What is churn? An overview

What is churn? An overview Churn is the phenomenon where a customer switches from one service to a competitors service (Tsai Chen, 2009:2). There are two main types of churn, namely voluntary churn and involuntary churn. Voluntary churn is when the customer initiated the service termination. Involuntary churn means the company suspended the customers service and this is usually because of non-payment or service abuse. Companies, in various industries, have recently started to realise that their client set is their most valuable asset. Retaining the existing clients is the best marketing strategy. Numerous studies have confirmed this by showing that it is more profitable to keep your existing clients satisfied than to constantly attract new clients (Van Den Poel Larivià ¨re, 2004:197; Coussement Van Den Poel, 2008:313). According to Van Den Poel and Larivià ¨re (2004:197) successful customer retention has more than just financial benefits: Successful customer retention programs free the organisation to focus on existing customers needs and the building of relationships. It lowers the need to find new customers with uncertain levels of risk. Long term customers tend to buy more and provide positive advertising through word-of-mouth. The company has better knowledge of long term customers and they are less expensive with lower uncertainty and risk. Customers with longer tenures are less likely to be influenced by competitive marketing strategies. Sales may decrease if customers churn, due to lost opportunities. These customers also need to be replaced, which can cost five to six times more than simply retaining the customer. 1.1.Growth in Fixed-line Markets According to Agrawal (2009) the high growth phase in the telecommunications market is over. In the future, wealth in the industry will be split between the companies. Revenues (of telecommunication companies) are declining around the world. Figure 2 shows Telkoms fixed-line customer base and customer growth rate for the previous seven years. The number of lines is used as an estimate for the number of fixed-line customers. Figure 2-Telkoms fixed-line annual customer base (Idea adopted from Ahn, Han Lee (2006:554)) With the lower customer growth worldwide, it is becoming vital to prevent customers from churning. 1.2.Preventing Customer Churn The two basic approaches to churn management are divided into untargeted and targeted approaches. Untargeted approaches rely on superior products and mass advertising to decrease churn (Neslin, Gupta, Kamakura, Lu Mason, 2004:3). Targeted approaches rely on identifying customers who are likely to churn and then customising a service plan or incentive to prevent it from happening. Targeted approaches can be further divided into proactive and reactive approaches. With a proactive approach the company identifies customers who are likely to churn at a future date. These customers are then targeted with incentives or special programs to attempt to retain them. In a reactive targeted approach the company waits until the customer cancels the account and then offers the customer an incentive (Neslin et al., 2004:4). A proactive targeted approach has the advantage of lower incentive costs (because the customer is not â€Å"bribed† at the last minute to stay with the company). It also prevents a culture where customers threaten to churn in order to negotiate a better deal with the company (Neslin et al., 2004:4). The proactive, targeted approach is dependent on a predictive statistical technique to predict churners with a high accuracy. Otherwise the companys funds may be wasted on unnecessary programs that incorrectly identified customers. 1.3.Main Churn Predictors According to Chu, Tsai and Ho (2007:704) the main contributors to churn in the telecommunications industry are; price, coverage, quality and customer service. Their contributions to churn can be seen from Figure 3. Figure 3 indicates that the primary reason for churn is price related (47% of the sample). The customer churns because a cheaper service or product is available, through no fault of the company. This means that a perfect retention strategy, based on customer satisfaction, can only prevent 53% of the churners (Chu et al., 2007:704). 1.4.Churn Management Framework Datta, Masand, Mani and Li (2001:486) proposed a five stage framework for customer churn management (Figure 4). The first stage is to identify suitable data for the modelling process. The quality of this data is extremely important. Poor data quality can cause large losses in money, time and opportunities (Olson, 2003:1). It is also important to determine if all the available historical data, or only the most recent data, is going to be used. The second stage consists of the data semantics problem. It has a direct link with the first stage. In order to complete the first stage successfully, a complete understanding of the data and the variables information are required. Data quality issues are linked to data semantics because it often influences data interpretation directly. It frequently leads to data misinterpretation (Dasu Johnson, 2003:100). Stage three handles feature selection. Cios, Pedrycz, Swiniarski and Kurgan (2007:207) define feature selection as â€Å"a process of finding a subset of features, from the original set of features forming patterns in a given data set†. It is important to select a sufficient number of diverse features for the modelling phase. Section 5.5.3 discusses some of the most important features found in the literature. Stage four is the predictive model development stage. There are many alternative methods available. Figure 5 shows the number of times a statistical technique was mentioned in the papers the author read. These methods are discussed in detail in Section 6. The final stage is the model validation process. The goal of this stage is to ensure that the model delivers accurate predictions. 5.5.1Stage one Identify data Usually a churn indicator flag must be derived in order to define churners. Currently, there exists no standard accepted definition for churn (Attaa, 2009). One of the popular definitions state that a customer is considered churned if the customer had no active products for three consecutive months (Attaa, 2009; Virgin Media, 2009; Orascom Telecom, 2008). Once a target variable is derived, the set of best features (variables) can be determined. 5.5.2Stage two Data semantics Data semantics is the process of understanding the context of the data. Certain variables are difficult to interpret and must be carefully studied. It is also important to use consistent data definitions in the database. Datta, et al. (2001) claims that this phase is extremely important. 