SMS Advertising :: Business, Marketing

In past few years, SMS has a remarkable increasing involvement in marketing practice, it has been used with other traditional media, such as print advertising, television commercial or other broadcasting, to strengthen the efficiency of the campaign (Zhang and Mao, 2008). It was claimed that SMS itself enables to enlarge the campaign’s reach and effectiveness because of ability of interactive to create viral effect. Wohlfahrt (2002) explained that when receivers receive message, they then forward to further other people in their contact list, and it has been proven by Kroeber-Riel and Weinberg (2003) that those messages delivered by familiar senders were seen in more trustworthy than those sent from advertisers directly. In marketer’s perspective, messaging help increasing the rate of interaction from the receivers, because advertising with financial offers or promotion, will be sent to the consumers when they are actually shopping (Zoller et al, 2001). Plus, SMS itself allow the sender and receive interact immediately, so that mobile advertising will yield a direct and rapid response from the consumers (Boonmark, 2006). Moreover, mobile phones are ubiquity and convenience because they are very personal, and always kept within 1 meter of user’s body during the day time (Sirivastava 2004 and Haghirian et al., 2008). Therefore, SMS advertising allow marketer to reach consumers virtually any time and anywhere via their mobile devices (Boonmark, 2006). It helps marketer become closer to the consumer as mobile phone is communication which is a part of consumer’s daily lives (Forrester report, 2001). So that, information sent to mobile devices also tends to capture high attention from receivers because information is read completely and immediately after receipt. (Barwise and Strong 2002). SMS is also low cost medium compared to other type of direct marketing (e.g. telephone marketing, email marketing, direct mail) (Dickinder et al., 2004). SMS can capture tens of thousands consumer with a low budget compared (Leppanieni and Karjaluoto, 2005) There is variety of way which SMS has been used as a medium. Because SMS provide diversity of response capabilities such as message based responses, call based response, and mobile web landing page response (See Appendix D, MMA, 2009b), SMS is exercised to request for phone’s users engagement (Dickinder et al., 2004). To illustrate, SMS will be sent with the hyperlink allowing phone users to click to make a call (or click) to buy, to download, to vote, to contest or to win a prize. Boonmark’s studies (2006) found that messages were sent out with different kind of appeal, such as rewards, loves, and emotional appeal.

Career competence Essay

1. Create one professional goal using the SMART goal setting techniques you learned in Week Two. How did the results of the Career Interest Profiler and Career Plan Building Activity on Competencies contribute to your professional goal development? One career goal would be to finish getting my degree here at the University of Phoenix. By doing this not only will I have a degree but I will know what it takes and what’s necessary when it comes to starting my own business. Once I’ve increased my knowledge of the business tip, I will have the ability to maximize in my career. 2. Describe how you will balance academic expectations and your personal and professional responsibilities. I will balance academic expectations and my personal and professional responsibilities by following my weekly schedule. My schedule helps me manage my time so I won’t procrastinate too much or spend too much time doing extra-curricular activities. I also scheduled free time because personal problems can develop at any given time, that way I can see to my personal problems as well. 3. How can understanding the importance of SMART criteria and your career interests and competencies help you move toward your career and academic goals? By applying these rules of SMART, I know exactly what is required of me to complete my goals. SMART criteria removes any unnecessary directions that is not needed in accomplishing your goal which makes it more realistic. I think that goals are much easier to achieve when you’re using SMART criteria

