...Marks and Spencer: Summary Report of the Case Study Introduction Marks and Spencer (M&S) is a leading UK retailer selling clothing, food, and housewares. In 2007, the company put sustainability at the heart of its business. In order to succeed, it would have to change the attitudes and the behavior of its shoppers. As a result, it launched Plan A which set out a five year plan involving 100 social and environmental commitments that were expected to shape the future of the company. Plan A would allow the company to resolve some of the big issues facing their business. They called it Plan A because there is “no B when it comes to conserving the earth’s finite resources” (Marks & Spencer Website). Brief Background on Company In 1884, Michael Marks started the company by selling an assortment of goods in an open-air stall in Leeds, UK. In the 1920’s, the company went public and expanded into general merchandise and ready-to-wear clothing. By the 1970’s, the company had become a British icon and a household name. However, from the 1980’s to 1993 came the troubled years. Despite the expansion of its operations in the 1980’s, the retailer had failed to keep current with its shopper’s preferences and this led to financial woes. From 1994 to 2006, it was back to the basics for the company. By 1996, it had rebounded to become the UK’s most profitable retailer. However, this recovery was short lived, and M&S experienced a significant slump in business in 1999 which continued into the...
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...ALLEGOR AND IRONY IN 'OTHELLO' Y ANTOINETT B. DAUBER E Othello is Shakespeare's Spenserian tragedy, in which the theme of slandere d chastity becomes a vehicle for exploring the problems of an allegorica l art . Allegory is the mode of selfconscious faith, and Spenser's corpus may be rea d as a portrai t of the artis t as allegorist , wrestling first with the burdens of selfconsciousness and then with the burdens of faith.l In Othello, Shakespeare compresses and objectifies this struggle. Unlike Spenser, he is not committed to the maintenance of allegory, and so he freely dramatizes the interna l weaknesses and external onslaughts that lead to its destruction. What I am calling the 'Spenserian ' quality begins with the chivalric elements in the tragedy. Truly, Othello is a kind of Savage Knight, Desdemona, the absolutely, almost miraculously, worthy lady, and Iago, something of a manipulator like Archimago.2 But more particularl y I would call attention to a specific engagement with Spenserian rhetoric . Consider Cassio' s words of welcome to the disembarking Desdemona: Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds, The gutter'd rocks and congregated sands, Traitors ensteep'd to enclog the guiltless keel, As having sense of beauty, do omit Their mortal natures, letting go safely by The divine Desdemona. (2.1.68-73)3 He sets her in the line of Spenser's heavenly allegories . As a parallel , we may recal l Una , slandere d by the arch-magician , abandone d by 123 her...
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...OM Individual Project Mark &Spencer case study Summary INTRODUCTION 3 I. HISTORICAL CONTEXT 3 A. Presentation of Marks & Spencer 3 B. Marks & Spencer’s strategy and its evolution 7 II. DISCUSSION 9 A. The evolutions in the area of operations management 9 B. The new goals of Operations Management 10 CONCLUSION 11 APPENDIX 12 INTRODUCTION Operations management includes the conception of a product; the planning of the material, financial and human resources, and the recording and the control of the production activities. It consists in finding the best approach to organize the supply, the production and the distribution of services and goods. The purpose is to optimize the processes of added value, by minimizing the costs (in the investments and in the operations) improving continually the flows from the supplier to the customer in order to satisfy them. The principle of Operation Management was created in 1776 by Adam Smith. It is used by companies since its creation; they followed its evolutions by adapting the new methods of OM within their business. The aim of this essay is to discover and analyze the different sights of operations management, its evolutions and significant changes during the last decade and define what are the new objectives of OM through one sector: the retail industry and more particularly across Marks & Spencer. Finding out the techniques of management that M&S uses, evaluating them and see the future operations they...