5.5.3Stage three Feature selection Feature selection is another important stage. The variables selected here are used in the modelling stage. It consists of two phases. Firstly, an initial feature subset is determined. Secondly, the subset is evaluated based on a certain criterion. Ahn et al. (2006:554) describe four main types of determinants in churn. These determinants should be included in the initial feature subset. Customer dissatisfaction is the first determinant of churn mentioned. It is driven by network and call quality. Service failures have also been identified as â€Å"triggers† that accelerate churn. Customers who are unhappy can have an extended negative influence on a company. They can spread negative word-of-month and also appeal to third-party consumer affair bodies (Ahn et al., 2006:555). Cost of switching is the second main determinant. Customers maintain their relationships with a company based on one of two reasons: they â€Å"have to† stay (constraint) or they â€Å"want to† stay (loyalty). Companies can use loyalty programs or membership cards to encourage their customers to â€Å"want to† stay (Ahn et al., 2006:556). Service usage is the third main determinant. A customers service usage can broadly be described with minutes of use, frequency of use and total number of distinct numbers used. Service usage is one of the most popular predictors in churn models. It is still unclear if the correlation between churn and service usage is positive or negative (Ahn et al., 2006:556). The final main determinant is customer status. According to Ahn et al. (2006:556), customers seldom churn suddenly from a service provider. Customers are usually suspended for a while due to payment issues, or they decide not to use the service for a while, before they churn. Wei and Chiu (2002:105) use length of service and payment method as further possible predictors of churn. Customers with a longer service history are less likely to churn. Customers who authorise direct payment from their bank accounts are also expected to be less likely to churn. Qi, Zhang, Shu, Li and Ge (2004?:2) derived different growth rates and number of abnormal fluctuation variables to model churn. Customers with growing usage are less likely to churn and customers with a high abnormal fluctuation are more likely to churn. 5.5.4Stage four Model development It is clear from Figure 5 that decision tree models are the most frequently used models. The second most popular technique is logistic regression, followed closely by neural networks and survival analysis. The technique that featured in the least number of papers is discriminant analysis. Discriminant analysis is a multivariate technique that classifies observations into existing categories. A mathematical function is derived from a set of continuous variables that best discriminates among the set of categories (Meilgaard, Civille Carr, 1999:323). According to Cohen and Cohen (2002:485) discriminant analysis makes stronger modelling assumptions than logistic regression. These include that the predictor variables must be multivariate normally distributed and the within-group covariance matrix must be homogeneous. These assumptions are rarely met in practice. According to Harrell (2001:217) even if these assumptions are met, the results obtained from logistic regression are still as accurate as those obtained from discrimination analysis. Discriminant analysis will, therefore, not be considered. A neural network is a parallel data processing structure that possesses the ability to learn. The concept is roughly based on the human brain (Hadden, Tiwari, Roy Ruta, 2006:2). Most neural networks are based on the perceptron architecture where a weighted linear combination of inputs is sent through a nonlinear function. According to de Waal and du Toit (2006:1) neural networks have been known to offer accurate predictions with difficult interpretations. Understanding the drivers of churn is one of the main goals of churn modelling and, unfortunately, traditional neural networks provide limited understanding of the model. Yang and Chiu (2007:319) confirm this by stating that neural networks use an internal weight scheme that doesnt provide any insight into why the solution is valid. It is often called a black-box methodology and neural networks are, therefore, also not considered in this study. The statistical methodologies used in this study are decision trees, logistic regression and survival analysis. Decision tree modelling is discussed in Section 6.1, logistic regression in Sections 6.2 and 6.3 and survival analysis is discussed in Section 6.4. 5.5.5Stage five Validation of results Each modelling technique has its own, specific validation method. To compare the models, accuracy will be used. However, a high accuracy on the training and validation data sets does not automatically result in accurate predictions on the population dataset. It is important to take the impact of oversampling into account. Section 5.6 discusses oversampling and the adjustments that need to be made. 1.5.Adjustments for Target Level Imbalances From Telkoms data it is clear that churn is a rare event of great interest and great value (Gupta, Hanssens, Hardie, Kahn, Kumar, Lin Sriram, 2006:152). If the event is rare, using a sample with the same proportion of events and non-events as the population is not ideal. Assume a decision tree is developed from such a sample and the event rate (x%) is very low. A prediction model could obtain a high accuracy (1-x%) by simply assigning all the cases to the majority level (e.g. predict all customers are non-churners) (Wei Chiu, 2002:106). A sample with more balanced levels of the target is required. Basic sampling methods to decrease the level of class imbalances include under-sampling and over-sampling. Under-sampling eliminates some of the majority-class cases by randomly selecting a lower percentage of them for the sample. Over-sampling duplicates minority-class cases by including a randomly selected case more than once (Burez Van Den Poel, 2009:4630). Under-sampling has the drawback that potentially useful information is unused. Over-sampling has the drawback that it might lead to over-fitting because cases are duplicated. Studies have shown that over-sampling is ineffective at improving the recognition of the minority class (Drummond Holte, 2003:8). According to Chen, Liaw Breiman, (2004:2) under-sampling has an edge over over-sampling. However, if the probability of an event (target variable equals one) in the population differs from the probability of an event in the sample, it is necessary to make adjustments for the prior probabilities. Otherwise the probability of the event will be overestimated. This will lead to score graphs and statistics that are inaccurate or misleading (Georges, 2007:456). Therefore, decision-based statistics based on accuracy (or misclassification) misrepresent the model performance on the population. A model developed on this sample will identify more churners than there actually are (high false alarm rate). Without an adjustment for prior probabilities, the estimates for the event will be overestimated. According to Potts (2001:72) the accuracy can be adjusted with equation 1. It takes prior probabilities into account. With: : the population proportion of non-churners : the population proportion of churners : the sample proportion of non-churners : the sample proportion of churners : the number of true negatives (number of correctly predicted non- churners) : the number of true positives (number of correctly predicted churners) : the number of instances in the sample However, accuracy as a model efficiency measure trained on an under-sampled dataset is dependent on the threshold. This threshold is influenced by the class imbalance between the sample and the population (Burez Van Den Poel, 2009:4626).

What Is Meant By Language Varieties?

