Required Skills for a Start up Firm

Question: Discusse some of the required skills for a start up firm against the well-established company. Answer: The case study discussed some of the required skills for a start up firm against the well-established company by attracting the best talents. The process includes the method of recruiting, motivating, and retaining the employees for the future purposes. The study also represent the methods of facilitating different training programs as well as describing the importance of understanding the relevancy of such training session. The initiatives undertaken by the company for the continuous monitoring process will also be discussed in this study. The implementation of the alternative strategies for earning reputation is also highlighted more prominently in this case study. Case Analysis Rationale for Mikes Strategic Training Mikes Car wash services have been serving the customers of Indiana and Ohio since 1948. It is notified that the major focus on Mikes Car Wash is to establish the group of employees with high ethical values and experienced skills for satisfying customers. As stated by Bushnell Stone (2014), the recognition of the positive traits and dedicated workforce is the most required aspect for achieving the success. Hence, Mikes has been focusing on training the employees with more skilful efforts and teach them how to treat the customers that will make them dealing with the company for the future prospects. However, in discussing the rationale in this context, it can be mentioned that the biggest challenges are concerned with the establishment of great customer experience. The customer satisfaction is the major concern for a firm to determine their future success. The emergence competitive scenario in the business market influences the customers to replace the services in just a blink of the eyes (Weiss, 2014). Hence, Mikes has been concentrating on associating skilled employees, providing enough motivation to retain them, and ensuring the scope for their development. The association of the training process would be helpful for Mikes in such context. It is seen that Mikes has the perception that the enhancements of the customer satisfaction is the ultimate process of achieving success and determining the future sustainability. The skilful performance attributes of the employees can be helpful in such context. If the employees get the opportunity or the motivation to grow within an organisation, the efficient performance skill would reflect in the performance outcomes (Shahid, A., Azhar, 2013). Hence, it is necessary to provide the proper training session that will influence the employees to bring out the better working level, which can be fruitful for satisfying customers. Supportiveness of Mikes for training activities The growth of the employees is the major source for bringing out the efficiency in the performance attributes (Vozikis et al. 2014). Hence, Mikes has been concentrating on the improvisation of the training process. The belief of Mikes is highlighting the concerns about the customers. The improvisation of the customer services is the key to achieve the organisational objectives. Therefore, the training session is clarifying the purposes of retaining the employees for longer period. In focusing on such requirement, the first and foremost career path is structuring the job roles (Diwanji et al. 2014). Starting from the ordinary employees to supervisor, then manager, and lastly to the assistant manager is the step wise focus determined by a corporation. Firstly, the candidates need to pass the internal examination with 80% marks. The training includes the extra services like tire treatments and clearing coats. Supportiveness for Continuous Learning While undertaking the training and development programs, Mikes reflects the supportiveness towards continuous learning process. The company is located in 37 places, which requires the better monitoring process. Therefore, Mikes has launched In the Loop, which is a video series. This video series is telecasted once a week and includes the different segments for the training purposes. Each of the segments is of 10 minutes and it describes the diversified methodologies for the training related to the performance of the various stores and the employees. It also provides the description of the communication system through video conference. This innovative communication process through video conferencing is effective enough in building the customer base. Executive Decisions It is seen that Mikes usually conducts two surveys per year to enhance the employee engagement as well as their satisfaction level in time of leave. Formulation of the expert group with fifteen to twenty employees to improvise the training procedures and modifying the skills is also much required in such cases. The execution of such initiatives is the key way to achieve the performance excellence and helpful enough in maximising the effectiveness for the training purposes. The continuous learning is essential and it requires the regular monitoring process. It has been seen that to promote the continuous learning, the CEO of Mikes reads out the letter consisting the feedback reposes derived from the satisfied customers. These feedbacks are encouraging the company to improve their strong ethical values that are necessary for extracting the similar responses in the future. Hence, the process and procedures are helpful enough in considering the continuous monitoring process. The employee s are also encouraged to present their skills for determining the personal and professional traits and ensure the progressive attributes of the company. References Bushnell, N., Stone, G. (2014).Finding the Next Steve Jobs: How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent. Simon and Schuster. Diwanji, P., Simon, B. P., Marki, M., Korkut, S., Dornberger, R. (2014, November). Success factors of online learning videos. InInteractive Mobile Communication Technologies and Learning (IMCL), 2014 International Conference on(pp. 125-132). IEEE. Korschun, D., Bhattacharya, C. B., Swain, S. D. (2014). Corporate social responsibility, customer orientation, and the job performance of frontline employees.Journal of Marketing,78(3), 20-37. Shahid, A., Azhar, S. M. (2013). Gaining employee commitment: Linking to organizational effectiveness.Journal of management research,5(1), 250. Vozikis, G., Mescon, T., Feldman, H., Liguori, E. W. (2014).Entrepreneurship: Venture Initiation, Management and Development. Routledge. Weiss, A. (2014).Efficiency wages: Models of unemployment, layoffs, and wage dispersion. Princeton University Press.

