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Francisco Alves Mendes Filho, also called Chico Mendes (December 17, 1945 TO December 18, 1989), was a Brazilian elastic tapp

Feature Story

Francisco Alves Mendes Filho, also called Chico Mendes (December 17, 1945 – December 18, 1989), was a Brazilian elastic tapper, exchange union pioneer and earthy person. He battled to protect the Amazon rainforest, and supported for the human privileges of Brazilian workers and indigenous people groups. He was killed by a farmer on December 19, 1989. On the nighttime of Thursday, December 22, 1988, Mendes was killed in his Xapuri home by Darci, child of farmer Darly Alves da Silva. The shooting occurred precisely one week after Mendes’ 44th birthday, when he had anticipated he would “not live until Christmas”. Mendes was the nineteenth provincial lobbyist to be killed that year in Brazil. Numerous felt that in spite of the fact that the trial was progressing against the genuine executioners, the parts of the farmers’ union, the Rural Democratic Union, and the Brazilian Federal Police in his passing was overlooked.

In December 1989, Darly Alves da Silva, his child Darci, and their farm hand, Jerdeir Pereira, were sentenced to 20 years in jail as far as concerns them in Mendes’ death. In February 1992, they won a retrial, asserting that the arraignment’s essential witness (Chico’s wife) was one-sided. The conviction was maintained, and they stayed in jail. In 1992, they got away from prison, alongside seven different detainees, by sawing through the bars of their jail window. All were recovered, including Darly Jr., who served the rest of his sentence with alternate executioners before coming back to Xapuri. On December 20, 1990, the daily paper Jornal do Brasil had an opportunity to distribute a question that could have spared the life of Chico Mendes; the “enthusiasm” by the production of the material, in any case, just happened after the homicide of the lobbying.

Reviews

Samurai Review

There are numerous Japanese restaurants in Abu Dhabi, and a considerable measure of them are great. The majority of the incredible ones have a tendency to have something remarkable about them that have clients returning on numerous occasions – it may be the décor, the menu or the administration. On account of Samurai, it’s the individual barbecues at each one table. Samurai is an unassuming, minimal autonomous spot, tucked behind Al Diar Capital Hotel off Meena Road, yet it’s well worth searching out for a standout amongst the most fun eating encounters we’ve had in the city. The principle fascination here is the yakiniku, which signifies ‘barbecued meat’ in Japanese yet is likewise a term utilized for restaurants that serve you crude meat that you cook yourself on a little flame broil at your table – huge amounts of fun. We requested a few sets of meat that come in either a particular kind, (for example, the sheep karubi which was magnificent and is exceedingly proposed), or blended in the event that you need to attempt a couple of mixtures. Miso soup, rice, a little greens and pickles go with each one set. It’s a full meals.

Marina Mall Review

On the off chance that you voyage past the Abu Dhabi Corniche up to the barrier range heading off to the Marina and the Heritage Village, you would see an extensive shopping center with a neighboring tower alongside it, fronting a recreation center and that shopping center is the Marina Mall, which is the biggest shopping center in Abu Dhabi. On the off chance that you are doing an Abu Dhabi Day visit from Dubai, then you will be past this shopping center unless you are in a private visit where you can ask your driver to make a stop here so you could get around for a whistle stop and look around. The Marina Mall offers a 100 meter high survey stage, an ice arena, a knocking down some pins back street, a Cineplex, musical wellsprings and several enormous name brands and stores, numerous restaurants and cafés and the Marina Mall Tower, where you can see surrounding perspectives of Abu Dhabi City and its nearby islands.

Interview

Interview Questions

What is the success factor of UAE?

What do you expect to be your 2015 GDP?

What efforts is the government doing to fight terrorism?

What future plans does the country have towards improving its Public Relations with other nations?

Interview Answers

Oil and tourism is one of the success factors in the UAE

The country is expecting to make a 70% increase in GDP due to the increases of per capita income noted in 2014

We have improved our police and military as well as intelligence agencies towards terrorism

We are planning to increase ambassadors to other countries to increase our public image.

