Marketing - Service Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Marketing - Service Marketing - Essay Example Dividing the various services encounters into two sections of â€Å"satisfying† and â€Å"dissatisfying† experiences, let’s start with the first encounter experience at the Ice Bar in London. Our experience at the Ice Bar in London was average because we were kept waiting for 20 minutes. Once entered in the specified area, we got the feeling of cramped in an overcrowded space without any seating arrangement. Staff strength was minimal to attend to the large crowd although their smiling faces reduced our level of dissatisfaction. The management should add more aesthetic elements to the bar so that it does not remain a one-time visit. Overall, the experience at Ice Bar was disappointing, as it failed on the parameters of prompt service. The queues were long to get entry in the Ice Bar, leading to dissatisfaction. Assaf and Magnini (2012) have conducted statistical analysis of customer satisfaction in hotel efficiency, which indicates that if customer satisfaction i s not given due importance, it can lead to huge difference in the mean and ranking of hotel efficiency scores. Efficiency measures can help a hotel in attaining its objective of providing satisfaction to customers, which is minutely related to planning, organizing, decision-making and information seeking by managers. Customer satisfaction has been used as an output variable in the modelling of hotel efficiency. In the past, critical variable used to be revenue and number of rooms rented out. It is derived from the gathered data of American Customer Satisfaction Index that a firm’s efficiency level among its competitors can be affected if customer satisfaction as an indicator is excluded from the modelling. This fact is proved in the case of Wyndham Hotel and Resorts, which stood on the fourth rank out of eight competitors in an efficiency model that did not include customer satisfaction data but came on seventh number when the model included satisfaction as an output. The con cept that customer satisfaction can have a great impact in efficiency modelling has robust theoretical underpinnings in the marketing literature. It derives that satisfaction has a powerful connection with loyalty, which transforms into reduction in the cost of future dealings, diminishes price elasticity, builds a service failure stock, and cuts down on the negative publicity through word-of-mouth (Assaf and Magnini, 2012). The study by Assaf and Magnini (2012) can help hotel businesses to decide drivers of efficiency by analyzing both inputs and outputs of the model, the inputs being the number of outlets, number of full time employees, and operational expenses while customer satisfaction, income, and occupancy rate are taken as outputs. On the lines of Hotel Marriot, other hotels should organize cross-training of their employees to reduce a model input such as staff strength and boost the output in the form of customer satisfaction. It proves the effectiveness of efficiency model at managerial level, focusing on the capacity of a hotel firm to cross-train to enhance customer satisfaction level besides other outputs such as income and occupancy rates. Writing on my dissatisfying experiences, the transportation encounter with the EasyJet was not satisfying because the personnel at the airport were not fully informed about situations and their handling. Additional time was wasted unnecessarily. Seats were small and uncomfortable.

Evaluation of Balancing Circuits Used in Battery System

Evaluation of Balancing Circuits Used in Battery System CAREER EPISODE 2 2.1 INTRODUCTION My second career episode describes my project that is called Evaluation of balancing circuits used in battery system. This project was completed as a part of my minor thesis in the fulfilment of my masters degree program from Swinburne University of Technology, Australia in December 2016. I completed my masters degree in electrical and electronics engineering science. It was completed under the supervision of Prof. Weixing Shen, senior lecturer at the university. And was also supported by Prof. George Banky. 2.2 BACKGROUND Electric vehicle which operates on battery doesnt operate on a single battery as sufficient energy is not supplied through it. Thus, many batteries that are either connected in series or parallel are required for the generation of required voltage and current for the system to function. The difference in the cell voltage of the stack reduces the string capacity and hence a system is required that will be able to achieve and maintain the voltage and current that is required by the system along with considering the issue of reliability and performance. For this purpose, a BMS is used. Battery Management System (BMS), which can oversee the voltage and the current level and can also charge the battery. 2.3 The main aim and goal behind implementing this project was to design a 48V battery stack power system that consists of 12 lithium ion battery cells. The monitoring and supervision of each cell operation and voltage level and its charging status can be done with the help of LTC3300-1/LTC6803-2 bidirectional cell balancer along with the BMS system. It also considers the safety concern of the batteries that are used. And the other objective behind implementing this project was to understand LTC330-1/LTC6803-2 bidirectional cell balance kits performance along with checking its results based on QuikEval software and DC590B USB serial controller when connected to the computer. 