Renaissance Essays - Medieval Philosophy, Renaissance, Humanism

Renaissance The 14th, 15th and part of 16th century was a glorious time for Europe, it was the reformation of many old ideas and the formation of many new, this was called the Renaissance. The Renaissance brought many changes to Europe, the economy was greatly boosted by of all the new explorations. The flourishing economy helped to inspire new developments in art and literature. And from that many new beliefs were formed. The European economy flourished during the Renaissance due to many factors. There was a large income coming in from over seas exploration. Spain alone received added income from Christopher Columbus and when he stumbled across North America on his way to find a shorter rout to the Indies. The exploration down the coast of Africa also brought in a lot of extra income. This income came from the exploitation of the Africans by kidnapping them and selling them as slaves. Income also came from establishing colonies in Africa and setting up gold mines and mines for other needed metals. With all of this extra income coming into the European countries they had more money to help fund the arts. During the Renaissance there were many drastic changes in the style of art. Giotto was a very influential painter, during the start of the Renaissance. In Giotto's work he used three dimensional images, this was a drastic change from the classic art where depth was not used. His painting were very realistic and life like, unlike the previous centuries art. Giotto's work inspired artists by the likes of Leonardo de Vinci, Raphael and Michaelango. Michaelango painted the Sistine Chapel, which is located in the Vatican in Rome. The Sistine Chapel depicted the book of Genesis. The manner in which it was painted was unlike another at the time, all the characters in the Sistine chapel are very life like and realistic. Also it was one of the first times that religion was painted by the painters opinion of the events. The arts led to new ways of thinking. With the arts the artists began to think on their own and those movements began to spread. It was not just what the church said anymore that was right. Humanism, one of the new beliefs which was formed during the Renaissance, said that people should read the works of the greats and focus on writing, and the arts. Humanists believed that they were equal with the ancient Greek and Roman writers and philosophers. Petrarch was the original humanist, and a writer who wrote many letters to the people of ancient Rome. In those letters he spoke as if he was an equal with them. Another of the new beliefs was scholasticism, which was the opposite of humanism. Scholastics thought that people should spend more time the sciences, they also wanted the church and science to be brought together as one. As new scientific discoveries were made many of the churches theories were beginning to be questioned. Some of the new scientific discoveries consisted of theories which went against the churches beliefs. One theory which was proven true about the Earth revolving around the sun. This was contrary to the churches view that everything revolved around the Earth. This theory was proven true by Copernicus who is considered the father of modern astronomy. Kelper an astronomer and astrologer also discovered about the rotation of the planets. As the church began to be questioned more and more. And soon there were new religions forming. The major religion that was formed during the Renaissance was the Protestant religion. The Protestant religion began to spread throughout Europe, at one point of time the official church of England was a Protestant church. This new and improved Europe was mainly came to be from the blustering economy, the explorations, art, literature, and new discoveries, but this new growth of a western power was not just a natural development, in fact it was inspired by a superior civilization, the Chinese. If it was not for the Chinese version of the Renaissance which occurred about a thousand years earlier there would be no European Renaissance. The Chinese had many useful inventions which the Europeans exploited unlike the Chinese. One crucial Chinese