Interview to: HYPERLINK “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_bin_Zayed_Al_Nahyan” Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan

Current event in the UAE

Ten of Abu Dhabi’s top resorts are going out to win extravagance business when they join an end structure being mounted by Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) at the yearly International Luxury Travel Mart in Cannes, France, which runs from December. City, island, betray and shoreline resorts are in the Abu Dhabi line-up and all are searching for an expanding offer of the outbound extravagance European market, especially from the MICE section. Anantara Hotels, Resorts & Spas, which works six properties in the emirate, from urban to leave and island resorts, is looking to manufacture its European MICE business. .

The resort’s 10 Royal Pavilion Pool Villas peculiarity eminent Arabian adornment and have a solitary room with a jumbo bunk, a different lounge and feasting territory, an oversize shower tub, downpour shower and complimentary Wifi. They each one have a private plunge pool, a patio with shaded day overnight boardinghouses fresco eating region and a private steward administration. So far Anantara says 2014 has been guaranteeing with much stronger returns coming soon. 2014 has run well with solid, transient interest. It is relied upon this business sector to become exponentially in 2015 and from that point as the interest has been available in the last few years however not very many venues were satisfactory to welcome these occasions. We are searching for gathering and corporate gatherings for weekdays.”the St. Regis brand will be decently spoken to by its two feature properties in Abu Dhabi – one along the U.a.e. capital’s staggering Corniche, the other on its perfect Saadiyat Beach.

References

HYPERLINK “http://www.uaeinteract.com” http://www.uaeinteract.com

Article about Abu Dhabi

Ferrari Race in Abu Dhabi

In a race in which he just required to complete second, Hamilton prerace guarantee to “drive it like I stole it” interpreted in electrifying manner in the opening seconds of the race as an electric getaway saw him vault past his polesitting title rival Rosberg into the lead well before Turn One.hamilton promptly set about controlling processes and his lead over Rosberg was in overabundance of two prior seconds his buddy’s Mercedes created a basic ERS frameworks disappointment on lap 25 which successfully settled their strained, convincing season-long fight for amazingness in the Briton’s support. With Rosberg losing motor power and falling seconds off his heretofore pace, the last 30 laps of his season formed into a tragic slide down the request for the season’s long-lasting title pioneer. While urging his race design over the radio to attempt and get him to the banner in the fifth spot he required to win the title ought to Hamilton run into terminal inconvenience, Rosberg’s burdens just deteriorated in the midst of progressively terminal brake wear and he in the long run slipped the distance to fourteenth spot and out of the focuses.

Reference

http://www1.skysports.com/f1/report/15740/9576608/2014-abu-dhabi-gp–lewis-hamilton-on-top-of-the-world-as-win-clinches-2014-title

Franchising Business Model

Mock Exam Paper

Name

Course

Course instructor

Date

Franchising Business Model

Franchising offers great benefits to owners seeking to expand operations including access to better talent, ease of capital expansion and minimizing growth risk. Franchising may help in identifying talented workforce to manage locations and offer them incentive to work hard. Most people prefer investing or running a business in return for profits instead of taking salary as an employee and therefore franchising enables a business to acquire better and talented employee. Additionally, franchising may be a good way of obtaining expansion capital since the franchises pay to buy outlets in the chain thus acquiring several locations without tapping much of own capital. Franchising can also generate high financial returns for relatively little risk since little money is put into each location.

Disadvantages

Franchise business model leads to lesser control over managers since the franchisees cannot be controlled as employees. Franchisees are independent businesses with different goals from the owner that may eventually lead into legal troubles. It is also not easy to get franchisees compared to hired store managers to work together and the franchisees obtain incentives to profit from each other’s efforts to generate business. There are also innovation challenges associated with franchising since when an individual comes up with an idea, there must be a negotiation with other franchisees to accept the innovation.

2.

