Market strategy and business overview of boots

Market strategy and business overview of boots Boots has also introduced new services. Boots Opticians, formed in 1987 has become one of the UKs leading chains of opticians. Insurance services and initiatives in dentistry, chiropody, Boots for Men stores and Internet services were introduced in 1999. The first Health and Beauty Experience stores, offering services such as homeopathy, osteopathy and a range of beauty treatments, were opened in autumn 2000. Boots Healthcare International exports healthcare products in more than 130 countries round the world. Boots Health and Beauty stores are now established in Ireland, Thailand, Japan and Taiwan. There are eight different businesses in The Boots Company, different in size, different in type and different in their business cultures. Such diversity means that they have unrivalled career opportunities in a wide variety of disciplines for people who deliver excellent performance. Boots is a learning organization, they encourage their people to strive to improve their skills and develop throughout their careers. STRATEGY MARKETING MANAGEMENT Marketing management is a business discipline which is focused on the practical application of marketing techniques and the management of a firms marketing resources and activities. Marketing managers are often responsible for influencing the level, timing, and composition of customer demand accepted definition of the term. In part, this is because the role of a marketing manager can vary significantly based on a business size, corporate culture, and industry context. For example, in a large consumer products company, the marketing manager may act as the overall general manager of his or her assigned product. From this perspective, the scope of marketing management is quite broad. The implication of such a definition is that any activity or resource the firm uses to acquire customers and manage the companys relationships with them is within the purview of marketing management. MARKETING STRATEGY Marketing strategy is a method of focusing an organizations energies and resources on a course of action which can lead to increased sales and dominance of a targeted market niche. A marketing strategy combines product development, promotion, distribution, pricing, relationship management and other elements; identifies the firms marketing goals, and explains how they will be achieved, ideally within a stated timeframe. Marketing strategy determines the choice of target market segments, positioning,  marketing mix, and allocation of resources. It is most effective when it is an integral component of overall firm strategy, defining how the organization will successfully engage customers, prospects, and competitors in the market arena.  Corporate strategies, corporate missions, and corporate goals. As the customer constitutes the source of a companys revenue, marketing strategy is closely linked with  sales. A key component of marketing strategy is often to keep marketing in line with a companys overarching  mission statement. Once the company has obtained an adequate understanding of the customer base and its own competitive position in the industry, marketing managers are able to make key strategic decisions and develop a marketing strategy designed to maximize the revenues and profits of the firm. The selected strategy may aim for any of a variety of specific objectives, including optimizing short-term unit margins, revenue growth, market share, long-term profitability, or other goals. MARKETING STRATEGY OPTION: One of the key elements of a successful marketing strategy is the acknowledgment that your existing and potential customers will fall into particular  groups  or  segments, characterized by their needs. Identifying these groups and their needs through market research, and then addressing those needs  more successfully than your competitors, should be the focus of your strategy. You can then create a marketing strategy that makes the most of your strengths and matches them to the needs of the customers you want to target. For example, if a particular group of customers is looking for quality first and foremost, then any marketing activity aimed at them should draw attention to the high quality of your products or service. The benefits of a planned marketing strategy are numerous. Business owners often rely solely on their intuition to make business decisions. While this informal knowledge is important in the decision making process, it may not provide you with all the facts you need to achieve marketing results. A marketing strategy will help you in defining business goals and develop activities to achieve them. WILSON, GILLIGAN AND PEARSON in strategic management, readily admit that there is no standard definition on strategy but high lights three level of strategy. Corporate Level Strategy: Dealing with the allocation level resources thought out the entire organization, covering all of the various businesses or division. Business Level Strategy: This exits at the individual business or division level and is concerned with the question of competitive positioning. Function Level Strategy: Which is limited to the actions of specific functions within specific businesses. Boots is a member of Alliance Boots, an international pharmacy-led health and beauty group. Our purpose is to help our customers look and feel better than they ever thought possible. Our customers are at the heart of our business. Were committed to providing exceptional customer and patient care, be the first choice for pharmacy and healthcare, offer innovative products only at Boots, with great value our customers love. Our people are our strength and they tell us that Boots is a great place to work. We aim to always be the employer of choice, attracting and retaining the most talented and passionate people. Market matrix: The market matrix is a tool that helps businesses to decide their product and market growth strategy. http://www.franteractive.net/resources/Ansoff-Matrix.GIF The above diagram shows market matrix also known as Ansoff product which is a series of suggested growth strategies that set the direction for the business strategy. 1. MARKET PENTRATION: (Existing market, existing products) Market penetration  is one of the four growth strategies of the  Product-Market Growth Matrix  defined by Ansoff Market penetration occurs when a company enters/penetrates a market with current products. The best way to achieve this is by gaining competitors customers (part of their market share). Other ways include attracting non-users of your product or convincing current clients to use more of your product/service (by advertising etc). Ansoff developed the  Product-Market Growth Matrix  to help firms recognise if there was any advantage of entering a market. Market penetration seeks to achieve four main objectives: Maintain and increase the market share of current products- this can be achieved by a combination of competitive pricing strategies, advertising , sales, promotion and more resources dedicated to personal selling. Secure dominance of growth market. 2.MARKET DEVELOPMENT: (New Market, Existing Products) You can grow by leveraging your product knowledge to reach new customers.   More than likely, you have spent time and money developing your product and service offering. Assuming youre happy with your current offering, extending it into new markets is a logical next step. This is aptly called a  market development strategy. If you have identified potential new markets as opportunities, use these strategies to reach them.   Here are some quick considerations to make before executing a market development strategy: Is the market attractive? (To really answer this question, I recommend some form of market research to validate your gut feeling.) Are you willing to commit the required time and resources to reach this new market? Can your business be adapted to the new market? Will you maintain your current competitive advantage in this new market? 3. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: (Existing Market, New product) New Product Development is the term used to describe the complete process of bringing a new  product service to market. There are two parallel paths involved in the NPD process: one involves the idea generation,  product design  and detail engineering; the other involves market research and  marketing analysis. Ideas for new products can be obtained from basic research using a  SWOT analysis  (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities Threats), Market and consumer trends, companys RD department, competitors, focus groups, employees, salespeople, corporate spies, trade shows, or Ethnographic discovery methods (searching for user patterns and habits) may also be used to get an insight into new product lines or product features. 4.DIVERSIFICATIONS 🙠 New Market, New Products) Diversification  is a form of corporate strategy for a company. It seeks to increase profitability through greater sales volume obtained from new products and new markets. Diversification can occur either at the business unit level or at the corporate level. At the business unit level, it is most likely to expand into a new segment of an industry which the business is already in.It is a process where a business markets new products in new markets.This is the most risky strategy because the business is moving into markets in which it has little or no experience. For a business to adopt a diversification strategy, it must have a clear idea about what it expects to gain from the strategy. SWOT analysis Strengths Price cuts are attracting customers especially in beauty and toiletries. Boots is still above high street average, despite all the short-comings being reported. Great locations, with a prime pitch on every high street. Meaning that Boots is accessible to potential customers, this is highly important when taking into account the 4 Ps. Strong labour workforce which is highly essential to every business, this could be a major tool when trying to refocus and achieve the overall objectives. The current share price is 667.0p on 8 Nov and has risen since October 28 when it was valued at 657.5p. This initiates growth in sales due to external factors such as climate change and more susceptibility to illness that this causes. Weaknesses Over diversification which has led to a loss of focus from the core operations of the business. It seems from the article in the Independent newspaper that Boots are reliant on sun cream as a star product, however the British weather is know for its instability meaning good summers are not guaranteed, this has ultimately led to a reduction in profits.  £390 million was spent on revamping the company; could this money have been spent in other areas of the business that may have been more profitable? Some customers feel that Boots is too expensive, thus suggesting price elasticity however the recent price cuts in different parts of the business might have affected the price quality reputation amongst customers, who feel this is important. 900 job cuts from head office and possibly more if finances deteriorate. This might have an adverse effect on the reputation amongst stakeholders. Opportunities Compete through head on pricing although this could be risky according to reports. Does Boots need all their chain branches? An audit and cost-benefit analysis should be conducted along with market research to identify which branches are doing the best and which areas would benefit from the store or which areas are overly concentrated with Boots stores. Therefore taking action by reducing the number of stores and focusing on improving the remainder of stores would reduce costs and provide essential capital that could be reinvested in other parts of the business. Threats Abolition of the resale price maintenance has increased competition. If internet sales of drugs continue to grow, Boots could lose a significant proportion of its market share. Changes in supply chain and systems within the company could hinder growth rate in the next 12 months. Porters 5 forces analysis Competitive rivalry The retail market is filled up with high competitors as more and more companies are trying to step into the Health Beauty industry All the other retailers have different competitive advantages. Boots reach in different stores allows it to reach large number of customers. The other factors which compete with the Boots bank is different banks and building societies Barriers for entry Barriers to entry is high due to a number of factors: Firstly, company looking to set up its business in UK requires lots of investment, brand development, which takes years to establish. Secondly, company in retail sectors are increasing, which itself means there is very less chance for any new entrances. Local knowledge is required for a new business in order to establish, which is highly difficult for new firms to replicate. Threats of Substitutes The threats for newcomers or substitutes is less, as the consumers views that as a necessity, especially in the developed world. The retail market is always trying to look around for new innovations with respect to Health Beauty products, alternative businesses. As a result of which it is difficult for substitution. The only major threat of substitute is an internal industry threat, wherein one supermarket can lap up the business of other supermarkets. Buyers power Because of the presence of too many competitors in the retail Health Beauty sector selling the same product, buyer power is high in the industry. During the time of recession consumers wants are taken into more demand, thereby increasing their power. Supplier power Suppliers in itself is huge company providing products to the supermarkets. If the products are not sold, consumer will shift loyalties, making suppliers more powerful. And also when the products do not reach the supermarket, sales do get affected hugely. C:Documents and SettingsSonyDesktopporters_five_forces_lg.gif Competitive strategy by Michael Porter PORTERS GENERIC STRATEGY: Michael Porter had argued that a companys strength depends on two headings: cost advantage and differentiation. By applying these strengths three generic strategies result: Cost leadership Differentiation Focus Cost leadership strategy: Cost leadership is a strategy built on offering a customer a lower pirce than competitors and maintaining an advantage by ensuring the cost are lower than those of competitors. Factories are built; labor is recruited and trained in all sorts of knowledge for the lowest cost of production. In the process cost advantage is the focus. However low cost not always allows low price. Producers could price at competitive parity, other than the competitors. For example, such as Toyota, are good in producing autos at a low price, but have the brand and marketing skills. Differentiation strategy: It is a strategy that involves offering a product which is different to, is differential from, those of competitors. The advantage of the product will appeal to the whole market and not in a narrow segment. The company that succeeds in differentiation strategy often follows the internal strengths Access to scientific researchHighly skilled and creative development team.Strongly sales team with the ability to successfully communicate the perceived strengths of the products. Corporate reputation for quality and innovation. Focus: The focus strategy strives on a narrow segment and within that segment tries to achieve either a cost advantage or differentiation. A company following the focus strategy often enjoys a high degree of customer loyalty, and this in turn leads to more customer lifetime value. The focus strategy has two variants.In cost focus a firm seeks a cost advantage in its target segment, while inDifferentiation focus a firm seeks differentiation in its target segment. Cost focus exploits differences in cost behavior in some segments, while differentiation focus exploits the special needs of buyers in certain segmentsA company following narrow market focus and pursuing a focus strategy, have lower volumes of bargaining power with their suppliers.A company following differentiation focused strategy may be able to pass higher costs on to customers since close substitute products would not exist.Firms that succeed in a focus strategy are able to lead a broad range of product development strengths to a relatively narrow market segmentFinally, other focusers may be able to carve out sub-segments that they can serve even better. TASK-2 PESTLE analysis is in effect an audit of an organizations environmental influences with the purpose of using this information to guide strategic decision-making. The assumption is that if the organization is able to audit its current environment and assess potential changes, it will be better placed than its competitors to respond to changes. PESTEL ANALYSIS FOR BOOtS: PEST 1. POLITICAL FACTORS: Political factor is always affected any kind of business. The government always make changes in tax policy, labour law policy and trade restrictions. Increasing globalization, gives challenges and opportunities to Boots. Using this company can enter into new markets through partnerships. 