...Accepted Manuscript Title: Effect of layer thickness on thermal properties of multilayer thin films produced by PVD Authors: B. Tlili, C. Nouveau, M.J. Walock, M. Nasri, T. Gharib PII: DOI: Reference: To appear in: S0042-207X(11)00353-8 10.1016/j.vacuum.2011.09.008 VAC 5485 Vacuum Received Date: 20 February 2011 Revised Date: 5 September 2011 Accepted Date: 18 September 2011 Please cite this article as: Tlili B, Nouveau C, Walock MJ, Nasri M, Gharib T. Effect of layer thickness on thermal properties of multilayer thin films produced by PVD, Vacuum (2011), doi: 10.1016/ j.vacuum.2011.09.008 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Effect of layer thickness on thermal properties of multilayer thin films produced by PVD B. Tlilia,b, C. Nouveaub, M J Walockc,a, M. Nasria, dT.Gharib. UR. Mécanique Appliquée, Ingénierie et Industrialisation (M.A.2I), ENIT, BP 37, Le Belvédère, 1002 Tunis, Tunisie b Laboratoire Bourguignon des Matériaux et Procédés (LaBoMaP), Centre Arts et Métiers ParisTech de Cluny, Rue Porte de Paris, F-71250 Cluny...
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...The importance of customer service at Enterprise Rent-A-Car Introduction Most people probably think they know what Enterprise Rent-A-Car does. It is in the car rental business and operates a fleet of more than 850,000 vehicles. However, Enterprise Rent-A-Car has quite a different idea of what its business is all about. In Enterprise’s view, the business it is involved in is customer satisfaction. This is a characteristic that it shares in common with every successful service company, large or small. A service business is one that meets customer needs by providing them with a valued service. As individuals, all of us use services – having our hair cut, going to the cinema, drawing money out of our bank account and many other activities. Businesses also use services such as transport, insurance, and financial services. Enterprise Rent-A-Car is the number one rental car company in North America and arguably, the world. CURRICULUM TOPICS • Marketing and the business environment • Customer satisfaction • Evaluating customer service • Market research and development GLOSSARY Service: any way of providing benefits to a customer that doesn’t involve the exchange of a tangible good. Forbes: an American business and financial magazine. It produces lists of the biggest and most important companies in Britain, America and elsewhere. Private companies: companies that are owned by shareholders. These shares are not available for purchase by the general public. Revenue: the total value...
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...A case analysis of “Enterprise Rent-A-Car: Measuring Service Quality” A Case Analysis of “Enterprise Rent-A-Car: Measuring Service Quality” I. Statement Of The Problem General: Enterprise’s managers wondered how they could improve the customer-satisfaction-tracking process. Specific: To identify and take action on customer service problems quickly and efficiently. II. Areas of Consideration There are two major factors contributing to the problem. First, although the company is getting a 25% response rate, in which the results indicated a big difference between the best performing and the weakest regions where the business is operating, the survey results were not meaningful enough in giving information. Second, the survey could take up to two months to get the results back, and the company believed it needed a process that would get the customer satisfaction information more quickly, so its branch managers could identify and take action on customer service problems quickly and efficiently. III. Alternative Sources of Action I may suggest a number of other possibilities rather than just mailing survey forms to their customers. Enterprise could put up a survey form in each vehicle so that people experiencing a problem could record/report it while it is still fresh in their minds. And customers could mail these in turn or turn them in whey return the car. I may also suggest that Enterprise employees could hand the customer the questionnaire...
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...Enterprise Rent-A-Car: Measuring Service Quality SURVEYING CUSTOMERS Kelvin Kirkman wheeled his shiny blue BMW couple into his driveway, put the gearshift into park, set the parking brake and got out to check his mail box as he did every day when he returned home. As he flipped through the deluge of catalogs and credit card offers, he noticed a letter from Enterprise Rent-A-Car. He wondered why Enterprise would be writing him. THE WRECK Then he remembered. Early that month, Kelvin had been involved in a wreck. A he was driving to work one rainy morning, another car had been unable to stop on the slick pavement and had plowed into his car as he waited at a stoplight. Thankfully, neither he nor the other driver was hurt, but both cars had sustained considerable damage. In fact, he was not able to drive his car. Kelvin had used his cell phone to call the police, and while he was waiting for the offices to come, he had called his auto insurance agent. The agent had assured Kelvin that his policy included coverage to pay for a rental car while he was having his car repaired. He told Kelvin to have the car towed to a nearby auto repair shop and gave him the telephone number for the Enterprise Rent-A-Car office that served his area. The agent noted that his company recommended using Enterprise for replacement rentals and that Kelvin’s policy would cover up to $20 per day of the rental fee. Once Kelvin had checked his car in at the shop and made the necessary arrangements...