Porter’s Five Forces technique is a very significant tool, which attempts to point out at some of the significant strength in every business situation. These forces help in identifying some of the competitive intensity as well as overall industry profitability. The Porter’s tool highlights competition from both external and internal sources. The strengths identified by the Porter’s tool may help a business to understand her strength in the competitive position as well as the strength of a place or step that the business wants to make. It is therefore clear that by identifying strength position, business can take fair advantage, eliminate wrong situations and eventually creating sustainable advantage.

Supplier power is one of the important forces, which help business to determine ease of driving up prices by the suppliers. Business may counterbalance this force by standardizing specifications in parts for it to change among suppliers easily. Business may decide to add more vendors or even change technology to eliminate coming together of strong suppliers. By standardizing specifications, adding more vendors, and changing technologies, it would be easy to weaken supplier power hence creating sustainable advantage. Additionally, there is buyer power, which includes the number of buyers as well as their importance to the business. Business would have sustainable advantage if the number of buyers who can control the business and lower down pressure. Business should therefore attempt to disperse their buyers and ensure that not a few buyers can control it by dictating transactional terms.

Moreover, business may have tremendous strength if there are few competitors in the industry. Competitive rivalry is a very crucial force that every organization must take serious note of. For sustainable advantage, a firm may decide to differentiate her products and add value as a way of staying ahead of their competitors. This will also reduce the threat of substitution through supplying of unique products that cannot be easily substituted hence boosting a business power.

3

An above average rate of return in an industry is when a profitable opportunity in a sector of the economy which promises a higher than average rate of return is exploited. Most industries highly profitable do not normally stay so indefinitely since, there are always stiff competitive pressures in the direction of the long run equalization of the rates of return. On the other hand, there are forces that generate dispersion hence opposing a trend toward equality amongst rate of return. It is worth noting that different industries are most profitable at different points in time in the short run and the tendency for the above average rates of return to move towards the average is very strong is stronger in the industries that are easy to enter. Firms in a particular industry would enjoy a higher rate of return for a while when perhaps prices go high thus leading to a higher profits but this lasts for a while since profits attract capital to the industry. Existing firms would increase their capacity and more firms will enter the industry thus enhancing the industry supply that eventually minimizes the prices. It is apparent that in the long-run no industry earns an above average return.

4

Every business has a purpose that sees it succeed in its operations. Whatever the business is intended to achieve is one of the most important things to ascertain. This may help in confirming whether the business is in the right track or whether there are changes that ought to be made in order to ensure that the business achieves its intended purpose. Purpose may also help in defining the kind of business an entity should be including whether it should be large, innovative, efficient, or best in its kind and always be the first in everything. It is apparent that every business will turn out to be what the owner wants it to be. Moreover, a business should be specific on what it should do to its direct and indirect stakeholders, none of which can be served at the same time. This helps in defining the significance of the business and for whom thus giving insights concerning the added value of the business. Values and criteria guiding everyday choices and actions are similarly important in defining a business purpose. The purposes are intended to drive a business in both the short and long run.

5. Use of Coca Cola in explaining Ansoff’s Matrix

Ansoff’s matrix is a significant tool used in examining a company’s product range and the four main options include market penetration, product development, market development, and diversification. Diet Coke m penetration was because of growing trend towards dieting and healthier living and it has since been very successful. Millions of units of the product have been sold since its introduction in 1982 and the company has continuously adapted aspects of the marketing mix for Diet Coke as a way of matching customer trends and fashions. Moreover, introduction of Coca Cola Vanilla showed a successful launch in America as well as another new Vanilla flavored version in Great Britain. The company has done several taste tests and developed its look thus helping the brand to incorporate itself.

Furthermore, Fanta Icy Lemon development was because of listening to consumers who called the company’s Careline telephone service and the business conducted tastes tests prior to the 2001 launch. Coca Cola also targeted parents of children aged 2-5 years with juice drink packaged in a fun and colorful manner thus prompting them to choose the characters from Winnie the Pooh for their universal appeal to children and parents.

