Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton - 778 Words

â€Å"Africa† is not even an African word. There is no certainty as to where it originated from but it could be connected with the Latin word aprica, meaning â€Å"sunny,† or the Greek word aphrike, meaning â€Å"not cold.† It seems more likely that it came from the Greek word; â€Å"aphrike† is the combination of â€Å"phrike† (cold and horror) with an â€Å"a† placed in front to give it the opposite meaning. Therefore, it means a land free of cold and horror. It’s such an ironic name for a country where people are living their lives with hunger and fear. The conditions in South Africa during mid-1900 were even worse than they are today. Alan Paton addresses these issues in his novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, published in 1948. Paton uses two contrasting†¦show more content†¦They value the ownership of land and things more than the beauty of the land and the need to care for one another. These places are symbolized by Stephen and John Kumalo. The urban society is like John Kumalo, the corrupt brother. He left Ndotsheni years ago and never contacted his relatives. John is a successful businessman in Johannesburg where he is better off financially than his fellow natives. He is working for native rights, but he wasn’t actually working to benefit his people. Instead, he lets power consume him, while turning his back on his religious views and claiming that the Church is powerless in this land. Although both of them grew up in the same circumstances, Stephen Kumalo is the opposite of John. Stephen is the reverend at Ndotsheni, a man of God. He represents the good aspects of rural society. He is not self-servile like John and he leads a righteous life by dedicating himself in reuniting the families and the nation as a whole. Paton shows that these two concepts could be brought together to solve the problems of South Africa. The interaction between the citi es and villages are almost nonexistent and the problems of each are foreign to the other. They need to unite and care about each other, just like the whites and natives. The problem is that â€Å"it is fear that rules the land† (Msimangu). The whites and natives are afraid of each other, which alsoShow MoreRelatedCry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton1076 Words   |  5 PagesAlan Paton who was a South African author and anti-apartheid activist wrote the novel Cry, the Beloved Country, The novel publication in 1948 was just before South Africa institutionalized racial segregation under Apartheid. Paton addresses the destruction of the tribal system in South Africa due to white colonization by using the novel as a medium to illustrate is damage. Throughout the novel we are exposed to the numerous problems resulting from the colonization. Communities are in collapse, theRead MoreCry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton838 Words   |  3 Pagesindividuals. Alan Paton examines this problem in Cry, the Beloved Country. Throughout the story, Paton adds specific personalities to his characters to contribute to change. Characters in Cry, the Beloved Country went through hardships that changed them to realize reality and its outcomes. Paton accordingly creates a picture throughout his story to explain the problems in South Africa. There are many contributing factors of Paton’s idea to identify as being important for change to occur in Cry, the BelovedRead MoreCry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton696 Words   |  3 PagesCry, the Beloved Country is a novel with remarkable lyricism written by Alan Paton. Born as a white South African, Alan Paton grew up during a time period marked by racial inequality and later became an activist against apartheid. He was a devout Christian so many of his writings reflect Christian faith. As an activist, he wrote many books about South Africa and racial injustice. While traveling around Europe, he began writing Cry, the Beloved Country, which was published in 1948. That same yearRead MoreCry, The Beloved Country By Alan Paton1155 Words   |  5 Pages Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton is a stunning and all too accurate depiction of apartheid in South Africa. Even though the novel centers on John Kumalo and his struggling family, it subtly shows the social going ons of South Africa supposedly in 1948, when the book was written. Strong examples of this come across in the choral chapters of the novel. These chapters give voice to the people of South Africa. Chapter nine shows the struggles of being black during apartheid, chapter 12 shows theRead MoreCry, The Beloved Country, By Alan Paton1373 Words   |  6 Pagesescape with various routes, but an escape that interestingly calls back to the nature of innocence and child-like questions. It is in this way that Alan Paton’s enduring novel, Cry, The Beloved Country, takes on a unique and refreshing approach to a basic question: that of the equality and dignity of all people. Throughout Cry, The Beloved Country, Paton exudes frequent references to childhood, a devout religiosity, and of course, a return to simple questions; all of which contribute the idea of innocenceRead MoreImagery In Cry, The Beloved Country By Alan Paton768 Words   |  4 Pagesnoises, etc, as did the roles in the novel. Alan Paton uses a strong voice packed with imagery in his passage, â€Å"For they grow red and bare; they cannot hold the rain and mist, and the streams are dry in the kloofs. Too many cattle feed upon the grass, and too many fires have burned it. Stand shod upon it, for it is coarse and sharp, and the stones cut under the feet. It is not kept or guarded, or cared for, it no longer keeps men, guards men, cares for men† (Paton, 34). The overwhelming senses of touchRead MoreCry The Beloved Country By Alan Paton Analysis928 Words   |  4 PagesIt is no new information that God tends to directs the ordinary people out of their normal lives and make something great out of them. This reprsents what occured in Stephen Kumalos life from the book Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. Those who live broken and imperfect are the people God sees something special in. Grabbing these people out of their brokenness and make the world better through them. Like all the other ordina ry people that contributed in Gods plan, Stephen Kumalos journeyRead MoreCry, The Beloved Country By Alan Paton Reconciliation981 Words   |  4 PagesDespite the violence depicted amongst the whites and blacks of South Africa, in Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton reconciliation and the spirit of unity present themselves through two men: Reverend Kumalo and James Jarvis. To be able to reconcile and unite with others, people must first be able to look inward and come to peace with themselves. One of the main struggles throughout Cry, The Beloved Country emanates from within the characters, as they try to come to terms with events. StephenRead MoreAlan Paton s Cry, The Beloved The Country1358 Words   |  6 Pagesthe Blacks, leading up to the Civil War, and during the Apartheid, the Natives were segregated from the Whites. In Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved the Country, the main character Stephen Kumalo goes through a journey to restore his tribe. During his journey, he discovers and learns of the injustices in South Africa. Through the parallels and contradictions of biblical allusions, Alan Paton is able to explain the impact of racial inequality in South Africa, but signifies how unconditional love and hopeRead MoreCry, The Beloved Country By Alan Paton Analysis929 Words   |  4 Pages It is no new information that God tends to take the ordinary people out of their normal lives and make something great out of them. This is exactly what happened to Stephen Kumalo in the book Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. It is those are are broken and imperfect that God sees something special through. Taking these people out of their brokenness and make the world better through them. Like all the other ordinary people that got brought up by God, Stephen Kumalo’s journey was no different

Nursing Theorists - 1749 Words

Nursing Theorist Timothy Mack University of Phoenix Theories and Models of Nursing Practice NUR/403 Judith Mc Leod July 25, 2010 Nursing Theorist The theorist that I have chosen is Dorothea Orem. This theory describes the role of nursing in helping a patient’s who can no longer care for themselves (Mosby, 2009). The theory is divided into three parts; universal, developmental, and health deviation. Orem’s Theory The universal portion of Orem’s theory consists of the self care that a patient needs to meet their physiologic and psychosocial need. The developmental portion of the theory covers the care when coping through developmental stages, and the health deviation, which cover the care a patient need when theory health has†¦show more content†¦Orem believed that the individual would in good health when they are functionally or structurally sound or whole. The belief that a sound or while person is free from signs and symptoms of disease, Orem believed that a person’s physical, physiological, interpersonal, and social aspects of health are inseparable, Orem believed that a person’s health is what makes them a human and that health operates with the psycho physiological, and physiological mechanisms in the relation to other human beings. Orem believed that it is the responsibility of society to promote health for its members (Hanucharunkul, 1989). | For nursing p ractice our goal is to help to promote health for the whole patient. We must remember that our goal is to get them back to a level where they are functional in the environment. Not all patient will get to the point that they are free from disease but we must help them get back to the level in which they can care for themselves and be as sound as possible for them. Our practice would involve teaching in this aspect in order to help the patient maximize the health that they either have or to help them reach the level that they want to achieve. | In the nursing education the student should be helped to appreciate that not all patients are going to leave the hospital disease free, and that as nurses there is a need to learn that we need to help them in any way we can to achieve their maximum amountShow MoreRelatedNursing Theorists979 Words   |  4 Pageshead: Nursing Theorists Nusing theorists Abstract â€Å"Nursing theorists are the men and women in the nursing field who develop models of nursing. Often, they dont set out to develop a nursing theory, instead, they simply want to help improve nursing care for their patients, and the theory develops as a result. Once a method is established as a theory or model of nursing, it is integrated into the practice of nursing, as well as added to the study of nursing.† Nursing Theorists Nursing theoryRead MoreNursing Theorists1257 Words   |  6 PagesA BRIEF STUDY OF NURSING THEORIES ACCORDING TO FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, JEAN WATSON AND MADELEINE LEININGER TOLULOPE ADEDIWURA MINOT STATE UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT Nursing as a profession is based on concrete (scientific, philosophical, behavioral, social, and humanities among others), concepts and theories by past and current nursing theorists. These theorists have helped shape the profession from 19th century till date. New theories are emerging due to advance in health care, as off-shoot of previousRead MoreNursing Theorist1222 Words   |  5 PagesNursing Theorist: Betty Neuman Nursing Theorist: Betty Neuman Intro Nursing theories are the basic concepts that define nursing practice and provide the explanation to why nurses do what they do. Nurses are exposed to theories everyday in clinical practice. During any given day, a nurse will utilize multiple nursing theories. These theories guide how a nurse treats patients, how tasks are performed, assessments completed and interventions established. By studying nursing theory, it allowsRead MoreNursing Theorists702 Words   |  3 PagesESTRIN LEVINE NUR-240 Professional Transitions June 7, 2011 Myra Estrin Levine is known as a Nursing theorist for creating â€Å"The Conservation Model†. Levine obtained a diploma in 1944 and attained her B.S in 1949 and completed M.S.N in 1962 from Wayne State University. She served as a consultant to hospitals and schools of nursing. She also provided a teaching structure for medical-surgical nursing and established â€Å"The Four Conservation Principles†. â€Å"She explicitly linked health to the processRead MoreNursing Theorists1685 Words   |  7 PagesNursing Theorists 1. Florence Nightingale - Environment theory 2. Hildegard Peplau - Interpersonal theory 3. Virginia Henderson - Need Theory 4. Fay Abdella - Twenty One Nursing Problems 5. Ida Jean Orlando - Nursing Process theory 6. Dorothy Johnson - System model 7. Martha Rogers -Unitary Human beings 8. Dorothea Orem - Self-care theory 9. Imogene King - Goal Attainment theory 10. Betty Neuman - System model 11. Sister Calista Roy - AdaptationRead MoreGrand Nursing Theorist1361 Words   |  6 PagesGrand Nursing Theorist Assignment # 2 Grand Nursing Theorist Assignment # 2 Descriptive Analysis For this assignment, I chose to study grand nursing theorist Dorothy Orem and the nursing concept she introduced, the self-care deficit theory (also known as the Orem model of nursing). I chose to study Dorothy Orem because she is well known in Indiana, the state in which I reside. Orem’s grand nursing theory â€Å"was developed between 1959 and 2001†¦[and] is particularly used in rehabilitation andRead MoreThe Nursing Theory And Theorist1199 Words   |  5 PagesD. Nursing Theory and Theorist â€Å"From Novice to Expert†, the nursing theory by Patricia Benner, is probably the easiest theory of all to understand. One of Benner’s messages is that a well-rounded professional does not miss out on opportunities to learn from life as well as in nursing school and in the nursing practice. In her theory Benner describes the 5 stages of nursing experience beginning with novice and moving up to the final stage of expert. She describes how every stage builds on and isRead MoreNursing Theorist Grid722 Words   |  3 PagesNursing Theorist Grid 1. Theorist Selected: Jean Watson 2. Description of key points of the theory: †¢ In Watson’s philosophy of human caring she developed carative factors. She uses the word carative to classify nursing and medicine. The carative factors aim at the caring process. There are 10 carative factors each one involving a lived experience from all involved in the relationship, including the nurse. †¢ Watson described a need for transpersonal caring relationship. This is definedRead MoreNursing Theorist Assignment1789 Words   |  8 PagesNursing Theorist Assignment Allison M Wood, RN NUR/403 March 12, 2012 Shoni Davis, RN DNSc Nursing Theorist Assignment Sister Callista Roy developed the Adaptation Model of Nursing in 1976 after becoming concerned of the importance of relating the characteristics of nursing to the community. This interest encouraged her to begin developing the model with the purpose of nursing being to support adaptation. Roy began organizing her nursing theory as she developed curriculum for nursing studentsRead MoreBetty Neum Nursing Theorist1587 Words   |  7 PagesBetty Neuman: Nursing Theorist Beth Anne Bonetti NSG 301 October 7, 2014 Summer Huntley-Dale MSN, RN Betty Neuman: Nursing Theorist Development of the Neuman Systems Model Betty Neuman received her nursing diploma from Peoples Hospital School of Nursing in Akron, Ohio in 1947. After earning her RN, she moved to California and gained experience in a number of different nursing positions including staff nurse, head nurse, school nurse, industrial nurse, and clinical instructor at the University