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...Introduction Enterprise Rent-A-Car has been given the opportunity to excel and further dominate its industry. With the continually expanding market and need for this service a window has presented itself for Enterprise. Using information provided and in -depth marketing knowledge a line of action will be provided that will allow Enterprise to reach its goals. Problem Statement In order to continue to grow and prosper while staying true to their corporate culture Enterprise Rent-A-Car needs to focus on recruiting and retaining promising college graduates and optimizing its marketing strategy to gain the most possible advantage. However this must all be achieved in spite of college student’s lack of knowledge and awareness of the opportunities that Enterprise provide, that the rental car market is still rapidly evolving, making it very volatile and prone to changes and the emerging as well as established competition. Environmental Analysis To best organize the environmental analysis the method SWOT will be used. Identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats will give a good understanding the conditions that Enterprise is restricted by. Strengths * Established * Large Market Share * Recognized Brand * Necessity of Service * Strong Reward System * Effective Culture | Weaknesses * Ineffective Advertising * College Graduates Unaware of Opportunities | Opportunities * Growing Market | Threats * Competition | Enterprise Rent-A-Car has a...
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...Discuss the case study questions in your team, and use your collective ideas and knowledge of Enterprise Rent-A-Car to create a 10-minute presentation addressing the key issues. Your classmates and tutor will provide helpful feedback and suggestions CASE STUDY Measuring & Managing Customer Satisfaction Synopsis This case presents an overview of the customer-focused strategy that has catapulted Enterprise Rent-A-Car into position as the largest rent-a-car company in the industry. As of 2005, when the case is set, Enterprise had $8.2 billion in revenue, approximately 818,000 vehicles, more than 6,500 locations, and more than 61,000 full-time and part-time employees. From 1980 through 2005, the company’s revenues grew at a compound annual rate of 20.5 percent. Now well into their 5th decade of doing business, Enterprise was founded in 1957 by Jack Taylor, who began leasing cars while working with a car dealer in St. Louis, Missouri. When his customers lost the use of their cars due to accidents or the need for repairs, Jack saw the opportunity to rent them replacement vehicles. This led to the creation of Enterprise Rent-A-Car in 1962, a company which for much of its history focused exclusively on the "home-city" rental replacement market – local branches near our customers’ homes and businesses rather than at the airport. From the beginning, Enterprise has based its growth strategy on a simple philosophy. Jack Taylor believed that by taking care of customers...
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...executives—from Vanguard, Chick-fil-A, State Farm, and a half-dozen other leading companies—had gathered at a daylong forum to swap insights that would help them further enhance their loyalty efforts. And what they were hearing from Andy Taylor, the CEO of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, was riveting. Taylor and his senior team had figured out a way to measure and manage customer loyalty without the complexity of traditional customer surveys. Every month, Enterprise polled its customers using just two simple questions, one about the quality of their rental experience and the other about the likelihood that they would rent from the company again. Because the process was so simple, it was fast. That allowed the company to publish ranked results for its 5,000 U.S. branches within days, giving the offices real-time feedback on how they were doing and the opportunity to learn from successful peers. The survey was different in another important way. In ranking the branches, the company counted only the customers who gave the experience the highest possible rating. That narrow focus on enthusiastic customers surprised the CEOs in the room. Hands shot up. What about the rest of Enterprise’s customers, the marginally satisfied who continued to rent from Enterprise and were necessary to its business? Wouldn’t it be better to track, in a more sophisticated way, mean or median statistics? No, Taylor said. By concentrating solely on those most enthusiastic about their rental experience, the company could focus...
