Eyewitness Testimony Essay

Eyewitness Testimony Essay The use of eyewitness testimony is infamously a primary source of evidence used within the judicial system around the world; however its use has raised various questions as to its reliability and validity especially within court cases. This essay explored first of all, the biological factors of memory and recollection of memories within the human brain. Memories are believed to be stored and processed within the hippocampus part of the brain where it goes through the multi-store model (Atkinson and Shiffrin, 1968). This is where danger of the reliability of memory occurs. It was argued that eyewitness testimony is a reliable form of evidence especially with its validity in terms of the events leading up to the use of EWT; what is deemed important information is believed to be remembered more clearly. Sigmund Freud (1920) suggested that memories can only be retrieved by encouraging remembering past episodes and re-instating these past memories into their consciousness. Psychologists N ibett and Ross (1980) quoted that the reason why eyewitness testimony is persuasive is that it influences the jury on a deeper level. However, eyewitness testimony posed more disadvantages than advantages with the various factors that affect it such as weapons focus in incidents involving weapons which cause distractions and loss of memories. The primary psychologist that tested the use of memory was Elizabeth Loftus who conducted various experiment to test this, such as the Automobile Destruction experiment in the 1970s. After having collated all the arguments together, it was suggested that improvements must be made in order to improve the quality of eyewitness testimony; these included the legal system and police forces involvement in collating information as quickly as possible. The most imperative form of evidence when investigating a crime is the honesty of witnesses on trial, the application of eyewitness testimony. Though the use of eyewitness testimony by juries is considered most valuable, the question of fallibility of witness statements poses various problems and issues. Eyewitness testimony has been a thriving aspect of the Criminal Justice System, an incredible amount of research into this element of cognitive psychology questions the reliability of peoples memory especially using it as evidence to determine the outcome of the trial and convictions. Research into the reliability of evidence, often referred to as witness psychology is renowned as being the longest established area of law and psychology, dating back to the beginning of the 20th century.  [1]   The area of eyewitness testimony has always posed a problem with reliability and the effectiveness of human memory. Human memory is described by cognitive psychologists Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)  [2]  as a three stage theory in which memory is modelled in, this memory stage model is called the Multi-Store Model. The Multi-store model theory consists of the memory being divided into three stages, the first stage being the sensory store, the second stage is the short term memory (working memory) and the third being long term memory. The transfer of information from one store to another is controlled by the process of attention and rehearsal of memories. One of the most critical assumptions made by cognitive psychologists is that the human mind has a limited capacity for processing information. Therefore, any external information that the environment consists of is often very difficult for the human mind to assimilate and process; so people are selective about what information is to be retrieved and this is otherwise known as attention, where some information is assimilated while other pieces are ignored. The first stage of the multi-store model, the sensory store, is where the information from the senses (iconic, echoic, tactile, olfactory and gustatory), is transferred into but this is only for a very short period of time. The initial information retrieved by the senses is then transferred into the short term memory store; this is transferred through attention given to the information transferred from the senses involved. When the information has been transferred into the short-term memory store, this is the store concerned with forgetting information and this information is ultimately lost entirely. Therefore, for information to be remained in the memory, from the short term store into the long term store, the information must be rehearsed. Rehearsal is the cycling of information through the memory, this rehearsal of memory can be carried out in two different methods. Therefore this essay will investigate whether the application of eyewitness testimony statements is a reliable form of evidence to be used by the judicial system. Furthermore, this essay will argue whether eyewitness testimony is ideal to use as one of the most important pieces of evidence to use or whether the application of eyewitness testimony is fallible. After comparing for and against the reliability of eyewitness accounts, an evaluation will be drawn over how eyewitness testimony can be improved to an extent where it can be further accurate. This essay will explore the elements of eyewitness testimony and how these factors can determine whether an eyewitness account is accurate. These elements include the effect of weapon focus on witness memory, how leading questions can manipulate witness statements and recollection of memory, reconstructive errors of memory and the application of psychological experiments when exploring the function of these elements on the human memory. Th e application of the eyewitness testimony includes multiple formal questioning sessions with witnesses on trial, taking statements of the events witnessed and witnesses appearing in court with the jury. The issue of integrity when applying eyewitness testimony accounts is delegated to the jury, who are assigned the role of determining the judgement of whether the eyewitness statements are fallible or reliable  [3]  . The use of eyewitness testimony has a profound and compelling effect on the outcome of a trial and conviction, and this is why an accurate eyewitness testimony is needed in order to gain justice. The Aspects of Eyewitness Testimony As a consequence of the limitations of information processing in the human mind, witness statements need to be reviewed for accuracy and if any external factors of either the environment or the function of memory may have affected the outcome of the witness account  [4]  . Quite often, when the memory cannot recall the entire incident or situation, it may result in the unknown areas being replaced by events that may never have took place in reality but the mind may perceive as a potential occurrence and therefore causes fallibility in the eyewitness testimony. In essence, the memory may fill in gaps where it fails to recall what may have happened  [5]  . Many factors affect eyewitness memories which are illustrated below: Interference of Memory Processing: The period of time that has lapsed between the witnessing of the incident and the questioning of the eyewitness can determine the amount of information that the witness can recall. On the other hand, interference which is the loss of old stimuli as a result of new information can also subsequently reduce the accuracy of eyewitness accounts.  [6]   Leading Questions in Witness Interviews: A leading question in its form or content, suggests to the witness being interviewed what answer is desired or leads them to the desired answer. Some questions can often be made more suggestive than others and these questions the legal concept of a leading question. The main pioneer for investigating the consequences of particular leading questions was Elizabeth F. Loftus in 1974.  [7]   Schemas: The human mind has evolved its memory capacity and the ability to remember certain aspects by organising information into categories, otherwise known as schemas  [8]  . Schemas help organise memories that can consist of familiar people, objects and situations and allow people to understand and act appropriately to whatever is encountered. Arousal, Anxiety and Violence Distraction: Quite often, cognitive psychologists have questioned the poor recall of eyewitness accounts is primarily a result of where their attention is focused upon. A possible reason for arousal, anxiety and violence distraction could be that a violent incident, with the use of weapons, draws the focus of the witnesss attention away from who is causing this anxiety, which results in little or no processing of other information.  [9]   Weapon Focus: When a witness views a crime in which a weapon is used as a method of violence and distraction, the weapon achieves its purpose in distracting the attention of those witnessing the crime. The distraction affects the witnesss attention due to the potential threat of violence9. External Influences: Quite often, external influences can affect the accuracy of eyewitness accounts, especially if the media has been influencing the events that have taken place. The witness may re-interpret their witness statements to match what the media has claimed may have existed or happened. Apart from the media, other external influences may include other witness accounts of what happened and/or the type of environment that the situation may have occurred in, e.g. in darkness, low-lit room etc. Conformity: Through the questioning process that witnesses must endure, group questioning in particular, gives into reason the reliability of witness recollections as they may conform in order to fit each others interpretation of what happened. Reliability of Eyewitness Testimony The use of eyewitness testimony has provided crucial evidence that can often lead to the identification and arrest of a criminal suspect or a hazardous event can be avoided. Eyewitness testimony impacts strongly upon the trial process and the verdicts that are given by the jury are quite often influenced heavily by eyewitness accounts. Stern and Dunning, 1994  [10]  quoted that eyewitness testimony is perhaps the most compelling types of evidence presented to police investigations and criminal trials. Although the human memory and its information processing ability, has substantial amounts of limitations that can lead to invalidity and inaccuracy, it does however, demonstrate a unique ability to process information where the acquired stimulus information is stored. The human mind can potentially hold millions of pieces of information, though not all at once, which when acquired by the brain can be reinstated and remembered. The memories that the mind deems as important for growth and use consistently is life are episonic which represents the episode of the memory where as certain skill or piece of information; semantic which identifies what that piece of information consists of and what it is and finally procedural which processes who that information is to be used or handled. For example, teaching a child how to read a book at a particular age is episonic, knowing what a book is, is semantic and how to read the words in a book would be procedural.  [11]   The process of information being transferred from the short term memory into the long term memory was an experiment conducted by psychologists Welch and Burnett in 1924. The experiment was to test the theory of the serial position curve where it consisted of the subjects being presented with a list of 16 words in which they had to recall in order. The results of this experiment, illustrated the serial position curve in which the recollection of words and the results of the experiment were graphed and this illustrated a curve effect were the last recalled words were remembered best whereas the words in the middle of the recall were remembered poorly. Cognitive psychologist, Sigmund Freud believed that memories were allocated in the brain  [12]  . Freud referred to these memories as true memories and described that they lay deep in the unconscious element of the brain, where they lay undisturbed as a factor of surface mental activity. Freud insisted that these memories were never lost or forgotten as they are only inaccessible and latent, having become a part of the unconscious  [13]  . For these memories to be accessed, Freud promoted the technique free association. By encouraging witnesses to reminisce about past episodes that have occurred within their lives, Freud insinuated that they could reinstate long-forgotten yet important memories from their past into their consciousness. However, it can be argued that the true memories that Freud insisted exist in the human sub-conscious are in fact potential complex blendings of both fact and fiction. Memory is an extremely fragile aspect of the human mind that can potentially be supplemented, altered and reconstructed by external stimuli that can question an event that may never have occurred. However, it is argued that the human mind is capable of remembering significant pieces of information that is considered vital and important. This is considered one of the key factors in which juries do consider eyewitness testimony accounts as a vital piece of evidence. Psychologists Nibett and Ross, 1980 quoted that the reason why eyewitness testimony is persuasive is that vivid testimonies have a strong impact on observers so this conclusively means that they are easier to remember especially upon the jury  [14]  . Though the potential invalidity of eyewitness accounts is extensive, error made