Disney vs. Imane Boudlal free essay sample

Disneyland vs. Imane Boudlal HISTORY Disneyland is very large 160 acre amusement park located in Anaheim CA. Disneyland was created by Walt Disney on July 17, 1955, Walt Disney wanted to create a magical place where parents with children could go to the same place and have just as much fun as their children. Walt Disney had the vision that he wanted Disneyland to be like a fantasy land where dreams could come to life. Disneyland is a 17. 5 million dollar magic kingdom. Even though the park was a very expensive project, â€Å"I could never convince the financiers that Disneyland was feasible, because dreams offer too little collateral† said Walt Disney. Since Disney was a very expensive project, Walt Disney had some support from his own television show on ABC; it was called Walt Disney’s Disneyland. The TV series offered sneak peeks about the future Disneyland project before it was even finished. It took a full year of hard work to finish the project. We will write a custom essay sample on Disney vs. Imane Boudlal or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Disneyland is well-known for having a strict employee dress code called â€Å"the Disney look†. This dress code was introduced to new employees in 1955 prior to the amusement park opening. Disneyland also calls their employees â€Å"cast members† in order to keep the magical theme going. The Disney look has changed over time, but yet also remained true to offering wholesome family entertainment in one of the world’s top vacation destination. To work at Disneyland, the potential cast member must first agree and understand the policy prior to being hired.

Principles of Care free essay sample

Ultimately, dignity is the idea that human beings are different from animals. Equality: Equality is the current term for ‘Equal Opportunities’. It is based on the legal obligation to comply with anti-discrimination legislation. Equality protects people from being discriminated against on the grounds of group membership i. e. sex, race disability, sexual orientation, religion, belief, or age. Respect: Respect is an important way of being kind and good to other people. Respect means not making fun of others. Respect means thinking of how somebody else feels. Respect is treating another person the same way you’d want to be treated yourself. Fairness: An example of fairness would be while playing a game. It’s fair when everyone plays by the rules of the game. It’s unfair when someone cheats. When that person breaks the rules, it gives them an advantage over the other players. If a rule-breaker wins, it’s not a fair win. We will write a custom essay sample on Principles of Care or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Everyone should have an equal chance. Privacy: Privacy may be defined as the claim of individuals, groups or institutions to determine when, how and to what extent information about them is communicated to others. Privacy is your right to control what happens with personal information about you. If a person turns to an organisation for help, they do not lose their rights unless in danger to themselves or others. People’s right should and do not change because of a disability, mental health or the fact that they are using a help service. It is a professional’s role to ensure a supportive relationship is developed, for the benefits of the service user. They should also be aware to respect their values and beliefs and protect their rights. To gain a relationship from a service user it is important that there is a connection, the professional must make sure they understand their boundaries and that the relationship stays within them. Core Principles of care: The core principles of care are dignity, equality, respect, fairness and privacy. Build effective relationships: The adult should always be at the centre of the planning. They should be listening to and their methods of communication are respected. There must be a respect for culture and believes, respect for lifestyle and choice and recognition of need. A service users preferences should be taken into account and where relevant, confidentiality must be maintained. To build a supportive relationship abiding by the core principles include using good methods of communication, for examples if an individual is deaf, consider using sign language. Respect for culture and beliefs are vital, if a service user is a Muslim, they should not be preached or treated differently in any way. Recognition of needs is also essential, if an individual is in need of something and does not receive it, the core principles have been broken. Working practices: Working practices are person centred. Person-centred practices are focused on the lack of personal history records. Using face to face communications, carers worked with people to develop ‘life story’ books to fill the gap in their lives. This shows inclusive practice, which is anti-discriminatory. It is aimed at empowering individuals. In a safe and secure environment people are encouraged to share information appropriately. This is then shared, with their permission with other who cares for them, which works towards a better service for them. Supportive practice: To achieve supportive practice you must use a humanistic approach and ensure that you empower, promote rights and give choices. You should use preferred methods of communication to include all, meeting needs, across health, social care, mental health and special needs. You must be responsive to needs. To build a supportive relationship abiding by the core principles include using good methods of communication, for examples if an individual is deaf, consider using sign language. Respect for culture and beliefs are vital, if a service user is a Muslim, they should not be preached or treated differently in any way. Recognition of needs is also essential, if an individual is in need of something and does not receive it, the core principles have been broken. A needs assessment encourages supportive relationships to reduce the risk of abuse and neglect, a demonstration of a needs assessment is as follows: Needs assessment is the key to ensuring that the required range and capacity of services is available and accessible to service users and their families in a local area. A good need assessment process will: * identify the needs of a target population in a particular area; * help to prioritise those needs to ensure better planning of local services and more effective allocation of resources; * Develop an implementation plan that outlines how identified needs will be addressed. The outcome of a needs assessment should be that service users and their families have their individual assessed needs met, or met more effectively. Where appropriate, it should also address the needs of families or carers. Another example is a care planning cycle, the object of a care planning cycle is to identify service users’ needs and to enable all staff having contact with that service user, directly or indirectly, to have the information they need to support the service user which they consider to meet their needs the best. The stages of care planning are: * Assessment * Documentation * Development * Choose * Plan * Record * And review Composing a care planning cycle is the process by which the care service gathers information about the service user with a view to identifying their abilities and needs. Establishing abilities is critical in help avoiding complications. When composing the cycle it is as important to identify and record abilities to stand alongside the possibly more obvious needs, in order to assist the service to develop a fully supportive and effective set of care plans. There must be tractable evidence of the care planning cycle, monitoring evaluation and outcomes in relation to the social, physiological, physical and health needs of the service user * Only record real evidence of planning for purposeful action taken by any people who offer care, support and service to meet the individuals preferences and needs * The information that is documented must be factual, informative, useful an d not an opinion * Is it essential that all staff involved in the care plan and support read the care plans, and know the details of the programme in order to deliver care and support which is designed by a person who is knowledgeable and competent in assessment and care planning to meet service users’ needs * Care plans must provide evidence of the use of all the information gathered during the assessment and composing the care cycle. Building effective relationships: Relationships of all kinds are often perceived as delicate things that require effort to maintain. Building an effective relationship is a necessity for some reasons. For example in an organisation the wellbeing of a person depends on how effectively that organisation works. Society is defined as a web of relationships which requires all people to work and contribute together in order to achieve a goal. Having a relationship that is good, where cooperation and respect are kept, can make society work better. Und erstanding an individual’s feelings and their position creates an effective relationship. It is crucial to listen to the party; this would make them feel importance has been given. Effective relationships require service users to express their feelings and their position on all matter pertinent on the relationship. Assuming that the individual understands our needs and give us when we need it without asking for it is not a good practice. If we are willing and capable of listening to others, we will find it much appreciated by the service user, some professionals are unaware of how much they dominate a conversation. If we value someone’s rights we will not take pleasure commenting on their failures or problems. This will weaken a relationship. Healthy effective relationships should be built on a degree of detachment. Detachment does not mean â€Å"not caring†. Often when we develop a strong relationship we expect a person to behave in a certain way. And if that behaviour rule is broken we could invade an individual’s personal space and possibly belittle them. Promoting effective communication and relationships: Communication is an important aspect in maintaining a good relationship. While some communication may be guarded, other communication is of a higher quality. It is important to have a positive self imagine, as a poor self imagine can cause miscommunication such as mistaking comments due to low confidence. If you make your own desires knows. Not only will you become more effective in communication, but you may make a hint that it is all right for the service user to communicate their desires too. It is important to listen effectively. This involves body language as well. You could be listening but if you fidget or look away it may send signals that you’re not listening. It is important to make sure you’re able to have a normal conversation with the individual too, make sure you tell them what you’ve done that day and what your plans are for the rest of the day, what’s made you happy, angry etc and vica versa. By sharing your inner self, you will be promoting opening up and the service user will feel comfortable to open up too. Support openness by not being judgemental. Being judgmental of a service users expressed through may make them feel belittled or make them not want to open up. You are able to be honest about your reaction to expressed thoughts, but focus on the positive and use a positive tone in your response to promote effective communication. Providing individualised care for their own rights and responsibilities: Individualized care is considered an important indicator of quality care. Knowing the service users has been described as the process by which we come to understand the individual’s experiences, behaviours, feelings and perceptions to individualize their care. REFERENCES: BTEC level 2 Health and Social Care, Elizabeth Rasheed, Alison Hetherington and Jo Irvine