2.4 The idea is to balance the voltage supply of the cells so that it provides constant battery voltage to the shelter of the electric vehicle. The overcharging of the battery results in voltage battery degradation and can have consequences like it may catch fire or explosion. Whereas undercharging of the cell or having voltage under the required level may affect the life of the cells. So, I have made use of lithium ion batteries which are then further connected to LTC3300-1/LTC6803-2 bidirectional cell balancer that would assist in achieving the required voltage level of the cell and it can also help in increasing the life of the cell or battery long with providing the supply voltage of EV. 2.5 The project was completed in a group of two. And I took the opportunity to become the team leader. I first involved with my supervisor in planning the topic and how to start working on the project. Based on that I prepared a flow chart in which all the major task was divided and assigned among team member along with a deadline so that the final project gets completed in time and there will be time for troubleshooting. After deciding the topic and assigning task, I made myself busy with researching and with literature review of the topic by referring various journal, books, and internet material. The later part was designing and implementing the hardware structure along with its software part for its functioning. I had to weekly report to the Professor about my project update and took feedback on my project which helped me improve a lot. Weekly meetings with the supervisor was either done through emails or small presentations. 2.6 PERSONAL ENGINEERING ACTIVITY I started my project with literature review on cell balancing where cell balancing is a process that involves adjusting the cell voltages to same level i.e. where the battery cells are not over charged or over discharged. Also, its internal parameters are the reason for its unbalance like its time of manufacturing, internal resistance etc. It also depends on some of the external resources like thermal difference between battery cells. The process of battery balancing in lithium ion batteries is an easy process due to its property of charge-discharge capability. It also provides increased life span and the right voltage for its application. After understanding the concepts that were going to be used in my project I started performing research on the components that could be used for my system. It took lot of survey and suggestions were taken from seniors and lecturer about it. and later I finalized the following hardware components that suited best for the project. 2.7 1. Lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries this battery was used due to its high-energy efficiency and has relatively longer battery cycle life which is an important feature for my system as the electric vehicle requires battery than can store more as well as can frequently recharge. Basically, there are two parameters that affect the overall performance of the battery. They are power and the battery diving range. 2. LTC3300-1/LTC6803-2 bidirectional cell balancer    for cell balancing and monitoring purpose I made use of two ICs that are functioning as bidirectional cell balancer. Active balancing principle is used by BMS. The two ICs are LTC3300-1, which can balance 6 cells whereas the LTC6803-2 microcontroller IC can support 12 cells when connected to each other in series connection. The function of LTC3300-1 is to equalize the SoC i.e. state of charge when the battery modules are connected in series manner. It can charge the battery stack faster and extent the runtime and enhancing the overall performance by cell balancing and charging. Moreover, this IC can balance 6 cells connected to each other in series when it functions as transformer based on bidirectional active balancing system that has synchronous fly back topology. Looking at the other IC i.e. LTC6803-2 is also a microcontroller IC that can support up-to 12 batteries connected in series connection. It uses different chemical ma terial than the other IC for monitoring the batteries. It gives more accurate results and low error rate, as low as 0.25% of total. It generally operates in three modes: measure, shutdown and standby. 3. DC590B USB serial controller it is a kind of controller that is specially designed using QuikEval software for display and demonstration of the results and for technologies involving linear family circuits. It is a controller that is based on USB. It is generally isolated or separate from the host computer. So therefore, no external or additional power supply is needed to drive the controller. 4. Power supply GPS18500 instrument is one of a kind device which is used in my system as for this project a DC power supply of +5V is required externally to drive the unit. This power supply has many different configurations that include variable voltage and fixed voltage. It has the feature of supplying 2 different power supply which can work and be used independently. In this device, a slot that gives out fixed supply of +5V DC is provided to the LTC3300-1 bidirectional PCB. 2.8 After having finalized the hardware components, they were implemented on the evaluation board. The diagram attached shows the circuit and hardware connection for this project. It can be observed that a DC2064A GUI evaluation board, 14 conductor ribbon cables, computer that has QuikEval software installed and USB/serial port cable along with DB590B USB series controller is been used and a power supply of +5V is supplied externally using the GPS18500 device discussed earlier. Various precaution and safety measure was considered while connecting all the different components to the evaluation board. This was done precisely and carefully as any wrong connection made, it can damage the whole circuitry and the cost of application will increase indirectly. The two ICs LTC3300-1 and LTC6803-2 are soldered or wired to the evaluation board DC2064A GUI along with the capacitors, MOSFET and transformers. The voltage level and the temperate can be monitored with this circuit board and has the capability to balance the cell voltage. This board also has a special feature of advance fault detector that helps to secure the performance of the board in case of any spark or short circuit. 