in witness accounts are extraneous when the observers are able to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate witnesses  [15]  . However, there may be a possibility that the eyewitness account is accurate but leading questions by the criminal investigation team may provoke the memory to be changed to fit the question or the most relevant and fitting answer  [16]  . The Unreliability of Eyewitness Testimony The malleability of eyewitness accounts demonstrates the excessive inaccuracy of it being used as a vital evidential piece in the courts and criminal justice system. Many hypotheses have been established that suggest reasons for the valued use of eyewitness testimony. Saunders et al believe that jurors tend to place too much faith in eyewitness testimonies; however the problem lies with whether eyewitness testimony is a reliable source of evidence to use  [17]  . The inaccuracy of witness accounts is demonstrated by the various aspects that intercept with each other and substantiate hesitation for its use as evidence. The use of leading questions can quite often alter information/intelligence or can quite often misinterpreted accounts to match the information that the witness has been presented with. An experiment conducted by Elizabeth Loftus and John Parmer illustrates the interaction between language and memory in 1974  [18]  . The reconstruction of an automobile destruction consisted of two experiments in which subjects were shown films of automobile accidents. After the observation, the subjects were then asked questions about the events that occurred in the films; How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other? The use of the word smash demonstrated higher estimations in the speed of the car as opposed to other verbs used in place of smash such as collided, bumped, contacted and hit. When the experiment was repeated a week later, the subjects who received the word smashed were more likely to agree to the question asked Did you see any broken glass? even though there was n o recollection of broken glass within the video. These results highlight the theory that the questions asked in relation to an event can result in a reconstruction of a witnesss memory of that event. Though witness memory is quite often inaccurate in that they fail to distinguish the events that had occurred, quite often, the human memory can remember erroneous events and details that may be introduced by third party interference. In the 1970s, Elizabeth Loftus conducted an experiment to demonstrate how third party interference can invalidate witness accounts by introducing false facts. Subjects were shown a slideshow of a car at an intersection with either a yield sign or a stop sign. The experimenter then asked the participants questions which falsely used the word stop sign instead of yield sign which is what was actually shown in the slideshow. The results indicated that subjects remembered seeing the false image; the introduction of false cues altered the memory of the participants in the experiment. Bartlett conducted an experiment in which he read a story The war of the ghosts out loud to a group of participants where he concluded that participants attempted to fit the story into their western schemas and as a result, distorted it during recall  [19]  . This showed that they were not recalling the information exactly as it had been presented to them, but were making assumptions at the story, based on their own understanding. This correlates with what a witness may assume a criminal or crime scene may look like and therefore use this to describe the suspected. Schemas are an effective method of processing and encoding information  [20]  . The idea of schemas were originally established by Frederick Bartlett in the 1930s which involved a large number studies in which he showed ways in which participants made sense of whatever they were shown affects the way they recall it later  [21]  . For example, in one of his studies, Bartlett showed participants unfamiliar line d rawings and instructed them to memorise it. Bartlett then asked his participants to talk aloud at the same time as memorising the picture. He found that different participants made sense of the figures in different ways. Later in the experiment, the participants were asked to draw the figures as they remembered them and Bartlett discovered that the schemas which they established during their initial encoding influenced their recall. Therefore, schemas may influence what witnesses may define what a criminal looks like or behaves like and this may influence their account of events. Through the questioning process that witnesses must endure, witnesses can either be questioned on a one-to-one basis where the interviewer questions the witness independently or witnesses can be questioned as a group if the incident has been witnesses by multiple people. In particular, group questioning which gives into reason the reliability of witness recollections as they may conform in order to fit each others interpretation of what happened. This conformity can purposely invalidate information as the witness does not want to be isolated from the events that the other witnesss describe as having happened. This subjective information again affects the testimony because false information is being interpreted is invalid due to conformity of information. The weapons focus effect  [22]  perceives to be a result of the witnesss attention being predominantly directed towards the weapon, resulting in diversion of attention away from the situational aspects and the criminal suspect. When a witness views a crime in which a weapon is used as a method of violence and distraction, the weapon achieves its purpose in distracting the attention of those witnessing the crime. The distraction affects the witnesss attention due to the potential threat of violence. Although an incident has occurred, the attention of the witness is primarily upon the weapon so they are not observing the rest of the incident or the person who is posing the threat and this causes the witness to have lack of information about the incident. This area of eyewitness psychology is known as weapon focus; unfortunately this distraction results in a very poor eyewitness testimony as the witness is unable to recall events and descriptions. Unfortunately, most crimes involve the use of a weapon as a vulnerability tool, which in essence causes the stress and anxiety levels of the witness to rise and therefore will fail to encode and remember vital information. Eyewitness inaccuracy may also be a result of errors that occur within the memory process; the memory is divided into three distinct stages of processing: encoding, storage and retrieval. The occurrence of errors is very likely at any particular stage within the memory processing stages. Acquiring information or otherwise known as encoding is illustrated within the Yerkes-Dodson principle which according to its theorists, an increase in arousal improves performance up to a certain point. Once arousal has passed the critical point which is otherwise known as the optimum, performance tends to decline and these results in poorer memory performance. So, in essence when a person is moderately aroused, the information is encoded best as opposed to extreme arousal or stress where the information is lost or encoded insufficiently. The Yerkes-Dodson theory  [23]  demonstrates that if a witness observes a crime that is substantially violent and/or makes the witness experience high levels o f fear and anxiety, they are less likely to remember any significant levels of information because of the extreme stress which results in encoding of information inaccurate. This conclusively makes their eyewitness account unreliable because they fail to remember any substantial amounts of information and detail of what happened and of the perpetrator. The question of witness account accuracy raises questions about whether the time after the incident occurred, if the account is still valid as evidence because quite often, large amounts of time and substantial interference can deteriorate the information from memory. This deterioration refers to the loss of stimulus information as a result of passed time. The amount of time that has lapsed between the occurrence of the event and the questioning and testimony of the witness can quite often determines the amount of information the witness can recall  [24]  . This interference is due to the loss of old stimulus information caused by new stimulus information; this can also reduce the accuracy of eyewitness accounts. People are more likely to overestimate the duration of brief events but on the other hand underestimate the duration of prolonged events (Penrod, Loftus and Winkler, 1982). Other psychological research has demonstrated that the presence of a weapon also reduces the accur acy of eyewitness accounts. Evaluation of Eyewitness Testimony Taking into consideration the flaws in which eyewitness accounts may consist of, which effectively invalidates the testimony, these flaws can be avoided by both the eyewitness and the criminal justice system that use the accounts as a form of evidence. Most importantly, the way in which witness accounts are handled is vital in establishing a valid eyewitness testimony with as much truth as possible. The interviewing process which is conducted by the criminal justice system i.e. police, courtroom judges, need to be done in a careful and delicate way so that there is no decay or deterioration of information. Though the memory of the witnesses may differ, depending on age and memory capacity, quite often the initial first few hours after the occurrence of an incident is vital in collecting as much valid information as possible. So, the interviewing of witnesses should be conducted right after the incident when possible to avoid any decay of information and/or third party interference. In terms of the actual interviewing process, the use of leading questions should entirely be avoided unless the witness has mentioned specific events or descriptions which would not invalidate information as it has been confirmed by the witness. Leading questions  [25]  can quite often add new information that the witness may not have known about and will therefore mention false information in order to fit their account with what is evidently known by the police. Specific questions that can be used in the interviewing process may help the witness to run through their track of events which in some circumstances reveal any recollection of events without any external influence. Quite often through the criminal investigation, the witness needs to be interviewed many times to establish the course of events and important descriptions, whether this is through the crown prosecution trial or by the police. If later eyewitnesses need to be interviewed, they should be able to recall as much information that they reported initially, avoiding any extra information that they may have picked up from third party interference. So in essence, there is no uncertain information but information that the mind has remembered and rehearsed within their memory and indicates a positive recollection of events. Though no control can be given to what eyewitnesses will focus on and concentrate entirely on, measures on how information is collected can partially help to distinguish between valid and false information within accounts. Conclusion It can be concluded that the use of eyewitness testimony will also be used as a vital source of evidence by the criminal justice system for years to come. Eyewitness testimony can hold vital pieces of information that cannot be retrieved from any other source, without eyewitness testimony, the police would find it incredibly difficult to discover any potential clues and evidence of what happened or description of what the perpetrator physically looks like. Criminal cases in which there is not eyewitnesses to give evidence are usually those cases which find it incredibly hard to convict the guilty so have to rely upon other physical evidence such as CCTV, DNA, fingerprints etc. However, the use of eyewitness accounts seems to create a lot of doubt in whether it is a reliable source of evidence to be used because its accuracy is questioned based on interpretation. The use of leading questions and third party interference can decay any initial recollection of events that the eyewitness may have believed to have happened. But the human memory has flaws within itself regardless of extra information that can falsify or invalidate the recollection of what occurred and why. The initial pioneer of evaluating eyewitness evidence, Elizabeth F. Loftus  [26]  highlights the flaws of eyewitness accounts and of the human memory. The conclusions in which Loftus has discovered were advantageously used to improve quality of interviews and valid eyewitness accounts but unfortunately cannot eliminate all invalid information. So, in essence, the question as to whether eyewitness testimony is a reliable source of evidence still remains unclear on the basis that it is vital evidence which is needed to collate important information. However, its reliability is questioned in terms of validity and how much the witness is able to accurately recall all pieces of information especially having experienced high amounts of anxiety and stress. Eyewitness testimony will always remain a vital source of evidence but its use should be delicately considered to avoid any false information or invalid convictions.