buy custom Computer usage is a Threat to Human Health essay

buy custom Computer usage is a Threat to Human Health essay Most organizations all over the globe are embracing technology to ensure that the quality of their output improves. Computer usage is picking up at a higher rate in most of these organizations. The continuous usage of computers in most organizations is in turn posing a great threat to human health. For instance, it leads to back problems, eyesight problems, and leads to E-thrombosis. Opponents claim that computers are not harmful to human health as they promote speed and ensure accuracy of transactions in the organization. They see computer usage in organizations to be composed of only positive results. This paper explicates continued computer usage and the resulting health hazards. Computer usage leads to back problems. Computer usage involves a lot of bending of the back when typing the information into the computer. This could result in back pains in the end. This is especially rampant where the users sit on chairs that do not offer enough comfort. In most organizations, an individual is expected to work using the machine the whole day. This means these individuals spend the whole day bending thus straining their backs. This is a common occurrence in the busiest departments where computers are used to achieve faster and efficient processing of orders (Oja and Parsons, 104). Individuals are thus exposed to back problems that result in immense pain and could make individuals unable to work efficiently in the future. This dangerous health problem could result in a slower generation because these individuals are not able to carry out their normal activities. The back problems are becoming an increasing problem among the youth. The back problems are thus a serious threat to the countrys future. It leads to eyesight problems. Individuals stare at the computer screens every day they are on duty. Continuous staring at the computers while working could result in eyesight problems. This is because individuals are exposed to the computers bright light. They also have to strain especially when reading vital information from the computers. This continued exposure to the computer light leads to untreatable eyesight problems. The eyes could ache, and the individual could eventually lose effective eyesight (Shelly, Cashman and Gunter, 497). The unregulated computer light is dangerous and continued exposure to it leads to the indivdual even totally losing out the eyesight. Doctors have raised alarm that the eyesight problems resulting from computer usage are increasing at a faster rate. They also fear that these problems are becoming harder to tackle. The eyesight problems lead to loss of quality labor. This problem is prevalent among the whole generation; children and the youth could be affected posing a serious threat to the countrys hope. The loss of eyesight due to computer usage is could be avoided by regulating the number of hours one spends in front of the computer. Computer usage for longer periods could lead to E-thrombosis. This condition is associated with spending too many hours sitting in front of the computer. E-thrombosis leads to the swelling of the blood veins in the legs. Individuals who spend longer hours attending to computer activities without standing to exercise their legs risk suffering from this condition. In addition, the individual could be exposed to other conditions such as frequent collapsing and the inability to lead a normal life. Research asserts that individuals who spend longer hours at the computers without taking a break to exercise their legs risk the effect of blood clots in their veins thus the inability to walk later on. This means the flow in the veins is restricted, and the individual could lose his life. The unstable blood flow could lead to the eventual death of the individual due to the inefficiency of the lungs to operate effectively. Computer usage for longer hours could limit most people from participati ng in other activities and could permanently lose the ability to walk (Oja and Parsons, 112). Amputations could also result from this problem. This problem could be averted by taking off some time to exercise the leg muscles for effective blood flow. On the other hand, computer usage improves the speed of working. Computers are the main electronic devices that support faster processing of data in any given organization. This means that transactions and information is processed at a faster rate for effective decision making in the organization. Use of computers ensures that vital business opportunities are not missed by the organization. This could in turn lead to faster implementation of all the organizational activities for the achievement of goals and objectives. The required information between various departments can also be relayed faster hence boosting the speed at which efforts are coordinated form the achievement of results. Computers improve the general speed of working and communication in the organization thus improving the organizations performance. The speed at which computers work would enable the management saves a lot because only a few individuals are required to operate the computers. Individual efforts in ensur ing that speed is achieved are minimized as the computers perform all the tasks. This ensures that people are less tired hence reducing the level of negative effects on their health. Computers promote accuracy in the organizations. Computers contribute to the accuracy of different documents in the organization. They are not prone to errors like humans. They could calculate technical situations and effectively detect errors. This ensures that an organization is in a good position to make sound decisions with accurate information. Their output is reliable because of its accurate nature. The accurate information provided by computers is vital to the management as it gives the organizations correct picture for decision- making. Accuracy is enhanced by the set of programs that are installed in these computers. Opponents claim that it eases human stress by reducing their levels of reasoning concerning the accuracy of information. In addition, the accuracy of the information enhances reliability on the information. The management is in a better position to put in place corrective measures in cases where errors occur because the information gives the proper direction. In conclusion, continuous computer usage poses many health problems but their usage cannot be stopped because of their positive side. Computer users are likely to be exposed to many problems that result in permanent loss of their vital body parts. For instance, individuals exposed to back problems are unable to perform other activities that require the support of the back. They are unable to bend and perform other tasks hence leading to inefficiency in the utilization of activities. Individuals lose their eyesight resulting to a generation that is unable to see. The loss of eyesight means individuals are unable to read or write in the normal course of their lives. On the other hand, computers promote the speed of working and ensure that accuracy of the output is achieved. Computer usage for longer periods is generally harmful to an individuals health. Buy custom Computer usage is a Threat to Human Health essay

How To Write A College Essay

How To Write A College Essay How To Write A College Essay 1. What is a college essay? College essay writing is an independent students research. What is a research? You hear this word almost daily. The manufacturer proudly announces that after years of research his company has produced a new fabric. The stock analyst claims that his market forecasts are products of sound research. When you need help similar to teachers, housewives, farmers, politicians, and military men, you turn to research laboratories for aid. Our custom essay writing service is able to cope with any task. Yes, research is a common word, a magic word. But what does it mean? What is the nature and value of scientific investigations? 2. Research is defined by scholars as a careful, critical search for solutions to the problems that plague and puzzle mankind. There is a lot of information on how to write college essays, how to write college application, how to write good college essays, how to write college application essays, how to write essays for college, etc. However, your first task is to solve the problem of the assigned topic and only then you may put all your thoughts and ideas to the sheet of paper. And at this stage of problem-solving inexperienced essay writer impatiently listens to advisers who ask: "Have you defined your problem clearly? Do you know what variables are involved? Do you possess the basic skills to solve it? Have you constructed a sound theoretical framework for this problem?" Without giving these questions serious consideration, student plunges headlong into gathering copious. How To Write A College Essay. The Main Problems Problems cannot be solved unless a college essay writer possesses the intellect to isolate and comprehend the specific factors giving rise to the difficulty. Locating and analyzing a problem is a crucial step in academic essays writing, yet many novices grasp at any straw and label it a problem. They spend hours, days or even weeks laboriously gathering data relating to their large, vague topics without ever defining a specific problem. The final result of their furious figuring and fact finding is a formless, frustrating fund of data. Having never decided precisely what to solve, they roam rudderless in a sea of facts with their voyage without a map obviously committed to failure. Before understanding how to write college essays you need to know how to solve the problem: Which facts, points of views to take for the basis and why? When you solve the problem of your English essay topic you can easily how to write college essay,how to write a discussion essay, how to write college application essay, etc. Interesting topics: Sociology Coursework Religion Coursework Media Studies Coursework Maths Coursework Management Coursework

Entre Nos Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Entre Nos - Essay Example The movie proves to us that lack of immigrants’ cultural understanding, close friendship and interpersonal relationship in a city results to frustrations, mistreatment and suffering of immigrants in the cities. As Zukin (1995) analyzes, culture is a powerful tool for controlling cities. Culture is a summation of social, economic, linguistic, and political aspects of life and how people in a particular setting execute these components in their unique way. The video is an account of an experience by Mariana; a wife and mother of two young children, Gabriel and Andrea. Mariana’s husband, whom they have immigrated to live with in New York City, abandoned the naive family at the city. Unable to settle bills, Mariana is evacuated from their rented apartment to the streets and things get worse when she discovers that she is pregnant. In addition to her lack of knowledge of the language spoken in the vicinity, she has not employment or work experience. Language is a powerful to ol in life and immigrants are sometimes constrained and limited when they can not express themselves in the middle of strangers. Inability to understand the language of New York makes it difficult for the family to adapt to the culture of the city given that culture is inculcated largely through language. One of the inevitable thing that city immigrants should establish is social network; a powerful tool that members of the society can use for survival. In the vast urban environment, such as that of New York where Mariana and her two kinds were struggling to survive, social network could have been a way of soliciting for support from friends and neighbors. For example, immigrants should have a way of communicating and associating with their fellow immigrants, neighbors or those close to them. For example, if Mariana had known another fellow immigrant in the town, she could have been assisted because not all immigrants suffered the tragedy. In fact, the story would have been differen t if her husband stayed and continued to support his family. Another survival tactic, which ensures safety and security when one gets to a vast urban environment is creating close friendships with the people one is close to; either neighbors, workmates or associates. Close friendships makes a person to acquire and amass enough social, political and even economic security because friends can help in finding a solution in extreme cases instead of learning the hard way like Mariana. Moreover, close friendship is a significant part of social life and, as noted from the movie, much of the agonies that Mariana and her two kids underwent were as a result of lack of close friendship. As it is known, men are created solitary beings, but necessity forces them to create social networks because there is no survival in isolation. In this case, cities are depicted in an influential cinema as tragic places where people are not concerned much about their neighbors. In cities like the one Mariana wa s living, the owners of property such as tenants in urban areas are exceptionally capitalistic, and they are only concerned with their economic gains and not social welfare of their tenants; it is an economic regime that does not consider those who do not have. Economic challenges are, therefore, not a concern of the owners of resources in cities. For example, we see the owner of the apartment where Mariana and