3.7V and 2600mAH configured lithium ion battery is used in my system. Thus 6 batteries giving a output voltage of 22.8V when connected in series are used on the board as the board can withstand a maximum of 12 batteries for balancing. 2.9 After successful implementation of the hardware, testing and trouble shooting was performed. For that a QuikEval software was used to monitor the battery stack. To use the software, it had to be configured accordingly for both the microcontroller ICs that were used in the system. After proper implementation, the screen looked as below. From that it can be depicted that the when we press the button called START CONTINUES READ CELL, voltage level can be retained and measured from each battery connected in the battery stack. From performing the test run, I found the cell voltage for each cell was almost 3.7V. But if there is any minor change in the voltage level of any cell it can be equalized by transferring cell voltage manually for 5sec and charge the required cell by discharging other cells with high voltage to get an equilibrium stage. All the charging/discharging or any error situation status can be seen on the screen as that status will be highlighted. 2.10 The struggle in implementing this project was getting the expected outcome. It different the actual outcome. It took many efforts, there were issues like the hardware didnt receive any signals from the software. The problem was solved by reconnecting few hardware wires. Also, it required changing the voltage level of the components by choosing higher level components. After the final configuration, the hardware received the signal and the voltage level of each cells were determined. The later challenge was the important task and the main idea of our project i.e. cell balancing by voltage levels. The output was taken and written down at each time for charging/discharging function and the experiment was carried out until the satisfied result was attained. There were times when I didnt get the desired result even after performing the experiment several times. During this phase, my faculty members and supervisors helped me a lot and gave me steps or hints on how I can solve the error. 2.11 SUMMARY To conclude, my project used 3.7V lithium ion battery that has 2600mAH of capacity for active cell balancing technique while making use of two microcontroller ICs configured on evaluation board. The transfer of charging from one cell to another is done using the six lithium ion batteries that are connected in series on the evaluation board. Along with that the software QuikEval was used to trace the output. The project has an open window in terms for expansion for future project work based on this system. This project can be used for self-controlling function to detect faulty or imbalance situation in the system along with capability for temperature measurement unit. Though I could only achieve partial results from my experiment as it varied from expected outcome. But this experiment helped me in many other ways. It taught me to handle complex circuits and outcomes, though I didnt partially achieve what I expected from this but it gave me the strength and knowledge on how to overcome such situations. It was a new learning experience by working in groups and team mates. It involved managing different views and coming to one conclusion before implementing the idea. Also, I had the opportunity to apply my previous engineering knowledge into this project.

The First Day of School :: essays research papers

The First Day of School My first actual school day at CIS was bewildering to say the least. Everything was hectic and in chaos from the nearly extreme tense atmosphere to the poorly organised day plans handed to each student that walked through the large door way. This was different from my first experience with CIS mainly because this time I had to navigate myself around, what seemed at the time, an endless labyrinth of twisting corridors and class rooms. My first impression of the school itself was hot it was partitioned in different layers based on which year you were in, unlike my pervious school where everything was mixed up. The different floors all met at one central hub, the long flight of stairs that you first see when you enter the actual building through the main entrance. My first real impression was the flock of countless students hoovering around a single notice board, hurrying to find their classrooms. The large crowd didn’t make it any easier to find myself around and where I was to go but I found out my classroom was on the C floor. After going up another flight of stairs I found myself in a long corridor stretching itself across to the other end of the school. Outside construction workers were hammering away, building a new atrium and extension of the school. Locker’s was something the school was not short of and there seemed to be enough for the entire school, large shiny blue and grey boxes covering the entire wall. Finding the classroom itself wasn’t too difficult with the classroom number atop of each door. Walking past the various rooms, I couldn’t help but notice how it seemed nicer and had a better atmosphere. The particular room I was in had a nice, homey feel to it, it not a bit cluttered. Posters hang from t he walls and books such as â€Å"Great Expectations† and â€Å"Huckleberry Finn† were stacked in neat piles, waiting to be handed to students. After a brief meeting with our advisor for the day, we finally received our day plans. The problem? Most of them were wrong with some students only having three periods in the entire week while others having only P.E. and Music. For the rest of the day I went around, guessing which room I had to be in waiting for my name to be called up.

