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A Report on Day Dream Toys Case Study
A Report on Day Dream Toys Case Study
Unit Title: Managing people and organizations
Unit code: HP7147
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Table of Contents
TOC o “1-3” h z u 1. Introduction PAGEREF _Toc86322142 h 32. Key Characteristics of Marketing Concepts PAGEREF _Toc86322143 h 3a. Customer satisfaction PAGEREF _Toc86322144 h 3b. Total company effort PAGEREF _Toc86322145 h 4c. Profit PAGEREF _Toc86322146 h 43. Key Factors influencing the Micro and Macro Environment of Day Dream Toys PAGEREF _Toc86322147 h 4a. Suppliers PAGEREF _Toc86322148 h 4b. Customers PAGEREF _Toc86322149 h 4c. Competitors PAGEREF _Toc86322150 h 5d. Economic Conditions PAGEREF _Toc86322151 h 5e. Ecology and Physical Environment PAGEREF _Toc86322152 h 54. The importance of Market Research to Day Dream Toys PAGEREF _Toc86322153 h 5a. Better understand the Customers’ Demands and Needs PAGEREF _Toc86322154 h 5b. Research provides revenue projections PAGEREF _Toc86322155 h 6c. Discover the company’s and the competition’s strength and weakness PAGEREF _Toc86322156 h 65. How Day Dream Toys might collect and use market research information PAGEREF _Toc86322157 h 6a. Focus groups PAGEREF _Toc86322158 h 6b. In-depth Interviews PAGEREF _Toc86322159 h 6c. Surveys PAGEREF _Toc86322160 h 75. The Process of Market Segmentation and Targeting and the benefits to Day Dream Toys PAGEREF _Toc86322161 h 77. Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc86322162 h 8References PAGEREF _Toc86322163 h 9
Day Dream Toys Case Study
1. IntroductionThe main purpose of any business irrespective of the industry is obtaining and retaining its customers. Marketing concepts gives businesses the opportunity to gain customers who are considered the most vital to a business’ life. In this case study, the marketing concept at Day Dream Toys is explored in depth. The report also looks at the main factors influencing the micro and macro environment of the company, explores the need for information gathering, and describes the process of market segmentation.
2. Key Characteristics of Marketing ConceptsAccording to Iacobucci et al. (2019) marketing concepts must be in line with the goals of the organization for it to be successful. Therefore, companies such as Day Dream Toy Company must determine their customers’ wants and needs prior to setting the organizational goals. The marketing concepts provides that the achievement of organizational goals relies on knowing the target markets’ needs and wants and delivering the satisfaction that the target audience desires better than competitors do (Iacobucci et al. 2019). Marketing is much broader compared to selling and it is not an activity that is specialized at all. Marketing comprises of the whole organization. It is the entire business perceived from the final results’ viewpoint that is from the customers’ viewpoint (Dadzie et al. 2017). Therefore, marketing’s concern and responsibility must permeate every area of the organization. The three characteristics of marketing concept include:
a. Customer satisfactionThe organization should not only identify but also define the wants and needs of customers as well as their expectations. All the services and goods that the organization produces must satisfy the needs of the customer (Dadzie et al. 2017). Day Dream Toy Company for instance identified that children need toys that they can play with both at school and at home and therefore, they produced wooden toys such as wooded building bricks, wooden jigsaws, and wooden animals.
b. Total company effortThis includes the efforts put in place by all the sections, functions, and departments of the organization must work in collaboration to meet the company’s main objective, that is the satisfaction of customers’ requirements (Dadzie et al. 2017). In Day Dream, the production department, the management team, and the marketing team should work together to ensure the satisfaction of the target market.
c. ProfitThe marketing concept presumes that the company can only gain profits if the customer is satisfied. The target audience is entitled to reasonable products at reasonable prices (Dadzie et al. 2017). The company on the other hand is entitled to reasonable profits for reasonable product. In the case of Day Dream Toy Company, they produced reasonable wooden products that customers were willing to pay for and in return, their profits skyrocketed due to this demand.