What Is Meant By Language Varieties? Language is defined as a systematic use of sounds, gestures or symbols for communication. It has a complex system where the rules are not clearly stated and is productive as an infinite number of sentences can be produced once the rules are learned. Varieties of Language The expressions and uses of a language varies in many ways. The diagram below illustrates these language varieties : Language Varieties Participants Geographical Registers Social Historical Medium Topics Setting 1. Historical i) Old English it was descended from the languages spoken by the Germanic tribes when they invaded England around 500 AD. The various dialects spoken by these invaders formed the early English language. ii) Middle English was the result of the French influence of the Normans and lasted from 1100-1500 AD iii) Modern English is broken into early Modern English and late Modern English.The former began around the time of playwright, William Shakespeare. Late Modern English occurred around 1800 during British conquest and colonisation of other parts of the world. 2. Geographical English may be the native language of England but due to various reasons such as: colonisation, migration, globalisation, cultural, economic, etc, it had spread to other countries around the world. However, the language used in these different countries developed independently from the original language due to influences by local languages. These influences cause, among other things, the differences in the pronunciation, thus producing their distinctive accent. Some forms of these are: American English Australian English Indian English In certain regions,there are different versions of the same language called dialects. These dialects have different grammar, vocabulary and accent. Eg : Cantonese ( dialect of Mandarin); Aboriginal English (Australia). 3. Social It refers to the use of the language in terms of the social class or identity. Eg: The upper class society in Britain tend to use Received Pronunciation (RP) also known as Queens English or BBC English while others tend to use Cockney English. 4. Registers These are variations caused by : i) Setting It has a large influence in the application of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Different industries such as Legal, IT, Food Beverage, Technical or Hotel Service has their own grammar or technical jargon. Eg : Lawyers would use formal or legal terms in the execution of their papers or court hearings whereas an electrician needs to understand technical terms to issue instructions or to describe repairs. ii) Participants The age, sex, group identity and roles will influence the language used. Age A different variety of language is used when talking to children, eg. Peekaboo than when talking to a peer. Sex Females tend to be more hyperbolic or expressive in their speech while males speech is more subdued. Roles The role we play in our day-to-day contact with others affect the way we speak. Eg ; as a spouse, colleague, parent, teacher, etc. iii) Topic Different subjects have its own specialized set of vocabulary and grammar usage. Eg : A disc jockey and a priest would use different sets of the same language to convey their messages. iv) Medium It can be visual or auditory. Visual (reading and writing) In reading, there are different degrees of formality and also more vocabulary than in listening. In writing, grammatical rules need to be applied and time is needed to interpret the written word Auditory (speaking and listening) Having good listening skills certainly helps one to pick up and improve on speaking skills, esp. in intonations, grammar or vocabulary. In speech, words are usually accompanied by body gestures to convey the message. Words spoken rarely needs to be interpreted, unlike written words. Conclusion As the usage of English language expands across the globe, influences from local cultures, language or from new discoveries in Science and Technology will evolve the language, making it more varied than ever. References: wapedia.mobi/en/Variety_(linguistics Categories: Linguistics | Varieties of English www.icalweb.com/wiki/Varieties_of_English An Introduction to International Varieties of English by L Bauer Related articles Q2. What is Communicative Competency? Communicative competence refers to a language users grammatical knowledge of syntax, morphology, phonology, etc as well as social knowledge about how and when to use utterances appropriately.(Dell Hymes,1966) The desired outcome is the ability to use the language correctly and appropriately to accomplish communication goals, not the ability to use the language exactly as a native speaker does. This outcome depends on : 1) Appropriateness in Speech Other than having knowledge of the words and rules of the language (linguistics), one must also learn not just to say what one means but to use the right words to suit the situation. The words used in to communicate with a friend may deem to be inappropriate when speaking to your headmaster. Eg : Hi! Buddy, have a jolly good day. Good Morning, Mr. Brown Speech can be classified into : Casual/Intimate Speech It is easy going and natural, mainly occurring between family, friends or people whom you are comfortable with. It may contain many omitted forms of grammar and missing words . Eg : Want tea? I go home now. You coming ?. ii) Formal Speech It is more careful but also natural. Proper word sentences and grammar rules are observed and may be used in office or court settings between employer-employee, lawyer-client, etc. iii) Ceremonial Speech It tends to be more unnatural where the rhythm and intonation are quite different from normal speech. 2) Appropriateness in Writing Competency in writing, such as knowledge of grammatical rules, spelling, etc cannot be overlooked. However, different situations dictate different styles of writing. i) Telegrams Where the main message or the gist of it has to be communicated in the shortest time, correct grammar form used may be inappropriate. ii) Essays It is formal writing where grammatical rules, semantics, spelling, etc has to be observed. iii) Poetry The poetic style of writing may not follow the grammatical rules of the language. iv) Legal Document The terms and language used have to be very formal and expressively written. 3) Appropriateness in Setting Being competent in using the language appropriately in a social setting will enable you to be understood and accepted. The setting is influenced by: i) Participant The social status, sex and age will affect the style of speech . Eg: speech use to communicate with a child is different from communicating with an adult. ii) Topic Speech used depend on the subject. Eg; words used for a recipe discussion will include ingredients, method, measures while IT skills will include computer,download,printer. In conclusion, where English is taught as a foreign or second language, it has become widely accepted that communicative competence should be the goal of language acquisition. This is unlike previous views in which linguistics competence was commonly given top priority. References: En.wikipedia.org/wiki/communicative competence www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/knowledge-wiki/communicative competence www.nclrc.org/essentials/goalsmethods/goal.htm Section B Q1 What are the various stages of L1 acquisition? How does this knowledge help us in L2 teaching? Language is commonly defined as any means of conveying or communicating ideas and language acquisition is learning how to communicate these ideas. It is the process by which people acquire the ability to perceive, produce and apply the words to communicate. First language(L1), which is also known as native language or mother tongue is acquired naturally due to ones needs to communicate in order to fulfil his wants. Acquisition Of First Language It occurs in stages from birth. Stage 1 : Pre Speech Babies respond to speech around them more keenly than to other sounds and from birth, will learn to pay attention and distinguish the following in their environment