Franchise Partner Selection And Organisational Learning

Franchise Partner Selection And Organisational Learning

According to (Gerringer, 1991), a broad interest about joint undertaking in partnership has been enhanced by Empirical studies of partner choice. The selection of partner in the Empirical studies with indication to franchising was examined by (Szymanski, et al, 1993). Their focus is largely based on criteria of selecting tasks and partner that are related and they include attitudes, character, specific experience about industry, skills in management, demographic attribute, financial power and general experience about a business. The information that is provided in these studies has enabled the franchisors to be more considerate in deciding on their partners. Nonetheless, in the franchise organizations, there is very little information that is known about the process of selecting the partners and the implications that it has on a string of its performance. In franchising, selection of a partner is one of its functions in management which is most important. An advanced research was carried out by Szymanski, et al (1993) stated, “the preliminary steps in the process of selection are little known and yet in the whole world there are hundreds of thousands of people who have joined the agreement of franchising.” The theories of franchising have enabled an indirect link to be established between the performance string and selection of a partner. Szymanski, et al, (1993) claimed that an effective selection of partner and teamwork that exist between franchisors and their franchisees enables a direct relationship to be established. This cooperation is very essential in a sequence of performances. There are two leading theories (Fulop and Forward, 1997), that is the resource scarcity theory and the agency theory.

In the agency theory (Elango and Fried, 1997), the divergent objectives between franchisors and their respective franchises result in the rise of agency setback and this come about due to some franchisees might follow their own benefits at the expense of the franchisors. In most cases, this is done by franchisees that are very opportunistic. From this argument, the performance chain to be consistent, standardization of the brand image is required therefore efficiency has to be emphasized in the whole system of franchise. This implies that (Fulop and Forward, 1997) for the objectives of the system of franchise to be realized, the partners that are recruited must be ready to contribute towards the same and it should also come up with operating channels, routines of the organization, marketing strategies that are extensive in the system (Murphy and Caves).

On the other hand, in the theory resource scarcity, franchising is viewed as the organization that is responsible for the resources that are insufficient for it to expand. They include; capital required for labor, talent in the managerial field and capital inform of finance and knowledge about local market. Critical resources which are in need of creating chains which are large are reached by organizations when they use franchising mechanism (Combs and Ketchen, 1999). This enables the organizations to gain an advantage which in the long run makes them to go in front in the number of vend channels. There is a yield in the market share as result of outlet share that is higher (Gerringer, 1991) also the profitability is affected by share of the market and this normally felt in the goods of consumers (Szymanski et al., 1993; Gerringer, 1991). The industry of restaurant has evidence of Empirical that support advantage of the first-mover. This is also likely to be present in any manufacturing company that has geographic element. From this statement it is evident that that the performance of that chain does not depend on the number of franchisees that the franchise system recruits. The franchisors are supposed to select partners so as to ensure that they come up with systems that are wide. This enables them to be consistent and hence they become standardized and more effective the expansion of outlets of franchise. The achievement depends on the quality of franchise associates recruited which is normally very demanding. The organizations that strongly protect their brands do not generally franchise (Fulop and Forward, 1997) and the quality of franchisees recruited is risked if they have expansion rate at their main mission. In international markets which are diverse, cultural background, the personal individuality, general business and specific information about the industry and the way in which the new venture is financed can vary (Combs and Ketchen, 1999). As a result of this, there is a challenge in the selection of the of the required franchise partner who is international because there is a jeopardy that the selected franchise may be connected with varied market environment. The franchisors should ensure that they study the needs that are needed locally and also have full knowledge about the situation of the local market in the process of choosing their collaborator; this enables their franchise relationship to be helpful. Since organizations are viewed as systems which are adaptive, it necessity that the two kinds of learning is balanced that is, utilization and discovery March (1991). In discovery education, external orientation is strongly considered and also penetration of new capabilities in terms of developments and knowledge are greatly emphasized. This makes the organization to be linked to adaptation and hence it departs from its potential that existed before. In utilization learning, the focus is tapping into present and interior knowledge and thus resulting into an incremental upgrading and standardization of the present abilities. Both discovery and utilization learning are important and in unstable situations organizations are normally required to come up with a way of balancing between upholding efficiency and firmness when rapid adjustments are normally adapted to, this is according to (March, 1991). Nevertheless, balancing is hard because severe variations are witnessed in both utilization and discovery learning. Utilization is a search that is aimed at emphasizing on short-term mean balance and limited variety while in discovery learning, the emphasis is on generating irregularity performance and variation (McGrath, 2001). March (1991, p 73) think that “compared to returns from exploitation, returns from exploration are systematically less certain, more remote in time, and organizationally more distant from the locus of action and adaptation …. The certainty, speed, proximity, and clarity of feedback ties exploitation to its consequences more quickly and more precisely than is the case with exploration”.