3. Key Factors influencing the Micro and Macro Environment of Day Dream ToysThe micro-environment factors that influence Day Dream Company directly include:
a. SuppliersSuppliers are responsible for providing resources to Day Dream Company and these resources are raw materials that are used to produce and manufacture the toys. For instance, they supply the woods used to make the wooden toys (Mose, 2016). If the suppliers fail to provide the woods timely and sufficiently, it would delay the company’s production process which would affect their entire process up to the selling point.
b. CustomersDay Dream Toy’s customers are the receivers of the final products. They are central to the company because they are the ones that generate income by paying a price for the product (Mose, 2016). The profits increased when more customers were attracted to Day Dream toys. When the demand of Country Cousins merchandise decreased, the sales decreased by 40% thereby reducing the company’s profits.
c. CompetitorsDay Dream Toys’ competitors have directly influenced the company’s business strategy. For years, Day Dream has had a unique selling point by producing wooden toys making their products preferred over their competitors’ products (Mose, 2016). For Toys is a competitors that has forced manufacturers to produce at low prices and Day Dream has been forced to agree to such demands due to decreased demand.
Macro-environment factor include:
d. Economic Conditions
The performance of all businesses relies on the market’s economic conditions. Favorable economic conditions meant that the customers of Day Dream Toys had a higher purchasing power and therefore the demand for the toys increased. But unfavorable economic conditions in the market caused the company to suffer decreased demand due to the decreased purchasing power.
e. Ecology and Physical EnvironmentEcology and physical environment play a vital role for Day Dream considering it uses wood as its primary raw material (Mbithi, Muturi, & Rambo, 2017). For instance, an adverse change in the physical environment would distribute rainfall in various regions which affects forestry causing a shortage in raw material production.
4. The importance of Market Research to Day Dream ToysMarket research would help Day Dream Toys make more informed and better decisions. The more research Day Dream Toys embeds in its strategic plans, the better equipped the company would be to deal with the changing environment within its operation (Fisher & Kordupleski, 2019). The information gathered would help Day Dream Toys to:
a. Better understand the Customers’ Demands and NeedsWith the increased number of ways to reach the target market including the use web communities, online panels, depth interviews and focus groups, telephone surveys, market research would help Day Dream Toys to know the needs of the customers, improve on their offerings and customers service based on the customer feedback from the research (Fisher & Kordupleski, 2019).
b. Research provides revenue projectionsA market research is a market analysis’ key component that would project Day Dream Toys’ customers’ characteristics, future numbers, and trends. Through market research, the company can divide its target audience into segments, thereby focusing on the best segment (Pereira et al. 2019). The segment identified would be the one that matches the profile of Day Dream Toys.
c. Discover the company’s and the competition’s strength and weakness
With market research, it is essential that Day Dream Toys adopts an ‘eye’s wide open’ approach. By conducting an unbiased market research, the company will identify and understand its strengths and weaknesses as well as those of the competition such as For Toys (Pereira et al. 2019). From the research findings, Day Dream can adapt and learn from its weaknesses while capitalizing on the new-found knowledge about the competition and take advantage of their weaknesses to forge ahead of them.
5. How Day Dream Toys might collect and use market research informationSome of the ways Day Dream Toys can collect and use information from market research include:
a. Focus groupsDay Dream Toys can use focus groups to collect information. The focus group can comprise of six to ten members that discuss the toys that the company produces and the strategies that the company uses to market the toys (Belk, 2017). The focus group will include a moderator stimulating the discussion to derive the members’ opinions. From the discussions, Day Dream Toys will be able to know the customers’ needs, the strategies to implement in its marketing efforts, and to anticipate the customers’ future expectations.
b. In-depth InterviewsDay Dream Toys can conduct face to face or telephone interviews to collect information from its target audience. This form of research method is more conversational (Oltmann, 2016). The company researchers can ask open-ended questions which would help them collect better data from the subjects of research.
c. SurveysTo gather information from its customers, Day Dream Toys can conduct survey using web-intercept surveys, paper questionnaires, online polls, and online surveys to ask questions from the participants (Belk, 2017). Surveys is among the most common market research methods that Day Dream Toys can use to understand their target market and to understand the customers’ perception about their toys.
5. The Process of Market Segmentation and Targeting and the benefits to Day Dream ToysTo conduct market segmentation and targeting, Day Dream Toys can segment their customers by sorting them in terms of their demographics, geography, behavior, psychographics, and benefits sought. Psychographics include the customers’ interests, lifestyle, personality, and opinions (Nadanyiova & Das, 2020). Behavior is the customers’ purchase occasion, loyalty, and rate of usage. Benefits sought include the values being sought by the consumer like price, convenience, and the status that is associated with the toys. Day Dream Toys can also segment its customers by asking why, what, and who.