Sports Drink and Gatorade

In the summer of 1965, a university football coach began to question why his players were suffering from heat related illnesses. They were drinking plenty of water. University researchers soon discovered that players were losing electrolytes and fluids through their sweat, and water couldn’t replace what they were losing. The researchers took their findings into their lab and began to create a drink that would help the Florida Gators feel rehydrated, replenished, and refueled during their most intense athletic events. That’s exactly what the product now guarantees to achieve-rehydration, replenishment, and refueling. They called this new drink ‘Gatorade’. By 1969, Gatorade was named the official drink of the NFL (History of Gatorade, Retrieved December 2, 2006). Today, Gatorade has reached beyond the narrow market of elite athletes. They have many product lines designed to appease the most particular of sports drinkers. No matter what your gender, your occupation, or your age, they make a drink that you can enjoy. Gatorade has many different product lines within their Thirst Quencher Series. They distribute Gatorade Rain, Frost, Lemonade, Original, X-Factor, Xtremo, and Fierce. Within each of these different sub-categories come many different fruity flavors. Each flavor also ranges from a 12oz bottle-6 pack to a gallon jug. Gatorade also has a line of fitness water called Propel. Any consumer can purchase Propel Fitness Water or Propel Fitness Water with Calcium. Both come in a wide range of flavors similar to those found within the Gatorade Thirst Quencher Series, but with a few more. All purchases range from a 12oz-8 pack to a 1 liter bottle. Now we jump into the Gatorade Performance Series products. This series of products has specially designed formulated nutrition and hydration in order to aid the most intense athletes in their performance. Each product is packed with nutrition in order to replace the electrolytes lost by each athlete through exertion. Gatorade has an energy bar that comes in 2 different flavors, chocolate chip and peanut butter. This 2. 3oz bar is the perfect snack for athletes on the go, or anyone getting ready to do some physical activity for that matter. Then there’s the nutrition shake. This product comes in the obvious flavors, chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. These 11oz shakes are a perfect way to fill an athlete’s stomach without slowing them down. And last, but not least, there are the Gatorade Performance Series Energy Drinks. These drinks are very similar to those of the Gatorade Thirst Quenchers. However, the Performance Series drinks contain a whopping 200mg of sodium. This is so that electrolytes and body fluids will be replaced within each athlete every time they take a drink. These drinks, however, come in limited flavors and are only available in 12oz bottles (Gatorade Products, Retrieved December 2, 2006). Gatorade has become the most popular sports beverage. It is widely known and is easily distinguishable among its competitors. First of all, its packaging hasn’t changed in years. Gatorade looks the same today as it did a decade ago. Because of this, Gatorade has remained popular and not forgotten. It’s easy for a consumer to remember something that is always there and never changes. Gatorade also remains recognized due to the number of contracts they have with several major sports leagues. As of now, they have contracts with the National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, Women’s National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, United States of America Basketball, Major League Soccer, United States Soccer, Bowl Championship Series, and the Association of Volleyball Professionals (http://www. gatorade. com/athletes/leagues_and_teams/, Retrieved December 2, 2006). The NFL is also known for performing the ‘Gatorade Dunk’. This ritual is performed after a game by the winning team. Players pick up the Gatorade Barrel and dump what’s left over their coach’s head. This gives free publicity because it’s done by the teams without any prompting by Gatorade. Gatorade works on new products all the time. They’ve even created a special lab where their scientists can continually test new products to ensure the safety and abilities of all athletes. The most recent achievement Gatorade has produced is called G. I. D. S. (Gatorade In-car Drinking System). This system was specifically designed for NASCAR drivers. A special pouch, that guarantees to keep any liquid cold for hours, is filled with the driver’s favorite flavor and is then placed in a secure compartment within the vehicle. There is a tube with a special coming from within the pouch and into the driver’s helmet. At the end of the tube is a mouthpiece that is securely fastened to the driver’s mouth. When the driver is ready to take a drink, they bite down on their mouth piece, to open the tube, and push a button, to pump the cold liquid through the tube and into the driver’s mouth. When the driver’s lets go of the mouthpiece the tube closes and the pump automatically reverse pumps the Gatorade back into the pouch in order to stay cold for next time. NASCAR race cars can reach up to 130 degrees and their driver’s can lose up to ten pounds within a single race just by sweating. Gatorade keeps their body temperature down and helps replace the electrolytes and body fluids lost (http://www. gatorade. com/science%5Fand%5Finnovation/product%5Finnovations/gids/ Retrieved December 2, 2006). Product Life Cycle  Gatorade falls within the maturity stage of the Product Life Cycle. I do believe that Gatorade is still growing however its growth has slowed. According to the text, the maturity stage is reached when â€Å"the sales of a generic product category continue to increase (but at a decreasing rate), profits decline largely because of price competition, and some firms leave the market† (Etzel, 674). Table 9. 1 in the text gives another description to help define a products life cycle stage. In order to be in the maturity stage, the product must have a mass market of consumers, which Gatorade does. They have millions of consumers. The competition is somewhat intense and their growth has slowed down. Their profits, however, are still pretty strong. They aren’t as strong as they were in the growth stage, but are still significantly strong. They defend their product against competitors, water being most mentioned when addressing the health of athletes. Gatorade costs have remained stable and their prices are reasonable. If it’s too expensive to buy each drink individually, you can always buy in bulk from a grocery store or a wholesaler like Costco. There is extreme loyalty to Gatorade as well. Because they were the only specialty sport drink when it was created in 1965, they didn’t have to worry about winning their consumers away from a similar product. All the athletes and athletic trainers wanted this drink and became hooked on it after seeing the effect it had. By the time other brands came out everyone knew Gatorade and trusted its products. Most consumers would rather purchase a product they know works than try a new product that claims to do what everyone already knows Gatorade does. So it’s obvious that Gatorade has brand loyalty, another way we know Gatorade has reached the maturity stage. Although they have made to the maturity stage, they still have more growth to obtain. As long as Gatorade continues to produce new products, they will continue to grow. It may not be a quickly as it was when they first introduced themselves in 1965, but they will grow (Etzel, 674). Pricing Gatorade has a very simple pricing strategy. Even though Gatorade is the leader in the sport drink market, they still use the going-rate for their pricing level. The overall market does not have a large difference between competitors so Gatorade prices its products relative to the market pricing structure. An increase in price could lead to a loss in sales because the consumer could start to buy a competitor’s product and have the same relative advantage that Gatorade can provide. This is evident by visiting a local supermarket store. A 20 oz. Gatorade is priced at $1. 59; its main competitor, PowerAde, is priced at the same. It could be said that the market is demonstrating non-price competition (Etzel, 349). Gatorade has chosen market penetration as its pricing strategy (Etzel, 351). Some characteristics of market penetration distinctly describe the market for sport drink. The market has an elastic demand curve and low initial price for new produces (Gatorade has come out with Propel and Fierce, both coming into the market with identical or lower prices than competitors). For consumers that buy Gatorade on a regular basis, it can become an expensive habit compared to some alternatives (I. e. water). One way that a consumer can cut down on prices is by buying in bulk. Consumers will get more Gatorade for their buck when buying in bulk. Other than that, Gatorade does not have any promotions or coupons to induce sales. Distribution â€Å"A distribution channel consists of the set of people and firms involved in the transfer of title to a product as the product moves from producer to ultimate consumer or business user† (Etzel, 380). In short, a distribution channel will show the journey that a product or service takes from the producer to the consumer. It seems that everywhere someone goes, there is Gatorade for sale. How did it get there? PepsiCo. handles all the distribution for Gatorade. They have chosen to go with direct-store-distribution (DSD) (Annual Report of PepsiCo, Retrieved December 1, 2006). One advantage of DSD that PepsiCo. uses is having their delivery teams merchandise their product. This allows them to display Gatorade in a way that will induce high sales. A way they attempt to increase sales is by placing Gatorade in places that will influence impulse purchases (placing Gatorade by checkout stands at a supermarket is an example). Their retail stores are the middlemen for Gatorade’s journey to its consumers (Etzel, 379). This is what is called indirect distribution (Etzel, 384). Supermarkets are not the only place where Gatorade can be found; Gatorade is available for sales in liquor stores, department stores, supermarkets, and any place where drinks are sold. Since Gatorade is available in such a wide variety of places, Gatorade can be categorized as being intensively distributed (which means a â€Å"producer sells its product through every available outlet in a market where a consumer might reasonable look for it†) (Etzel, 393). Gatorade has been the staple in the sport drink market. Their overwhelming consistent market share can point to a strong assumption that their distribution channel is at peak efficiency. Promotional Mix Within Gatorades promotional mix, advertising probably uses the most funds on an annual basis. PepsiCo spent 183 million dollars