2. ECOMOMIC FACTORS: Inflation chances are really high that if inflation occurs then the prices of each pack will rise. When a country enters an inflation stage then their money would be less worth, and companies will higher the prices, consumers have less money to spend on goods, and that will be a major blow the economy. The country might put prices higher on exports, but other countries wont buy them anymore and go find a cheaper one. Exchange rates play a very big role in the marketBecause of the food crisis all over the world, can result in the purchasing cost of the company, which in turn can increase the Health Beauty Product prices which affects the purchasing power of the consumers. Because of credit crunch, the consumers purchase power would decrease, but they would still consider that as its basic necessity.Lot of incentives is given to the consumers. This affects Boots as prices have to be reduced most of the times 3. SOCIAL FACTOR: There seems to be more attention on fresh and easy style cooking. This gives Boots an opportunity to encourage new Health Beauty Product.Recently government has given more emphasis to promote healthy eating because of the increasing obesity. As a result the consumer would move on to healthy eating which in turn will be an opportunity to Boots to stock in more of healthy Health Beauty Product and as a result of which there would be an increase in consumers number. 4. TECHNOLOGY FACTOR: The internet phenomenon seems to be growing more rapidly. Boots can use internet for its advantage. Standing in the queue system for few items in the shopping market is time consuming. By installing the self checkout machines it can reduce the queue system for which the customer would not have to wait for few items which in turn will increase the sales for Boots. 5. ENVIRONMENTAL: It should be mandatory to reduce carbon footprint and increasing energy efficiency. One of the important and ethical issues is, like sales of organic food and ethical treatment of animals, this can clearly affect Boots on various levels. This is a sensitive issue. This can be done by maintaining on the public stand and environment. 6. LEGAL: As per legal the company makes sure that the product is right for the customers. They do all sorts of checks before it is brought forward to the customers.The current UK grocery market is highly regulated in many aspects, which is commonly in the developed countries. The recent inquiry by OFT could act as one example, which would potentially reduce the profitability of the supermarkets. Moreover, Trade Union would also protect employees to receive lack benefits, and this would make the grocers difficult to lay off employees. MARKET PALNNING FOR BOOTS: A  marketing plan  is a written document that details the necessary actions to achieve one or more marketing objectives. It can be for a product or  service, a  brand, or a  product line. Marketing plans cover between one and five years. A marketing plan may be part of an overall  business plan. Solid  marketing strategy  is the foundation of a well-written marketing plan. While a marketing plan contains a list of actions, a marketing plan without a sound strategic foundation is of little use. MARKETING MIX: The structure of the facts book will be designed to match the specific needs of the organization, but one simple format suggested by Malcolm McDonald may be applicable in many cases. This splits the material into three groups: Review of the marketing environment:  A study of the organizations markets, customers, competitors and the overall economic, political, cultural and technical environment; covering developing trends, as well as the current situation. Review of the detailed marketing activity:   A study of the companys  marketing mix in terms of the 7 Ps (see below) Review of the marketing system: A study of the marketing organization,  marketing research  systems and the current marketing objectives and strategies. The last of these is too frequently ignored. The marketing system itself needs to be regularly questioned, because the validity of the whole marketing plan is reliant upon the accuracy of the input from this system, and `garbage in, garbage out applies with a vengeance. 7Ps of MARKETING MIX: Once youve developed your marketing strategy, there is a Seven P Formula you should use to continually evaluate and reevaluate your business  activities. These seven are: product, price, promotion, place, packaging, positioning and people. As products, markets, customers and needs change rapidly, you must continually revisit these seven Ps to make sure youre on track and achieving the maximum results possible for you in todays marketplace. 1. PRODUCT: To begin with, develop the habit of looking at your product as though you were an outside marketing consultant brought in to help your company decide whether or not its in the right  business  at this time. Ask critical questions such as, Is your current product or service, or mix of products and services, appropriate and suitable for the market and the customers of today? 2. PRICES: The second P in the formula is price. Develop the habit of continually examining and reexamining the prices of the products and services you sell to make sure theyre still appropriate to the realities of the current market 3. PROMOTION:   The third habit in marketing and sales is to think in terms of promotion all the time. Promotion includes all the ways you tell your customers about your products or services and how you then market and sell to them. 4. PLACE: The fourth P in the marketing mix is the place where your product or service is actually sold. Develop the habit of reviewing and reflecting upon the exact location where the customer meets the salesperson. Sometimes a change in place can lead to a rapid increase in sales. 5. PACKING: The fifth element in the marketing mix is the packaging. Develop the habit of standing back and looking at every visual element in the packaging of your product or service through the eyes of a critical prospect. Remember, people form their first impression about you within the first 30 seconds of seeing you or some element of your company. Small improvements in the packaging or external appearance of your product or service can often lead to completely different reactions from your customers. 6. POSITIONING: The next P is positioning. You should develop the habit of thinking continually about how you are positioned in the hearts and minds of your customers. How do people think and talk about you when youre not present? How do people think and talk about your company? What positioning do you have in your market, in terms of the specific words people use when they describe you and your offerings to others? 7. PEOPLE: The final P of the marketing mix is people. Develop the habit of thinking in terms of the people inside and outside of your business who are responsible for every element of your sales and  marketing strategy and activities. RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION: I think the current Boots Distribution Channel is very limited. The only place youll find their product is in a local Boots store . I think they should expand their channel like I have summed up earlier. I would have placed vending machines throughout whole UK, outside each super market. To survive in such a competitive market place, Boots must continue to build a strong brand in order to create a strong differentiation in the market, attract customers with a credible value proposition and to constantly engage customers in ways that would endear them to the brand and to the company My evaluation for this is that Boots is in a very good position, but if it needs to gain more customer they need to make more product, not as in output, but new products.