By asking the “why” question, Day Dream Toys aims to understand the behavior of the customers. The company can collect information from the past purchases of the customers in order to make good predictions for the future (Nadanyiova & Das, 2020). Therefore, Day Dream Toys will be allowed to target the right people. The “what” question on the other hand focuses on the behavior of purchase. The data that would be of interest to the company can be broken down into frequency, recency, and monetary value. The three indicates the number of times customers shop, the last time a customer visited the store, and the amount of money they are comfortable spending. This would help Day Dream Toys to determine the customers’ value and loyalty. The “who” question provides information such as the customers’ education level, income, age, and family size.
Segmentation and targeting will enable Day Dream Toys to identify opportunities within the market. The marketers will identify each segment’s needs in light of the company’s and the competitors’ current offerings and the customers’ current satisfaction (Nadanyiova & Das, 2020). The segment with lower satisfaction levels might present an excellent market opportunity. For instance, one segment may express dissatisfaction with the current toy offerings in terms of the products. In such a situation, Day Dream Toys can launch a new range of toys meant for that particular segment and market those toys well.
7. ConclusionDay Dream Toys just like other companies aims to keep the customers at the center of its operations and the same goes for customer research. Key characteristics of marketing concepts have been identified in the discussion to include customer satisfaction, total efforts from the company, and profits. The main factors influencing the micro and macro environment of Day Dream Toys include suppliers, customers, competitors, economic conditions, and the physical and ecological environment. further, the research finds the importance of market research to Day Dream Toys as a better understanding of the demands and needs of the customers and better revenue projections.
ReferencesBelk, R. W. (2017). Qualitative research in advertising. Journal of Advertising, 46(1), 36-47.
Dadzie, K. Q., Amponsah, D. K., Dadzie, C. A., & Winston, E. M. (2017). How firms implement marketing strategies in emerging markets: An empirical assessment of the 4A marketing mix framework. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 25(3), 234-256.
Fisher, N. I., & Kordupleski, R. E. (2019). Good and bad market research: A critical review of Net Promoter Score. Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry, 35(1), 138-151.
Iacobucci, D., Petrescu, M., Krishen, A., & Bendixen, M. (2019). The state of marketing analytics in research and practice. Journal of Marketing Analytics, 7(3), 152-181.
Mbithi, B., Muturi, W., & Rambo, C. (2017). Macro environment moderating Effects on Strategy and Performance.
Mose, A. (2016). Analysis of Macro and Micro Environment on the Marketing Strategy Formulation and the Influence to the Competitive Advantage (Case Study). Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 15, 35-41.
Nadanyiova, M., & Das, S. (2020). Millennials as a target segment of socially responsible communication within the business strategy. Littera Scripta, 13(1), 119-134.
Oltmann, S. (2016, May). Qualitative interviews: A methodological discussion of the interviewer and respondent contexts. In Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research (Vol. 17, No. 2).
Pereira, V., Vrontis, D., Christofi, M., & Temouri, Y. (2019). Analysing three decades of emerging market research: future research directions. British Journal of Management, 2019, 1-12.
BIOLOGY 332 BIOINFORMATICS
BIOLOGY 332: BIOINFORMATICS
EXERCISE 4: PHYLOGENY OF ELEPHANT
This exercise is based on Case 1.5 of Lesk (2008) wherein amino acid sequences are again used to test the relationships of living and extinct species of elephants. Elephants are some of the largest land mammal the ever lived on Earth. There are several questions with regards to the relationships of two extant species of elephants, the African elephant (Loxodonta Africana) and the Indian elephant (Elephas maximus) with that of the extinct Siberian woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius).
The Wolly mammoth is believed to have gone extinct about 10,000 years ago, about the same time man started migration into the Americas. Remains of the woolly mammoth have been discovered intact in permafrost and considerable part of the genome, as well protein sequences have been deposited in Genbank.
One question is whether we could tell from these sequences alone what species is more closely related to another species? Given the differences are few, do they represent true evolutionary divergence or merely random drift?
At this point, it is important to distinguish between similarity and homology. This is discussed in more detail on page 29 of Lesk. In some instance similarity in sequence may not necessarily reflect common closer relationship. It is possible that a functional cytochrome b requires conservation of residues from all other animals that there is not enough differences to discriminate the branching pattern among species of the same clade or group. Thus, you will include two other species of mammals that are more distantly related to the elephants; the hyrax and the dugongs (or manatee).
The cytochrome b gene is one of the protein-coding gene of the mitochondrial genome. The mitochondria is unique since it is past on only from mothers to offsprings. Thus, mutations in the past generations are reflected in the descendants and are presumed to be represent unique shared characteristics. This, however, is based on the assumption, that the rate or speed of mutation of all lineages are relatively the same or constant.