Cause of the Civil War essays

Cause of the Civil War essays The Civil War is commonly thought to have been caused by the idea or institution of slavery in the United States. Although slavery did play a part in leading to the Civil War, the true cause of the United States of America being divided into two separate entities was succession. More specifically the succession of the state of South Carolina from the Union. The succession of South Carolina, the catalyst which ignited the conflict of the Civil War, was brought of by two key factors, the southern nationalistic views and the strong leadership among the Cotton Kingdom1 which South Carolina possessed. Ten years prior to the Civil War the south, especially South Carolina, had a strong feeling of southern nationalism. This was of no surprise considering all of the influences and events of the time period, 1850. The historical meeting of the Nashville Convention, November 14, 1850, was of the largest importance dealing with this issue. Cheves launched an attack on Henry Clays Compromise of 1850, saying to the southerners, Unite, and you shall form one of the most splendid empires on which the sun ever shone, of the most homogeneous population...2. Cheves went even further, making a defensive attack on how the south should unite and further declined that the institution of slavery was not wrong or immoral, but in fact was apart of their culture and their society. Chevess speech at the convention was not the only topic that brought together and connected the people of the Palmetto State3 and the rest of the south, but the tariff and nullification episode between 1827 and 1833 also gave the southerners a feeling of nationalism to their part of the country. The tariffs gave the south such a disadvantage to the north that they had no other choice but to band together. Cotton, the souths most lucrative and essential industry, price, ...had fallen from thirty cents a p...

Citizenship to the united states of america essays

Citizenship to the united states of america essays There are two ways to become a citizen. The two ways are by birth and through naturalization. Birth because of Jus Soli, those who are born in the United States are US citizens and those who are born to US citizens as well. If you were born in the United States: Including, in most cases, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, you are an American citizen at birth (unless you were born to a foreign diplomat). Your birth certificate is proof of your citizenship. If you were born abroad to TWO U.S. citizens: And at least one of your parents lived in the United States at some point in his or her life, then in most cases you are a U.S. citizen. If you were born abroad to ONE U.S. citizen: In most cases, you are a U.S. citizen if ALL of the following are true: one of your parents was a U.S. citizen when you were born; your citizen parent lived at least 5 years in the United States before you were born; and at least 2 of these 5 years in the United States were after your citizen parents 14th birthday. Your record of birth abroad, if registered with a U.S. consulate or embassy, is proof of your citizenship. You may also apply for a passport to have your citizenship recognized. If you need additional proof of your citizenship, you may file an Application for Certificate of Citizenship with USCIS to get a Certificate of Citizenship. Call the USCIS Forms Line at 1-800-870-3676 to request a Form N-600, or download the form from the internet at http://uscis.gov. Naturalization If naturalization is to confer the rights of a national on and to admit to citizenship, then how might one become a naturalized citizen? If you are not a U.S. citizen by birth or did not acquire U.S. citizenship automatically after birth, you may still be eligible to become a citizen through the normal naturalization process. People who are 18 years and older use the Application for Naturalization (Form N-400) to become...