The Tendention of Using American English

Introduction A. Background English, one of the most spoken languages in the world, has a lot of variants. The most well-known English variants are British and American English. Although British and American English are the same language, they have some differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and spelling (http://www. uta. fi/FAST/US1/REF/usgbintr. html, 2011). However. one variant cannot be said to be superior to the other because both have been standardized (Kemmer,2009).Despite no course about the differences between British and American English, PBI students they are still able to communicate using English. It was not known whether they tend to use British or American English. Their ability to recognize those variants of English is also questioned. Therefore, their use of American and Btritish English is studied in this research. B. Research Problems Based on the description above, the problems that can be formulated are: 1. Do PBI students more frequently use British t han American English vocabulary? . What is the tendency of PBI students in using British and American English pronunciation? 3. How successful do PBI students in identifying reading and listening passage of British and American English? 4. What is PBI students’consistency in using British and American English? C. Aims The aims of this research are: 1. to analyze whether PBI students more frequently use British English or American English vocabulary. 2. to analyze the tendency of PBI students in using British English and American English pronunciation. 3. o analyze the ability of PBI students in identifying reading and listening passage of British English and American English. 4. to analyze PBI students’ consistency in using British and American English. D. Benefits By conducting this research, the benefit that the researchers can get is to widen the knowledge concerning the differences between British and American English. For science, it is expected that this research paper can contribute to Linguistics course material. For the next researcher, this paper is expected to be able to be used as a reference to conduct a research with a similar topic.E. Scope To narrow down the discussion of this research, the researchers limit the research to the use of British and American English among PBI students of Sanata Dharma University year 2010. The other limitations are British and American English vocabulary, pronunciation, and spelling. The researchers do not study the use of British and American English among PBI Sanata Dharma other than year 2010 and other aspects of differences between British and American English such as grammar. Previous Studies/Related Theories English, one of the most spoken languages in the world, has a lot of variants.The most well-known English variants are British and American English. Although British and American English are the same language, they have some differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and spelling. T he differences in grammatical pattern can be seen in these examples: BrEAmE half an hour a half hour five dollars a pair (five dollars the pair) at university at the university administration are administration is team are team is government are government is plenty of time plenty time half of the world half the world need it badly need it bad eally hard real hard now right now have you got†¦? do you have†¦? Ihaven’t got†¦ I don’t have†¦ try to help them try help them The differences are also found in some verbs form: BrEAmE burn – burnt – burnt burn – burned – burned dream – dreamt – dreamt dream – dreamed – dreamed mow – mowed –mown mow – mowed – mowed shine – shone – shone shine – shined – shined learn – learnt – learnt learn – learned – learned bet – betted – betted bet – bet – be t dive – dived – dived dive – dove – dived pleaded – pleaded -pleaded plead – pled – pledThe differences in spelling are for example in the words: BrEAmE colour, honour, labour, neighbour color, honor, labor, neighbor calibre, centre, fibre, theatre caliber, center, fiber, theater travelled, cancelled, labeledtraveled, canceled, labeled kidnapped, worshippedkidnaped, worshiped skilful, wilful, enrolment skillful, willful, enrollment defence, offence, pretence defense, offense, pretense abridgement, judgement abridgment, judgment authorise, characterise, colonise, authorize, characterize, colonizeThe differences in pronunciation can be explained by following explanation: 1. Br [a:] before -f, -s, -S, m, n is pronounced [? ] (ask, after, half, path, chance, plant, sample) 2. Br [i] in timid, America is often pronounced [? ] 3. Br [a] in but, hurry is pronounced closer to [? ] 4. AmE does not leave out the r-sounds in better, perceive, b ird, here, poor 5. Br [ju:] after consonants d, t, n is pronounced [u:], eg. duty, tune, new 6. BrE reduces the secondary stress more than AmE, eg. secretary, secondary, necessary 7.Suffix -ile is pronounced [-? l] in AmE and [-ail] in BrE, eg. agile, fertile, hostile, mobile The differences in pronunciation are in for example in the words: BrE AmE resource [ri’zo:s] [ri:so:s] figure [fig? ] [figj? r] leisure [lez? ] [li:z? r] either [ai ] [i: r] research [ri’s? :c] [ri:s? :rc] glacier [gl? si? ] [gleis? r] schedule [sedju? l] [skedz? l] and so on. The differences in vocabulary are for example