Enron: Smartest Guy in the Room Essay

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a documentary that was produced in 2005 as a reflection of the 2003, bestselling book with the same name. The documentary was written by Bethany Mclean and Peter Elkind. The film, produced by Alex Gibney is an explicit demonstration of how reputable corporations can tumble down because of illicit financial management. The film is about the Enron Company, which experienced enormous financial drains because of the scandals elicited by its top managerial team. Two years after the inception of the company, two traders engage in betting activities on the lucrative oil markets. This eventually leads to suspicious profits for the company, a phenomenon that raises eyebrows on the financial stand of the company. It is also discovered that Enron’s Chief Executive Officer is redirecting the company’s finances to different accounts. In demonstrating the poor financial management of Kenneth Lay, he encourages the traders to keep on making money for the company, yet he understood clearly that betting is a risky activity that could cause the company a lot of its assets. Lay finally realizes his mistakes when he sacks the traders because of wasting the company’s reserves through gambling. Their actions virtually damaged the image of Enron. When the facts about what happened to the company are exposed, Lay argues that he had no knowledge of the illicit financial endeavors. Jeffrey Skilling is brought in as the new CEO and immediately imposes his own principles about handling profits and projects. Skilling adopts a management practice that engages the company in projects without examining whether the projects have the capacity to be successful or not. This is indeed, a trait that has the capacity to taunt the image of the company in respect to the management of its assets and resources. In essence, this portrays Enron as a profit making company, even if it is not making any profit. The film also highlights on Skilling’s theory of grading employees and firing those who do not perform well, on an annual basis. In order to fulfill his endeavors for the company, Skilling appoints Clifford Baxter and Lou Pai, who heads the Enron Energy Services. Pai is an irresponsible executive who squanders money belonging to shareholders by visiting entertainment joints. Eventually, Pai resigns having cost Enron a loss of $1 billion. After selling his stock, he purchases a ranch in Colorado and becomes one of the largest landowners in the state. Despite the declining performance of Enron in the global scale, the company initiates a public relations campaign that displays itself as profitable and solid. With the short term successes that the company gets, it tries to captivate stock market analysts. Executives raise their stock prices and introduce the broadband technologies in order to distribute movies on demand, but the projects do not meet their expectations. After a series of financial irregularities, Jim Chanos and Bethany McLean expose the financial misappropriation and irregularities in stoke value. In response to the allegations, Skilling argues that McLean is unethical in his assertions. It is also found out that Andrew Fastow, one of Enron’s executives has been defrauding Enron of millions of dollars. Indeed, this is a documentary about the fall of a big corporation because of financial misappropriation (Gibney, A. and McLean, 2005). II. Analysis In reference to the documentary, it is worth pointing out that the management of the company did not articulate its financial obligations in the most feasible way. Financial management is an integral aspect in the success of a company. A company’s management should ensure that proper procedures are followed in capitalizing on its assets in order to avoid loses in the future (Bhat, 2008 p. 65). The management team’s lapse in controlling its finances led to the downfall of the company. The image of the company was put at risk because of the selfish actions of the leadership. The company’s corporate image was not able to maintain its stability, bearing in mind that the media exposed the inappropriate handling of the company’s assets. Embezzlement of the finances led to the loss of confidence in the public eye. This is a clear indication that financial obligations are pertinent in influencing the performance of a company; since, financial endowment is a primary component of expanding the image of a business enterprise (Shoffner, Shelly & Cooke, 2011 p. 36). It is also worth noting that the management’s actions affected the performance of the employees. In a company, it is extremely pertinent to invest in feasible measures that will enhance human capital. A well established human capital is instrumental in providing a viable platform for proper financial management (Jones & Spender, 2011 p. 94). When the management started a program of rating and firing employees, this created a non-cohesive environment that did not give employees a chance to thrive. In this respect, employees could not fulfill their obligations in enhancing the capacity of the company. In addition, the stakeholders to the company lost confidence in the management team of the company because it did not deliver as it was expected of them. This affected the input of the stakeholders as well as the internal and external cohesion of the company. It is also critical to assert that the company faced financial implications resulting from management’s failure to conduct itself in a competent and professional way. The company’s markets share did not achieve its expectations; since, it could not maintain stability in the stock market. The values of its shares could not compete vehemently with other companies because the company had lost its market value. Moreover, the company incurred losses in regard to its assets record through engaging in illicit financial planning. This led to the company failing to meet its financial objectives; since, it was not in a position to control its costs. The failure of a company to control its costs leads to unaccountability and the risk of loses due to poor accounting systems (Lee, 2006 p. 201). Additionally, the company experienced a lapse in its financial accounting systems in an effort to hide the misappropriation of finances. Compromising the financial accounting systems resulted to slow growth in the development of feasible accounting procedures (Hampton, 2009 p. 6). Another financial consequence to the company was the inability to control debts. The company could not keep track of its debts because its financial records had been compromised by the incompetence of the management team. The lack of proper financial returns led to inconsistency in the company’s performance; hence, leading to an internal financial crisis. In this respect, it is viable to underscore that the financial inconsistency in a company is a contributing factor in its financial meltdown (Brigham, Gapenski & Ehrhardt, 2011p. 12). III. Commentary The actions of the management team were indeed detrimental in the financial breakthrough of the company. The company’s resources were put in jeopardy because of mishandling the assets in an unethical manner in respect to business standards. The employees of the company did not have a cohesive environment to capitalize on their potential. They could not handle the products and services of the company in a professional way because the management team did not provide the platform for enhancing the cost of goods. I believe the biblical worldview as Christ would view it for the church is that whatever you do in the dark will be exposed. The Bible states that God hates the very presence of evil and it will have no place in his kingdom. So the catastrophic effect that this company had on society was abomination to what God would want for his people. God wants us to suffer with him and the end result is that we will reign with him, however lying, cheating and stealing will not have a place in heaven. As part of the management team, I would have handled things differently. Firstly, it is significant to point out that I would not allow incompetent people to control the company’s finances. Only competent people would be allowed to handle the company’s financial obligations and management of the company’s assets. Secondly, it is essential to assert that I would invest immensely in the employees of the company. I would ensure that human capital is enhanced in order to improve the image of the company. It is widely acknowledged that an empowered human resource is vital in the success of a company; hence, I would seek to empower the activities of the employees. Moreover, as part of the management team, I would ensure that transparency is enhanced in corporate governance. The duties and responsibilities of every stakeholder would be defined in an amicable way, in order to avoid the confusion that emerges. This would play a dominant role in enhancing the profitability of the company, as well as improving the image of the company in a large scale. Indeed, it is critical for any business enterprise to adopt a viable mechanism of enhancing its corporate governance (Baker, 2008 p. 78). In my opinion, I believe what happened was as a result of managerial incompetency by the management team. Lack of inconsistencies in financial breakthrough by the company led to the meltdown in the company’s assets and costs control. In this respect, I believe that accounting laws and regulators can help in avoiding this scenario again. The accounting laws will play a dominant role in keeping track of a company’s financial assets and prevent it from incurring unnecessary loses. In addition, it is critical to highlight that such law and regulators will help immensely, in holding the management accountable. The management team of a company will be able to maintain high profile accountability in maintaining the value of the company. The market share of a company is able to attain reputable standards because of using the accounting laws. Additionally, accounting laws and regulators act as instrumental platforms in identifying challenges in a company, and making the necessary decisions in overcoming the challenges. The management team of a company is able to use business intelligence in developing a way forward in solving the challenges that a company faces in respect to financial management. In order to avoid the detrimental effects of financial mismanagement, companies can adopt viable ways of managing their operations. Transparency is a critical way of enhancing the gains of a company because its operations are open to scrutiny. In addition, it is important for companies to employ competent personnel to handle its operations, ranging from cost control to managing its experiences. It is pertinent for companies to develop policy frameworks that implement feasible financial obligations.