Reflection on christianity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Reflection on christianity - Essay Example Loving the Lord God with all the heart, mind and soul is expounded in the law given to Moses where people are supposed to honor God first and foremost. Making graven images for people to worship is an act of dishonor to the God who made all things therefore, God commanded against it. Moreover, God teaches the people not to dishonor Him with their words but to praise Him with their lips instead and also to follow his footsteps, resting on the The second greatest commandment on the other hand encompasses the other commandments in the Law of Moses. It instructs the people how they are supposed to show their love and respect to each other by not murdering, slandering, nor committing adultery. The commandments do not just mention respecting people but it also tells them to regard what they own with respect by not coveting their neighbor’s house, wife, menservants and maidservants as well as his other belongings. Since undoubtedly, everyone would want to be loved, the second commandment simply says to love other people as one would love

Effective Research Essay Example for Free

Effective Research Essay Research is a structured and systematic approach of looking for answer to questions and producing intended results. The methods used to research a particular topic should directly relate to the aims described in the topic. One should develop a clear, thoughtful, and organized study plan that tests the vital hypothesis. Describe any work concept, tools, and approaches for the anticipated studies. Discuss the possible limitations and difficulties of the anticipated procedures and alternative advances to achieve the aims. Tim Ireland (2008) adds that a tentative sequence for the project ought to be given. An overview of the conceptual framework and proposed design should be included. Study goals ought to relate to the projected hypothesis. Required statistical techniques, proposed timeline, and work plan should be included. Finally, one should be clear about the methods and investigation design used and should avoid correlative experiments. The ways of assessing and evaluating ones research is by checking for correct spelling, general neatness, parts in a reasonable and correct order with nothing missing, proper citation of borrowed material and the support of any arguments or thesis materials with evidence. One can also use rubric; it allows one to see what excellent, acceptable, good, and poor work looks like. Information from research is included in writing by putting all your gathered information together in a presentable format. One should put all his/her notes together according to the order they will come into view in their project (Albert and Podgy 1984). Another is strategy is the use of paraphrasing where one only uses the most important words, synonyms, and highlights and crosses out words (Ireland, 2008). Paraphrase: A good university should focus on equipping students with critical and analytical skills which form an integral part of what is expected of higher learning (Zein 2008).

Environmental Causes of Schizotypal Personality Disorder :: essays research papers

The Environmental Causes of Schizotypal Personality Disorder   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Schizotypal personality disorder (SPD), is considered by many as part of the schizophrenic spectrum. It is characterized by discomfort with other people, peculiar patterns of thinking and behavior, and eccentricity. These may take the form of cognitive or perceptual disturbances. Yet, unlike schizophrenia, these psychotic symptoms are not as fully developed as delusions or hallucinations but instead can be characterized as perceptual illusions. A person suffering from SPD might become extremely anxious in social situations, especially those involving strangers. Schizotypal patients also tend to be overly suspicious of others and are not prone to trust others or to relax in their presence. Another characteristic of the disorder is that schizotypes are often odd and eccentric. They often harbor absurd superstitions such as a belief in ESP and many other psychic or paranormal phenomenons that are outside the boundaries of accepted thought. In some cases Schizotypes believe that they possess magical powers, such as the ability to control other people with their thoughts. (Buss 2002) As a result of these symptoms, people diagnosed with SPD have great difficulty with social relationships, and are often alienated from mainstream society. This paper aims to investigate the suspected causes of this strange disorder, focusing on environmental and hereditary factors.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Some recent studies have found a correlation between the use of street drugs and instances of SPD. Researchers in New Zealand found that people who commonly used cannabis were more than three times as likely to develop schizophrenia and or schizotypal disorder later in life. There have been 30 published research experiments linking cannabis to these disorders. The increase in this evidence during the past decade has been attributed to increases in the potency of marijuana. (Allebeck 1993)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Some street drugs are credited with not only increasing the risk of developing SPD, but actually in some cases have triggered the onset of the disorder. SPD and schizophrenia can some times be brought on by heavy use of hallucinogenic drugs, especially LSD; but it appears that a person has to have a predisposition towards developing SPD for this to occur. There is also some evidence suggesting that a person suffering from SPD but undergoing treatment can have a relapse episode by taking LSD. Methamphetamine and PCP are also known to mimic the symptoms of SBD, and can therefore bring about symptoms of the disorder without a previous diagnosis. (Allebeck) Some other research has found that enriched educational, nutritional and social environments substantially lower the risk of developing SPD.

Leadership Challenges Of Today Essay

The role of leaders today has become increasingly easier and yet more challenging at the same time.   With the level of technology that is available today as opposed to what was previously available, a leader is able to communicate much faster with the other members of the team and coordinate the work within large teams more effectively and efficiently (Bennis, 2001).    With the advances in communication technologies and all the new gadgets designed to ease to work load and make people function for efficiently, there are more and more demands of a leader today.   Factor in the fact that there are an increasing number of multi-cultural working environments today and it becomes apparent just how much more different the leadership scene is today from previous years (Bennis, 2001).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   One of the main challenges of a leader today that has been brought about by the development of technology is that a leader is now expected to do more.   A leader is always expected to make the most of whatever resources are available (Covey, 1999).   In previous years, the constraints of communication problems made the expectation much lower than it is today.   With the relative ease in communication and the devices that are currently available, more output is expected from a leader.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Another challenge which was not present in the leadership scene in previous years is the existence of a growing number of multi-cultural teams in the work place.   The diverse environments in the work place today demand that a leader be able to cope with the different cultural background and communication skills of his team members (Bennis, 2001).   This creates a more challenging working environment as leaders must try to adjust to the needs of working in a multi-cultural environment.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Finally, with the level of competition brought about by globalization, it is becoming increasingly difficult for leaders to cultivate a company culture that promotes job satisfaction and reduces the turnover rate of employees.   The relative ease of finding other jobs in other companies and markets and the level of competition demands that a leader must be able to play a critical role in keeping the team members happy as well as ensuring a certain level of productivity to remain competitive (Covey, 1999).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   While it may be argued that these leadership challenges were already present in the workplace before, it must be pointed out that these challenges only existed to a minimal extent and were not a major factor until now.   It is expected that as the world markets expand and the level of competition increases, the role of a leader today will only become more challenging and stressful. References: Bennis, W., Spreitzer, G. and Cummings, T. (2001) The Future of Leadership: Today’s Top Leadership Thinkers Speak to Tomorrow’s Leaders Jossey-Bass Publishing Company Covey, S. (1999) Principle-centered Leadership Simon & Schuster Ltd

Public Relation Core Values Essay

Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) has extremely important core ethical values that include advocacy, honesty, expertise, independence, loyalty, and fairness. All of which will help further a public relations practitioner in their career. Every practitioner handles every job differently, in a way thats going to benefit both the company they are working for as well as the public. Honesty should be the most important core value for every practitioner. Not only should it be the most important core value in the work field, it should also be the most important core value in everyones life as well. On the other hand, practitioners tend to ignore their core values while working. One of the biggest values they tend to ignore or overlook is fairness. Mark Twain once said, â€Å"Honesty is the best policy; when there is money in it. This quote should be every public relations practitioner motto because being honest will always lead you to conducting better business with clients. Clients want honest individuals working for them because the company expects the practitioner to represent the company in a way thats going to gain the publics trust. When the public has your trust, they are going to shop at your company rather than one who puts out false advertisement and has a poor look in the publics eyes. Not only does the quotes speak for itself, but honesty is simply the best way to conduct business. Some practitioners try their hardest to provide equally fair service to every client. Fairness is a core value that all practitioners respect but is hard to do at times. When dealing with clients, employers, peers,vendors, competitors, and most important the public, its hard to keep everyone happy. Lets say a practitioner is dealing directly with a company for the release of a new product. The company producing the item may not want competitors knowing about it so they can keep the technological edge on its competitors but also at the same time they want the public to hear about what’s new. Since they manage what information the public hears, its essential what they say. No matter what they say or don’t say, someones always going to want more. With that being said, someone’s not going to be happy. Life in general isn’t always fair, so when faced with a situation that can cause grey areas with others, do what you ethically think is the right thing.

Free Essays on Job In The Early Ages

People are becoming more mature and open-minded. Parents are being more considerate and they are letting their kids grow in every way. Also parents feel that it is time for their kids to start on their own at a certain age. Students should have jobs while they are still in school because they want to become independent and they want to be ready for what the future has prepared for them. An independent person is someone who doesn’t need to rely on someone else economically. For example, they don’t need the help from their parents or the government. It is hard to become an independent person. First, they need to have a well-paying job that covers all of their needs. Moreover, they need to learn how to save money or how to invest their money in a useful way. Lastly, they need to know that to become an independent person takes a lot of work, dedication, and preparation. Nowadays students are focusing more on what the future has prepared for them. It is good that they start preparing themselves economically, for when they start their career and start a new life, they’ll have something to start off with. Most of the students want to have a perfect life, but for that they need to start proving their capabilities and the way they manage themselves at school, so that they can be ready for the future. In conclusion, it is a very good idea that students start preparing themselves for the future while they are still in school. In this way, they can become more responsible and make themselves complete the task that they set for themselves to do. It is very enjoyable to see students enthusiastic about getting jobs and starting a new life doing what they like to do while they are in school.... Free Essays on Job In The Early Ages Free Essays on Job In The Early Ages People are becoming more mature and open-minded. Parents are being more considerate and they are letting their kids grow in every way. Also parents feel that it is time for their kids to start on their own at a certain age. Students should have jobs while they are still in school because they want to become independent and they want to be ready for what the future has prepared for them. An independent person is someone who doesn’t need to rely on someone else economically. For example, they don’t need the help from their parents or the government. It is hard to become an independent person. First, they need to have a well-paying job that covers all of their needs. Moreover, they need to learn how to save money or how to invest their money in a useful way. Lastly, they need to know that to become an independent person takes a lot of work, dedication, and preparation. Nowadays students are focusing more on what the future has prepared for them. It is good that they start preparing themselves economically, for when they start their career and start a new life, they’ll have something to start off with. Most of the students want to have a perfect life, but for that they need to start proving their capabilities and the way they manage themselves at school, so that they can be ready for the future. In conclusion, it is a very good idea that students start preparing themselves for the future while they are still in school. In this way, they can become more responsible and make themselves complete the task that they set for themselves to do. It is very enjoyable to see students enthusiastic about getting jobs and starting a new life doing what they like to do while they are in school....