Louisiana Purchase Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Louisiana Purchase - Research Paper Example In addition, the US government had to cancel a $ 3,650, 000 owed by France. Louisiana had become a major issue in the European history following the defeat of the Britain by France. This essay will therefore analyze the acquisition of Louisiana by the United States and its implication on the European political history. The city of Orleans was strategically located on river Mississippi and, hence it provided a good control point for activities that took place in the waterways. It acquisition was therefore significant to the US economy during that time. The main reason why the United States needed to acquire the territory is that, it was the easiest channel to the Gulf of Mexico. River Mississippi was vital to the United States economy since it served as an entry point for goods leaving United States and goods coming into the country (Ziegler 1988, 85). During that time, the country heavily depended on water transport, as it did not have access to other transport system. The US depende d on the Mississippi waterway to transport most agricultural products such as tobacco and cotton from the upper states. The rights to be able to navigate through rivers Mississippi and Ohio were therefore significant the United States (United States. Dept. of State, 1905, 122-125). The United States also needed to control the region in order to reduce the financial cost that it was incurring due to the French and Spanish control over the area. Initially US merchants had to pay hefty sums of money as tax in order to use the Mississippi and Ohio waterways. The US government therefore needed to gain control over the city in order to boost its trade balance by reducing the operation cost incurred by merchants from the country. Other than trade, the US population was expanding rapidly due to the large number of immigrants who were settling into the country from Europe. The US therefore, needed to expand its territory in order to achieve its expansion ambitions. The high population growth also had a direct influence on the United States’ economy. The US government therefore needed to be aggressive in the acquisition of land for its citizens. The acquisition of Orleans proved to the world that the United States had become fully independent from European powers. The Spanish and French forces that controlled the region posed a major threat for the expansion of the United States; the US needed to acquire the territory in order to end their control over the region. The acquisition marked the end of the western frontier enabling the country’s expansion to the west coast. France entered into war with other European powers from 1792 to 1795 under the leadership of Napoleon. The French forces were fighting in both the European and American frontiers. During the war, France incurred heavy costs that may have pushed Napoleon to sell off Louisiana to the Americans. The French army also suffered heavy casualties and this forced Napoleon to sell the territory to the Americans. The sale of Louisiana came at a time when the French army was preparing for war against the British in the northern frontier. To maintain the war Napoleon needed finances to pay the army and to provide essential supplies to the French soldiers. The French army also lacked appropriate military hardware that the government needed to acquire in order to maintain the war. During the war, Napoleon needed to control his army and the newly

Supermarkets in United Kingdom Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Supermarkets in United Kingdom - Essay Example Although the supermarkets claim to provide a wide range of options for their shopping but the prices that they charge on their products and the pressure given to the suppliers has created certain predicaments in the market. The four giants in the UK supermarket are Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrison. In addition to the planning controls by the government for taking care of the pressures felt by the suppliers in the retail industry, it has restricted the expansion plans of the four giants in the market (Grugulis, Bozkurt and Clegg, 2). Despite the recession happening in the country and decrease in the consumer’s spending, the food and retail industries are showing exponential growth; the main credit goes to the four giants in the supermarket industry who are opening numerous stores at an accelerating rate (Neate, 1). The report by Corporate Commission has indicated that Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrison have been successful in getting permission from the co ncerned authorities to expand into other areas by opening up new stores. The report also highlighted the threat the expansion of these large supermarkets posed to the convenience stores, local grocery stores and specialty stores. The study of Clerren et al. revealed that the large supermarkets are doing expansion on such an increasing rate so that they can get more market share as compared to their competitors and it is expected that the trend will continue so because of the support that they are receiving by the UK government (470-471). Grocery Market of UK The IGD research has shown that in the past ten years, the grocery market of UK has been growing at an exponential rate and the number of large supermarkets has risen to an exceptionally high figure (Li, 2). In 2008, the grocery market had reached ?146.3bn from ?93.3bn in the year 1998. Afterwards, the market has seen numerous uncertainties in the form of less consumer spending power, high rate of unemployment, financial crisis and many more. As of 2008, the UK grocery store has been divided into four major sectors i.e. convenience store; hypermarket, superstore and supermarkets; online channel and traditional retail. Among all the sectors, the huge market is of hypermarket, superstore and supermarkets and these comprise of more than 73% of the entire sales of the grocery market, followed by convenience stores’ sector that has 21% of the total sales; however, traditional retail faces stiff competition from the aforementioned two sectors and it has declined to 5% (Michaels, 1). According to the Corporate Watch, the four biggest supermarket chains in the UK market comprise of Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrison and they collectively constitute of about 68% of the complete grocery market (3). Tescopoly has shown that the grocery market share can be distributed as the traditional retail stores and supermarket chains; the market share is divided as 30% of Tesco, 15% of Asda, 14% of Sainsburyâ₠¬â„¢s, and Morrison of 10%. Other supermarket chains that are included in UK grocery market are Marks and Spence, Iceland, Waitrose, Whole Foods Market, Aldi, Lidl and many more (Vasquez-Nicholson, 3). Porter has reported that the disclosed sales figure of the four large supermarket chains in the last financial year are as follows, Tesco ?3.8billion, Asda