METHODS
You will be using two types of datasets, protein and DNA and determine if the two types of datasets are congruent or if they agree. Congruence among different types of data, or independent sources of evidences is the strongest evidence to support, or reject a hypothesis. Formulate a hypothesis as to the relationships of the three elephant species, and their relationship with other mammals, specifically the hyrax and dugongs. In doing your searches for sequences, it is often better to use scientific names, instead of common names. So use google or Wikipedia to get scientific names.
Submit a scientific paper due the following week.
Protein sequence data
For protein sequence data and and using the websites previously used, retrieve and download the cytochrome b protein sequences of 1) Indian Elephant, 2) African elephant, 3) Siberian woolly mammoth (Mammuthus), 4) hyrax , 5) dugong, 6) manatee, and 7) red kangaroo. You can include any other type mammal to increase your sample size, for a more robust analysis. Perform multiple sequence alignment using CLUSTAL W2 and generate a simple phylogeny. An alternative website for alignment using CLUSTAL and inference of a distance-based phylogeny is the Japanese website Genomenet: http://www.genome.jp . Present your alignment as Figure 1 and your distance-based phylogeny as Figure 2. Make a statement whether your amino acid alignment and phylogenetic inference support your hypothesis.
Using DNA sequence data.
For DNA sequence data, go to Genbank (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/) and under Nucleotide enter Mammuthus cytb (abbreviation for cytochrome b gene). Copy and paste, or collect files under Select to . Collect other taxa listed above, add more taxa if you wish. Use the Genomenet website for sequence alignment and generate a distance-based phylogeny. An alternative site is http:www.phylogeny.fr . This site will generate alignment and phylogenetic trees under different criteria.
Logistics And The British Defeat
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Logistics And The British Defeat
Introduction
When war broke out in America in 1775, the British forces were not logistically prepared. When they are compared with the rebelling colonies the logistics system used by the British appeared efficient superficially, but it had deep cracks and fissures that would eventually cost the British Empire the war. Its soldiers were never short of food or water, and military supplies were sufficient for all the men involved in the battle. Logistics of this scale would not be witnessed for almost two centuries until the Allies invaded North Africa during the Second World War. The major failure of the logistics system was in its resupply network, which should have been identified and rectified as the war wore on (Bowler, 24).
This was not done and therefore the downfall of the British Army in the war began. A close examination of the manner in which the British Empire supplied its troops both in the colonies and from the mother country reveals how the absence, or presence, of crucial materials can affect military expeditions. Eventually, the absence of adequate supplies in reserve, coupled with rampant corruption, insufficient transportation and cautious generalship led to the defeat of the British Army (Christopher, 34).
Logistical Issues
The Treasury Department
The British Treasury Department was mainly responsible for the maintenance of food supplies which also included forage for the animals used during the war (Bowler, 65). It is worth noting that during this time, men fought primarily on horseback, and therefore they depended on horses for mobility and flexibility. Their horses had to be fed.
The Navy Board
This board was charged with the responsibility of transporting clothing, cavalry and infantry supplies, tents, hospital supplies and other camping equipment (Bowler, 16). The Navy Board was to ensure that troops were well equipped to go to war at anytime, anywhere.
The Ordnance Board
Responsible for engineers, guns, artillery, and other ordnance stores including ammunition.
The Treasury Department was ill prepared for the beginning of the war. At the time, the British Army was a colonial garrison force, and there was no central command since England lacked the general staff to serve there (Buel, 39). There were no army officers in the command hierarchy above the level of regiment before the start of the Revolutionary War. The Navy Board can be said to have been better organized than the Treasury, mainly due to the fact that Britain was a major naval power. At the time, Britain had the largest and most powerful navy in the world. Since 1689, the Quartermaster General together with his department had been existent in the British Army; and the department was its most senior service department.
In contrast to today when the duties of quartermasters are strictly logistical, the Quartermaster General of Britain in the 18th century was charged with other duties. He was what would be known today as a chief of staff to the Commanding General, and therefore issues of supply formed just a section of the many spheres of work he engaged in. He was charged with coordinating other staff departments like operations and intelligence, and also assumed command of troops whenever the army launched an attack. This clearly indicates that he had little chance of focusing all his attention to the supply of food and forage to the personnel and animals involved in the war in America (Huston, 42). After the Quartermaster General’s Department, the next in line was the Commissary. The head of this department (the Commissary General) was a civilian.