in the words: BrEAmE public toilets restrooms curriculum vitae resume, personal history the cinema the movies, the movie theater ift elevator lorrytruck pavement sidewalk taxi cab (book)shop (book)store rubbish garbage subway underpass cottage cabin sweets candy, and so on. According to Svartvik and Sager (2005:2) English pronunciation varies a great deal, whereas English grammar is very consistent and homogenous. The lexical items of the language is fairly similar as well although people from the two geographic areas use diverse vocabulary and slang. David Crystal (2005:308) shows how the lexical items from the two regions, American and British, can be classified into different categories.The first category shows that there are examples of two words that have a single meaning, e. g. sweets which is called candy in America. The second category shows the same word is used in both countries but with different meanings, for instance the word caravan which is used in both American English and British English but with different meanings, that is to say that the word caravan means â€Å"a vehicle towed by a car† in Britain whereas a caravan is â€Å"a group of people that travel through a desert† in American English. According to Professor H.Marckwardt of Princeton University â€Å"When foreign teachers are worried about which English they should t each – British or American – it seems to me that we’ve now arrived at the point where we can say without hesitation: Teach the form that you know and that you have the resources to teach. † So, as teacher we have to be able to identify the American English and British English, understand the differences, then we mind which English that we use. Methods/ Data Collection The method that is used in field project 2 was quantitative method because this project was dealing with numbers.To collect the data, we used questionnaire. We used the answer of the questionnaire as the parameter to identify the result of this small research. The students that were chosen in this project were 20 PBI students from year 2010 of Sanata Dharma University. Though the number of the students was too small for the result to be considered as statistically secure, but at least, the result could give a clue to the reality of the situation. The students are randomly chosen, without cons idering gender, age, social status and other aspects that can influence the choice in language using.The next step of this project was questionnaire distribution among the respondents. The questionnaire consisted of four parts where the first part was vocabulary identification. In this part, fifteen questions and pictures that showed different things were provided. Besides each picture, the respondents could find two synonymous words, one American and one British. Then, the correspondents had to circle one out of two words that they found the most familiar. For example, a picture of a building was provided in the questionnaire. Besides that picture, two synonymous words were written.The correspondents then must circle one word that they recognize most, either flat (BrE) or apartment (AmE). By seeing the result, we can count how many American English vocabulary items or British English vocabulary items circled, so we can know the tendency of students using the vocabulary. [pic] The s econd section is reading section. This section consisted of two reading passages using British and American vocabulary items. In the first passage, we provide British English vocabulary items and in the second passage, we provide American English vocabulary items.The correspondents then must identify which text consisted of British English Vocabulary items and which text consisted of American English vocabulary items. [pic] The third section is pronunciation. Pronunciation section is to see the tendency of PBI students in using American English pronunciation or British English pronunciation. In this part, the respondents are offered 10 words which have different pronunciation in American English and British English. [pic] [pic]From that questionnaire, therespondent have to pronounce the10 words, and the observer will circle the phonetic transcription based on the respondents’ pronunciation on the assessment paper – whether they pronounce the words using American Englis h pronunciation or British English pronunciation. By seeing the result, we can count how many American English pronunciation or British English pronunciation circled, so we can know the tendency of students pronounce the words. The fourth part of the questionnaire was listening section. In this part, three recordings from BBC and TOEFL listening materials were provided.The duration of each recording was approximately 1 minute and 30 seconds. The correspondents are asked to listen to the three recordings and identify whether the speakers in each conversations are using British accent or American accent. After collecting the data from the respondents, the researchers then analyzed the data. The respondents’ answer are classified according to the quantity of British and American English using. The questionnaire result that showed more circle in AmE English vocabulary items were separated from those that showed more circle in BrE vocabulary items.The result that shows the student s who were tend to pronounce the word in AmE way also separated from the