Steve Jobs : Book Review

STEVE JOBS BY WALTER ISAACSON Dear all dignitaries and peers present here, Welcome to this hall, where we are all presented with the rarest opportunity on hearing about various respected and popular members of this world. On given an opportunity, I wondered what should be the theme of my speech. Should I go for the Nobel laureates or the most popular figurines or people who changed this world? Nobel laureates are historic, and popular people as noted are already quite popular. So, let’s hear about a person who changed the way we look at technology now. The way he drove a multibillion dollar company, the way he became a symbol of youth GOD!Yes, I’m here to talk about the authorised biography, the i-bio of the master, STEVE JOBS by Walter Isaacson. ‘Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography' was one of the most eagerly awaited books of the year 2011. The book is a journey into the life of a legend who revolutionized the way people saw technology. Walter Issacson brings to life, the innovator, the dreamer and the devil within Steve Jobs. An absolutely must read! In my mind the sole purpose of reading non-fiction is to learn, and if you learn something, by definition you will be changed. So, what did I learn from this book? 1.I have a better understanding of Apple products and understand why they enjoy premium pricing. 2. Jobs ability to focus on only 2-3 things at once with absolute intensity. I, like many, have too many interests and hobbies and could benefit from a tighter focus on just a few. 3. Jobs was able to get the most from his employees, but sometimes with tactics that I wouldn’t be comfortable using, including intimidation and tearing down of others. 4. His goal was to surround himself with  Grade A minds. Surrounding yourself with the best is not a bad motto. 5. Life is short-treat time with your family as if you are aware of your short time on earth.So, How does the author portray the genius Was he unbiased? Well, to the authorà ¢â‚¬â„¢s credit, Walter Issacson  is a biographer and a writer. He is also the director of Aspen Institute and has been the Managing Editor of TIME. Issacson has previously written the biographies of Henry Kissinger and Albert Einstein. As a  biographer of Albert Einstein  and Benjamin Franklin, Mr. Isaacson knows how to explicate and celebrate genius: revered, long-dead genius. But he wrote â€Å"Steve Jobs† as its subject was mortally ill, and that is a more painful and delicate challenge. He had access to members of the Jobs family at a difficult time.Mr. Isaacson treats â€Å"Steve Jobs† as the biography of record, which means that it is a strange book to read so soon after its subject’s death. Some of it is an essential Silicon Valley chronicle, compiling stories well known to tech aficionados but interesting to a broad audience. Some of it is already quaint. Mr. Jobs’s first job was at Atari, and it involved the game Pong. (â€Å"If youâ€⠄¢re under 30, ask your parents,† Mr. Isaacson writes. ) Some, like an account of the release of the  iPad  2, is so recent that it is hard to appreciate yet, even if Mr. Isaacson says the device comes to life â€Å"like the face of a tickled baby.    And some is definitely intended for future generations. â€Å"Indeed,† Mr. Isaacson writes, â€Å"its success came not just from the beauty of the hardware but from the applications, known as apps, that allowed you to indulge in all sorts of delightful activities. † One that he mentions, which will be as quaint as Pong some day, features the use of a slingshot to launch angry birds to destroy pigs and their fortresses. So â€Å"Steve Jobs,† an account of its subject’s 56 years (he died on Oct. 5), must reach across time in more ways than one. And it does, in a well-ordered, if not streamlined, fashion.It begins with a portrait of the young Mr. Jobs, rebellious toward the parents who raised him a nd scornful of the ones who gave him up for adoption. (â€Å"They were my sperm and egg bank,† he says. ) Although Mr. Isaacson is not analytical about his subject’s volatile personality (the word â€Å"obnoxious† figures in the book frequently), he raises the question of whether feelings of abandonment in childhood made him fanatically controlling and manipulative as an adult. Fortunately, that glib question stays unanswered. As far as the making of the book, that in itself is a wondrous story.During the summer of 2009, Walter Isaacson got a phone call from Steve Jobs. It so turned out that Jobs wanted Isaacson to write a biography of him. After  Steve Jobs  anointed  Walter Isaacson  as his authorized biographer in 2009, he took Mr. Isaacson to see the Mountain View, California, house in which he had lived as a boy. He pointed out its â€Å"clean design† and â€Å"awesome little features. † He praised the developer, Joseph Eichler, who bu ilt more than 11,000 homes in California subdivisions, for making an affordable product on a mass-market scale. And he showed Mr.Isaacson the stockade fence built 50 years earlier by his father, Paul Jobs. â€Å"He loved doing things right,† Mr. Jobs said. â€Å"He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn’t see. † Mr. Jobs, the brilliant and protean creator whose inventions so utterly transformed the allure of technology, turned those childhood lessons into an all-purpose theory of intelligent design. He gave Mr. Isaacson a chance to play by the same rules. His story calls for a book that is clear, elegant and concise enough to qualify as an iBio. Mr. Isaacson’s â€Å"Steve Jobs† does its solid best to hit that target.Mr. Jobs promised not to look over Mr. Isaacson’s shoulder, and not to meddle with anything but the book’s cover. (Boy, does it look great. ) Steve Jobs asked for no right to read it before it was published and had no control over what was being written before it was published. He also encouraged people to speak honestly. In the book Jobs sometimes speaks brutally and candidly about the people he worked along with and also his competitors. And he expressed approval that the book would not be entirely flattering. But his legacy was at stake. And there were awkward questions to be asked.At the end of the volume, Mr. Jobs answers the question â€Å"What drove me? † by discussing himself in the past tense. His