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...Quality for Money, Fashionable. Parents used to shop there - historical. Value proposition: Traditional department store. Value achieved by technologists, selectrs to design y dedicatd suppliers. all sold under same brand. network of well located stores. powerfull functional group - food clothes. fabric with japanese houses to try o work towards easy care fabrics with customers in mind. Fashion drove mns in 90s. industry influences customer choice. Rsetless - ho can we improve, how can we move forward, what can we do better, how can we innovate. Brand recognition. M&S 1. Value proposition and how was it provided? 2. What went wrong? Not tackling fundamental issues which were building up. Didnt lose many customers but lost touch with them. Over stock problem which led to heavy discounting, and didnt learn lesson as same thing happened again. Firm was pretending that everything was ok and short term issue for too long which later came as a suprise when dividends were cut. Competitors moved off shore, cheaper products of same quality and later even better quality. MNS had to take detail out of their product. Had to get Buying right as otherwise company couldnt recover. Suppliers tried to help as they were moving offshore but MNS didnt react fast enough. Didndt have fantastic product anymore. Ignored innovation in food. Lost direct command over the supply chain. 3. What is your assessment of Luc's approach? Took advantage of people feeling...
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...ANNALS of the ORADEA UNIVERSITY. Fascicle of Management and Technological Engineering, Volume VI (XVI), 2007 STRATEGY AND SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGETHE CASE OF ZARA FASHION CHAIN Sunhilde CUC, Simona TRIPA University of Oradea, Faculty of Textiles and Leatherworks, e-mail: hectic@rdslink.ro, tripasimona@yahoo.com, Keywords: Company Strategy, Competitive Advantage, Operational Effectiveness, Strategic Positioning Abstract. In this case study we want to analyse this phenomenon called Zara, a strategic unit of the Inditex Group, and evaluate the strategies of Zara on the European fashion market. Finally within the clothing market, it shows the competitive advantage gained through modern systems by comparing Zara to its opponents. 1. COMPANY PROFILE Firms strive for sustainable competitive advantage, financial performance that consistently outperforms their industry peers. The world is so dynamic, with new products and new competitors rising seemingly overnight, that truly sustainable advantage might seem like an impossibility. But there are winners and the Zara chain is one of them. The Zara fashion chain, founded in 1975 in Arteixo, a small town in the north of Spain, is perhaps the world's most successful clothing chain. Zara has helped its parent, the Spanish firm Inditex, grow from obscurity in the mid 90s to the world's third largest pure-play fashion retailer after the Swedish H&M and US-based Gap Inc. with financial performance well ahead of these rivals...
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...Firms strive for sustainable competitive advantage, financial performance that consistently outperforms their industry peers. The world is so dynamic, with new products and new competitors rise seemingly overnight, that truly sustainable advantage might seem like impossibility, but there are winners and the Zara chain is one of them. The Zara fashion chain, founded in 1975 in Arteixo, is perhaps the world's most successful clothing chain. Zara has helped its parent, the Spanish firm Inditex, grow from obscurity in the mid. 90’s to the world's third largest pure-play fashion retailer after the Swedish H&M and US-based Gap Inc. with financial performance well ahead of these rivals. With 1021 shops, at 13.04.2007, in 55 countries, Zara appears to have found the formula for success: Give the public what it wants, at the lowest possible price, in the shortest time possible. In order to think about how the firms achieve sustainable advantage, it's useful to start with two concepts defined by Michael Porter: operational effectiveness and strategic positioning. (I) OPERATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS According to Porter, the reason so many firms suffer aggressive, margin eroding competition, is because they've defined themselves according to operational effectiveness rather than strategic positioning. Operational effectiveness refers to performing the same tasks better than rivals perform them. Everyone wants to be better, but the danger in operational effectiveness is in "sameness". At its...
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...A BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH LITERARY (STANDARD) LANGUAGE ( From: I.R.Galperin. Stylistics. Moscow: Higher School, 1977. pp. 41-57) Up till now we have done little more than mention the literary (standard) language, which is one of the most important notions in stylistics and general linguistics. It is now necessary to elucidate this linguistic notion by going a little deeper into what constitutes the concept and to trace the stages in the development of the English standard language. This is necessary in order to avoid occasional confusion of terms differently used in works on the history, literature and style of the English language. Confusion between the terms "literary language" and "language of literature" is frequently to be met. Literary language is a historical category. It exists as a variety of the national language.' "It must be remembered," said A. M. Gorki, "that language is the creation of the people. The division of the language into literary and vernacular only means that there are, as it were, a rough unpolished tongue and one wrought by men-of-letters."1 The literary language is that elaborated form (variety) of the national language which obeys definite morphological, phonetic, syntactical, lexical, phraseological and stylistic norms2 recognized as standard and therefore acceptable in all kinds and types of discourse. It allows modifications but within the frame work of the system of established norms. It casts out some...