result which showed those who were tend to pronounce words in BrE. Besides, the result of the students who could have identified the recordings and the reading passages correctly were also separated from the result of those who couldn’t have identified correctly. From this classification, the students’ tendency in using either British English or American English and the students’ ability in identifying the passages of British English and American English can be seen clearly.Results A. VOCABULARY SECTION The result of the vocabulary part is that students who chose the answers with more American English vocabulary items are 6, and students who chose the answers with more British English vocabulary are 14. The result is explained in following table: |Result |Number of students | |American English Tendency |6 | |British English Tendency |14 |From this result, we can say that there are 6 studen ts have tendency to use American English and there are 14 students have tendency to use British English, so PBI students have tendency using British English vocabulary items than American English vocabulary items. B. PRONUNCIATION SECTION In the pronunciation part, the result is that there are 8 students pronounced the words using more American English pronunciation, 8 students pronounced the words using 5 American English pronunciations and 5 British English pronunciations, and there are 4 students pronounced using more British English. The result is explained in following table: Result |Number of students | |American English tendency |8 | |Equal |8 | |British English tendency |4 | From this result, we can say that there are 8 students have tendency to use American English and there are 4 students have tendency to use British English. So we can conclude thet PBI students have tendency using American English pronunciation than British English pronunciation.C. READING PASSAGES The r esult of reading part is that there are 14 students could identify the reading passages with correct all, and there are 6 students couldn’t identify the reading passages. The result is explained in following table: |Result |Number of students | |Correct all |14 | |Correct one |0 | |Incorrect all |6 |From the result, we can say that most of PBI students can identify the American English reading passages and British English reading passages. D. LISTENING PASSAGES The result of listening part is that there are 11 students could identify the three listening passages perfectly, there are 2 students could identify two listening passages correctly, and there are 4 students could identify only one listening passages correctly, and no one could’n identify the listening passages incorrect all. The result is: Result |Number of students | |Correct all |11 | |Correct two |5 | |Correct one |4 | |Incorrect all |0 | From the result, we can say that most of PBI students can identify th e American English listening passages and British English listening passages. Discussion Based on the results, it can be seen that PBI students tend to use British English vocabulary items instead of those of American English.It is revealed that 14 students answer the vocabulary questionnaire with most Btitish English vocabulary items. Meanwhile, 6 students mostly use American vocabulary items to answer the questionnaire. Regarding their pronunciation, PBI students tend to use American style to pronounce the words in the questionnaire. The results show that 8 students answer it with American English pronounciation and 8 students mix British and American English pronunciation equally. The other 4 students tend to use British English style of pronouncing.Most PBI students can identify the British and American English reading passages, which means that they know the differences between British and American English spelling and vocabulary items contained in the reading passages. From th e results, it is seen that 14 students can answer all the questions in the questionnaire correctly. Meanwhile, 6 students cannot identify British and American English reading passages correctly because all their answers are wrong. Most PBI students are also able to identify the listening passages correctly. 1 students have all correct answers, 5 students have 2 correct answers and 4 students have only 1 correct answer in the questionnaire. It means that 11 students can recognize the differences between British and American English pronunciation well while 9 students cannot recognize British and American English pronunciation well. Therefore, it can be inferred that PBI students are inconsistent in using British and American English. Such conclusion can be drawn because they tend to use British English vocabulary but when it comes to pronunciation, American English style is mostly used.Besides, there are no students who answer the questionnaire consistenely with all British or Americ an English vocabulary and pronunciation; all of them have mixed answers. That inconsistency is even strengthened by the fact that they are actually aware of the differences between British and American English, as shown in their ability to identify British and American English reading and listening passages correctly. Closing Remarks Based on the previous elaboration, it can be concluded that: 1. PBI students more frequently use British English vocabulary. . PBI students tend to use American English pronunciation instead of British English pronunciation. 