Environmental Racism essays

Environmental Racism essays There is a political theory of justice that was created by John Rawls that states, that all rational members of society in the original position should make decisions. Rawls called this method as a veil of ignorance. This is used as an instrument to make decisions in developing local projects. In the United States there is a spectacle called NIMBYism, which stands for Not-In-My-BackYard. This is when a group of a local community members protest about developments or a certain development in their community. NIMBYism could be a good or bad spectacle, which depends on what activities are suspended because of it. A bad view of this would be if there were no developments. Then there wouldnt be any supermarkets to do your food shopping or playgrounds for the children to play in. The good side to NIMBYism would be if they were planning to build a toxic dump near the community and the protest prohibited it. Now what would happen if all of sudden all of this toxic dumps ended up in minority communities? Well, if the community members didnt protest and just let the dump be build then thats their problem. But, if the members did protest and the development continued then that would be environmental racism. Just look at Garfield compared to Passaic; when Im driving through Garfield the houses are all nice and clean looking but when I cross the Passaic River to Passaic youll notice the roads full of pot-holes, all the garbage on the street, and a lot of dirty factories. Garfield is full of white, Italian, and Polish middle-class families while Passaic is full of Black, Mexican, Peruvian, and Puerto Rican low and middle-class families. Only because Passaic has this image of being a town full of drugs, crime, and immigrants, that dont know any English, that its okay to leave this once beautiful town in ruins, make more developments, or in some cases no developments at all. ...