before they speak : i) speech phonemes of the language, eg the speech sound of t and d in bat and bad; ii) intonation the rising and falling intonations iii) rhythm of speech phonological or system of speech patterns in the language used. Stage 2 : Babbling Babies begin to babble from around 3 to 4 months old. It is basically speech sounds with rising and falling intonations. These indiscriminate utterances (eg dadadaà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ or nananaà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦..) do not make sense to the listener but the baby appears to understand the meaning of it. Stage 3 : One word (Holophrastic) stage At about ten months, infants start to utter their first recognizable words although: i) pronunciations may be inaccurate eg : eep for sleep ii) vocalized words may not correlate with words in the language eg meh for cat or ta for duck iii) certain words may be distorted eg goggy for doggie iv) reduplication of words eg da-da,na-na Stage 4 : Two word stage Babies are able to say mini sentences with simple semantic links from 18 months onwards. Eg : cat no (there is no cat ) At this stage, their ability to express is not as advanced as an adult. The semantic use of words are either too broad or too narrow. He may call any round item : ball or only himself and no one else boy However, these underextensions and overextensions develop and change over time. Stage 5 Multi word Stage (Telegraphic Stage): By two years, most children are able to speak in sentences of several words. These telegraphic sentence structures are made up of lexical morphemes which are grammatically incomplete. Eg No eat instead of I wont eat. Stage 6 Normal speech: By about 3 years of age, they would have acquired grammatical and functional structures of words to be able to conduct normal speech. Second language (L2) is any language learned after the first language. Unlike L1, it is normally acquired in order to integrate with the environment.and is achieved through active learning and motivation. As L2 learners follows the same stages of acquisition as L1 learners, it is beneficial if we understand and apply these stages because it will help us to educate L2 learners more effectively. Acquisition of Second Language The stages that L2 learners go through are: Stage 1 : Silent Stage In an environment which is similar to the Pre-Speech Stage of L1, they hear and learn to recognize the distinctive sounds of words and pronunciations. During this silent stage, they may not speak but can respond various ways such as pointing to an object, person or gesturing with a yes and no response. Stage 2 : Early Speech During this stage, utterances of first words (holophrastic) gradually make way to speaking a few simple words and then, simple phrases of the language. Mispronunciations are common during this stage and sentences are telegraphic in nature. Stage 3 : Speech Emergence Learners try to form sentences and will make mistakes in the grammatical structuring of the sentences. By making use of the Mean Length of Utterance (MLU), the development of the learner can be assessed by measuring the morphemes uttered. Eg Early In Between Later You eat? You eating? Are you eating? From the early stage of 2 morphemes, it develops to 3 and then finally 4 morphemes where the grammar and syntax are in order. Stage 4 Language Proficiency Learners are capable of using complex sentences and apply the acquired language to a greater extent. They can opine, discuss and most importantly, begin to think in the second language. Teachers Role In all the above stages, the teacher takes the important role of the mother where she encourages, repeats and reinforces the language. By motivating and making the learners feel secure in a conducive environment, learners will be more willing and confident to acquire a second language.

Revolution in Cosmology Resolves Dispute over Universes Age Essay

Revolution in Cosmology Resolves Dispute over Universe's Age Just under seven years ago, astronomers using the Hubble space telescope presented results they hoped would help answer one of the most contentious issues in astronomy of the 20th century – the question of the distance scale of the universe. But there was some unease when the result was announced. According to the report, other galaxies were close enough that, extrapolating backwards from their current rate of recession and making adjustments for the influence of gravity, they all would have been together (that is, the Big Bang would have occurred) as recently as 8 billion years ago. Unfortunately, there was strong evidence already in place that some stars were at least 12-15 billion years old – apparently predating the origin of the universe itself! While these two highly irreconcilable values for the universe's age certainly posed a serious challenge to astronomers, most simply assumed that better measurements would place the distance scale back in line with the older age. What no one expected is that resolution to this problem would lie not in corrected measurements but a revolution in cosmology, and the apparent discovery of what amounts to a mysterious new essence of the cosmos – a "fifth element" that hides in vacuum and drives the expansion of the universe. The scientific study of the age and origin of the universe is intimately linked with the measurements of extragalactic distance, and consequently the science did not even exist until measurement techniques accurate to such scales were invented. Distance measurement has always been difficult for astronomers – until the 1800s, no one knew even the distance to the nearest star (other than the Sun), and th... ...pressure and a whole host of other strange properties that gravitationally repel all surrounding space, expanding the universe in absence of any physical substance. Furthermore, by expanding the universe, more empty space is created, creating even more antigravitational force and making the universe expand ever faster, leading to a runaway expansion that will eventually culminate in the dilution of all remaining matter into nothingness. And in this lies the solution to the long-standing age issue. If the universe's expansion is constantly getting faster, it must have been slower in the past, pushing the age of the universe upward to around 13 billion years, right in line with the ages of stars. So without any major revision to the distance to nearby galaxies or the ages of stars, the question of the true age of the universe has been solved in a way no one expected.

drugs` Essay -- essays research papers

This is a movie about a mother named Sara Goldfarb played by Ellen Burstyn, her son and only child Harry played by Jared Leto, his best friend Tyrone C. Love played by Marlon Wayans, and Harry’s girlfriend Marion Silver played by Jennifer Connelly. The movie opens with a scene in which Harry is in the process of taking his mother’s television against her wishes. His mother is addicted to her T.V., and now that Harry has left home, it is her whole universe. Her favorite show is one where a man who has lost a lot of weight runs a game show. Her dream is to some day be on his show. Harry’s friend Tyrone is waiting outside the apartment to help him push the T.V. across town to the appliance man’s store where they sell the set and use the money to buy Heroin. The next scene shows Sara, Harry’s mother retriving the set back from the appliance man for what is most likely the hundreth time or so. Sara is what we call an â€Å"enabler†; she turns her head to whatever Harry does and makes excuses for him. From there Harry and Tyrone get high with Harry’s girlfriend Marion. Soon we see as the addiction progresses, Harry and Tyrone begin to hatch a plan to score a large amount of Heroin so they can sell it and have their stash for free. This is a common train of thought for addicts. It is this same type of cognitive process that leads a Meth addict to setting up a home lab and cooking dope him, or herself. Then we see Sara get a phone call from a Television studio and are informed that she h...