The number of staff who served under him in the colonies steadily grew to 300. The purchase of fresh food supplies became the biggest supply problem for the British Army. The Commissary Department was riddled with so much corruption and the very first Commissary General (Daniel Chamier) was also dishonest apart from being incompetent. His biggest failure was the inability to file accurate reports on the total number of personnel in the colonies who were in need of rations. The downside was that the Treasury relied upon the figures given to it by Mr. Chaimer as a basis for shipping requirements and ration acquisition. The total requirement Chaimer sent to England was regularly short by an average of 4,000 rations. In addition to this, officers, refugees, children and wives and other people who were supposed to receive a share of the rations delivered to the army (Buel, 96).
The Barracks Master General had other duties apart from his main task of ensuring that all troops were properly and adequately accommodated in the garrisons.
He was charged with supplying them with stoves, cots, tents and other camping equipment they required to survive in the field. He was also responsible for supplying fuel, which was mainly firewood until the discovery of coal which replaced firewood in the later stages of the war. Just like the majority of the British Army’s service support corps, the Barracks Master General always used his position for personal profit. In the colonies, Engineer and Medical departments formed the last of the support staff under the leadership of the Commanding General.
Corruption And Profiteering
Corruption and profiteering were very rampant in the British logistics system. The service corps was dominated by individuals who had the least concern for ethics and good leadership. It is however worth mentioning that under the British Law at that time, a majority of practices that we define as legal today were not crimes (Huston, 39). They were never considered to be ethically or morally wrong during the 18th century. It was common for commissaries to keep the “fifth quarter” of slaughtered livestock for themselves. This “fifth quarter” was the tallow, hide and the head, and they would be sold for profit by whoever managed to lay his hands on them. Although such behavior was tolerated, it eventually contributed to the development of more unethical practices.
For example, the contractors in Britain who supplied food for shipment to the colonies regularly provided quantities of cereals like rice or flour that were considerably less than the required amount. There could be as much as 10% shortage in a single barrel of flour (Bowler, 187). There is no single record of what happened to the millions of bags, crates, barrels, boxes and other containers sent to America.
Majority of the consignments arrived in a poor state and probably would have been thrown away, but it is impossible to imagine that the commissaries could have sold them for profit. The other policy which was frequently abused by the Commissary General and his staff involved the cattle that were captured during battle or raids on farms and homes (Christopher, 81). Fresh meat was always in great demand, and the army had no reluctance in paying each soldier one dollar for every head of cattle that was brought to the camps. The Commissary General routinely took advantage of this and paid soldiers the dollar they were supposed to be given and then sold the cattle to the army at their current market value. They consequently made huge personal profits from this dishonest practice. The reimbursement of civilians for commandeered supplies was not spared either. It was transformed into an income generating venture by the men in the commissary.
If the army had to commander supplies from local farms, the troops were supposed to give each farmer a receipt to take to the commissary in order to get their reimbursements. They however rarely got their money (Buel, 94). This could be because they were afraid or because they knew reimbursement was unlikely to be given to them. What the commissaries did is they took the money meant for the reimbursement and later reported that it had been claimed. Transportation in the British logistics system was also corrupted. According to a parliamentary commission that reviewed the expenditure of public money in 1781, the majority of horses and wagons that were hired to provide support to the British Army in the colonies were owned by officers who worked in the department of the Quartermaster General.
Funnily enough, they were the same officers who were charged with the responsibility of conducting the hiring process (Huston, 27). This would be a blatant violation of ethics in today’s ethical standards.
Conclusion
The experience of the British in the American Revolutionary War is very important for the militaries of today. Although numerous changes have been witnessed in the area of military technology and organization in the last 200 years, American forces still have a hard time dealing with many of the similar problems that hampered the resupply effort of the British. Logisticians in force projection armies still have to solve the problem of delivering supplies over long distances, relying upon the support of the host nation and conquering the constraints of resource. The most important thing to note is that when logistics is not planned in detail, military operations still suffer a great deal.
References
Bowler, R. Arthur. Logistics And the Failure Of the British Army In America 1775-1783. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Buel, Richard. In Irons: Britain’s Naval Supremacy And The Revolutionary Economy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.
Huston, James A. Logistics of Liberty: American Services Of Supply In The Revolutionary War
And After. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1993.
Christopher Hibbert. The American Revolution Through British Eyes. New York: Avon Books, 1997.