for Gatorade’s advertising campaigns in 2005 which is a large increase compared to the 135 million dollars spent only two years before (Hein & Beirne, 6). The most common form of advertising for Gatorade is TV commercials (MacArthur, 51). There are four main types of advertising campaigns on television. The first type highlights the history and origins of the company as well as the scientific research that goes into the product. The second type highlights individual players that endorse Gatorade or groups of competing individuals. The third type highlights teams or leagues that Gatorade sponsors such as the NFL or the Men’s National Soccer Team (MacArthur, 22). Professional endorsements are also important to Gatorade’s advertising campaign. They endorse twenty-two professional American athletes and over twenty international athletes (MacArthur, 22). Equally important to Gatorade’s promotional mix is their public relations. They sponsor ten professional leagues. Among the list are some of the most popular sports in America such as the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS. They also affiliate themselves with 60 division one universities and 11 division one conferences. In addition to this they are affiliated to eleven professional organizations such as the American College of Sports Medicine (MacArthur, 22). Their Outstanding Player of the Year program is another way that they can reach out and recognize many outstanding high school athletes of the year around the country. This is a large program that has a state and national selection process. There is one winner for each sport. For example, Peyton Manning was the national winner for football in 93-94 (Gatorade in the Community, Retrieved December 3, 2006). Gatorade makes a large international public relations effort. They are affiliated with many international professional soccer clubs such as Juventus and Manchester United but they extend their efforts to other sports besides soccer such as basketball, water polo, rugby, volleyball, and swimming (Hein, 5). The Gatorade Sports Science Institute is another effect tool for their public relations campaign. Through this organization they put out study results from a wide range of sport related topics and on the dynamics of specific sports. This part of Gatorade is most easily accessed through their own GSSI website (www. gatorade. com). The Gatorade website is another address that is very well done and depicts a very good image of the company. They also have 12 other country specific websites that are in the domestic language of the country. Sales promotions are also important to Gatorade’s promotional mix and it is substantially occupied by event sponsorships. Most of these events are marathons throughout the world including the famous Boston Marathon and the Gatorade Triathlon Series (Hein, 5). At these events they provide free Gatorade to the competitors throughout the race and for some events they offer the Gatorade Recovery Area where all competitors can be weighed before and after the race to monitor the level of fluids lost during exercise. The area later supplies food/refreshment bags, Gatorade drinks, massage and qualified dietitians (Hein, 5). To supplement this, they also print newsletters about upcoming events. The Annual Gatorade Junior Training Camp is another example of sponsoring athletic events. This is a summer camp that combines football instruction and teaching of life skills that focus on self-improvement and motivation and is hosted by the Seattle Seahawks (Gatorade in the Community, Retrieved December 3, 2006). Limited to the Canadian website, there is a direct link to request Gatorade to sponsor an event. This all leads to the conclusion that event sponsorship is a highly used tool for Gatorade to get its product out and into the hands of many athletes. Gatorade doesn’t use many discount sales promotions in the United States but does use promotions in a number of other countries. Last summer there was a big Indian promotion in which customers who bought the six pack received an instructional soccer CD with Rinaldinho (Buy 6 Gatorades, Win Ronaldinho CD). A number of European countries are having soccer promotions as well (Gatorade e lo Sport, Retrieved December 3, 2006). Canada is having a hockey promotion in which consumers have a chance to win professional hockey gear. I suspect that Gatorade also uses a number of sales promotions directed at their retailers; otherwise we wouldn’t see the large discounts that cut the price of Gatorade by almost in half in some of the large supermarkets.

Laboratory by Christopher Carroll

The book â€Å"Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory† by Christopher Carroll provides true nature, exact details and thoroughly examined and checked history of Plum Island. It is necessary to outline that findings presented in the book significantly contribute the evidence that government does have many secrets and doesn’t want them to be revealed. Thus the author appears to be a real pioneer revealing shocking facts and true facts about the island and serious diseases. The author is rather persuasive, because he uses logical arguments, conclusions and facts to defend his position. The narrative of the book flows smoothly and follows chronological order. Thus it is apparent that Carroll has succeeded both as pioneer of the problem and as talented writer. (Carroll 2004) The author shows in the book that Plum Island â€Å"on the edge of the largest population center in the United States is a ticking biological time bomb that none of us can safely ignore†. (Carroll 2004) It is necessary to mention that the book bases its evidence on the innumerable number of government documents, in-depth interviews with people and certainly access to Plum Island itself. In the beginning Carroll admits that â€Å"this is an eye-opening, suspenseful account of a federal government germ laboratory gone terribly wrong†. (Carroll 2004) Therefore, the author leads readers through secret world presenting horrifying revelations such as seriously infected workers, outbreaks of viruses, biological meltdowns, etc. The author is really outrageous with the fact that infected workers were refused to be assisted in diagnosis by Plum Island brass. Further, the author proves that the area waters are highly contaminated with periodic flushing of raw sewage. Moreover, Carroll finds associations between the outbreak of deadly West Nile virus in 1999 and Lyme disease in Plum Island. Actually the book is through exploration of the secret world of bacteria, viruses and microbiology. Carroll illustrates how the Department of Agriculture in the USA runs the Plum Island for last fifty years and states that that is â€Å"far more than wholesome grade-A eggs and the food pyramid†. (Carroll 2004) It is necessary to note that author provides new and original overview of the Island stating that is exists in the age of bioterrosism because of improper policy of the Department of Homeland Security. The book is interested in safety and security and thus it calls for action in order to show protest from biological catastrophes for future generations. Actually â€Å"Lab 257† provides new understanding of Plum Island and calls it â€Å"a biological Three Mile Island†. It is known that since 1950 this place is of great interest for researching animal diseases. Plenty of outrageous and disturbing events and news are revealed in the book involving escaped germs and lax security as well as sewage pills. Carroll thinks that some of the found viruses are potent bioterrorist weapons and thus the access to them should be limited. And it is Christopher Carroll who touches this problem for the first time. (Carroll 2004) The author believes that it is his task to reveal the secret and scandal-hidden history of the Plum Islands, because, according to his mind, the nation should be aware of horrors taking place there. Nevertheless, some moments in the book are tangled. The book reveals lots of talks with past and current workers, â€Å"filing Freedom of Information Act applications to get classified material and visiting the island itself six times†.   (Carroll 2004) The history of Plum Island is traced from its very beginning as a research facility for warfare of germs till its becoming a part of the Department of Agriculture. The author involves in the books descriptions of not only mysterious island, but also descriptions of animal diseases, bio-warfare researches, etc. He states that the island has relived the very top of its researches as well as its fall. Nowadays the island is a run-down and dangerous place with â€Å"little in the way of security, even after the events of 9/11 put the island under the watch of the Department of Homeland Security†. (Carroll 2004) US Department of Agriculture has done certain significant work in order to protect livestock of America. For example, the scientists are responsible for creating the first vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease. Carroll states that positive moments can’t exist without negative consequences and thus he says that the Department has done their best to hide the breakdowns of researches.   Thus the successful researches are plagued and since 1970s have been seriously criticized. Despite certain successful discoveries, negative effects are apparent: leaking air filters, escaping sewage, etc. what is more awful is that outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease is caused by lab's herds. It is argued in the book that â€Å"things recently went from bad to worse when many of the jobs were privatized, leading to dangerous cost-cutting†. (Carroll 2004) Further, it is necessary to mention Carroll’s recounting of the Hurricane Bob on the Island. Thus Carroll possibly hints that â€Å"the storm unleashed a doomsday scenario – one that never actually materialized†. (Carroll 2004) However, the thinks that Hurricane has positive impact compared with other outrageous revelations. Carroll assumes that scientists are responsible for setting loose the Lyme disease as well as Nile virus in 1991. Furthermore, they are to blame for new scourges taken place in the United States of America. The evidence in the book is presented by Carroll’s personal observations and investigations. Special attention in the book is paid to Lyme disease. For example, the author hints that â€Å"the Nazis experimented on Lyme disease as a weapon of germ warfare, and that after World War II; one German researcher had some dealings with the founders of Plum Island†. (Carroll 2004) Scientists in the Plum Island are though to have studied tick-borne diseases. Firstly, the disease was revealed in Lyme, Conn, in 1970s. Scientists thought hat it was caused by either deer or birds carried Lyme-infected ticks. Plum Island is situated near the Lyme and thus it is infected as well. However, other evidence suggests that bacteria caused Lyme disease has existed in American forests even before the scientists appeared in Plum Island. Factually, it is indicated that â€Å"these bacteria probably evolved in North America and only later spread to Europe†. (Carroll 2004) However, Michael Carroll mocks at the provided idea of possible Lyme history, but â€Å"the fact is that many diseases have made this sort of crossover into humans†.   