Tok Titles for the 2011-2012

These are the following titles that were given for 2011-2012. 1600 words need to be written. 1. Knowledge is generated through the interaction of critical and creative thinking. Evaluate this statement in two areas of knowledge. 2. Compare and contrast knowledge which can be expressed in words/symbols with knowledge that cannot be expressed in this way. Consider CAS and one or more areas of knowledge. 3. Using history and at least one other area of knowledge, examine the claim that it is possible to attain knowledge despite problems of bias and selection. . When should we discard explanations that are intuitively appealing? 5. What is it about theories in the human sciences and natural sciences that makes them convincing? 6. ‘It is more important to discover new ways of thinking about what is already known than to discover new data or facts'. To what extent would you agree with this claim? 7. ‘The vocabulary we have does more than communicate our knowledge; it shapes what we can know'. Evaluate this claim with reference to different areas of knowledge. . Analyse the strengths and weaknesses of using faith as a basis for knowledge in religion and in one area of knowledge from the ToK diagram. 9. As an IB student, how has your learning of literature and science contributed to your understanding of individuals and societies? 10. ‘Through different methods of justification, we can reach conclusions in ethics that are as well-supported as those provided in mathematics. ‘ To what extent would you agree?

New Media Implicated In The Globalization Of Culture Essay

The coeval economics, flori shade and trade is becoming much and much global with each passing year. The potpourri of services, nears and customs that could be spotted solely a couple of decades ago in several(predi guy ropee) countries, and take down in different states endure been becoming little and less noniceable during the last years.The same detergents, cat food, mobile ph hotshots etc. stick out be show either on the shelves of the Canadian shops or on Russian and Indian markets. nearly articulate that the move of globalization gave some of the publics population the chance to function the qualitative and relatively cheesy goods which were previously available solo to the dwellers of the countries were they were produced, nevertheless the others adopt that the process of globalization is damaging for the market, as due to the creation of corporations the little businesses go broke, and frankincense the competition, which leads to the improve ment of feel of the goods produced, disappears.The influence of media on the contemporary culture is enormous. Media is what forms our tastes and preferences, it dictates us what to wear, to buy, and even how should be stomach in different situations. It is the media that turned the Ameri preempt culture into the consumerist bingle, as without delaya daylights it dictates that buying things is the closely convenient and quick modality to use the desired fond attitude. al nigh of the media influences on mountain ar performed finished advertizing, both read and indirect angiotensin-converting enzyme. Media is one of the main means of transferring information among quite a little, and of forming their opinions that is wherefore publicize is so puissant nowadays. The specialists say it is media that substantiates the greatest impact on the globalization of culture and trade on the whole oer the world. It is through the media that the same goods be advertize wholly ove r the world, and, muchover, the same ideas be propagated. Media creates and puzzles the standards that be to be followed to be considered up-to betrothal and deviseable. Of course, different people have versatile opinions on why the effect of announce on globalization is so powerful. For example, Berger, who wrote Ads, Fads, and Consumer finishing states advertising atomic number 18 a tietery, as it is still that nobody knows what advertisement get out be effective and what pull up stakes non. Berger adds that the advertisement executives believe that they waste half of money, worn out(p) on advertisements, moreover no one knows which half it is. (2000, p.2-3). right away media is one of the roughly powerful instruments of forming the opinions of its consumers. Most of the marketing strategies that embody nowadays be make on the influences of the media. It is the irreplaceable instrument for selling things, the process, on which the globalization is based. Decad es ago people bough what they postulate and their needs were dictated by their invigoration conditions and financial stipulation.It is nowadays that at outset media creates the need in the specific crossroad or group of harvestings in people, and than they leverage the publicise thing. Thanks to the media people no longer buy things they need they sort of buy the attri providedes of the desired sociable mass. Hirschman (2003) states that warmness societal values have an grand role on advertising turnout and reception. Thus, to become fashionable, a product has to be promoted emphasizing its contribution to those societal values. now media dictates people not only what they should buy, but in like manner how they should behave, and what should they long for, and those directions argon truly the same tot totallyy over the world. Lindner, the generator of the study, which analyzes the cooking stoves of women in general interest and fashion magazine advertisements, st ates that advertisements often contain genuinely subtle clues closely gender roles and may operate as accessibleizing agents on several levels. Because advertisements ar publicly broadcast, the men and women portrayed are often comprehend to represent the whole population, and men and women in the advertisements sympathisem to accept these portrayed behaviors, thereby logicalating the stereotyped roles. Media encourages contemporary people to build a career, and get tolerable education. It is emphasized in the most contemporary movies, TV shows, and books that to get a right on and well-paid position one has to have all the attributes of the successful psyche, analogous luxurious car, high-ticket(prenominal) costume, and the smallest mobile phone possible. And, as we can note those attributes of wealth and success are the same in the ads and movies that are produced cosmopolitan. In the movies and TV shows all of those accessories protrudem to jet out of nowhere, the y in force(p) indicate the status of the personage portrayed. It is wonderful how the media succeeds in do versatile products fashionable. It creates the impression of the product being fashionable by attaching a set of characteristics to it that are evaluated positively in the society. allows, for example, analyze the phenomenon of the popularity of the designers clothes. If we take a D&G dress, worth 10,000$, we will see, it is not much different from one we can buy in the de billetment stemma for 100$.The designer dress is so expensive because media have been popularizing this trademark for some decades. We can read or elate that this or that movie star was wearying an outfit created by D&G, Prada, or Valentino on the Oscar award ceremony, which is broadcasted in most countries of the world, and thus conclude that clothes created by those trademarks are the attributes of rich and successful people, so that its high cost will be notwithstandingified. The advertisements p ublished in the media create the sprightliness of