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...INTRODUCTION According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, there were 27.2 million small businesses in the United States in 2007. Small business can be defined in different ways. The U.S. Government agency that helps people start businesses is the Small Business Administration or SBA. It categorizes a business in the United States as small if it has fewer than 500 employees. The international community uses the term small and medium enterprise or SME, instead of small business. Among SMEs, small enterprises have 1 to 50 people, while medium enterprises have 51 to 500 people. Whereas on owner-managed small businesses of 1–50 people and places greater emphasis on the lower end of the range. Independent and owner-managed small business means that the business is owned by an individual or small group rather than existing as part of a larger enterprise or a business whose stock can be bought on an exchange. Owner-management refers to constant or at least daily management of a business by its owner. It is possible to become an absentee owner, who profits from a business but is not involved in its day-to-day operations. This, however, is a different type of business with different problems from those of firms run by an owner manager. Small businesses are imitative in nature, with most small firms doing what other firms do, with only slight variations. But when we think about the people who start firms for the first time, the situations they face are situations of novelty. The...
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...A HANDBOOK FOR VALUE CHAIN RESEARCH Prepared for the IDRC by Raphael Kaplinsky and Mike Morris* We are grateful to colleagues in both our individual institutions and in the Spreading the Gains from Globalisation Network (particularly those participating in the Bellagio Workshop in September 2000) for discussions around many of the issues covered in this Handbook and also to Stephanie Barrientos, Jayne Smith and Justin Barnes. An Important Health Warning or A Guide for Using this Handbook Lest anyone feel overwhelmed by the depth of detail in this Handbook, especially with respect to the sections on methodology, we would like to emphasise at the outset: this Handbook is not meant to be used or read as a comprehensive step by step process that has to be followed in order to undertake a value chain analysis. We know of no value chain analysis that has comprehensively covered all the aspects dealt with in the following pages, and certainly not in the methodologically sequential Handbook set out below. Indeed to try and do so in this form would be methodologically overwhelming, and would certainly bore any reader of such an analysis to tears. Our intention in producing a Handbook on researching value chains is to try and comprehensively cover as many aspects of value chain analysis as possible so as to allow researchers to dip in and utilise what is relevant and where it is appropriate. It is not an attempt to restrict researchers within a methodological strait-jacket...
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...and future prospects. [pic] COMPANY PROFILE Our vision We are committed to dynamic growth and service excellence built upon our heritage of traditional hospitality. We strive to consistently meet and surpass guests, employees and others stakeholders expectations. We feel pride in making efforts to position Pakistan in the forefront of the international arena. Our Core Values - G.R.I.T Growth & Development Recognition & Reward Innovation Trust Recognition and Reward Achievement orientation Performance-based evaluation Appreciation Incentives Setting ever-rising standards of performance Innovation Listening and two-way interaction Participation Encouragement Motivation Enterprises Trust Cooperation Support Teamwork Sense of ownership Empowerment Integrity Dignity Respect Candidness Growth & Development For All Competence and contribution as the only basis for job security Promotion from within Learning environment and opportunities Provision for world-class education and training Aligning people with latest technological trends INTRODUCTION TO PEARL CONTINENTAL History The Pearl continental chain in Pakistan is owned by the Hashwani group under the holding company Pakistan Services Ltd (PSL) and Hashwani Hotels ltd respectively. The Pearl chain was acquired by the group in 1985, at a time when the image of the hotel was deteriorating due to service inefficiencies. At this time the name of the hotel was changed from Hotel Intercontinental to pearl...
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...This article was downloaded by: [80.5.173.244] On: 18 June 2012, At: 04:49 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Strategic Marketing Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjsm20 Competitive positioning and the resource-based view of the firm a a Graham Hooley , Amanda Broderick & Kristian Möller a b Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham, B4 7ET, UK b Department of Marketing, Helsinki School of Economics, Runeberginkatu 14–16, Helsinki, FIN-00100, Finland Available online: 28 Jul 2006 To cite this article: Graham Hooley, Amanda Broderick & Kristian Möller (1998): Competitive positioning and the resourcebased view of the firm, Journal of Strategic Marketing, 6:2, 97-116 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09652549800000003 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents ...