Sweet Quotes

Sweet Quotes There are some words that touch our heart in a very special way. They make us say, Aww! That was so sweet! On this page, I have some really sweet quotes with a hint of innocence, a dash of love, and oodles of attitude in them. Irish BlessingsMay God give you: For every storm a rainbow, for every tear a smile, for every care a promise and a blessing in each trial. For every problem life sends, a faithful friend to share, for every sigh a sweet song and an answer for each prayer. Julie AndrewsSometimes Im so sweet even I cant stand it. Oscar Hammerstein IIDo I love you because youre beautiful, or are you beautiful because I love you? Am I making believe I see in you, a woman too perfect to be really true? Do I want you because youre wonderful, or are you wonderful because I want you? Are you the sweet invention of a lovers dream, or are you really as beautiful as you seem? SenecaThings that were hard to bear are sweet to remember. AnonymousLoving you is like breathing, how can I stop? Helen KellerThe best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart AnonymousNobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love becaus e we love. Lisa HoffmanLove is like pi natural, irrational, and very important. Jennifer TylerMy mind tells me to give up, but my heart wont let me. Oscar WildeWho, being loved, is poor? AnonymousPlease God, make my words today sweet and tender, for tomorrow I may have to eat them. Lisa MoriyamaIf a relationship is to evolve, it must go through a series of endings. PlatoAt the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet. Mother TeresaWe can not do great things. We can only do little things with great love. Satchel PaigeWork like you dont need the money. Love like youve never been hurt. Dance like nobodys watching.

Recruitment and Selection Strategies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Recruitment and Selection Strategies - Essay Example It starts with the hunt for new employees and it continues till a pool of application is generated out of which new employees are selected. To develop a good strategy an organization an organization should always keep itself updated on the opening that are present in it , openings that may be required and positions that are potentially going to be vacant in the future. An organization should target the positions needed immediate fillings first, but it is best to predict the vacancies and plan for recruitment as this ensures that the quality of recruitment activities stays good. Requirements for a certain type of position should be fully understood for better recruitment. The performance level required, the experience needed by the potential employee should ne properly be established. The organization should identify that the vacant post can be best filled by external recruitment or internal recruitment. Some organizations feel that employee referrals are very effective forms of recruitment source (Lisa Guerin, 2007). Vacancies are mostly properly advertised. Human resources personnel involved in recruitment should have proper training and experience so that they can judge the skills and parameters required for the job and determine if they are present in the candidate or not. Evaluation methods of candidates should be described (Linda L. Neider, 2003). The most popular evaluation methods are written tests, interviews, psychometric tests (Carter, 2004) or a combination of these. Things that affect the recruitment process are the organizations objectives and policies, the government policies and labor laws, the source of recruitment traditionally used by an organization, the current needs of the organization and the costs affiliated with the recruitment (Rouse, 2007) The recruitment challenges faced by organizations are that the labor in some countries has aged and the pension costs are becoming high. In the modern day the organizations invite employees from all around the world (Hook, 2008), to generate a larger candidate pool the organizations use modern sources like outsourcing. Organizations outsource their recruitment activities to another organization which screens candidates initially according to organizational requirements given to it so that its employer organization can select employees from its screened candidate pool (Ian Beardwell, 2007). The advantage of this is that even if the company is not planned for a vacancy it can forward its need to the outsourcing organization and get a desired employee in lesser amount of time. It also creates competitive advantage by speeding up the process of recruitment; it helps the management to stay focused on other things rather then the generation of a candidate pool. These organizations usually negotiate salaries on the behalf of their employers to save time and resources of its employers. Poaching and raiding is also another way of acquiring talent, in this the organizations attract and employee a person who is already an

How can cities become more sustainable Compare and contrast cities in Essay - 1

How can cities become more sustainable Compare and contrast cities in the developed world and cities in the developing world - Essay Example Most of these cities had less than one million population in the beginning of 19th century; that surpassed to more than 10 millions in subsequent periods causing great distress on resources of water, clean air, energy. Situation in some of the cities in developing countries such as Shanghai, Mumbai or Sao Paulo is different. The density of these urban centers is more than double of that seen in the London or New York. All these cities are growing at the rate of 2 to 6 percent per annum and likely to cause further stress on the resources and derail the ecosystem. If this continues, the sustainability of the cities is in jeopardy unless some new ways are found. Cities in the Developed World London, Paris, California, New York all have become the huge unrestrained consumption centers of cheap energy and profligate material supplies that has caused ecological imbalances in those countries. As mentioned by Rees, William (2009) in Scientific American in its March issue, â€Å"Politicians and planners have shaped cities with no regard for resource use or ecological concerns. Over the years building and infrastructure have consumed more than 40 percent of material and a third of energy.† He warns that all this must end. ... Rees is of the opinion that sprawling land areas for living increase the energy need by way of unnecessary transportation for work and shopping. Reliance on automobiles and cars should be reduced by providing path ways for cycling, and walking. Public transport system should be made efficient to avoid the use of personal vehicles. Recycling of used materials is a necessity and that should be done to lessen the use of fresh material so that natural resources can be conserved for a longer period of time. Cogeneration of electricity and waste heat recovery is need of a day to reduce per capita consumption of fresh energy. Energy efficiency and renewable energy are the good propositions but the big question is that city like San Francisco releases 78 percent of its greenhouse gases from the cars and transportation and only 17 percent from buildings and this is true for all major cities of North America. The solution essentially lies at using mass transit system and eliminating the use of personal vehicles as much as possible. Personal vehicle density in most of the US cities is so high that this is a single most cause of green house gases across all major US and cities of Europe. And solution lies in reducing or eliminating the use of these personal vehicles that can help reduce the green house emissions drastically and put the eco system in balance. Cities of Developing World In contrast to the cities of developed economies, there are cities of developing countries such as Sao Paulo, Shanghai, and Mumbai, where issues are, more than green house gases, inadequate availability of potable water, absence of proper sanitation facilities to slum dwellers, and cleanliness. More than one million people is said to have been living in slum area within

Critical Analysis of International Negotiation between Israel and Gaza Essay

Critical Analysis of International Negotiation between Israel and Gaza in 2008-2009 - Essay Example It has been reported that they Qassam rockets have been launched over Israel over three thousand times in 2008. However, principle leaders of Hamas have been enraged by the continuing blockades which Israel have maintained and the lack of any significant political movement made by the agreement from June to December, therefore increased the number of rockets launched over Israel yet again. In response Israel instigated a counter-attack against Hamas, with a combination of air attack and naval attack on the Gaza Strip, ending with more than three hundred and fifty people dead, almost fifteen hundred injured and many buildings ruined. In further retaliation, Hamas leader declared that they would increase the amount of rockets launched, and send into Israel more suicide bombers (Taylor, 2008). On the 27th December air attacks over the Gaza Stripe, initiated by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), found target with over forty hits on Hamas headquarters, buildings and stores. This was the dea dliest day in the sixty years that this war has been raging between Israel and Palestine. These events ignited protests in and around both these countries (Global Voices, 2008). Since the attack on 27th December by Hamas who broke the cease-fire by launching Qassam rockets over their territory, Israel have stated that they then had no alternative but to fight back by declaring hostilities on Gaza in retaliation. The Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, stated that they had attempted all they could in order to halt an offensive attack (Niva, 2009). Niva (2009) however, argues that these sentiments are extensively in opposition with the reality that Israel’s political, and also military leadership took several forceful moves throughout the cease-fire which made worse the crisis with Hamas, and may have even motivated Hamas to generate an excuse for the attack. Therefore, Niva (2009) believes that the current war that is now raging at the beginning of 2009, between