Referee Report for Economics Manuscript Essay Example for Free

Referee Report for Economics Manuscript Essay â€Å"Different Risk-Adjusted Fund Performance Measures: A Comparison† Summary This paper compares various risk-adjusted performance measures for a set of mutual funds. The authors argue that performance measures based on Value-at-Risk (VaR) or Extreme Value Theory (EVT) are more appropriate than other popular performance measures such as the Sharpe ratio (SR), the Treynor index (TI) or Jensen ´s Alpha (JA) . They propose a performance index similar to the SR and the TI based on losses calculated by means of VaR together with EVT. They find that EVT-VaR measures are more appropriate in the presence of non-normal data. Main Comments The topic of the paper is of relevance for financial practitioners as well as academics and it is certainly applicable to the current financial stability context. The paper is also generally wellwritten. However, I have some comments for its improvement. 1. The contribution of the paper is not clearly stated. In the 6th paragraph of the introduction, the authors suggest that their main contribution is the construction of a performance index based on EVT-VAR. However, it is not very clear why the new proposed measure should be better in relation to existing measures as it is now explained. It is true that VaR or EVT should be more reliable measures for extreme events but when looking at formula (13) it is not apparent why this measure should be more reliable than the traditional measures. The denominator has, in fact, an â€Å"extreme return† as opposed to the SR or TI which have strictly second moments, so it is not very straight forward to relate these measures. A better job should be done at explaining the implications of such VaR based measure, how it relates to other measures and why it should be better. 2. Why have the measures been compared only in a â€Å"static† way? It is widely known in the finance literature that asset return volatility is time-varying, and to some extent, also expected returns. It would be possible to go around the latter by arguing market efficiency (which is also questionable) but it is certainly much more difficult to argue against time-variability of the standard deviation in the VaR measures (or in the SA and TI ratios). This is very important as the â€Å"good† or â€Å"bad† applicability of a particular performance measure could be sample dependent and as it is now with unconditional measures, this is hard to uncover. For instance, while the authors account for nonnormality of returns in the modified-VaR measure by means of a Corner-Fisher quantile, they assume a constant standard deviation which means that in periods of high volatility they could still understate the VaR. So at the minimum, the performance comparisons should be done for the full sample and different sub-samples and it should be tested whether the measures obtained are significantly different over different samples. 3. The authors concentrate on top 10 and bottom 10 funds for their analysis and discarded the other funds â€Å"for the sake of simplicity†. However, by choosing only the â€Å"tail† funds, the authors are giving from the start an advantage to EVT or VaR measures. It would be more appropriate to also report results on (say) 10 â€Å"mid† funds. 4. It is not very clear why the top 10 funds â€Å"show more departures from normality† in relation to bottom funds. This finding should be expanded and the intuition behind it should be better explained. One could argue that â€Å"losers† could be more volatile than â€Å"winners† as the level of uncertainty with respect to the fund might increase which could lead to more extreme returns. In fact, in the 3rd paragraph of the empirical result section it says â€Å"the bottom 10 funds have, in general, higher VaR values than the top ones, which means that they are more susceptible to extreme events† which is somewhat contradictory with the finding that the top 10 funds exhibit more departures from normality. Moreover, one of the main findings of the study is that the VaR and EVT performance measures perform best in relation to other measures when there are more departures from normality in returns. A better attempt to reconcile the findings of nonnormality, the â€Å"winner vs. looser† funds and the results on the performance measures with some previous studies or satisfactory intuition should be done. Other comments 1. The contributions of the paper should be stated earlier in the paper and not almost at the end of the introduction as it is now. The contributions should be clearer (see also point 1 above) and should be better related to the existing relevant literature. 2. The conclusion is too long. The concluding remarks should be much shorter and should only summarize the main findings and reconcile them with the issues raised in the introduction as well as highlight possible extensions for future work. 3. The tables should also be improved. They should have a short description of the contents to facilitate reading. As it is now, the reader has to constantly come back to the main text to find out what the contents mean. 4. The figures are hardly visible, they should also be improved and a short explanation should be given.