friends, colleagues and foes offer an unparalleled view of the perfectionism, passion, artistry, obsessions, compulsions and devilry that shaped his approach to the innovative products and business that resulted. Within hours of Steve Jobs's death in October, impromptu shrines began to appear outside Apple Stores – flowers, half-eaten apples and iPhones and iPads with images of flickering candles. The man whose company had always attracted a cult following was fast becoming a saint.But, no more than a day later, the backlash began. Jobs was not a saint or even a genius, just, in the words of AN Wilson, ‘a clever backroom boy who got lucky'. What Walter Isaacson's masterful biography reveals is that both the true believers and the cynics got Jobs wrong. In a warts-and-all portrait that continually had this reader recoiling in disgust at the petulant pioneer's behaviour, he shows that Apple's co-founder was very far from being a saint. As a teenager, he browbeats his kindly parents into sending him to a college they cannot afford – then drops out after a year. After teaming up with the rilliant but naive engineer Steve Wozniak he cheats him out of his share of a bonus they get for designing a game. ‘Ethics matter to me,' the always tolerant Wozniak tells the author, ‘but, you know, people are different. ‘ And as a tyrannical leader, he is either screaming at Apple staff about their appalling inadequacies or stealing their ideas and taking the credit for them before an adoring public. Throughout, we see the cranky food habits, the misguided belief that a fruit diet means you only need to shower once a week and an almost wilful disregard for the feelings of others, including those of his family.But, hey, Henry Ford was not the world's nicest man and Thomas Edison was apparently a ruthless egomaniac. Those who aspire to change the world are almost always difficult people, and Isaacson, while obeying the instructions of Jobs's wife not to whitewash his life, presents a compelling case for his genius. Yes, he was a magpie, snatching the idea for the graphical user interface from Xerox Parc, the iPod concept from other MP3 players, the iPad from Microsoft's tablet computer. But, as he said: ‘Picasso had a saying – â€Å"good artists copy, great artists steal† – and we've always been shameless about stealing great ideas. It was what he did with those ideas that proved his genius f or spotting where technology might head next and shaping it to his will. The perfectionism meant driving his executives to distraction with constant demands for tiny adjustments – a different font, a paler shade of green – before anything could be shipped. Jobs was not a quarter the engineer that Wozniak was or as gifted artistically as Jony Ive, the designer whose close but somewhat tortured relationship with his boss is an interesting subplot in the latter half of the book.But his creative imagination changed a series of industries – computers, mobile phones, music and, with Pixar, the movie business. His greatest creation, though, was Apple itself, a company that always wanted to be about more than technology. ‘It is in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough,' he said at the unveiling of the iPad 2. ‘We believe that it's technology married with the humanities that makes our hearts sing. ‘ Cynics would say that it has been not the hu manities or the arts but a ruthless attention to marketing and margins that has enabled Apple to put more than $70bn in the bank.But the Jobs strategy of management remained pretty constant throughout his career, and it was always centred on product not profit. At its core was complete control over hardware and software and of every stage of the product's life cycle, from conception through to the retailer. We see that strategy triumph as early Apple products define home computing, then fail as Microsoft's rival philosophy of licensing its software prevails. Then in 1996, with Apple on the ropes, its co-founder returns.This amazing book takes you on a rollercoaster ride into the ferociously intense personality of a passionate and creative entrepreneur whose powerful drive and vision revolutionized six industries: music, personal computers, phones, animated movies, digital publishing and tablet computing. Steve Jobs also re-imagined and tried to revamp retail stores, but it did not t urn out to be as revolutionary. Instead, he paved the way for an entirely new market for app based digital content. This is a book that's mainly about innovation.Steve Jobs stands tall as the sole icon of imagination, sustained innovation and inventiveness. His vision was very clear; if you want to create value in the industry, connect technology with creativity. A company called Apple was built on this vision, which changed the entire face of technology with its imagination blended with remarkable feats of engineering. Often driven by his demons, Jobs could make those around him lurch in despair and fury. His products and personality were interrelated and his life was cautionary and instructive at the same time.Apple's rise to that position has been characterised by a management style that is now right out of fashion – the egomaniac CEO, the obsessive secrecy, the total disregard for market research, the suspicion of collaborative ventures. Walter Isaacson has written an ent hralling history of the birth of our modern digital world and the company that may have done more than any other to shape it. And, in his obnoxious, smelly, ranting, impatient, intuitive, creative and inspirational Steve Jobs, he has presented us with the greatest business genius of the past 30 years. Mr.Jobs, who founded  Apple  with Stephen Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in 1976, began his career as a seemingly contradictory blend of hippie truth seeker and tech-savvy hothead. â€Å"His Zen awareness was not accompanied by an excess of calm, peace of mind or interpersonal mellowness,† Mr. Isaacson says. â€Å"He could stun an unsuspecting victim with an emotional towel-snap, perfectly aimed,† he also writes. But Mr. Jobs valued simplicity, utility and beauty in ways that would shape his creative imagination. And the book maintains that those goals would not have been achievable in the great parade of Apple creations without