He thinks if to disturb the ecosystems, the parasites are sometimes pushed out to make humans their own home. For example, malaria was a serious scourge many years ago, but then the first African farmer made an attempt to clear the forests and to create â€Å"homes† for parasites – he decoded to breed mosquitoes. Further, HIV is chimpanzee viruses which have got into bloodstreams of human in 20th century because of slaughter of chimps for meat. Thus Carroll asserts that the gravest danger nowadays is bioterrorim, because it is able to create many diseases. Bioterrorism involves climate change, globalization and deforestation. Therefore, the author thinks that Plum Island is necessary place, because SARS and anthrax have to be defeated. Thus the lab has to be kept safe and secure. (Carroll 2004) No unturned stone is left in the book â€Å"Lab 257†. The author thoroughly investigates the Plum Island’ history and illustrates workings of the lab. Special attention is paid to operations on Plum Island.   The strength of the book is a variety of information gathered from different sources ranging from interviews with employees to appropriate government agencies. Carroll skillfully assembles all the materials into research being easily readable and remarkable. Carroll is certainly talented researcher and writer and his book is one of the most shocking pieces of non-fiction. The author thinks that media will become interested in his â€Å"chilling expose of a potential catastrophe† and thus government will be forced to take measures to provide sanitary and safe conditions. (Carroll 2004) If government pays no attention to the problem, people will be threatened to become new victims. Summing up the material provided it is necessary to admit that Carroll has managed to meet with many people who have made the Plum Island: researchers, scientists, present and pass employees, animal handlers, etc. Furthermore, people â€Å"of the surrounding areas who never wanted the lab facility there in the first place† are also involved in the book narrative. (Carroll 2004) The author provides strong evidence of serious breaches of protection and security and states that such ignorance may lead to viruses’ releases. The consequences would be apparent: devastation of forests and spreading of diseases. It is known that many workers in the island are ill will diseases which are still unidentified by any doctor. Furthermore, the book is filled with suggestions that â€Å"West Nile Virus and other such diseases were actually introduced to U.S. soil via Plum Island†. (Carroll 2004) Thus mishaps could have been responsible for spreading of anthrax, mad cow disease and Rift Valley fever viruses. Carroll also admits that terrorist could have bee provided with lots of opportunities to easily access the island because of improper security systems. Carroll provides evidence that release of deadly viruses and toxins is caused by mishaps on the island. Thus the author concludes that humans nowadays are not safe at all. (Carroll 2004) References Carroll, Michael C. (2004).Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory. New York: William Morrow.   

Literary Analysis Of The Great Gatsby - 1787 Words

The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, is hailed as masterpiece of American fictions of its time. It is noted for the remarkable way its author captures a cross-section of American society during the 1920s. The author, F. Scott Fitzgerald offers up a commentary on the American society of which he was a part. He successfully encapsulates the mood of a generation during a politically and socially crucial and chaotic period of American history. In fact, The Great Gatsby is a brilliant piece of English literature offering a vivid peek into American life in the 1920s. Fitzgerald carefully sets up his novel into distinct groups but, in the end, each group has its own problems to contend with, leaving a powerful reminder of what a precarious place†¦show more content†¦The American Dream- that one can lead from rags to riches - has been a core facet of American identity since its inception. However, The Great Gatsby shows how this automatic shift is a symbol of the corruption of the A merican Dream; it was no longer a vision of building a decent life, but rather just about getting rich. The main plot-line of the novel reflects this assessment, as Gatsby’s dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in their respective social status; his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her, and the rampant materialism that characterizes her lifestyle are all examples of the corrupted American Dream. Furthermore, all of the characters in the novel can be said to be empty beyond just their lust for money. That is to say that The Great Gatsby is nothing but a romance of money. Money is at the heart of the book and is what gives its hero the foolish idea that he could buy the love of Daisy Buchanan . But the worst qualities of the modern American Dream are represented in Tom and Daisy Buchanan. They live without any hopes or regrets because the foundation of their character is money and prosperity. Nick describes Buchanan`s as such: â€Å"They were car eless people, Tom and Daisy- They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it wasShow MoreRelatedLiterary Analysis Of The Great Gatsby 1673 Words   |  7 PagesApril 2015 Literary Analysis of The Great Gatsby Dreams are a compelling force in people’s lives. They are what propel them forward each and every day in an effort to reach something better. The American Dream has been sought after by millions all over the world for hundreds of years. This country was founded on the belief that anyone could achieve their dreams. However, in the 1920s these hopes and aspirations began to splinter until they ultimately shattered. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. ScottRead MoreLiterary Analysis Of The Great Gatsby 1490 Words   |  6 PagesJaylinn Cooper Mrs. Fowler English III March 3, 2017 Literary Analysis of The Great Gatsby The 1920s in America, known as the Roaring Twenties, was a time of celebration after a destructive war. It was a period of time in America characterised by prosperity and optimism. There was a general feeling of disruption associated with modernity and a break with traditions.The Roaring Twenties was a time of great economic prosperity and many people became rich and wealthy. Some people inherited oldRead MoreLiterary Analysis Of The Great Gatsby1142 Words   |  5 PagesLiterary Analysis of The Great Gatsby Literature is medium that allows authors to express personal beliefs and value to others in a variety of ways. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, regarded as one of the best writers in America, wrote The Great Gatsby to convey his perception of American society in the early 20th century. Fitzgerald uses a specific orientation of storytelling to render his purpose of writing the novel. The Great Gatsby revolves around Jay Gatsby. His mysterious background and behaviorRead MoreLiterary Analysis Of The Great Gatsby Essay1898 Words   |  8 PagesSameet K. Mann Ms. Rowe IB English 7 September 2016 Literary Analysis: The American Dream The century old concept of the American Dream is the belief that no matter what race, gender, religion or background a person is from, she/he has the ability to become successful through the means of hard work and determination. Unlike today, Americans during the 1920s lived in the illusion that achieving the American Dream involved immoral actions and only the satisfaction of their greedy pleasures. ThisRead MoreLiterary Analysis : The Great Gatsby1806 Words   |  8 Pages Literary analysis: The Great Gatsby To truly achieve The American Dream is nearly impossible without personal sacrifice, as evidenced by The Great Gatsby by F. Scott. Fitzgerald. As the characters, especially Gatsby himself, eventually learn, there is no way to make the fantasy of a perfect life a reality. There are ways to imitate the results, such hiding one’s true self from others, as Gatsby attempts with Nick, or an all-encompassing devotion to one thing or person, as if that thing or personRead MoreThe Great Gatsby Literary Analysis1049 Words   |  5 PagesLama 1 Verdiana Lama Mr.Joannes ENG 4UN July 18, 2017 Money gets to your head The pressures of social class tend to give us an urgency to act a certain way. In The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald, He carefully sets up his novel into wonderful agencies but, in the long run, every group has its personal issues to take care of, leaving a powerful reminder of what a precarious region the world truly is. By creating awesome social instructions which include new moneyRead MoreThe Great Gatsby Literary Analysis741 Words   |  3 Pagesâ€Å"The Great Gatsby† by F. Scott Fitzgerald was on the the greatest pieces of American literature ever constructed. F. Scott Fitzgerald is considered one of the five greatest authors in American history. His Book â€Å"The Great Gatsby† was named the third most important book in American literature. An article by John A. Pidgeon it says â€Å"I am absolutely convinced that â€Å"The Great Gatsby† is one of the finest of american literature†(Pidgeon) â€Å"The Great Gatsby† is clearly a highly thought of piece of literatureRead MoreLiterary Analysis Of The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald2128 Words   |  9 PagesLiterary Analysis of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby is an incredible novel written in 1925 by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a prolific American author, and published by Scribner’s. Nevertheless, during its first release, the book sold poorly and received mixed reviews. In fact, Fitzgerald died in 1940 considering himself and his works a failure. However, the onset of the Second World War revived the novel, which later became an essential component of high school curricula and differentRead Moresparknotes vs cliffnotes830 Words   |  4 Pagesunderstanding the literary elements, character developments, and plot development that a author uses to help create the story. Both sites provide similar information, ranging from overall plot summaries and character analysis, but Sparknotes goes more into the literary aspect of the book, while cliffnotes focuses more on the character and his motives. In analyzing Jay Gatsby, Cliffnotes focuses much more on Gatsby himself and his underlying motives to his character, like â€Å"In assessing Gatsby, one must examineRead MoreThe Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald921 Words   |  4 Pagesof The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald relays the first encounter with the protagonist of the novel, and is also were his use of literary techniques emotionally involves the reader whilst effectively telling the story so brilliantly. Also his varied use of diverse methods of structure and form, than what has been previously seen in his commentaries, allows the readers to explore the events of the naive narrator, Nick, with other people other than the materialistic and drunk lifestyle that Gatsby and his