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...Williams College Marketing principles Submitted by : TASK1 This essay will have a brief definition and explanation of the marketing process and the evaluationn of costs and benefits of the marketing orientation. Marketing is a procedure of planning and conducting ideas and strategies in order to satisfy consumers and organizations. The marketing process contains: * Situation analysis * 5c analysis. Company, customers, competitors, collaborators, climate. * PEST analysis. For macro-environmental political, economic, societal, and technological factors * SWOT analysis. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats-for the internal and external situation. * Marketing strategy * Once the best opportunity to satisfy unfulfilled customer needs is identified, strategic plan for opportunity can be developed. * Marketing mix decisions * Product development- specifying, and production the first nuits of the Product * Priming décisions * Distribution contacts * Promotional campaign development * Implementation and control At this point in the process, the marketing plan has been developed and the product has been launched. Given that few environments are static, the result of the marketing effort should be monitored closely. * The advanatges and disavantages of marketing orientation are A company with a marketing orientation has a strategic focus centered on awareness...
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...• Characteristics of Medieval Literature Themes of Medieval Literature: • The Seven Deadly Sins • The Seven Heavenly Virtues • Physiognomy and "The Humours" • Values of "courtly love" • The Code of Chivalry(CF) The Poets and Authors: Caedmon: First English poet; author of "The Dream of the Holy Rood." Venerable Bede: wrote the Ecclesiastical History of England and the scientific treatise, De Natura Rerum. Geoffrey Chaucer: Famous Medieval author of the Canterbury Tales. Margery Kempe: Author of the first autobiography in English. John Gower: Medieval poet and friend of Geoffrey Chaucer Francesco Petrarch: Italian poet, and a humanist. Famous for his poems addressed to Laura. Dante: Medieval poet and politician. Christine de Pizan: Medieval author and feminist. William Longland: English poet who wrote the Vision of Piers Plowman. Boccaccio: Italian writer who was famous for writing the Decameron. Raphael Holinshed: Medieval author of Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. (KM) Romance: • Chivalry was the reason behind this type of literature. • The greatest English example of the romance is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. • The romance hero-who often has the help of magic-undertakes a quest to conquer an evil enemy. (KM) Chivalry: • A system of ideals and social codes governing the behavior of knights and gentlewoman. • The rules included: taking an oath of loyalty to the overlord and observing...
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...Self-Assessment Written for the consortium team by Phil Bannister and Ian Baker (Sheffield Hallam University) © University of Northumbria at Newcastle 2000 Published by: Assessment and the Expanded Text School of Humanities University of Northumbria Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST Self-Assessment ISBN: 1-86135-080-5 Text editor: Rebecca Johnson Copy editor: Publications Office, University of Northumbria Designed and produced by the Department of External Relations DER: 2308HCB/6/00J Contents Project mission statement Introduction The nature and scope of the project i) The self-assessment sheet ii) Student guide to self-assessment iii) ‘Writing essays: A guide for literary studies students’ (sample) 5 7 8 10 13 23 Ways of using the materials i) How the self-assessment sheet can be used ii) Workshop using the self-assessment sheet 34 34 34 iii) How ‘Writing essays: A guide for literary studies students’ can be used 35 iv) Workshop using the essay guide 35 Impact on staff and students i) Student response to the self-assessment sheet ii) Student response to workshops using the materials iii) Staff response to the materials 37 37 37 37 Further references About the authors Acknowledgements Appendices i) Example of completed self-assessment sheet with essay 39 39 39 41 3 4 Project mission statement T he Assessment and the Expanded Text Consortium is a project directed by the English division at the University of Northumbria...
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...Fundamentals of Management General Introduction..........................................................................................................3 An Introduction to Management .......................................................................................4 Kinds of Managers ...........................................................................................................4 Levels of Management.............................................................................................................. 4 Areas of Management ......................................................................................................5 Basic Management Functions ..........................................................................................5 Planning and Decision Making ................................................................................................. 5 Organizing............................................................................................................................. 6 Leading ................................................................................................................................. 6 Controlling ............................................................................................................................. 6 Fundamental Management Skills .....................................................................................6 Technical Skills .............................