Though quick transformations make a constant need to adjust and gain knowledge of skills which are new, time needed to exploit the present capabilities and skills is reduced (Elango and Fried, 1997). However, the problem of competence trap is witnessed by organizations which use utilization form of learning and hence this limits utilization learning. Discovery can wipe out utilization and vice versa (Szymanski, et al 1993). In Sorenson and Sørensen’s (2001) study, the results of rival and its challenges to the sequence of performance is apparent in the learning of operations of systems of franchise. The way in which franchisors involve in utilization and discovery learning in the selection of pattern so as to contribute to succession performance is not much known. Assistance is offered by international franchising so as to reconcile the requirements for adaptation and consistency. On the other hand, the rival force that exist between the two types of learning with respect to adaptation and consistency show that the reconciliation of the goals of a steady brand and an expansion rate which is normally accelerated is an aspiration that is required for franchisors of international level. The process of selecting partners that is being researched in the literature as well as the management of franchising units determines their collapse or successes. From the above literature, the following research questions are supposed to be answered.

a) In the selection of international franchise partner, what processes are supposed to be involved in utilizing and discovery learning?

b) How is string performance balanced by discovery and utilizing learning in the selection of a partner.

RESEARCH DESIGN

The international hotel organization is used as an embedded unit in a lone case study. International hotel organization is taken as the focus of analysis so as to enable different levels of study to take place within a single case study (Szymanski, et al, 1993). Greater richness and various views in explaining the performance of the firm are appreciated by use of this approach. The hotel franchise operator in case analysis was the largest in the whole world. It is possessed by a conglomerate and it was a company that was openly listed on the London Stock Exchange. The geographical sections in which that the organization was operational, was divided into three regions, that is, the Middle East, the Americas, the Europe and the Asia Pacific and Africa region commonly known as (EMEA). The discoverer of hotel franchise idea was the original creator of the organization. This company enhanced accommodation to be in larg numbers in the US (Gerringer, 1991). There was a broad representation of this case study organization in the US but internationally it was on a smaller scale (Knabe et al., 2000).The informants and the region to investigated were chosen by use of purposive sampling because researchers were enabled to get best answers for their questions of research so as to meet objectives of research. Since in case study research, only small samples are needed so as to particularly select, purposive sampling is frequently used. An extreme case was selected in this analysis that is, the EMEA division that has its headquarter in London in the UK because some groups of hotels in this region did not grow due to lack of franchising tradition (Fulop and Forward, 1997).The varied international aspects of franchising were to be fully realized when great emphasis was to given to this region because it appeared to suggest vast opportunities for development of hotels which have brands of international level. Research showed that in the EMEA region only 24 percent of the hotels were branded with less than 60 percent of hotels branded in the United States (Knabe et al., 2000).