Customer Relationship Management in Banking

Customer Relationship Management in Banking ABSTRACT Today the world is globalized and customers are well educated and well informed. This has increased the competition among the firms and organisations. The competition elevates the customer bargaining power and switching power to choose the best product and service. Therefore customer relationship has become a focus of importance to all the companies in order to retain the customer as well as maximize revenues. Today marketing is no more developing, delivering and selling of goods and services, it is moving towards developing and maintaining long term relationship with customers. Therefore relationship marketing has making its important in all the business sectors so as in financial services. Customers Relationship Management creates the opportunity through which the banks can benefit by developing good relationships with their customers. The aim of the project is to gain a better understanding how the CRM has benefited both the bank as well as its customers. This research also aims to identify how critically CRM has been practiced in Lloyds Banking Group, analysis the data mining process of Lloyds Banking Group, to find out the customer segmentation procedure of the bank to analysis the customer retaining strategy of the bank, to find out how does the bank measure customer life time value and to verify the relationship between the customers and the Lloyds Banking Group. To validate the purpose of the project has addressed to set of questionnaires, one is for Lloyds Banking Groups employees and other is for customers of the bank. The literature review has also help to understand the answer for the research questions. Both the quantitative as well as qualitative data collection techniques have been adopted namely, survey questionnaire and semi-structure interviews. Some data has also collected through interview of Lloy ds employee and a group of their customers. Lloyds use CRM as an effective business strategy to classify the most profitable customers for bank. And accordingly bank gives priorities those customers through individualized marketing, reprising, flexible conclusion building and modify service-all delivered through a variety of sales channels that the bank use. Researcher has found that Lloyds is conducting a campaign management by using data mining task. This campaign helps to make crucial business decisions by exacting suitable, beforehand strange and ultimately logical and actionable awareness from huge databases. Researcher also has suggested suitable recommendations to the bank to improve the CRM practice in Lloyds Banking Group. 1.0 INTRODUCTION This chapter provides the brief introduction of research. Furthermore, it also discusses the aims, objectives of the research questions and scope of the study. 1.1 TOPIC OF THE RESEARCH Customer Relationship Management of Lloyds Banking Group PLC; A Critical Evaluation 1.2 INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH Peter Drucker said, â€Å"The purpose of a business is to create customers†. Customer Relationship Management can be the single strongest weapon we have as manage to ensure that customers become and remain loyal. Customer Relationship Management (CRM), is an vital division of modern business organization. CRM concern the relation between the organisations along with its consumers. Consumers are the means of support of any business in a universal business with thousands of workforce and a multi-billion earnings, or a single broker with a handful of standard consumers. CRM is the same in principle for both examples. Globalization and technology improvements have pushed companies into hard competition. In this new era organisations are targeting on managing customer relationships, mainly customer satisfaction, in order to maximize revenues (Constantinos 2003). Today, marketing is not just developing, delivering and selling; it is shifting towards developing and maintaining equally long term relationships with customers (Buttle, 1996). This new business values is called relationship marketing (RM), which has involved significant interest both from marketing academics and practitioners (Gronroos, 1994). The Greek philosopher, Epictetus said that â€Å"what concern me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are† (Szwarch, 2005, p.3). The concepts of consumer satisfaction were depending on the thinking of consumer. Research suggests that customer satisfaction, basic concept of relationship marketing, is important in achieving and retaining competitive advantage. Research studies have discovered that retaining current customers is much less expensive than attracting new customers (Desatnick, 1988; Stone et al., 1996; Bitran and Mondschein, 1997; Chattopadhyay, 2001; Massey et al., 2001). The best way to retain customers is to keep them satisfied, a number of studies have shown that customer satisfaction can guide to brand loyalty, repurchases intention and repeat sales (Day, 1984; Swan and Oliver, 1989; Oliver, 1999). Customer retention, in turn, seems to be related to profitability (Oliver, 1999). Relationship marketing is becoming significant in financial services (Zineldin, 1995). If a bank develops and sustains a solid relationship with its customers, its competitors cannot easily replace them and so this relationship provides for a continued competitive advantage (Gilbert, 2003). Moriarty et al. (1983) has suggested relationship concept in the banking sector which states that banks can increase their profits by maximising the profitability of the total customer relationship over time, instead of looking for to get more profit from any single transaction. Perrien et al. (1992) observed severe competitive pressures that forces financial institution to restructure their marketing strategies by developing into long-term relationship with customers. And banking industry purely related to financial services, which needs to create the trust among the people. This research is exploratory in nature and design. The data which is collected is going to be mostly primary data collected from the relevant persons within the bank. The data has gathered from the face to face interviews with the help of structured and semi-structured questionnaire with those persons. The above describe interviews has last 40 (fourty) to 45 (fourty five) minutes (approx). On the other hand the researcher has decided to collect primary data from random interviews of Lloyds Banking Groups customers. Sample size is around 200 customers and of structured questionnaire. But of course this research paper has relied on reviewing the various secondary data available from various researches such as books, magazines, website, previous research and publication etc. The collected data has been analysed by graphs, table and pi chart drawn from Microsoft excel. 1.3 AIM OF THE RESEARCH The aim of the research is to study why CRM is important in bank, how the CRM works in banks and also the effectiveness of Lloyds Banking Group in obtaining long term customer relationship, customer loyalty, and customer satisfaction by the use of CRM. And also suggest feasible recommendations to Lloyds Banking Group to increase the customer satisfaction and market share by the effective use of CRM. 1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH The followings are the objectives of this research; To study how critically practised in Lloyds Banking Group Analysis the data mining process of Lloyds Banking Group To find out how the bank segments their customers To analysis how the bank retaining their customers To find out how does the bank measure customer Life Time Value To verify the relationship between the customers and the Lloyds Banking Group 1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY The scope of the study and research work has limited to Lloyds Banking Group only. This chosen level of aspects has stayed at large in the study so that it can be studied well and analyzed thoroughly to get a deeper understanding. Trying to cover too much ground may lead to a very superficial and confused analysis and may involve long time duration to complete the project work or report. Therefore a specified and narrow down approach with Lloyds Banking Group and an evaluation of its success has comprised with the researchers scope of the study to avoid confused analysis and a weaker report. 1.6 OUTLINE OF THE SUBSEQUENT CHAPTERS Chapter 1; INTODUCTION This chapter provides the brief introduction of the research. Furthermore, it also discusses the aims, objectives of the research questions and scope of the learning. CHAPTER 2; LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter determines the theoretical issues relating to CRM which is relevant to the research. CHAPTER 3; METHODOLOGY This episode discusses about primary and secondary methods of research used by the researcher. CHAPTER 4; CONTEXT Chapter 4 deals with the information about Lloyds Banking Group. CHAPTER 5; FINDINGS This chapter deals with the result of primary data. CHAPTER 6; ANALYSIS Analysis part deals with findings in the context of literature review in chapter 2. CHAPTER 7; CONCLUSION This chapter includes the overall conclusion of the research. This chapter produce the conclusion compared and contrasted with the finding of the research and the literature review. It summarises the aims and key findings and acknowledges the limitation of the works. CHAPTER 8; RECOMMENDATIONS This chapter is the last chapter of the research. This chapter provide the recommendation for the managerial implication in the Lloyds Banking Group. At the end, chapter provide recommendation for the future research. CHAPTER 9; REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY This chapter includes a systematic list of books, web site and other works such as journal, magazine etc which have been used as secondary data or as reference in this research. CHAPTER 10; APPENDICES This chapter contain all questionnaires and some graphs, chart and tables which have been made on the basis of customer survey. 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter contains a review of literature relevant to the research. This literature review deals with, about CRM, the history and goals of an integrated banking CRM, the technological factor of CRM, the process cycle in banks, data warehouse technology, data mining process, how to analysis the data, customer segmentation process, communication strategies of bank to the customers etc. 2.1 CUSTOMER RELATIONSIP MANAGEMENT Existing research states that ‘relationships are the base to the successful development and edition of new business viewpoint, though business have taken care of relationships with their customers for many centuries (Gronroos, 1994). Sheth and Parvathiyar, (1995) said that relationships demand much more than mere transactions. Rather, they symbolize strategic and tactical issues based on a new philosophical move that geared in the direction of long-term organisation survival. According to Storbacka, (1994) relationship marketing got popular in 1990s but it has a long history under different names. In its starting, one-to-one marketing appeared in the mid 1990s, which transformed into Customer Relationship Management. Parvatiyar and Sheth gave a static definition of CRM. â€Å"Customer Relationship Management is widespread tactic and process of acquire, retaining and partnering with careful consumers to create better-quality value for the business and the consumer† (Parvatiyar and Sheth 2000, p.6) 2.2 THE HISTORY AND GOALS OF AN INTEGRATED BANKING CRM According to Puccinelli (1999) the financial services industry as entering a new era where personal attention is decreasing because the institutions are using technology to replace human contact in many application areas. Sherif, 2002 advocated that, now global changes brought new trends, directions and new ways of doing business, which also brought new challenges and opportunities to financial institutions. In order to complete with newly increasing competitive pressures, financial institutions must recognize the need of balancing their performance by achieving their strategic goals and meeting continues volatile customer needs requirements. Different ways must be analyzed to meet customer needs. Foss said that banks are highly focusing on CRM for the last five years that is expected to continue. According to Peter (1998) and Chablo (1999) the main goals of an effective integrated CRM solution in the banking sector are to enable financial institutes to; Widen customer relationship through acquiring new customers, identifying and targeting new segments and expanding in new markets. Lengthen the existing relationship developing longer term relationships, increasing perceived value of products and introducing new products and Deepen the relationship with customers initiating the cross selling and up selling opportunities, understanding the propensity of different customer segments to purchase and increase sales. The implementation if CRM system in a bank helps the business organisation to obtain a complete picture of their existing customers, design both customer-oriented and market-driven financial products and services, as well as implement extensive and reliable financial marketing research and efficient campaigns, to achieve and enhance customer loyalty and profitability. The above goals can be achieved through the seamless integration of information technology solutions and business objectives at every process of the bank business that affects the customer. 2.3 THE PHASES OF CRM The main phases of CRM are as follows; Customer selection or Segmentation According to Dave Chaffey (2009), customer selection is defining the types of customers that a company will market to. It means identifying different groups of customers for which to develop offerings and to target during acquisition, retention and extension. Different ways of segmenting customers by value and by their detailed lifecycle with the customer are reviewed. Many companies are now only proactively marketing to favoured customers. Seth Godin (1999), says â€Å"Focus on share of customer, not market share fire 70 per cent customers and watch your profits go up!