3. Most PBI students are able to identify reading and listening passage of British English and American English correctly 4. PBI students are not consistent in using British and American English. â€Å"When foreign teachers are worried about which English they should teach – British or American – it seems to me that we’ve now arrived at the point where we can say without hesitation: Teach the form that you know and that you have the resources to teach. -Professor H. Marckwardt of Princeton University to the hesitant and confused teachers- Students of PBI are actually taught and prepared to be the English teachers do not matter they want it or not. Realizing that there are two popular kinds of English (British English and American English), as the teacher who teach English as second language, they have to also master the differences, and be able to identify them. As teachers they will be asked to provide and arrange teaching materials such as reading passage, listening passage and also explanation.This is why teacher must be equipped with the knowledge of British and American English differences so they are able to provide explanation or passage using consistent choice (British or American English). Using British English or American English is not the matter. But using British or American English consistently is the emphasis. For example, teachers can not mix the British and American Engli sh in one reading passage that they make because it will result either confusion or student’s inconsistency in using the language variation.To improve students’ knowledge and ability either to identify the variation or use it consistently, the study program has to provide a specific course which can equip the students. If to create new course is less possible, the lecturers of each course must be able to integrate their course with this important equipment of being English teachers. As the quote above, however, foreign English teachers have to mind which English they use to provide better teaching. References Benedikt, Zdenek. Differences Between American English and British English. retrieved on March 27, 2012) Kemmer, Suzanne. (2009). The History of English. http://www. ruf. rice. edu/~kemmer/Histengl/spelling. html (retrieved on June 10, 2012) Spangberg, Charlotte. (2007). British English or American English Vocabulary. Goteborg University : Department of English. _ ___. (2011). American vs British English: Basic Differences and Influences of Change. http://www. uta. fi/FAST/US1/REF/usgbintr. html (retrieved on June 10, 2012) Appendices 1. Questionnaire [pic] [pic] 2. Assessment Paper

Yahoo Case Study

Report write-up on Yahoo Case study Yahoo was conceptualized almost accidentally in 1993 by Jerry Yang and David Filo – who were pursuing their electrical engineering degree from Stanford University – while posting a list of their favorite sites on the web, got officially founded in 1994 and incorporated in the year 1995. Initially named â€Å"Jerry’s guide to world wide web†, got later named Yahoo which was an acronym for â€Å"Yet another Hierarchal Officious Oracle†.The term â€Å"Hierarchal† described how the Yahoo database was arranged, the term â€Å"officious† describing the many office workers who would use Yahoo from their work place and â€Å"oracle† suggesting a â€Å"source of wisdom†. Today Yahoo! Inc. is a multinational internet corporation best known for its web portal, search engine (Yahoo! Search, #2 in search engine market share with 6. 8% market share) and for a variety of other services, including Yaho o! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo!Answers, advertising, online mapping, video sharing, fantasy sports and its social media website. With revenue figures of $4. 9B for FY’2011, and a market capitalization of $23. 8B, Yahoo’s success story comprises many hits and more misses. After the modest web directory started to attract large influx of visitors on a daily basis, Yang and Filo decided to make business of it by renting advertising space on the Yahoo Directory pages. Capital Investment came in from Sequoia Capital, who proposed to hire a professional CEO to drive the business forward.After a careful evaluation of a half-dozen candidates, Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital chose Timothy Koogle, who brought 15 years of leadership experience in high-tech management. Timothy had to use great influence and persuasion skills to bring everybody on board on his vision for the company, one that would create a world connected via the web . His vision encompassed leveraging the company’s existing strength of the web directory by providing more and more compelling content and driving higher advertising revenue.At the same time, create an online platform where buyers could meet sellers, transacting safely over the internet and charging a cut of the revenue for these services provided. They also added customization features for their registered users on their Yahoo financials page so that specific companies of interest could be followed by the users. Along the way, they also helped advertisers reach out to their relevant audience better and thereby increasing the value delivered to them. The strategy was working out very well for Yahoo. Yahoo grew rapidly throughout the 1990s.It also made many high-profile acquisitions. While everything was going great for Yahoo, they failed to evaluate their strategy at that juncture. The environment they were thriving on was that of the dot-com bubble and most companies that we re sources of advertising revenue for Yahoo were the dot-com companies. When the dot-com bubble burst, most of these companies went bankrupt drying out sources of advertising revenue for Yahoo. Its stock price skyrocketed during the dot-com bubble, Yahoo stocks closing at an all-time high of $118. 