that mean streak.Mr. Isaacson takes his reade rs back to the time when laptops, desktops and windows were metaphors, not everyday realities. His book ticks off how each of the Apple innovations that we now take for granted first occurred to Mr. Jobs or his creative team. â€Å"Steve Jobs† means to be the authoritative book about those achievements, and it also follows Mr. Jobs into the wilderness (and to NeXT and Pixar) after his first stint at Apple, which ended in 1985. With an avid interest in corporate intrigue, it skewers Mr. Jobs’s rivals, like John Sculley, who was recruited in 1983 to be Apple’s chief executive and fell for Mr.Jobs’s deceptive show of friendship. â€Å"They professed their fondness so effusively and often that they sounded like high school sweethearts at a Hallmark card display,† Mr. Isaacson writes. Of course the book also tracks Mr. Jobs’s long and combative rivalry with Bill Gates. The section devoted to Mr. Jobs’s illness, which suggests that his canc er might have been more treatable  had he not resisted early surgery,  describes the relative tenderness of their last meeting. â€Å"Steve Jobs† greatly admires its subject. But its most adulatory passages are not about people. Offering a combination of tech criticism and promotional hype, Mr.Isaacson describes the arrival of each new product right down to Mr. Jobs’s theatrical introductions and the advertising campaigns. But if the individual bits of hoopla seem excessive, their cumulative effect is staggering. Here is an encyclopedic survey of all that Mr. Jobs accomplished, replete with the passion and excitement that it deserves. Mr. Jobs’s virtual reinvention of the music business with iTunes and the  iPod, for instance, is made to seem all the more miraculous (â€Å"He’s got a turn-key solution,† the music executive Jimmy Iovine said. ) Mr. Isaacson’s long view basically puts Mr.Jobs up there with Franklin and Einstein, even if a tiny MP3 player is not quite the theory of relativity. The book emphasizes how deceptively effortless Mr. Jobs’s ideas now seem because of their extreme intuitiveness and foresight. When Mr. Jobs, who personally persuaded musician after musician to accept the iTunes model, approached Wynton Marsalis, Mr. Marsalis was rightly more impressed with Mr. Jobs than with the device he was being shown. Mr. Jobs’s love of music plays a big role in â€Å"Steve Jobs,† like his extreme obsession with Bob Dylan. (Like Mr. Dylan, he had a romance with Joan Baez.Her version of Mr. Dylan’s â€Å"Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word† was on Mr. Jobs’s own iPod. ) So does his extraordinary way of perceiving ordinary things, like well-made knives and kitchen appliances. That he admired the Cuisinart food processor he saw at Macy’s may sound trivial, but his subsequent idea that a molded plastic covering might work well on a computer does not. Years from now , the research trip to a jelly bean factory to study potential colors for the  iMac  case will not seem as silly as it might now. Skeptic after skeptic made the mistake of underrating Steve Jobs, and Mr.Isaacson records the howlers who misjudged an unrivaled career. â€Å"Sorry Steve, Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work,† Business Week wrote in a 2001 headline. â€Å"The iPod will likely become a niche product,† a Harvard Business School professor said. â€Å"High tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product,† Mr. Sculley said in 1987. Mr. Jobs got the last laugh every time. â€Å"Steve Jobs† makes it all the sadder that his last laugh is over. Perhaps the funniest passage in Walter Isaacson's monumental book about  Steve Jobs  comes three quarters of the way through.It is 2009 and Jobs is recovering from a liver transplant and pneumonia. At one point the pulmonologist tries to put a mask over his face when he is deeply s edated. Jobs rips it off and mumbles that he hates the design and refuses to wear it. Though barely able to speak, he orders them to bring five different options for the mask so that he can pick a design he likes. Even in the depths of his hallucinations, Jobs was a control-freak and a rude sod to boot. Imagine what he was like in the pink of health. As it happens, you don't need to: every discoverable fact about how Jobs, ahem, coaxed excellence from his co-workers is here.As Isaacson makes clear, Jobs wasn't a visionary or even a particularly talented electronic engineer. But he was a businessman of astonishing flair and focus, a marketing genius, and – when he was getting it right, which wasn't always – had an intuitive sense of what the customer would want before the customer had any idea. He was obsessed with the products, rather than with the money: happily, as he discovered, if you get the products right, the money will come. Isaacson's book is studded with mome nts that make you go â€Å"wow†. There's the  Apple  flotation, which made the 25-year-old Jobs $256m in the days when that was a lot of money.There's his turnaround of the company after he returned as CEO in 1997: in the previous fiscal year the company lost $1. 04bn, but he returned it to profit in his first quarter. There's the  launch of the iTunes store: expected to sell a million songs in six months, it sold a million songs in six days. When  Jobs died, iShrines popped up all over the place, personal tributes filled Facebook and his quotable wisdom – management-consultant banalities, for the most part – was passed from inbox to inbox. Thisbiography  Ã¢â‚¬â€œ commissioned by Jobs and informed by hours and hours of interviews with him – is designed to serve the cult.That's by no means to say that it's a snow-job: Isaacson is all over Jobs's personal shortcomings and occasional business bungles, and Jobs sought no copy approval (though, typic ally, he got worked up over the cover design). But its sheer bulk bespeaks a sort of reverence, and it's clear from the way it's put together that there's not much Jobs did that Isaacson doesn't regard as vital to the historical record. We get a whole chapter on one cheesy ad (â€Å"Think Different†). We get half a page on how Jobs went about choosing a washing machine – itself lifted from an interview Jobs, bizarrely, gave on the subject to  Wired.Want to know the patent number for the box an iPod Nano