† According to Efraim Turban (2008), the most sophisticated segmentation and targeting schemes for extension of customers are often used by banks, which have full customer information and acquire history data as they search for to boost Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) through encouraging increased use of products overtime. The segmentation approach used by banks is based on five main basics which in result are covered on top of each other. The amount of options used, and therefore the complexity of approach, will depend on resources obtainable, opportunities, capabilities and technology afforded by catalog. i. Identify customer lifecycle groups When guests use online services then they basically pass those seven or more stages. The organisations have clear these segments and establish the CRM infrastructure to categories customers in this manner; then they deliver focused messages, whichever by modified web messaging or by e-mails that are triggered routinely because of various rules. First-time guests recognized by a cookie placed on their PC. When guests registered, they are tracked through the residual stages. The customers who have purchased one or more products are one particular important group. The key challenge is for a company to encourage a customer to shift from the first product to the second and then go on. Explicit offers can be try to push customer for further products. In the same way, when customers turn into an inactive then the customer required follow-up. ii. Identify customer profit characteristics This is a conventional segmentation which is based on the nature of customer. For Business 2 Business Companies it includes sex, age and geography. It includes volume of the organisation and the type of sector or application, the organisation operates in. iii. Identify behaviour in response and purchase As shown in figure 2.2 through analysis of data base when customer progress through the lifecycle, company is capable to build up a detail reaction and buy history which judges the details of frequency, recency, group of product buy and monetary value. This approach is known as ‘RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary value) analysis. iv. Identify multi-channel behaviour In spite of of the eagerness of the company for online channels, various customers are chosen for using online channels and others customers are chosen conventional channels. This is an degree, be indicated by RFM and rejoinder examination since customers with a preference for an online channel is more reactive and make more use online. Customer who likes online channels is focused mostly by online communications such as e-mail, but when customer like conventional channels is focused by conventional communications such as direct mail or phone. This is known as ‘right-channelling. v. Tone and style preference In a same way to channel liking, customers are respond in their own way to various types of message. Some customers like rational application, in that time a detailed e-mail may work best. On the other hand some customers are preferred an emotional appeal. Companies are test for this in customers or conclude it using profit description and response performance and then expand various inventive treatments consequently. 2. Customer acquisition Processes used to add new customer. According to Turban (2008), customer acquisition refers to marketing activities intended to form relationship with new customers while reducing acquisition cost and targeting high-value customers. Service value and selecting the right path for various customers are essential at this stage and during the lifecycle. The conventional manner to customer acquisition include a marketing manager developing a blend of mass marketing (billboards, magazine advertisements etc.) and direct marketing (mail, telephone, etc.) campaigns based on their knowledge of the particular customer base that was being focussed. Marketing campaign trying to pressure new customers to buy a particular type of diapers, the mass marketing ads might be determined in parenting magazines. The advertisements could also be positioned in more conventional publications whose readership demographics were alike to those of new parents. Customer acquisition is comparatively similar to mass marketing. A marketing manager selects the demographics that they are involved in and after that works with a data vendor to obtain lists of buyers who meet those features. The data vendors have large database holding millions of eventual customers that can be segment based on explicit demographic criteria. The idea of â€Å"similar demographics† has conventionally been an art rather than a science. Usually there are not hard-and-fast systems about whether two groups of buyers share the similar features. Most of the segmentation that took place in conventional direct marketing involves hunches on the division of the marketing professional. 3. Customer retention Dafe Chaffey 2009 said that customer retention refers to the marketing actions taken by a company to keep its current customers. Identifying applicable offerings based on their personal needs and complete position in the customer lifecycle (e.g. purchase value or number) is key. Customer retention strategy aims to keep a high percentage of valuable customers and a customer development strategy aims to boost the value of those retained customer to the organisation. Customer retention is based on customer loyalty. And customer loyalty is the point to which a customer will continue with a specific brand or vendor. Customer acquisition to retain and extend create long-term customer relationship. We need to calculate customer satisfaction, as satisfaction drives loyalty and loyalty drives profitability. This relationship is exposed below; The marketers aim is to push customers up the curve towards the affection zone. But the majority are not in that zone. Marketers must understand to achieve retention,why customers defers or are indifferent. 4. Customer extension This technique is encouraging customers to increase their involvement with a company. According to Turban 2008, customer extension is increasing the range of products that a customer buys from an organisation. Sometime it is referred ‘customer development. Increasing the lifetime value (CLV) of a customer is the main objective of customer extension by encouraging cross-sell. For example a customer of Egg credit card may be offered the loan or a deposit account. There are many of customer extension technique for CRM as follows; Re-sell: same type of products to existing customers-particular vital in some Business 2 Business background as re-buys or modified re-buys. Cross-sell: sell extra products which may be closely related to the original buy. Up-sell: this is mean, selling more expensive products. Reactivation: Customers who have purchased for some time or have lapsed can be encouraged to buy again. Referrals: generating sells from recommendation from existing customers. 2.4 CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE MODELLING Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is also an important theory and practise of CRM. But the calculation of CLV is not straightforward. There are so many company, they do not calculate it. According to Dave Chaffey (2009) â€Å"Lifetime value is the total net benefits that a customer or group of customers will provide a company over their total relationship with the company†. CLV is based on estimating the income and costs related with each customer over a phase of time and then calculating the net present value in present monetary terms using a discount rate value applied over the stage. Efraim Turban (2006) said there is various scale of complexity in calculating LTC. Those are exposed in figure 2.6. Option 1 is a realistic way or estimated proxy for future LTV, but the true LTV is the future value of the customer at individual level. CLV modelling at a segment level 4 is crucial within marketing since it answers the question; How much can I afford to invest in acquiring a new customer? Lifetime value analysis helps marketers to: Create the true value of a companys customer base Recognize and compare crucial target segment Calculate the effectiveness of another customer retention strategy Plan and calculate investment in customer acquisition programmes Make decisions about product and offers Figure 2.7 gives an example of how LTV can be used to develop a CRM strategy for different customer groups. There are 4 (four) main types of customers are indicated by their present and future value as bronze, silver, gold and platinum. Separate customers groupings (circles) are recognized according to their current value (as indicated by current profitability) and future value as indicated by CLV calculation. Every group will have a customer segmentation based on their demographics. Therefore this is used for customer selection. Within the four main value groupings, there are various strategies are developed for various customer groups. Few bronze customers such as group A and B practically do not have development potential and are usually unprofitable, therefore the objective is to reduce costs in communications and if they do not stay as customers this is acceptable. Some bronze customers like group C may have potential for growth; therefore for group C the strategy is to extend their purchases. Silver customers are focused with customer extension offer and gold customers are extended. Platinum customers are the best customers; therefore the communication is very important with these customers. 2.5 THE TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS OF CRM According to Davenport and Short, (1990); Porter, (1987) ‘information technology is an enabler to thoroughly redesign business process to achieve improvements in organisational performance. ‘Information Technology help helps a business process by facilitating changes to job practices and establishing new techniques to link a customer with organisations, suppliers and stakeholders (Hammer and Champy, 1993). Eckerson and Watson (2000) advocated that ‘CRM take full advantage of technology to collect and analyze data on customer patters, expand predictive models, interpret customer behaviour, proper respond with communications, and deliver product and service to individual customers. By using technology a business can generate a 360 degree view of consumers to find out from past interactions to optimize future ones. Peppard (2000) said that ‘the leading factors in CRM development are improvement in set of connections communications, client/server compute, and business cleverness application. CRM collect, store, maintain and distribute customer knowledge all over the organisation. The effectual management of information has a vital role to play in CRM. In the case of scheming customer duration importance, consolidated view, product tailoring and facility improvement, the information is essential. Along with data warehouses, enterprise resource planning (ERP) organization and the internet are the vital infrastructures to CRM application. Fickel (1999) said ‘CRM application links front office (e.g. marketing, sales and customer service) and back office (e.g. financial, logistics, operations and human resources) functions with the businesses customer contact point. A companys touch point is â€Å"all of the communication, human and physical interactions your customers experience during their relationship lifecycle with your organisation. Whether an commercial, Web-site, sales individual, store or office, finger points are vital because customers from perceptions of your organisation and brand based on their cumulative experiences† (Source; http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/4508.imc at 16/10/2009 on 15:25) According to Eckerson and Watson (2000), ‘CRM integrated touch points is something like a common view of the customer. A separate information systems controlled these touch points. Figure 2.8 demonstrates the correlation between customer touch point with back and front office operations Peppers and Rogres, (1999) said ‘In many companies, CRM is just a technology solution that extends divide databases and sales force automation tools to link sales and marketing functions in order to develop targeting efforts. On the other hand some organisations consider CRM as a tool that is exclusively designed for one-to-one relationship. According to Goldenberg (2000) ‘CRM is not just a tools application for sales, marketing and service, but when CRM completely and successfully implemented, customer-driven, a cross-functional, technology-integrated commerce process management scheme that improves relationships and encompasses the whole organisation. 2.6 DATA WAREHOUSE TECHNOLOGY According to Watson (2000) ‘data warehouse is a tools of information technology management that helps business decision makers to instant access of information of customer data throughout the organisation by combining all database and operational systems like sales and transaction, human resource, inventory, purchasing, financial and marketing system. Data warehouse pull out, clean, convert and manage large volumes of data from various systems and creating a historical record of all customer. Data warehousing technology is the most crucial part of CRM because it makes CRM possible. Shepard et al. (1998) said ‘a better understanding of customer behaviour is possible because data warehousing technology consolidates correlates and convert customer data into customer intelligence. Thoughts of customers and their buying pattern can improve information relating to customer service interactions, bill and account status, back orders, product returns, product delivery, and internal operating cost. The capacity of a data storehouse to store hundreds and thousands of gigabytes of data compose an analysis feasible as well as immediate. Organisational benefits with a data warehouse are as follows; exact and faster access of information bad and duplicate data eliminate by quality data and filtering customer profiling and retention modelling it compute total present importance and approximate future value of every customer it gives detail report 2.7 DATA MINING TECHNOLOGY Peppers and Rogres, (1999) said that ‘the first analytical step of data mining is to describe the data. Data mining summarize its statistical attributes like standard deviations and means, visually review it by use of charts and graphs and distributes the value of the field in our data. But alone data description can not provide an action plan. We have to build a analytical model based on pattern determined from known output and after that we have to test the model on result outside the original sample. An ideal model must never be puzzled with reality, but it is useful guide to understanding our businesses. According to Eckerson and Watson (2000) ‘we can use data mining for both classification and regression problems. In first problem we can predict what type something will fall into. In second problems we are predicting a number like prospect that a person will react to an recommend. In CRM process, data mining is often used to allocate a score to a particular customer. Data mining is also often using to recognize a set of characteristics, which is called profile. Data mining segments customers in to groups with similar behaviour like purchasing a particular product. 