The interviews that were semi-structured enabled primary collection of qualitative facts. The intention of our sample was to impress both market levels of the country (a place where country managers identified prospective associates) and the divisional level of EMEA (a place where the resolution of picking a partner is reached). The sample at division level included Legal Counsels, Managers who support Business, Franchise Managers among other senior persons who were engaged in the process of international development. The sample in the markets of the country involved Country Managers (found in UK, Germany, Italy, France, Africa, Central Europe, Spain, Turkey and Benelux in that order). The one and a half hours interviews of semi-structured form were conducted. They were forty five in total. In exacting, matters that related to proposals of franchise have been in recent days discarded or accepted in countries like France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Turkey which were investigated by informants. Facts from different viewpoints were allowed for consideration by use of this approach and in addition to this, different informants presented their proposals which had different views and hence this enabled each resolution to be discussed. This was used to prove or disapprove the deductions that were drawn from earlier ones and hence this improves the likelihood of accurate and reliable facts. Further, in this approach the probability of capturing the findings of novel came from different sides and hence adding thoroughness and prosperity to the outcomes. The twelve meetings that were observed in several country markets and that of division level were used to find out if data that was obtained from the interview correctly revealed that the experience of the participants who were implicated in the process was current (Combs and Ketchen, 1999).The observations involved surveillance a number of informants who were key interviewers so as get closer to their reality roles (Knabe et al., 2000). Condensed version of events was taken by use notes then finally documents of the company were also used as a corresponding means of collecting data. They were letters, formal reports, journals of trade, newspaper, proposals of external expansion, annual reports, memoranda, description of jobs of members of the organization, press and publication releases and minutes of meetings about the case study organization. These facts were compared and the analyzed with respect to outcomes from observations and interviews that were conducted by the informants. This triangulation of facts was very important in increasing the reliability of case data and hence clearly coming up with full view of the firm in form of selecting international franchise partners and the role of members of the organization in process. The analysis of thematic content was done by use of records that were obtained from the interview. Also there was the development of an analytic framework that was preliminary used so as to direct our study. It was a two-by-four matrix about two stages selection of a partner in international franchise (that is, identification of a partner and making a decision) which is used as axis and the theoretical framework that consist of three components(that is, utilizing learning, discovery learning and image branding) which is used another axis. The themes that come out are identified using facts that each informant obtained separately during the process of analyzing. Consequently, the subject matters that resulted from each interview that was carried out by informants were evaluated across all the individuals so as to come up with themes that related to the theoretical network that was proposed. Next, a comparison and a contrast of the concepts, themes and facts that resulted from data are the carried out. This is done with respect to extant literature on franchising of international standards and learning of the organization. The differences and resemblance identified were documented in form of memos then sorted into groups and connected which enabled a theoretical outline of connections across all categories to be established.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The case analysis organization positioned itself with a target of developing hence making it to become a major force in the entire of Europe by way international franchising. It attained a number of procedures that were to be used in selection of partners which include financial analysis, the market among other issues. When definite guiding principles are followed, the likelihood of maximizing the franchise relationship development of cooperatives is enhanced. In this case, partners who potential franchise were bankers, developments that were involved in the development of real estates, companies of hotel management, and consultants of intermediary level and owners of hotels.

Reference:

Clarkin, J. and Swavely, S. (2006): The importance of personal characteristics in franchisee selection: Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services: 13 (2) pp.133-142.

Combs, J. and Ketchen, D. J. (1999): Explaining inter-firm cooperation and performance: Toward a reconciliation of predictions from the resource-based view and organizational economies: Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 20 No. 9, pp. 867-888.

Fulop, C. and Forward, J. (1997): Insights into franchising: a review of empirical and theoretical perspectives: The Service Industries Journal: 17(4) pp. 603-625.

Gerringer, J. (1991): Strategic determinants of partner selection criteria in international joint venture: Journal of International Business Studies: 22(1), pp. 41-61

Szymanski, D, Bharadwaj, S., and Varadarajan, P. (1993): An analysis of the market share-profitability relationship: Journal of Marketing: Vol. 57 No. 3, pp.1-18.

March, J. (1991): Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning:

Organization Science, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 71-87.

Sorenson, O. and Sørensen, J. B., (2001): Finding the right mix: Franchising, organizational learning, and chain performance: Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 22, pp. 713-724.

Knabe, R., Cumming, R., Hargreaves, E. and Purdy, M. (2000): Bass: Hot on the heels of the brewing disposal: Dresdner Kleinwort Benson Research, 10th August.