5 a share on January 3, 2000. However, after the dot-com bubble burst, it reached a post-bubble low of $4. 05 on September 26, 2001. While the corporate level vision and strategy were forward looking, the business level strategy needed timely review, the lack of which brought about the downward spiral of Yahoo in a short span. Owing to a huge negative impact on the shareholders’ value, Tim Koogle resigned giving the heirs to Terry Semel, a former Warner Brothers executive.Semel’s goal was to arrest the fall in Yahoo’s revenues by diversifying from the hitherto advertising centric revenue model to subscription-based, value-added services and increasing the quality in ad vertising revenue by targeting more stable companies. This strategy was viewed as but a late reaction to the changing market landscape, something that investors expected the leadership to foresee. Terry Semel also had his share of low moments as CEO of Yahoo during the criticism he drew for cooperating with the Chinese officials to release previously confidential Yahoo information to the Chinese government.He also lost a chance to buy out Google during its nascent years, whose search engine services it used till Yahoo developed its own search engine technologies. Over the years, Yahoo also failed to catch the market trends of social, mobile, local, platform services etc. at the right times, which has resulted in diminishing market share figures in each of the spaces. While Yahoo revenue has dipped for the year 2011, the company’s financials look strong with low debt and good cash flow.Company’s new management team is betting big on mobile and connected TV businesses. M obile applications, where the company is lagging behind competitors like Google and Facebook, is a business line it must produce a turn-around performance on since the markets a trending in that direction. Marissa Mayer, former Google executive, who is now at the helm of the $5B company, would hope to bring her successful experience at Google to Yahoo to deliver the goods on the Mobile platforms business. Discussion Questions: . To what extent was the evolution of strategy at Yahoo planned? To what extent was it an emergent response to unforeseen events? Yahoo’s initial strategy during Koogle’s time of foraying into advertising and online portal for facilitating e-commerce and shopping were a planned strategy and were apt for the company with its inherent strengths. however, the portfolio diversification undertaken by Semel was an attempt to lower the risk exposure as a response to the changed business environment. 2.Could Yahoo have done a better job of anticipating t he slowdown in advertising revenue that occurred in 2000 – 2001 and positioning itself for that slowdown? How? What might it have done differently from a strategic planning perspective? In order to achieve a sustained competitive advantage, a firm must adapt to the change in the market trends. As a strategy evaluation process, yahoo could have foreseen the dot-com bubble burst as the bubble formation was a process that had initiated around ’98. Analysts highlighted the risk in staying invested with the dot-com companies.There was surplus income available with retail investors during that period, which is suggestive of a trend of higher demand of normal goods / services over inferior goods / services. Yahoo could have seen this trend and positioned itself for a niche product / service offering. 3. Does Yahoo have a source of potential long-term competitive advantage? Where does this come from? Yahoo has a good cash flow – a low debt and also a business model in p lace for buyers to meet sellers. Social Media has played a key role in penetrating the market – creating awareness of using the online medium.Yahoo has the system in place to capitalize this strength in order to optimally utilize the buyer-meet seller platform – expand it from retail presence to corporate interactions, include a model that addresses webinars for multiple industries eg pharma meet can be entirely conducted online – creating a significant cost advantage for the participants and also adding to its revenue by marginal investments that wont affect its balance sheet either. 4. What does Koogle’s resignation in May 2001 tell you about the role of a CEO in a public company?CEO’s role in a public company has evolved over the years, but in essence, remains that of a custodian of the shareholders’ value. Koogle had a very good vision and strategy for the company, which did transpire into success initially. While the formulation of the strategy may have been done well, the execution at the business level and evaluation of the strategy could have been better. Even towards the end of Terry Semel’s tenure in 2006, his salary was reduced to only $1 (with $70M worth of stock options ofcourse) due to shareholders’ dissatisfaction.