The Easy Essay Topics to Write about Diaries

The Easy Essay Topics to Write about Diaries The Tried and True Method for Easy Essay Topics to Write about in Step by Step Detail Prior to beginning, learn more about the way to run a psychology experiment. When these answers may grow to be a blur as time passes, what you do know is that you wish to remember them. Just about everyone is going to have to write a minumum of one essay at some time in their lives. For anybody who is writing an essay that has a great date point, you definitely don't want to create mistakes that may cost you more hours. Consider something you're not permitted to do but wish you could. Write about a time once you made a sacrifice for somebody else. Like anything it requires a little time and practice to craft the ideal introduction, but it's well worth it! Luckily, there are tons of great places to locate inspiration and the next list contains only a few suggestions to help get you started. Details of Easy Essay Topics to Write about Argumentative essay needs to be ended by creating a reassertion of your position. Using good informational essay topics can have an impact on how good a grade you get. There are a couple exceptional strategies to essay creating. The topics you cover has to be related to your audience, but don't necessarily must be directly associated with your product. Pupils throughout the world are pleasant for our expert solutions. The truth that someone can actually acquire a service supplier that could provide you high high quality essays is some thing that you can't ever find anywhere. Other businesses make an effort to convince you the most inexpensive customized essays cannot function superb quality. Purchase composition on the web, now! If you're writing about social problems, you will usually be writing about the way the topic affects larger groups of people, including how poverty affects a whole generation. Researching any issue about government or laws can get overwhelming because of the intricacy of the issues and even on account of the wording of some laws. Topics can vary from research to real-life events, based on the class. Some political topics include things like pending legislative debts, the budget or employment development. Writing a speech may sometimes appear challenging, especially if you're uncomfortable giving spe eches to others. There are many things wrong with this thesis which I don't even understand where to begin. Men and women listen to different kinds of. The very same as with any pupils, the ideal article subjects are the ones which are connected with the children. Easy Essay Topics to Write about The elastic purchase type makes it possible for you to acquire the special sort of essay aid you're going to need. Underneath you'll come across useful ideas that might make composing persuasive documents as easy as pie. What your opening line appears like will be based on what kind of paper you're writing. Because it is a terrific opening line that makes you would like to discover more. Easy Essay Topics to Write about - What Is It? A number of the prominent writers who have achieved over-the-top success in the area of writing extremely controversial essays on several conventional essay topics are given below. For everyone that are starting to compose essays, there are particular rules or notions that may permit them to form a perfect essay. An argumentative essay requires you to choose a topic and have a position on it. Simply talking, understanding how you're able to compose essays correctly is something you cannot prevent. Keep in mind, you don't need to give away all your know-how at no cost. Obviously, you won't always have a true situation to discuss for each topic sometimes you need to borrow ideas from different people or merely apply your imagination. Detecting a topic for your study can be hard, but there are a lot of great techniques to develop intriguing ideas. If this is the case, you can draw in readers who wish to learn more on the subject of news related topics. If you're able to consistently produce interesting topics to write about, you are going to stay relevant to your readers. You're guaranteed to discover an interesting and controversial topic. There aren't any topics a new blogger can't handle.

Bullying A Little too Far Essay - 1296 Words

For decades bullying has been nothing more than what the average child experience it was almost just a part of growing up. Starting from the elementary school playground next the middle school locker room and finally high school hall ways. Society has only pushed it to the side as a minor problem, prompting kids to face their bully forcing the bully to say sorry and forcing victims to accept the apology with the given of options A. be friends or B. stay away. Unfortunately this 21st century â€Å"bullying† has undoubtedly transformed its self into its own monster. Due to more ways of communication and self-freedom kids have these days it seem society has walked itself into something bigger then â€Å"minor† bullying. Furthermore, there have been†¦show more content†¦Not only does open cyber space play a role as a tool for bullies, there has been a connection to those who have passed due to being bullied all suffered from depression of some sort. Ultimately, the reason for mentioning this is because sadly in turn it starts to make an individual feel different like something’s missing and with rapid torment they start to believe they’re useless and have no self-belonging. Unfortunately, at the age of 15 everything seems hard to deal with and it’s difficult to grasp onto a dream of tomorrow. At any rate, cyber bullying has become teen’s number one way of harassment. In fact cybullicide has become so common kids and some adults don’t even recognize the fact they’re doing it. Additionally, research has shown that 75% of cyber bullying occurs through sites such as Facebook, twitter, kik, Instagram and Ask.fm [3] which is most notoriously known for its cases involving cyberbullying. In addition, in an article on Nobullying.com; 83 percent of girls, and 79 percent of boys report being bullied either in school or online [4]. Many parents worldwide have grown more understanding of the situation and is starting to realize that over time this case is becoming more dangerous to our growing generation and possible future. Furthermore, while many others see the massive extent this situation has left on parents,Show MoreRelatedCyber Bullying Is Dangerous Regardless The Way It Is Done959 Words   |  4 Pages Cyber bullying is dangerous regardless the way it is done. When I was younger, I experienced it myself some of the other girls would pick on me through name calling, pushing and making rumors about me that weren t true. Teens will find anything to pick on about which would be through their idea of a slight imperfection weight, sexual orientation, disablement and looking different some will take it too far to the point the bullied child wants to commit suicide and that is the reason for thisRead MoreBullying Persuasive Essay1247 Words   |  5 Pagesvictims of bullying each year. Bullying is a serious offence and shouldn’t be taken lightly, students around the world should be aware of what bullying does and how it affects the other person. Seventeen percent of American students report bullying two to three times a month or more within a school semester. Bullying has been occurring for years and bullying in schools was one of the first manifestations. Kids go home every day crying because they were hurt at school and are too afraid toRead MoreEssay on Bullying in School836 Words   |  4 Pagesinto his own hands. He figured that the only way he could defend himself was to be part of a gang. And so at the tender age of 14 he was already a part of the ‘Iggypura’. Good morning to you all. I want to tell you about bullying little children in school. Bullying can have a far worse outcome on the student than we could ever imagine. According to Time magazine, approximately 47% of sixth graders admitted to being bullied at least once in five school days. According to news 14 Carolina, victims beingRead MoreThe Effects Of Bullying On Students Within The School System920 Words   |  4 Pagesor children carry. Bullying. Bullying over the course of the years still plays a role in the education system. Although the form of bullying has changed from the past to now, it still has an effect on students within the school systems. In the past there was the physical form of bullying where â€Å"jocks† would push the â€Å"nerds† into lockers or their books out of their hands. Another typical term used by bullies that anybody can recognize is, â€Å"give me your lunch money,† but bullying has evolved over theRead MoreEssay on We Must Con front Bullying As a Nation722 Words   |  3 PagesAnyone who has been bullied knows that pretending as if the perpetrator does not exist is virtually impossible. In fact bullying is a serious matter that we as a society must confront and strive to abolish. Since bullying can occur in a variety of ways, one must first understand its nuances to recognize that bullying is taking place and then realize the gravity of bullying. Bullying affects an entire community of kids. A single student who bullies can have a wide-ranging impact on the students, notRead MoreBullying And Bullying At School983 Words   |  4 PagesWhen I was a young girl and I would discuss bullying with my parents I always told â€Å"You never let anyone bully you or put their hands on you†. It was a common in my society to hear the statement â€Å"If someone hits you then you hit them back†. Now that I am a mother the thought of those statements still come to mind, when speaking to my children about bullying at school. In today’s society what we know and understand as bullying does not require a school or playground, these actions take place rightRead MoreBullying And Victims Of Bullying1607 Words   |  7 PagesRationale: Bullying has become a relevant and serious problem over the past decade, especially among children between the ages of 4 and 16. Bullying is defined as unwanted, aggressive behaviors such as threats, spreading rumors, or attacking someone physically or emotionally. Additionally, in recent years cyber-bullying, which is considered bullying on the Internet, has increased. Not only can bullying cause detrimental problems