identification. Jackie Stacey in Star Gazing Hollywood picture palace and Female Spectatorship states that the female spectator is address as a consumer of images of feminine beauty, and thus as an observer of other women, but also of herself. (1994, p.5). The advertisements worldwide are built apply the same principle the dominance difference buyer should be able to cogitate himself or herself in the situation where the modelling that births the product that is promoted, is depicted in the advertisement. And it is manifest that this strategy is effective eitherwhere, where it is used. William OBarr, an advertising specialist who wrote Culture and the Ad Exploring otherness in the World of Advertising, presumes that advertising communicates subliminal messages regarding the kindly and economic dominance of its charge audience. In his opinion advertising agencies are not culturally sensitive (1994. p.111). By advertising campaign, the media creates an impression in the potential difference buyer that after purchasing the advertised product he or she will receive the social and economical status higher, than her present one. Media usually positions the advertised products as a compulsory attribute the members of guests present, or target social group possess. In general all the advertising campaign pursue the conclusion of creating the ideal image of the person, who is a part of the target social group potential customers want to belong to. Thus the media portrays the person, victimization the advertised product in various situations and settings that the members of the customers target or present social group visit. The instruments the contemporary media use to make the products enthralling for the customers are much more complicated than they were several decades ago. All of the advertisements that appeared in the newspapers, magazines or on TV xl or fifty years ago displayed the product adver tised, and people who used them. forthwith the situation has changed. Angela Goddard says it is not compulsory for the image to feature people in launch to say something about them (2002, p.81). The advertisements shouldnt feature a human all the cadence. They should quite picture the surroundings and the goals of the person, who is featured. This allows the consumers identification with the one, who uses the product advertised. The mechanism of group identification is one of the most effective instruments media uses in advertising, as people are used to the circumstance that e very social group has its stuff and non moxie attributes, and they often share the thought that it is large to purchase those attributes to gain the membership in the target group.Media promotes this viewpoint by covering distinct differences between the representatives of different social groups. Lets recall how the personages are displayed in the movies and TV shows. After sounding at the hero for f ew legal proceeding we can recognize his/her social status without paying much effort. The differences between social group and classes are hyperbolized by the media, and the fabric attributes are what indicate those differences. Social scientists presume that it is TV that makes one of the most powerful influences on the process of globalization worldwide. nigh every dweller of our country knows, that the TV appeared only several decades ago, and its only for forty or fifty years that almost every American family has a TV set at home. TV has become the greatest entertainment for the children and adults, an speculative world we can drift to without even using the power of our imagination. The statistics says that television is on for almost 7 hours a day in an average American household. No wonder that the air of television changed the world a lot, as the division of time in the global society has changed with the appearance of this lecture hypnotizing box. Except for reading books, passage out or simply talking with the friends and other family members millions of people worldwide save sit and watch TV. The stereotypes, ideals and goals that atr promoted by the TV programs worldwide, are almost the same, as the advertising techniques and goals are. As a result the bread and butter in different countries becomes more and more like the contemporary Western standard. For now television has become a task for the educators, parents, and employers. there is no statistics about the bar of lessons and workdays missed because of the TV, but the numbers are surely, giant. Lets try to see what exactly attracts the American children, teenager and adults to the TV screen. Jerzy Kosinski in his book Being at that place provided a great interpretation for the facts listed. In his book he described the emotions of the person who had seen the outside world only through the glass of the TV screen. By ever-changing the channel he could change himself -the source n otes. He could go through phases as garden plants went through phases, but he could change as rapidly, as he wished by twisting the dial rearwards and forward. In some cases he could pass on out into the screen without stopping. By spell the dial Chance could bring others inwardly his eyelids. Thus he cam to believe that it was he, Chance, who do himself be. (p.5-6) As you can note, switching on the TV set for Chance gave him the sense of power he didnt have in his real deportment. Chance, like the millions of people worldwide identified himself with the moving figures on the screen, and he felt like he was capable to do something brave and smart, like the TV show and movie heroes did. There were times when people worked hard just for to feel themselves satisfied and valuable in any field they chose, but the TV screen brought an opportunity to get all the set of the positive emotions like love, affection, misgiving and satisfaction for the price of one TV set. The time that w as spent before wad on working, studying, doing something for to provide positive emotions and the pinch of social realization is now spent in front of TV. The emotions, whether positive or negative brought by it became a dose for most of us, as we have congenital to put the efforts for reaching those conditions and getting those emotions without the assistant of the blue screen. People have continuously had the archetypes inside their mind, on the subconscious levels, which had been dictating their view on the world and things and people that dwell in it. With the appearance of the TV those archetypes had with child(p) and enhanced, as we see a lot of examples of them there, much more than the average 19 century American would see during all of his life. The same thing is with stereotyping. Lets recall the reasons for popularity of Chance, the protagonist of Being There. It was just the stereotype millions of Americans shared that the person who negotiation metaphors (and they took the Chances talking about his garden for metaphors) is clever, and hi/her wrangling are worthy of being noticed. It is the phenomena we can see on the TV screen every day.People there are not very clever, not very attractive or intelligent, at least most of them, but we still take their words for granted they have the authority that makes us listen them and hear what they are saying. immediately there are persons that are prize all over the world, and their words are able to change the lives of people in many countries. It became possible only with the information of the contemporary media, as without TV or the Web such a direct and unaffected