A - H Glossary of College Terms

A - H Glossary of College Terms By term: A - H | I - R | S - Z College Terms: A - H Academic Probation: If your grades fall below a certain level, your campus may place you on academic probation. This traditionally means that you need to raise your GPA or face the possibility of being removed from your school for academic reasons. Adjunct Professor: A professor who is usually part-time or not on campus with a long-term contract (and, consequently, not eligible for tenure). Alumna: Female graduate or former student. Alumnae: Female graduates or former students. Alumni: Male graduates or both male and female graduates. Alumnus: Male graduate or former student. Area Coordinator (AC): This person usually oversees an area of your residence hall, or an area of your campus. They have more responsibility, and may sometimes supervise, Resident Advisers (RAs). Area Director (AD): This is usually just another title for an Area Coordinator (AC). Board of Directors/Board of Trustees: Most colleges have a board that oversees all parts of the campus. Traditionally, the board hire s (and possibly fires) a president; manages the college or university’s finances; and is responsible for all major policy decisions. Many college and university boards comprise alumni, faculty, staff, community leaders, and (sometimes) students. Board of Regents: Similar to how a Board of Trustees oversees a single college or university, a Board of Regents traditionally oversees a state system of public colleges or universities. College: In contrast to a university, a college traditionally only offers undergraduate degrees and programs. (There are, of course, some exceptions to this definition.) Commencement: Usually another name for graduation. Convocation: On some campuses, each year starts with a convocation ceremony where the new class is officially welcomed and the academic year formally begins. Dean: A Dean is someone traditionally in charge of a major area of a college. For example, there may be a Dean of Students, a Dean of the Faculty, and a Dean of Arts Sciences. Discipline: On a college campus, a discipline is often synonymous with a major. It usually refers to a field of study. (Of course, if you are charged with violating campus or community rules, you may be required to have a disciplinary hearing†¦and t hat definition is more traditional!) Discourse: A conversation, exchange of words, or dialogue, usually incorporating a wide range of views and opinions. Faculty: The faculty, or a faculty member, is generally anyone who teaches at the college. FAFSA: The Free Application for Federal Student Aid. This form is required for any student who wants to be considered for federal aid of any kind. Make sure you get your form in by the deadline! Fees: Fees can be charged for anything from seeing a doctor in the campus health center to returning your library books late. Additionally, you may see something listed as student fees, which cover some student services that the school provides and/or may be the basis for the student government budget. Financial Aid: Anything related to the way you are paying for school. Loans, scholarships, grants, work awards, and any other resource you use are all considered part of your financial aid. Graduate Assistant/Graduate Adviser (GA): A GA is often the same thing as a Graduate Student Instruc tor (GSI). Graduate Instructor (GI): A GI is often the same thing as a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI). Graduate Student Instructor (GSI): A GSI is often a graduate student who helps out in your classes. They made grade papers, lead seminar discussions, and sometimes teach classes. Grants: Similar to scholarships in that you dont need to pay them back. Some grants may be connected to your course of study or allow you to do research while still having your financial needs taken care of. (For example, you may earn a grant to cover your room and board while you do summer research with a professor.) Hall Coordinator (HC): A hall coordinator is typically in charge of your entire hall and oversees Resident Advisers (RAs). Hall Council (HC): A Hall Council is a small governing body that serves as a student voice and helps make decisions and plan programs for your hall community; frequently the same thing as a Residence Council. Hall Director (HD): Hall Directors are often the same things as Hall Co ordinators (HCs).