in the future for the victim but, research shows that the bully him/herselfRead MoreBullying As An Acceptable Schoolyard1486 Words   |  6 PagesWhen people say â€Å"bully†, the image of the mean kid on the playground who wants to take your lunch money or force you to do their homework comes to mind. However, this perception of bullying as an acceptable schoolyard â€Å"rite of passage† is incredibly antiquated and hardly encompasses the seriousness of the issue that â€Å"bullying† has become. Bullies today are much crueler; they may carry weap ons on school campuses, and thanks to social media, can follow the victim into their homes. In some of the most extremeRead More We Must Prevent Bullying Essay1121 Words   |  5 PagesWhat is bullying? Bullying is the act of picking on other individuals out of pure enjoyment, anger, or even depression. Some things bullies may do include discriminating others, physical abuse like punching and kicking, and giving out threats. Bullying can happen anywhere; on the city streets, at a sporting event, or even at somebody’s house. It can even happen on the Internet, where it is referred to as â€Å"cyber-bullying†. However, bullying mostly happens in schools. A few examples of bullies areRead MoreCyber Bullying : Should The United States Crack Down And Enforce Cyber Cyberbullying?1670 Words   |  7 PagesCyber bullying is an on-going issue that is terrorizing kids in almost every school district in the United States. Most of the states are trying to enforce it with a coup le laws and restrictions but it won’t be that easy to get rid of something as big as cyber bullying has become. Should the United States crack down and enforce cyber bullying more? This issue has caused suicide and many other mental and physical problems with teens and even kids throughout the United States. People who are

ERP Systems Globalization Organizations

Question: Discuss about the ERP Systems for Globalization Organizations. Answer: Introduction In this age of digitalization and globalization, organizations are continuously increasing their operation and thus there is greater need of planning and managing of resources, demand, supply, and demand management, finances in a globalized complex environment. ERPs help the organization to achieve this goal of managing their Sales, Purchases, logistics, account receivables, account payables, asset management, fixed assets needs provided ERP is implemented and configured effectively and is aligned to your business processes. The word effective is very important here because all the enterprises that are planning to implement ERPs or the enterprises who are in process of implementing ERPs software are already scared to some extent due to numerous stories of the failures of ERPs projects. Fox Meyer Drugs become bankrupt while implementing ERP, Waste Management Inc, Dell and Hershey discarded their ERP implementation projects in between suffering from a loss of whopping 100 million US do llars (Motwani, Mirchandani, Madan, Gunasekaran, 2002). Nike suffered huge revenue from sales after ERP implementation project go live. Although all these cases are quite dreadful but then there are also no dearths of cases of successful ERP implementations. Cadbury, Emerson electric, General electric, Rheem manufacturing, Integra life sciences are some of the organizations that have achieved tremendous improvements in their balance sheet and business processes after implementing ERP over a period of time. According to the literature available on this subject, most common cause of the failure of the ERP projects are failure of the management of the company to understand and solve the business problems that arises due to ERP systems. ERP is just an enabler; the main task that differentiates winners from failures is how efficiently the business processes are reengineered and how better the ERPs and standard business processes are aligned with each other. Most of the benefit of the ERPs project comes from changing a business process by solving the business problems and the acceptance of the new processes by the people. In a nutshell, Management ability to solve the business problems, ability to manage changes, understanding business requirements, ability to direct and execute the project are the most important factors for making EPR project as a successful one. Thus, ERP projects are mainly people driven. The objective of this report is to discuss and understand the key issues related to ERP implementation projects, the role and importance of the right people in ERP projects and how these issues can be managed in order to create a positive impact on the ERP implementation projects and making them successful. Also, appropriate real life case studies of the various organizations will be discussed time to time to explain the issues in a more effective way and to discuss companys experiences. Analysis Due to the high cost, long duration and the complexity involved in ERP implementation projects, there are often huge chances of failure if the risks and issues are not manager properly. Before going further into the details, let us discuss the structure of common ERP projects. There are 3 entities: Vendors are the owners of the ERP software who sell the licenses to various enterprises Business implementation team consists of Project manager, change agent, Business process manager for each tracks/modules, which are in scope (Purchasing, Order Management, Logistics, Manufacturing, Finance, Asset Management etc), data management team and quality assurance team. Implementation partner refers to the IT vendors who will actually implement and configure the ERP after understanding the requirements from the business. Implementation partner team also consists of project manager, quality assurance team, technical team and Functional consultant for each module. For every track say Purchasing, Business process manager of Purchasing and Functional consultant of Purchasing will work together to discuss the requirements, changing the business processes and configuring the ERP system. Business team is having the deep knowledge about business processes and functional consultants have deep knowledge about the ERP product (SAP, Oracle, Microsoft dynamics or any other) for their respective modules. Thus, structures of ERP projects are quite complex due to involvement of many entities and there can be multiple reasons for failure of ERP projects. However, the important point here is that ERP is just the software; it is the way of the usage of the software by the people which makes the implementation as a success or failure. Same ERP projects have different outcome because of the different people involved in the project. Thus, ERP projects are highly people centric and most of the issues and costs associate with ERP projects are people related. Some of the critical issues are discussed as follows: Requirement gathering and appropriate ERP vendor selection Requirement gathering is one of the most important aspect in selecting the ERP vendor but still many business executives tends to ignore it or does not get into much details of the requirement. Business executives tend to influence by the sales pitch of the ERP vendors and swayed by successful case studies of the ERP implementation projects by these vendors that demonstrates how the enterprises achieves huge savings by implementing the ERP. However, each business is different and has different set of requirements. Thus ignoring the business requirements is a sure shot recipe for the failure of the implementation projects (Alcarez, Urla, 2002). For example, Waste management Inc suffered massive loss of 100 million dollars due to the failure of ERP implementation and take a legal action against their ERP vendor, SAP. SAP claimed that business is not able to articulate its requirement clearly which lead to the failure of the project (Ghosh, 2012). Not only this, FoxMeyer drug selected SAP ERP because of its success stories in other pharmacy companies and reputation (Scott, vessey, 2000) despite being warned by some Chicago based consultation firm that SAP will not be able to fulfill its business requirements and the result is that FoxMeyer Drug filed legal case against SAP for bankruptcy. To tackle this issue, the best approach is that Business executives prepares detailed list of requirement by each functional area like Order Management, Finance, Manufacturing, Procurement and ask ERP vendors to cover these requirements in their presentation if they are directly supported by their products and if not supported, it is possible to do through customizations. Once the business executives are more vocal about their requirements, ERP vendors will be forced to put more details into their sales proposals. Below is the example of the detailed questions that Business executives need to ask about from the vendor: Sr. no Track Requirement Fit/Gap IF gap/Customization possible. Complexity of the customization 1 Order Management Drop ship and back to back orders supported FIT 2 Procurement Return to vendor FIT 3 Inventory Serial, lot and revision control Serial and lot control are FIT NO Once the requirement analysis is done, Business executives should select the ERP product that is designed to suit their requirements with least amount of customizations. Customizations are very expensive to build and maintain and thus the thumb rule is that any ERP project should not have more than 20% of the customizations. Once this project preparation work is done, it will be easier for the business executives to be reasonable in selection of the right products aligned to their business systems and not just swayed by the good reputation of the ERP vendor. Implementation Partner Selection of Implementation partner is also very important and critical for the success of the project (Tsai, Shaw, Fan, Liu, Lee, Chen, 2011). The depth of knowledge of the functional consultants provided by the implementation partner, their experience and flexibility, their patience to handle change in requirements during the initials phases of the project is of the immense value for the success of the projects. If functional consultants have good track for implementing ERP in similar industries, they can help business to reengineer their process and this will also provide the confidence to the business process owners. Comfort level of the business is shaped by the confidence levels of the functional consultants. Similarly, experienced project manager who can handle the pressure, keep the scope, cost and timeline of the project in control and his ability to manage the risks based on his risks and intuition can be very critical for the success of the project. Another important thing is there that any organizations generally implements ERP only once. Later on, they just upgrade and add different modules, have rollouts for different business units. Thus, there will be many unforeseen challenges that business will