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...Identification 17 Marketing Objectives 21 Other Strategies 22 Marketing Budget 24 Monitoring and Control-Balance Score Card 26 Bibliography 28 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY We are the XYZ Group and our aim is to develop a Global Strategic Marketing Plan for three years for Unilever Company.Unilever is the British/Dutch jointly owned multinational consumer goods manufacturer. The Mission statement is deduced from the case study and stated to give a clear picture and guide to the global marketing plan for Unilever. The paper will assess the changes taking place in the company’s environment and how these changes will affect Company. To do this we will examine the Macro-environment, Microenvironment. SWOT analysis and financial analysis will be carried out on the company’s external and internal environment. Corporate Objectives will also be stated to indicate the future of Unilever Company. Marketing Audit, Internal analysis, Critical success factors, Segmentation, Targeting will be...
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...feelings and sentiments of human beings by dint of their skillful and artful literary accomplishments. This paper is to address the outstanding performance of John Donne in the arena of metaphysical poetry and it endeavours to make a critical assessment of the diverse issues allembracing metaphysical poetry as well as to establish the relevance of metaphysical poetry in the literary realm. ______________________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION ―Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere‖ The Sun Rising: John Donne The startling conversational lines marvellously enumerate the poet‘s intense appeal to spread the beams of sun on the lovers‘ world as a mark of illuminating the macrocosmic world and beckon the readers to enter into a new realm of poetry with a sense of attachment and belonging between different objects of nature and human sentiments, feeling, passion etc. This philosophical structure of poetic aptitude to associate the different aspects of nature and its constituents in a significant manner constitutes the basics of metaphysical poetry the pioneering contribution of which has been made by John Donne. Metaphysical poetry and John Donne are so inherently interconnected that one without the other...
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...http://www.historytoday.com/jerome-de-groot/signposts-historical-fiction These were some of the questions raised at a recent conference at the Institute of Historical Research at which History Today Editor, Paul Lay, hosted a discussion between Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall, and the Tudor historian David Loades. Historians often describe themselves as detectives, seeking out a kind of truth among the conflicting evidence of the past. There is, furthermore, a large and growing subgenre of historical crime fiction. From C.J. Sansom to Philip Pullman, from Orhan Pamuk to Walter Mosley, from Ellis Peters to Boris Akunin, novelists have been keen to use the past as a backdrop for their stories of detection and mystery. The most famous historical detective might be Brother William of Baskerville in Umberto Eco’s peerless The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa, 1980). Recently we have seen a flowering of historical crime fiction as the subgenre attains maturity and becomes increasingly popular and innovative. Jason Goodwin, Philip Kerr and Susan Hill were all shortlisted for the prestigious Crime Writers Association Dagger this year (recent historical winners include Arianna Franklin, Jake Arnott and Craig Russell). Clearly the combination of thriller, crime and historical detail is compelling. Anne Perry’s new Inspector Pitt novel, Betrayal at Lisson Grove (out in paperback from Headline this year) is a pacy, twisting thriller. It is 1895 and Pitt is up against a conspiracy...
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...6/9/13 10 - A History of English Literature Classic Literature Read about A History of English Literature. More E-texts A History of English Literature 1918 by Robert Huntington Fletcher Education Share Preface | How to Study | Tabular View | Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | Assignments Chapter X. Period VIII. The Romantic Triumph, 1798 To About 1830 The Great Writers of 1798-1830 | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | William Wordsworth | Robert Southey | Walter Scott | Last Group of Romantic Poets | Percy Bysshe Shelley | John Keats | Summary | Lesser Writers | THE GREAT WRITERS OF 1798-1830. THE CRITICAL REVIEWS. As we look back to-day over the literature of the last three quarters of the eighteenth century, here just surveyed, the progress of the Romantic Movement seems the most conspicuous general fact which it presents. But at the, death of Cowper in 1800 the movement still remained tentative and incomplete, and it was to arrive at full maturity only in the work of the great writers of the following quarter century, who were to create the finest body of literature which England had produced since the Elizabethan period. All the greatest of these writers were poets, wholly or in part, and they fall roughly into two groups: first, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, and Walter Scott; and second, about twenty years younger, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats. This period of Romantic Triumph, or of the...
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