comes in? It's right there on page 347. Similarly, the empty vocabulary of corporate PR sometimes seeps into Isaacson's prose, as exemplified by the recurrence of the word â€Å"passion†. There's a lot of passion in this book. Steve's â€Å"passion for perfection†, â€Å"passion for industrial design†, â€Å"passion for awesome products† and so on. If I'd been reading this on an  iPad, the temptation to search-and-replace â€Å"passionâ €  to â€Å"turnip† or â€Å"erection† would have been overwhelming.Isaacson writes dutiful, lumbering American news-mag journalese and suffers – as did Jobs himself – from a lack of sense of proportion. Chapter headings evoke Icarus and Prometheus. The one on the Apple II is subtitled â€Å"Dawn of a New Age†, the one on Jobs's return to Apple is called â€Å"The Second Coming†, and when writing about the origins of Apple's graphical user interface (Jobs pinched the idea from Xerox), Isaacson writes with splendid bathos: â€Å"There falls a [sic] shadow, as TS Eliot noted, between the conception and the creation. † But get past all that pomp and there's much to enjoy.Did you know that the Apple Macintosh was nearly called the Apple Bicycle? Or that so obsessed was Jobs with designing swanky-looking factories (white walls, brightly coloured machines) that he kept breaking the machines by painting them – for example bright bl ue? As well as being a sort-of-genius, Jobs was a truly weird man. As a young man, he was once put on the night-shift so co-workers wouldn't have to endure his BO. Jobs was convinced his vegan diet meant he didn't need to wear deodorant or shower more than once a week. His on-off veganism was allied to cranky theories about health.When he rebuked the chairman of Lotus Software for spreading butter on his toast â€Å"Have you ever heard of serum cholesterol? â€Å", the man responded: â€Å"I'll make you a deal. You stay away from commenting on my dietary habits, and I will stay away from the subject of your personality. † That personality. An ex-girlfriend – and one, it should be said, who was very fond of him – told Isaacson that she thought Jobs suffered from narcissistic personality disorder. Jobs's personal life is sketchily covered, but what details there are don't charm.When he got an on/off girlfriend pregnant in his early 20s, he cut her off and aggres sively denied paternity – though he later, uncharacteristically, admitted regretting his behaviour and sought to build a relationship with his daughter. Jobs himself was adopted, and seems to have had what Americans call â€Å"issues around abandonment†. He cheated his friends out of money. He cut old colleagues out of stock options. He fired people with peremptoriness. He bullied waiters, insulted business contacts and humiliated interviewees for jobs.He lied his pants off whenever it suited him – â€Å"reality distortion field† is Isaacson's preferred phrase. Like many bullies, he was also a cry-baby. Whenever he was thwarted – not being made â€Å"Man of the Year† by Time magazine when he was 27, for instance – he burst into tears. Nowadays we are taught that being nice is the way to get on. Steve Jobs is  a  fine counter-example. In 2008, when  Fortune magazine  was on the point of running a damaging article about him, Job s summoned their managing editor to Cupertino to demand he spike the piece: â€Å"He leaned into Serwer's face and asked, ‘So, you've uncovered the fact that I'm bad.Why is that news? ‘† Well.. that’s the story. Sorry if I had given out a few spoilers on the book.. but they were essential to bring out the nature of an awesome personality! The book is well written and an easy read. To tell the story of Jobs’ complete life, the cast of characters is large. Mr Isaacson identifies the importance of those he included and what influence they had on Jobs. So, in a nut shell, this book, to use a few words from Job’s dictionary, is a ‘Must read! ’

Using Contemporary Issue Essay Topics Moral

Using Contemporary Issue Essay Topics Moral The Benefits of Contemporary Issue Essay Topics Moral Moral argumentative essay topics are a few of the simplest to get carried away with. Writing an intriguing essay about trendy topics is an opportunity to reveal your knowledge of the planet. Researching the topic will enable you to find out more about what fascinates you, and should you pick something you really like, writing the essay will be more enjoyable. Furthermore, this issue of your paper ought to be interesting not just for you but also for your audience. You've got a possibility to select one of the greatest topics for argumentative essay from our list! The absolute most important element of a thriving work is choosing an excellent topic to go over and to defend by arguments. Therefore, the topic ought to be debatable! Don't hesitate to use our sample topics to produce your own! Contemporary Issue Essay Topics Moral - the Story However, we're inarguably more efficient in our badness nowadays. Should you look around, you're observe social troubles that affect society every single day. The issue, nevertheless, is that often terminally ill folks aren't capable of ending their life in a painless, dignified fashion, and for that reason require the aid of a relative of close friend. Needless to say, you can observe the phenomena of human laziness together with developed technology in some place. As in the prior examples, it can be quite tricky to speak up, especially as soon as an incident involves popular kids. Attempt to persuade somebody who might disagree with you about three things they can do in order to tackle racism today. When deciding on a social issue to discuss, you will need to select something that truly interests you and that you've always wished to bring to public attention. Pay close attention to all things electronic, and you will be certain to find something debatable of what you see. When you're picking your topic, bear in mind that it's much simpler to write about something which you currently have interest ineven in case you don't know a great deal about it. The Contemporary Issue Essay Topics Moral Cover Up Sociology is, undoubtedly, a fascinating subject, particularly if you're fortunate enough to find a progressive-thinking professor. Social problems aren't universal to each society and have a tendency