spread of information would not have been possible. The purpose of this paper is not only examining the advertising techniques the big companies use for to lure more customers to their products. It is rather examining the influences media makes on the globalization of culture and trade that is winning place worldwide.The adverti sing techniques and strategies employed by the media can be used not only for promoting some products, but also for promoting the specific political regime, the specific lifestyles etc. Media is a very powerful instrument. Nowadays it forms the tastes and opinions of its consumers concerning the clothes, gadgetry, or food they buy, but using it much more meaningful and sober things can be promoted. This is a valid reason to put little more attention to the notional filling of the media images and slogans alternatively of consuming them irrecusably. There is no enquiry that the new media have a very powerful influence on globalization nowadays. Thanks to the TV and the Web the life of people in different separate of the world becomes more and more likewise with each passing year. People larn same ideals, principles and norms, guided by TV shows, movies and ads, while the Internet lets them forget about the thousands of kilometers that separate New-York, Paris, Moscow and Deli. Pe ople worldwide become more and more like in all the senses of this word. There is no univocal answer for the question whether it is good or bad, as there are both positive and negative aspects of globalization. Nevertheless, this process is continuing, and it is enhancing with thee development of media.BibliographyKOSINSKI, J. Being There. Grove Press, 1999QUART, A. brand The Buying and Selling of Teenagers. Basic Books, 2004GODDARD, A. The run-in of Advertising, London Routledge, 1998BERGER A.S.A. Ads, Fads and consumer culture advertisings impact on American character and society, Oxford Roman and Littlefield, 2004STACEY, J. Star-Gazing Hollywood Cinema and female Spectatorship. London Routledge, 1993OBARR, W. Culture and the ad exploring otherness in the world of advertising. Oxford Westview Press, 1994LINDNER, K. Images of Women in General have-to doe with and Fashion Magazine Advertisements from 1955 to 2002. Sex Roles A Journal of Research. 2004, p.409 421

Microsoft Office Essay

Each employee could crap a standard hourly rate amid $10.00 and $30.00 per hour. Each employee qualifies to earn extra succession at a rate of 1.5 of his or her hourly rate for every hour greater than 40 hours. Each employee go a right smart conf utilize up a standard 7.65% deduction for kind security Each employee go out arouse a standard 14.00% deduction for national Taxes Each employee testament have a standard 5.33% deduction for State Taxes rationalise how you exit structure and format your worksheet, including titles, tug movements, and formulas to calculate paysheet vari satisfactorys for individualistly employee to t exclusively(a)y Net compensation including and not extra to make sense Hours, megascopic stick out, Social warranter Tax, Federal withholding Tax, and Sate Withholding Tax. In addition, determine how you would extract oer age hours from a calculated value of Total Hours using a conditional formula.In addition, your supervisor forget indispensableness this periodical payroll de fictional characterment de assortment report on a weekly basis and instructed you to wield the payroll history of completely weeks within 1 workbook but has allowed you to decide if you would rather keep the payroll running on unrivalled worksheet or by assigning a clean worksheet for for to all(prenominal) unrivalled one week. using your fellowship learned in this class, descriptively justify whether you would keep all weekly payrolls in one worksheet or assigned to new worksheets by week. Defend your reasonings on the approach your take establish on what you have learned in this course. (Points 40)The creation of the hebdomadly net incomeroll WorkbookSince this is a weekly payroll for construction workers, the reckoning for go past get out be on a weekly basis. Here ar the insights as to how to realise the digestroll workbook.Using a separate worksheet, like Sheet1, you need to indicate the hebdomad Number in the sheet. This champions which week in the calendar the payroll is deemr. Normally we have 52 weeks in one year so Week Number mint be Week 1, Week 2, Week 52.In this resembling sheet, fancy the names of the 15 employees in the beginning(a) newspaper tugboat, starting from cell A4 to leave behind enough cells for heading. You atomic number 50 add and blue-pencil languages after this.In cell A1, tangle with your play along name.In cell A2, take down Week No. 1 for the first week.In cell A3, levy Employees or Employee Names which pull up stakes serve as the heading of the table. In cell A4 with and through A18, enter the names of the employees.For the cell B3 to F3, enter the 5 working days of the week. For G3, enter Total Hours Worked.Now Merge & eye the barf B2F2 and consequently enter the heading title Daily Hours WorkedNow all headings be through and we proceed to entrance the formula to elaborate the hit hours each employee had worked.For cell G4, enter th e formula =SUM(B4F4). so drag to copy this formula up to G18 for the last employee.For I3 enter the heading periodic Rate. For J3 enter Overtime Rate. assent the formula for overtime as =I4*1.5 since it ordain be 1.5 of the regular hourly rate.Column K result be the hourly comport and the formula shall be =IF(G440,40*I4,G4*I4). This room that if the descend hours is greater than 40, it leave compute only for 40 hours since the remainder will be an overtime. If it is less than 40, it will compute the positive number of hours multiplied by the rate.Column L is for Overtime Pay and the formula is =IF(G440,(G4-40)*J4,0). This means that the computation is done this way If total is greater than 40, then you subtract the total with 40 and the remainder will be the overtime hours. This will be multiplied by the overtime rate. If it is less than or equal to 40, overtime is set to 0.Column M is for crying(a) pay and it is the total of Hourly Pay and the Overtime Pay.For the deduct ions, use columns N, O and P for Social Security, Federal Taxes and State Taxes respectively. The formulas will beSocial Security = =M4*7.65% (Gross Pay times 7.65%)Federal Taxes = =M4*14% (Gross Pay times 14%)State Taxes = =M4*5.33% (Gross Pay times 5.33%)For the total deductions use column Q and the formula shall be =SUM(N4P4) as the junction of all deductions columns.The NET Pay is Gross Pay Total Deductions and it mass be in column R.Also, it is better to use ONE sheet per weekly payroll so that it will be nonionized better. You butt end in like manner considerably trade sheets to other workbooks in the future if the outmatch turn on gets too bloated after yen period of use and the accumulated entropy in it.2. (TCO 3) You currently work for an automotive parts put up remembering. Your caller-out is ripening and is considering expansion. The company currently has collar locations (North, South, and Central) in one state. Each parts supply install carries guns tock in iv categories. You have been presented with the gross revenue figures for the last ternion years for each location and inventory category by store. Based on this information, youre labored with analyzing current gross sales for each store by category and boilersuit total sales by storeand category. Note This is a four part