Criminal Investigative Report Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Criminal Investigative Report - Research Paper Example It appeared that the murder was taken place due to some monetary issues. Detailed investigation that supplemented by the required reports would be helpful to arrive at a conclusion as crime scene investigation is a tedious job with much documentation of the scene and collection of evidences (Layton, 2011). Indicators of potential criminal act(s) On further investigation from the neighborhood, it was revealed that the man who was living lonely in a small apartment, developed strained relationship with his business partners named Tom, Dick and Alfred over money matters. On his refusal to pay off the money due on him, his business partners threatened him of dire consequences. James did not pay heed to their threatening calls and took soft attitude towards payment of the money, which he borrowed from them in his personal capacity to meet some domestic urgency. It is not necessary that the murder was committed by the same business partners. It might be done by some hired killer on payment from business partners or it may be the attempts of dacoits or a dacoit to deprive James from his valuables. We have to look into it with different angles to sort out the motives of the crime and the criminals behind it. Potential evidence I have collected the material evidences from the crime scene, which could be helpful to trace out the criminals involved in the murder case under reference. The collected evidences are a) Corpse b) Mobile Phone c) Short gun. The body was sent for an autopsy to find out the causes of murder however, the shotgun was sent to forensic department to find out the fingerprints on it that led to the criminal or the criminals who were involved in the referred ghastly murder. The mobile phone that has taken into custody in order to check out the history of incoming and outgoing calls of the murdered person as this sort of investigation aims at to book the real culprits by the law enforcers. The interesting thing is that the household items shown in the ima ges where murder took place were found in the same place and in the same direction as it was presumed to be. Initial Follow up Investigative Steps The steps that are to be taken by me as initial investigative steps are: a) to take photographs of the crime scene where murder took place b) to take into custody the corpse to conduct postmortem in order to have a detailed body description report from medico legal officer or the medical board specifically constituted for the purpose that identifies a) the cause of death b) whether the death was occurred due to the bullet of that gun which are in our custody or the bullet of some other gun c) to analyze the depth of wound in the skull since the culprits may have fired point blank at the murdered c) to take into custody the weapons which is used as an object to murder James d) to have finger prints on the mentioned gun e) to take possession of the mobile phone to ascertain the callers frequency of incoming calls and the subsequent outgoing calls in response to incoming calls in order to have voice recordings of incoming and outgoing calls on the day of murder or before as the case may be from mobile companies which would provide great help to

Financial and Strategic Management of Projects Essay - 1

Financial and Strategic Management of Projects - Essay Example The analysis of cash flows assists the CEOs and other top officials in ensuring that the investments made by the company is giving adequate return and company’s funds are not tied up in all the wrong ventures. Such an analysis cannot be made via Balance sheet analysis which represents the value of the assets on historical cost or the market value. From the perspective of a newly launched company, it is of prime importance to the management to ensure whether the operations are being conducted in the most prudent manner and are generating sufficient cash flows. Cash stream is considered to be the lifeline in the financial stability of any organization, and cash flow analysis plays a significant part in cautious cash management planning References [1] â€Å"Importance of Cash Flow Statement† accountlearning.blogspot.com. Account, n.d. Web. 16 July. 2011. [2] â€Å"Importance of Cash Flow Statement† buzzle.com Buzzle.com, n.d. Web. 16 July. 2011. 2) Ratio analysis is a very accurate and reliable tool when it comes to analyzing the financial outlook of a bank. The primary reason to conduct a ratio analysis is to quantify the results of the operations of a bank and compare them with that of the prior year(s) in order to assess different aspects of the financial feasibility. The ratios can be divided into various categories such as profitability, gearing and liquidity, each focusing on a different area of the financial outlook of the bank and highlighting its performance. These analyses form an integral part of the financial statement analysis, especially from the investors point of view, who always strive to invest in companies having strengthen and stabilizing financial ratios and representing an upward trend. It is of great significance that the ratios must be benchmarked against a standard in order for them to possess a meaning. Keeping that into account, the comparison is usually conducted between companies portraying same business and financ ial risks, between industries and between different time periods of the same company. The liquidity ratio measures the company’s ability to pay its short term liabilities. The ratio illustrates that how quickly a company can convert its assets into cash and cash equivalent in order to pay off its short term liabilities [Jim Mueller]. The most commonly used liquidity ratio, the current ratio, which is calculated by comparing the current assets and current liabilities. The strengthened the current ratio the more ability the company has to pay its debts and short term obligations over the next 12 months. The gearing ratios and indicate the level of risk taken by a company as a result of its capital structure [gearing ratio]. These ratios are a great source of determining the level of financial risk to which the company is exposed and thus helps in reducing it to the optimum. The debt ratio represents characteristics which is the opposite to that of the equity ratio. Debt ratio, which calculated by comparing the total liabilities to total assets, is a primary tool in determining the influence the company is under as a result of obtaining finances from sources other than equity. A lower ratio represents that the company is utilizing its equity in order to finance its operations and thus curtailing the financial risk