potential values of these key metrics: †¢ Inventory turnover †¢ Turn/earn index †¢ Gross margin return on investment Adjusted gross margin (i. e. , gross margin considering your average inventory investment) †¢ Percentage of excess inventory †¢ Planned excess (what vendors force you to buy in excess of what you need). Spreadsheet 2: Price Break (Item) If a vendor offers you a l ower price per piece for a larger purchase quantity, is it a good deal? This spreadsheet will help you make an intelligent decision. It compares the lower cost per piece to the cost of carrying inventory for a longer period of time. It also takes into account the lower reordering cost per unit resulting from the purchase of larger quantities.The price break that provides the lowest Total Cost/Piece represents the â€Å"best buy† quantity. Spreadsheet 3: Price Break (Vendor Line) This spreadsheet compares the discount you will receive to the cost of carrying each purchase quantity for the length of time necessary to sell the entire amount (based on your current overall forecast for the vendor line). The result is a calculation of how much each dollar’s worth of inventory will cost when you consider both the discount and carrying cost. The lower the cost of a dollar’s worth of material, the better the deal.Spreadsheet 4: Price Break (Terms/Freight) With this sprea dsheet, you will be able to consider freight, terms discounts and extended terms to decide which of three entered purchase quantities represents your â€Å"best buy† quantity. Spreadsheet 5: Value of Lost Inventory This spreadsheet determines the amount of additional sales your company must generate to make up for the value of material that is lost, stolen or otherwise unusable. Each of the spreadsheets is provided on a single CD-ROM, along with hard copies of the spreadsheets, and detailed instructions, all packaged in a sturdy binder.

Evolution of Games

Evolution of video games Did you know that there are seven generations of video games so far? Video games have evolved for many years. I will be explaining to you all about: The first conception of video games, the mid-development of video games, and the video games of today. Knowing About What Started it All Video games have come a long way in terms of graphics and sound technology. Although video games didn’t exist a hundred years ago, the enhancement in graphics and sound technology revolutionized on what people think of video games today.Unlike what you see in video games today that has amazing 3D and realistic graphics and sounds, it all started out with a video game called the Computer Space. This video game was released by Nutting Associates in 1970 and was the first coin-operated arcade video game. In 1972, the Odyssey 100 video game system was introduced. This particular video game can be attached to a standard television to display the graphics and play the game. In the same year, Atari launched Pong. The real video game revolution began in the late 70s.Atari introduced the Video Computer System or the VCS (renamed Atari 2600 later). This system uses cartridges and delivered colored graphics and sounds through the television. The game was played using a joystick or paddles. The Atari 2600 were the most popular gaming systems ever invented in its time. The system was always in demand that retail stores constantly ran out of stock, especially on the holidays. However, in early 80s, more and more video game manufacturers began coming out. An example would be Nintendo.Nintendo Family Computer was a worldwide success and sold over 500,000 units all over the world for a short period of two months. In 1985, Nintendo released a similar system in the United States called the Nintendo Entertainment System. With the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in the US, it also released the Super Mario Bros. video game that was a total hit. The Super Mar io Bros. game reportedly had a worldwide sale amounting up to 40. 24 million dollars and was declared as the best-selling game of all time.In the late 80s more and more video game manufacturers began releasing their latest video game systems. Sega Enterprises released the Genesis home video game system in the US and was a total hit. It generated sales amounting up to 14 million dollars. In 1995, Sony Electronics released the 32-bit CD-ROM game system called the PlayStation in the US. It was a phenomenal hit and this was the beginning of the Sony PlayStation legacy. The popularity of Sony PlayStation paved the way to more advanced graphics system and other video gaming systems manufacturers began to follow suit.The CD-ROM technology to be integrated in a video game system is now the most popular way to play a video game. Sega Enterprises and Nintendo followed with a similar concept of using a CD-ROM to play its games instead of using cartridges. Sega released the Dreamcast video game system in Japan in 1998 with features like a 200 MHz processor, 12X speed 1 Gigabyte CD-ROM drive and a 56 kbps modem. However, it arrived too late to threaten the Nintendo 64 and the much anticipated PlayStation 2. In the year 2000, PlayStation released the PlayStation 2 with great success.About 1 million units were shipped from Japan on the first weekend and have been one of the most popular video game systems ever released since Atari. Other companies also followed. Nintendo released the Game Cube videogame system and Microsoft released the Xbox game system in the United States. The Xbox had features that no other gaming system had. It had an 8 Gigabyte hard drive, 733 MHz Pentium III Processor and a 250MHz NVidia graphics coprocessor. Also, it was capable of being connected into a broadband internet connection. In 2005 Microsoft launched the Xbox 360 video game system in the United States.It has a wireless controller, headset and a 20 Gigabyte hard drive. Then PlayStations late st creation called the PlayStation3 which is mainly a family system that has the capability of playing Blu-Ray disks and also feature’s free online play. The PS3 has sold about 47. 3 million copies as of December 31 2010. As you can see, video game systems are rapidly advancing in graphics and sound technology. You can only wait and see what Sony, PlayStation, Nintendo and other video game system manufacturers can think of next in the near future.