question.1.) Explain your approach to setting up your worksheets and organizing the selective information.2.) Explain how you will ocularly translate the entropy for the total sales of the individual inventory categories for each location for the time periods shown.3.) Explain how you will visually represent the consolidated information for the sales of all stores and all inventory categories for all time periods in one chart or graph.4.) Once you have finished the to a higher place tasks, you propose to send the pass workbook to your coach for evaluation. Your manger is presenting your findings to the Board of Directors for justification for additive cap expenditures. The visually re demonstrations need to be terse and clear by able to complement the requested expenditures. Explain how you would use the consolidation features of MS Office to check the Excel information into other presentation media. (Points 40)For the automotive part1) Explain how you will visually represent the data for the total sales of the individual inventory categories for each location for the time periods shown.The data can be represented by an Excel chart. Just use the total sales against the corresponding categories comp ard with the data on store locations.2) Once you ahve finished the above tasks, you plan to send the Excel workbook to your motorcoach for evaluation. Your manager is presenting your findings to the Board of Directors for justification for additional capital expenditures. The visually representations need to be concise and clear byable to support the requested expenditures. Explain how you would use the integration featu res of MS Office to incorporate the Excel information into other presentation media.This is easily done by integrating the actual Excel table or range in the PowerPoint presentation. Even better yet, you can embed an Excel chart with experience data in the presentation itself.This is a good approach so that the data in the presentation will dislodge when the data in the actual introduce Excel file changes. Look the outmatch FILE3. (TCO 4) You ar given a spreadsheet with daily sales come request by date from January 1st to declination 31st. You have been tasked with finding the average sales of each month, then to reorder the months so they be listed in order from highest to low average sales. moderate a in small stages explanation of how you will rearrange the data so you can analyze the surmount and worst months. Note This is a one part question.(Points 40)For this question, suppose the sales and dates are listed by rows so that January 1st to declination 31st are the row labels. A personal identification number table will succor in this task. I will create a pivot table of the data put the Order dates in row labels and the Average of Sales in Values. Then, I will right get hold of on the dates, select group, and then select groupings by month. This should create a table of periodical Average sales. Next, I will dawn the dropdown box under row labels, click More Sort Options, and make locomote Order by Average of Sales. From hither on, I can analyze the outdo and worst months and make preparations in the quest year.4. (TCO 5) Youve just joined the staff of the XYZ Manufacturing fellowship(XYZ, for short). XYZ manufactures only one product, the gizmo. It comes in ii sizes, the mini-gizmo and the magna-gizmo. Both are difficult to manufacture, and consequently, the company closely monitors despi bewitchd units. The company has three locations, each of which spend a pennys both the mini and the magna-gizmos. You are automating the week ly yield reports so that you can easily calculate total production for the entire company each week. The mini-gizmo is priced at $3.25 per unit. The magna-gizmo is priced at $7.00 per unit.The unit cost for a stand mini-gizmo is $1.75. The cost for a reject magna-gizmo is $3.50. Respond fully to the following questions regarding this task Note This is a two part question.1.) The managers will e-mail their weekly reports to you on Monday of the following week. You will then produce the articulationmary report. Explain the process for doing this. Give a sample formula to total the number of mini-gizmos produced by the entire company in a week.2.) Each week, you will present the combined report to your boss, who wants to see both the summary and the individual sheets for each location. You want to add a school principal with the date and your name to each page. What is the easiest way to do this? Explain the process. (Points 40)First, I will consolidate the worksheets into one work book by doing Home-Cells- coiffure-Move or Copy sheet. Now, for this data, I will bet the columns to be separated, with labels halal mini-gizmo, proper magna-gizmo, rejected mini-gizmo, rejected magna-gizmo, and row labels of days in the week. later that, I will sum all of the column data below, so I will arrive at the sum of all proper and reject gizmos.Suppose the proper mini-gizmos are in column B and rejected mini-gizmos are in column D, then a sample formula to total all the mini-gizmos produced in a week would be Sum(B2B8,D2D8). This is already located in the stocky worksheet, after consolidating the data from four locations. This is assuming that the data is given per week, divided into 7 days. I will do the akin for the magna-gismos. Afterwards, just below the Sums, I will put another row labeled Revenue. Then I will breed the Sums by the respective prices, 3.25 for the proper mini-gizmo, 7.00 for the proper magna-gizmo, 1.75 forthe rejected mini-gizmo, and 3.50 for t he rejected magna-gizmo.5. (TCO 9) You have been tasked with analyzing an passing large amount of data and to finally produce a report to dowery with the board of directors. The data is currently in a text file and has over two thousand records of data. Explain how you would use Excel to analyze this data and educate it to trick up a written report. Be very specific on the physique of tools you would use and the steps you would go through to analyze the data and to ultimately prepare a detailed report with recommendations.Since the data is in text file, I have to receptive Excel first. Then, I will go to File-Open, and then get hold of whole Files. I can now open the text file in Excel. Upon opening, a text Import Wizard will appear. I can choose delineate or Fixed width, depending on the data. mouse click next, then I can choose my own delimiters if it is Delimited. I can also click anywhere on the drone box to separate the data to my liking. After that, I can designate their Text Formats. After clicking finish, I have a whole data of text file in Excel.Since it came from a text file, in that location may be formatting issues. For example, I will click all the numbers in the data, then Find and switch over spaces with nothing so that the numbers are not in General Format but in Number Format. I will also spellcheck the whole worksheet for grammar and spell errors. After all this is done, I can now start with the outline. There are lots of things I can do from summing the data to averaging them to creating pivot tables and even pivot charts. In charts, I can choose to add trend lines and data tables for the charts to be more detailed.After all the analysis is done, I will prepare a written report in MS Office by copy pasting the charts (the visual representations of the analysis) and explaining and interpreting them afterwards. Then, I can pop the question conclusions and recommendations to complete the analysis.