face. At that time, it is the responsibility of the Implementation partner to clarify their challenges and provide solution based on their experiences in multiple ERP projects (Bingi, Sharma, Godla, 1999). Top Management Support People are the most important for the successful of any ERP project and thus ERP projects are highly people-centric because ERP is just an enabler. Top management knows the scale of the ERP project and technicality involved so it is indispensable that they must monitor the project execution. Often, they give the task of managing ERP projects to middle management who are not fully aware and also not capable of influencing the change in business process and as a result, there is a lot of opposition from the process owners whenever any change in business process is required. Also, for approvals of change in business process, they have to work with top management due to which there are unnecessarily delays and follow ups which leads to delay. Participation of the top management in just stage gate meetings that are conducted when any milestone is achieved and next phase of the project is about to start is simply not enough (Parr, Shanls, Darke, 2013). They should be monitoring the progre ss of the project frequently and resolve the business problems, approves change in business process and remove delays and bottlenecks in the project. If top management is closely monitoring the ERP project, middle management will also be very much active and aware and decisions should be taken in a timely manner before it is too late. For instance, take the case of FoxMeyer drug. There are frequent changes in the scope of the project lead to unmanageable timelines. Testing phase was cut short by the top management for expediting and this all leads to the failure of the ERP project (Scott, 1999). ERP implementation is a transformative phase in any organization and it becomes imperative for the top management to lead this change by educating the people why it is important for them to implement ERP systems to survive in the market. People who are worry about their jobs due to ERP implementation should be educated that it is just the enabler and it the people only who will manage the software. In a nutshell, if the top management is fully committed for the success of the project, then this commitment will be cascaded to middle management and users which will finally lead to the organizational commitment for the success of the project (Parr, Shanls, Darke, 2013). Ability to manage change ERP projects are sometimes also known as organizational change management projects due to the scale of change involved in any ERP implementation project. Business users have the tendency to resist the change because they are in their comfort zone and fully aware of the existing systems. They will to resist the new ways of doing things and hence makes excuse that ERP is making their job tough and their current processes are not supported by the ERP. As a result, there will be lot of chaos. Thus, it is very much important for the top management to lead the change, educate the users about the implementation of ERP and convinced them about urgency of success of this ERP implementation. Business users should also be given the assurance for adequate training so that they will become comfortable with the new systems. Also, whenever change in business process is required, business users will resist it but if it is advocated by the top management after convincing users about the benefits of i t, they will gradually accept it and adopt it (Altamony, Tarhini, Al-Salti, Gharaibeh, Elyas, 2016). Users should be educated that there are some standard processes derived from the best practices and it is inculcated in ERP packages. If they try to customize, it will not work for long because there will be issues during upgrade. And also, customizations are very expensive to develop as well as maintain. Thus, business process reengineering is required and this reengineering is uncompleted without participation from the end users who are actually the users of the ERP system. To overcome their fear of adapting to new systems, Management must ensure them about the adequate training and testing before the go live. Many organizations compromise on the training and testing which will ultimately lead to the collapse of ERP project (Gupta, Naqvi, 2014). Nikes suffered huge loss from their ERP implementation because of lack of improper training and testing. When Nike go live, users are not comfortable with the ERP systems and does not know how to use the new systems which lead to loss of sales. Also, Nike accepted that there are lots of bugs in demand planning software and it is very slow which lead to failure (Wong, Scarbrough, Chau, Davison, 2005). If Nike could have raised these points during the testing phase, it could have saved millions. But then user complained, they were not given enough time to test the systems. User Training- cascading effect on Testing User training is another important aspect for the success of the project and also the most ignored one. It is very important for the management to accommodate this in the project timeline because it is actually the users who will use the new system. Users training will also have positive impact on the testing of the new systems (Ram, Wu, Tagg, 2014). For instance, if the users are not trained on the new systems, their testing of different business scenarios would also be incomplete and there can be unforeseen challenges after the go live. If the adequate time is given for testing, Users will also test the new systems thoroughly and become comfortable with it. Logging testing defect after go live will be very costly for the organization(Amini, Safavi, 2013). For example, Lumber Liquidators is a leader in US that provided hardwood flooring. Their ERP implementing project is very huge in scope covering close to 300 stores however after go live, they suffered huge drop of about 45% in their net income as compared to previous year due to their inability to handle ERP. Lumber Liquidators management openly admits that there were no issues with the ERP systems and implementations but lack of training of users on new systems lead to this sudden drop in income (Blazer, 2012). Users were habitual of working in Silos however in ERP, business processes are closely linked and have effect on other modules and tracks. For instance, if there is any issue in purchasing the material or receiving, Finance will also be affected during the account payable conciliation, Manufacturing will also be affected in production scheduling of the jobs due to unavailability of raw materials. Go live/Cutover Strategy/Rollout Plan Preparing appropriate Go live strategy by learning from the experiences of other organizations is another important aspect of the ERP projects. There are many approaches like Big Bang approach and phased approach and then there are many flavors of each. For instance, Big Bang approach is that all the modules or all the plants/locations in scope of the ERP projects would start using the new systems after Go live. Phased approach is that initially organization will go live with the finance module and continue to use the existing systems for the other tracks. Once this module is stabilized, organization will go with go live of other tracks based on their priority. Phased approach can also be like initially 1 project goes live and once it is stabilized; there are roll outs for other locations. If the organization is not very comfortable with the ERP systems, Phased approach is recommended so that they can correct mistakes before further expanding the scope of ERP implementation. Modules should be properly tested covering all the business scenarios before system goes live (Sengupta, 2015). Consider the case study of ERP implementation in Hershey. Hershey was keen on using big bang approach (Chen, 2001) and then collapsed in few days after the go live in few days. There were so many unforeseen challenges and issues in each track that it breaks down. Organization Internal Project team Internal project team of the business that comprises of process owner of each track should also be experienced and skilled. Each process owner should be very comfortable about their processes and also aware about the points where their process is cutting different track and may impact the other tracks. ERPs are very connected software and they do not work in Silos while people have habit of working in Silos. Internal project team should also be capable enough to create new business processes or change existing flows if the flows not in synchronized with the ERP systems. It is because ERP systems are built by using the best practices for each business processes. Apart from this, it is very important that the project team should have open mind about the new systems and are very comfortable with their domain. Preparing the important flows in a swim lane fashion like where the business process is cutting into the different track should be prepared. For instance procure to pay cycle, order to cash cycle, manufacture to order should be prepared by all tracks coordinating together. First, high level processes (L1) should be prepared, then gradually adding more details into the process flows and making L2, L3, L4 until all process and sub-process are broken down into activities (Oca, Snoeck, Cardoso, 2014). Enterprise should also assign ERP project champion to oversee the progress of the projects and raised concerns and escalate issues if he sees any issue, delays or things going wrong. Six sigma projects are also complicated and they also have champion that works very well for the execution of the project. Conclusion To conclude, this essay discussed why ERP projects are people centric and why their success and failure depends on the people. ERP software is same but some organizations are achieving huge benefits while some land in bankruptcy and loss of sales. It is because ERP software is just an enabler. Its benefit will come when it is properly implemented. There are numerous issues related to people that deter ERP projects from reaching its true potential. Most of such issues are discussed in detailed by giving example of appropriate real life case studies and appropriate measures are suggested. There are issues like Change management, top management support, requirement gathering, and selection of implementation vendor which all are very critical in determining the fate of the ERP projects. Some organizations couldnt get them right and suffered huge losses, some organizations like FoxMeyer have unrealistic expectation from the ERP software without realizing that it is just the software and f ailed while some enjoying the benefits of ERP and improving their balance sheets continuously. References Altamony, H., Tarhini, A., Al-Salti, Z., Gharaibeh, A., Elyas, T. (2016). 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