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... You have to make sacrifice => opportunity cost: It's the best next alternative that is forgone. The alternative that is forgone is called the opportunity cost of what is produced. Eg. If the UK government chooses to build a school rather than a hospital then the hospital is the opportunity cost. * Resource allocation: Directing resources to the desired areas to produce goods and services that are demand by society. It is to maximise profit and satisfaction. II. 3 fundamentals questions 1. What to produce Goods/ services that are demanded by society 2. How to produce? Cost effective technologies (reduced the cost and not sacrifice the quality) 3. For whom to produce? Target, people who have the purchasing power different groups III. Goods and services Goods: Anything that we can touch (=tangible) Service: Anything that we can’t touch (=intangible) a. Goods * Free goods: they are available in plenty and don’t have an opportunity cost. Eg: sun, air, wind * Capital goods: Goods that are used to produce the finale goods and service. * Consumer goods: They are bought for final consumption * Economics goods: They are scare and do have an opportunity cost. Eg: Computer, TV, etc IV. Resources a....
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...Global Communications Global communication is the process of exchanging and receiving information on a world-wide scale. Until recent times it was difficult to communicate with other countries, with factors such as time, distance, and language barriers being major restrictions. However, the evolution of technology communication has become increasingly easier, faster, clearer and more effective (Lubbers & Koorevaar, 2000). . Course Concepts Identified Though Global Communications and the situations involved present multiple problems one sees the potential for possible solutions. The course concepts in the following synopses include communication issues, ethical dilemmas such as integrity, social responsibility and the quality of life. All of the above listed items will show a need for improvement in the globally communicative world that one lives in. As new creations, such as the internet are continually being created, modified and converged with other products, they are enabling new modes of interaction. Even more global communications has hit the world in a strategic and effective manner. Global markets now offer the ability to produce cheaper products, access to consumers in foreign countries, new sources of finance and income, new sources of technology and access to a world of people with know-how. (Stevens, Miller & Michalski, 2000). The issue now is how far will its affect take many of the institutes today, what can one reap from this and how...
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...12/11/2015 HR Articles: Problem Statement, HR Recruitment influenced by Internet 1 More Next Blog» Create Blog Sign In Find Air Tickets, Book Hotels & Rent Cars Problem Statement, HR Recruitment influenced by Internet +1 Recommend this on Google jetradar Origin Origin Destination Destination Depart date 18 december, fr Return date 25 december, fr Passengers/Class 1 passenger economy сlass Search http://humanresourcesarticles.blogspot.my/2014/11/problemstatementhrrecruitment.html 1/15 12/11/2015 HR Articles: Problem Statement, HR Recruitment influenced by Internet Show hotels Most Popular Posts Most Popular Posts Launching an Intranet; Data in Hiring; Bad Phish Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015 7 Tips to Launching an Intranet Social intranets are helping organizations overcome the barriers of location, language and ... Dec 10, 2015 11:21 AM Kutik on the Real Five Generations in the Workplace Email not displaying correctly, click here. December 10, 2015 Welcome to our weekly look at Webexclusive columns that appear on www.HREOnline.com ... Dec 10, 2015 11:08 AM Last Chance: 40% Off + Free Shipping on Custom Holid... It's crunchtime to order your holiday cards get them today to ensure delivery next week! Grab them now from The Signature Collection, with cards... Dec 10, 2015 9:50 AM A day in the Life of HR The industrial relations system is defined as an analytically subsystem of...
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...whereas the others have service. A primary purpose of financial reporting is to report on an entity’s accomplishments — how well it achieved its objectives. Accordingly, the financial statements of businesses measure profitability, their key objective. Financial reports of governments and other not-for-profits should not focus on profitability, since it is not a relevant objective. Ideally, therefore, they should focus on other performance objectives, such as how well the organizations met their service goals. In reality, however, the goal of reporting on how well they have achieved such goals has proven difficult to attain and the financial reports have focused mainly on financially-related data. 2. Governments and not-for-profits are “governed” by the budget, whereas businesses are governed by the marketplace. The budget is the key political and fiscal document of governments and not-for-profits. It determines how an entity obtains its resources and how it allocates them. It encapsulates most key decisions of consequence made by the organization. In a government the budget is not merely a managerial document; it is the law. 3. Owing to the significance of the budget, constituents want assurance that the entity achieves its revenue estimates and complies with its spending mandates. They expect the financial statements to report on how the budget was administered. 4. Interperiod equity is the concept that taxpayers of today pay for the services that they receive and...
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