to change rapidly. They arise due to various factors. There have been a number of studies that have shown inequalities in how the British citizens have access to health services. Therefore there are lots of other ways social welfare of the state has failed to tackle the requirements of the citizens. This is intended to make sure that all individual living in the society have a feeling of security as pertain to several issue in the society. Kids, kids and youths of the nation are future of the country so they're the principal target to boost awareness about any social troubles. When you compose a social issue essay, it is very important to demonstrate your private view of the issue. You should make sure you've picked an adequate topic so that you can submit a high-quality essay. Argumentative writings is a particular sort of a paper. To start with, your essay is supposed to tackle a specific social, psychological or anthropological matter. The Secret to Contemporary Issue Essay Topics Moral There's no present proof that advanci ng technology will deteriorate the capacity of humans to think. The upcoming ability of growing new brain cells and the chance to reverse the beginning of alzheimer's is now turning into a reality. You also have to explain the way the needs were assessed. You're building an image of a social issue, and you will need to bring up every potential side of the story. Before submitting your assignment, you will need to ensure that it's flawless and error-free. It doesn't matter to us, whether you're too busy on the job concentrating on a passion undertaking, or simply tired of a seemingly infinite stream of assignments. Don't be worried if you don't have good writing skills because you always need to seek the services of an expert to finish your assignment in time. Expert help in academic writing is always a better choice for students should they desire to secure excellent grades.

Maria Agnesi Mathematician and Philosopher

Dates: May 16, 1718 - January 9, 1799 Known for: author of first mathematics book by a woman that still survives; first woman appointed as a mathematics professor at a university Occupation: mathematician, philosopher, philanthropist Also known as: Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Maria Gaà «tana Agnesi About Maria Agnesi Maria Agnesis father was Pietro Agnesi, a wealthy nobleman and a professor of mathematics at the University of Bologna. It was normal in that time for the daughters of noble families to be taught in convents and to receive instruction in religion, household management and dressmaking. A few Italian families educated daughters in more academic subjects and some attended lectures at the university or even lectured there. Pietro Agnesi recognized the talents and intelligence of his daughter Maria. Treated as a child prodigy, she was given tutors to learn five languages (Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French, and Spanish) as well as philosophy and science. The father invited groups of his colleagues to gatherings at their home and had Maria Agnesi present speeches to the assembled men. By age 13, Maria could debate in the language of the French and Spanish guests, or she could debate in Latin, the language of the educated. She didnt like this performing, but she could not persuade her father to let her out of the task until she was twenty years old. In that year 1738, Maria Agnesi assembled almost 200 of the speeches she had presented to her fathers gatheringsand published them in Latin as Propositiones philosphicae—in English, Philosophical Propositions. But the topics went beyond philosophy as we think of the topic today and included scientific topics like celestial mechanics, Isaac Newtons gravitation theory, and elasticity. Pietro Agnesi married twice more after Marias mother died so that Maria Agnesi ended up the eldest of 21 children. In addition to her performances and lessons, her responsibility was to teach her siblings. This task kept her from her own goal of entering a convent. Also in 1783, wanting to do the best job of communicating up-to-date mathematics to her younger brothers, Maria Agnesi began to write a mathematics textbook which absorbed her for ten years. The Instituzioni Analitiche was published in 1748 in two volumes equaling over one thousand pages. The first volume covered arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, analytic geometry, and calculus. The second volume covered infinite series and differential equations. No one before had published a text on calculus that included the methods of both Isaac Newton and Gottfried Liebnitz. Maria Agnesi brought together ideas from many contemporary mathematical thinkers—made easier by her ability to read in many languages—and integrated many of the ideas in a novel way that impressed the mathematicians and other scholars of her day. In recognition of her achievement, she was appointed to the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy at the University of Bologna in 1750 by an act of Pope Benedict XIV. She was also recognized by the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. Did Maria Agnesi ever accept the Popes appointment? Was it a real appointment or an honorary one? So far, the historical record does not answer those questions. Maria Agnesis name lives on in the name that English mathematician John Colson gave to a mathematical problem—finding the equation for a certain bell-shaped curve. Colson confused the word in Italian for curve for a somewhat similar word for witch, and so today this problem and equation still carries the name witch of Agnesi. Maria Agnesis father was seriously ill in 1750 and died in 1752. His death released Maria from her responsibility to educate her siblings, and she used her wealth and her time to help those less fortunate. In 1759 she established a home for the poor. In 1771 she headed up a home for the poor and ill. By 1783 she was made director of a home for the elderly, where she lived among those she served. She had given away everything she owned by the time she died in 1799, and the great Maria Agnesi was buried in a paupers grave. Print Bibliography: Smith, Sanderson. Agnesi to Zeno: Over 100 Vignettes from the History of Math. 1996.Tilche, Giovanni. Maria Gaetana Agnesi.