2.8 THE CRM PROCESS CYCLE IN BANKS Pound (2000) said that exploration and alteration process should be done by the banks on basis of customer information captured; this shows the full value of CRM initiatives. Banks set up a closed CRM cycle with the help of an integrated CRM solution, which composed of a set of continuous iterative process. It manages the whole customer related process for bank, analysing customer profile, customer data and life time value, which is helping to making marketing decision and optimizing the execution of marketing campaigns, customer service strategies and sales strategies across various channels during the bank. According to Professor Constantin Zopounidis (2002) CRM process cycle is based on a generic business view. It presents a continuous improvement of value between customers and banks across touch points. Pound 2000 said that ‘recent banking data sources are extremely heterogeneous. Geographic information is dispersed due to continual acquisitions, mergers and reorganizations. For example a bank might use web site, ATMs, e-mail, sales, call centres and marketing automation applications that must be integrated in a unified environment of CRM banking. An effective multi-channels customer interface will not be possible without a centrally integrated warehouse driving the entire CRM process cycle. This should be update real time. The historical data should be recorded by it, which is used to create propensity models and customer life time value models to recognize past behaviour and action in order to take future marketing strategy. 2.9 CUSTOMER DATA COLLECTION Kristin Anderson Carol Kerr (2002), said that in banki Customer Relationship Management in Banking Customer Relationship Management in Banking ABSTRACT Today the world is globalized and customers are well educated and well informed. This has increased the competition among the firms and organisations. The competition elevates the customer bargaining power and switching power to choose the best product and service. Therefore customer relationship has become a focus of importance to all the companies in order to retain the customer as well as maximize revenues. Today marketing is no more developing, delivering and selling of goods and services, it is moving towards developing and maintaining long term relationship with customers. Therefore relationship marketing has making its important in all the business sectors so as in financial services. Customers Relationship Management creates the opportunity through which the banks can benefit by developing good relationships with their customers. The aim of the project is to gain a better understanding how the CRM has benefited both the bank as well as its customers. This research also aims to identify how critically CRM has been practiced in Lloyds Banking Group, analysis the data mining process of Lloyds Banking Group, to find out the customer segmentation procedure of the bank to analysis the customer retaining strategy of the bank, to find out how does the bank measure customer life time value and to verify the relationship between the customers and the Lloyds Banking Group. To validate the purpose of the project has addressed to set of questionnaires, one is for Lloyds Banking Groups employees and other is for customers of the bank. The literature review has also help to understand the answer for the research questions. Both the quantitative as well as qualitative data collection techniques have been adopted namely, survey questionnaire and semi-structure interviews. Some data has also collected through interview of Lloy ds employee and a group of their customers. Lloyds use CRM as an effective business strategy to classify the most profitable customers for bank. And accordingly bank gives priorities those customers through individualized marketing, reprising, flexible conclusion building and modify service-all delivered through a variety of sales channels that the bank use. Researcher has found that Lloyds is conducting a campaign management by using data mining task. This campaign helps to make crucial business decisions by exacting suitable, beforehand strange and ultimately logical and actionable awareness from huge databases. Researcher also has suggested suitable recommendations to the bank to improve the CRM practice in Lloyds Banking Group. 1.0 INTRODUCTION This chapter provides the brief introduction of research. Furthermore, it also discusses the aims, objectives of the research questions and scope of the study. 1.1 TOPIC OF THE RESEARCH Customer Relationship Management of Lloyds Banking Group PLC; A Critical Evaluation 1.2 INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH Peter Drucker said, â€Å"The purpose of a business is to create customers†. Customer Relationship Management can be the single strongest weapon we have as manage to ensure that customers become and remain loyal. Customer Relationship Management (CRM), is an vital division of modern business organization. CRM concern the relation between the organisations along with its consumers. Consumers are the means of support of any business in a universal business with thousands of workforce and a multi-billion earnings, or a single broker with a handful of standard consumers. CRM is the same in principle for both examples. Globalization and technology improvements have pushed companies into hard competition. In this new era organisations are targeting on managing customer relationships, mainly customer satisfaction, in order to maximize revenues (Constantinos 2003). Today, marketing is not just developing, delivering and selling; it is shifting towards developing and maintaining equally long term relationships with customers (Buttle, 1996). This new business values is called relationship marketing (RM), which has involved significant interest both from marketing academics and practitioners (Gronroos, 1994). The Greek philosopher, Epictetus said that â€Å"what concern me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are† (Szwarch, 2005, p.3). The concepts of consumer satisfaction were depending on the thinking of consumer. Research suggests that customer satisfaction, basic concept of relationship marketing, is important in achieving and retaining competitive advantage. Research studies have discovered that retaining current customers is much less expensive than attracting new customers (Desatnick, 1988; Stone et al., 1996; Bitran and Mondschein, 1997; Chattopadhyay, 2001; Massey et al., 2001). The best way to retain customers is to keep them satisfied, a number of studies have shown that customer satisfaction can guide to brand loyalty, repurchases intention and repeat sales (Day, 1984; Swan and Oliver, 1989; Oliver, 1999). Customer retention, in turn, seems to be related to profitability (Oliver, 1999). Relationship marketing is becoming significant in financial services (Zineldin, 1995). If a bank develops and sustains a solid relationship with its customers, its competitors cannot easily replace them and so this relationship provides for a continued competitive advantage (Gilbert, 2003). Moriarty et al. (1983) has suggested relationship concept in the banking sector which states that banks can increase their profits by maximising the profitability of the total customer relationship over time, instead of looking for to get more profit from any single transaction. Perrien et al. (1992) observed severe competitive pressures that forces financial institution to restructure their marketing strategies by developing into long-term relationship with customers. And banking industry purely related to financial services, which needs to create the trust among the people. This research is exploratory in nature and design. The data which is collected is going to be mostly primary data collected from the relevant persons within the bank. The data has gathered from the face to face interviews with the help of structured and semi-structured questionnaire with those persons. The above describe interviews has last 40 (fourty) to 45 (fourty five) minutes (approx). On the other hand the researcher has decided to collect primary data from random interviews of Lloyds Banking Groups customers. Sample size is around 200 customers and of structured questionnaire. But of course this research paper has relied on reviewing the various secondary data available from various researches such as books, magazines, website, previous research and publication etc. The collected data has been analysed by graphs, table and pi chart drawn from Microsoft excel. 1.3 AIM OF THE RESEARCH The aim of the research is to study why CRM is important in bank, how the CRM works in banks and also the effectiveness of Lloyds Banking Group in obtaining long term customer relationship, customer loyalty, and customer satisfaction by the use of CRM. And also suggest feasible recommendations to Lloyds Banking Group to increase the customer satisfaction and market share by the effective use of CRM. 1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH The followings are the objectives of this research; To study how critically practised in Lloyds Banking Group Analysis the data mining process of Lloyds Banking Group To find out how the bank segments their customers To analysis how the bank retaining their customers To find out how does the bank measure customer Life Time Value To verify the relationship between the customers and the Lloyds Banking Group 1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY The scope of the study and research work has limited to Lloyds Banking Group only. This chosen level of aspects has stayed at large in the study so that it can be studied well and analyzed thoroughly to get a deeper understanding. Trying to cover too much ground may lead to a very superficial and confused analysis and may involve long time duration to complete the project work or report. Therefore a specified and narrow down approach with Lloyds Banking Group and an evaluation of its success has comprised with the researchers scope of the study to avoid confused analysis and a weaker report. 1.6 OUTLINE OF THE SUBSEQUENT CHAPTERS Chapter 1; INTODUCTION This chapter provides the brief introduction of the research. Furthermore, it also discusses the aims, objectives of the research questions and scope of the learning. CHAPTER 2; LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter determines the theoretical issues relating to CRM which is relevant to the research. CHAPTER 3; METHODOLOGY This episode discusses about primary and secondary methods of research used by the researcher. CHAPTER 4; CONTEXT Chapter 4 deals with the information about Lloyds Banking Group. CHAPTER 5; FINDINGS This chapter deals with the result of primary data. CHAPTER 6; ANALYSIS Analysis part deals with findings in the context of literature review in chapter 2. CHAPTER 7; CONCLUSION This chapter includes the overall conclusion of the research. This chapter produce the conclusion compared and contrasted with the finding of the research and the literature review. It summarises the aims and key findings and acknowledges the limitation of the works. CHAPTER 8; RECOMMENDATIONS This chapter is the last chapter of the research. This chapter provide the recommendation for the managerial implication in the Lloyds Banking Group. At the end, chapter provide recommendation for the future research. CHAPTER 9; REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY This chapter includes a systematic list of books, web site and other works such as journal, magazine etc which have been used as secondary data or as reference in this research. CHAPTER 10; APPENDICES This chapter contain all questionnaires and some graphs, chart and tables which have been made on the basis of customer survey. 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter contains a review of literature relevant to the research. This literature review deals with, about CRM, the history and goals of an integrated banking CRM, the technological factor of CRM, the process cycle in banks, data warehouse technology, data mining process, how to analysis the data, customer segmentation process, communication strategies of bank to the customers etc. 2.1 CUSTOMER RELATIONSIP MANAGEMENT Existing research states that ‘relationships are the base to the successful development and edition of new business viewpoint, though business have taken care of relationships with their customers for many centuries (Gronroos, 1994). Sheth and Parvathiyar, (1995) said that relationships demand much more than mere transactions. Rather, they symbolize strategic and tactical issues based on a new philosophical move that geared in the direction of long-term organisation survival. According to Storbacka, (1994) relationship marketing got popular in 1990s but it has a long history under different names. In its starting, one-to-one marketing appeared in the mid 1990s, which transformed into Customer Relationship Management. Parvatiyar and Sheth gave a static definition of CRM. â€Å"Customer Relationship Management is widespread tactic and process of acquire, retaining and partnering with careful consumers to create better-quality value for the business and the consumer† (Parvatiyar and Sheth 2000, p.6) 2.2 THE HISTORY AND GOALS OF AN INTEGRATED BANKING CRM According to Puccinelli (1999) the financial services industry as entering a new era where personal attention is decreasing because the institutions are using technology to replace human contact in many application areas. Sherif, 2002 advocated that, now global changes brought new trends, directions and new ways of doing business, which also brought new challenges and opportunities to financial institutions. In order to complete with newly increasing competitive pressures, financial institutions must recognize the need of balancing their performance by achieving their strategic goals and meeting continues volatile customer needs requirements. Different ways must be analyzed to meet customer needs. Foss said that banks are highly focusing on CRM for the last five years that is expected to continue. According to Peter (1998) and Chablo (1999) the main goals of an effective integrated CRM solution in the banking sector are to enable financial institutes to; Widen customer relationship through acquiring new customers, identifying and targeting new segments and expanding in new markets. Lengthen the existing relationship developing longer term relationships, increasing perceived value of products and introducing new products and Deepen the relationship with customers initiating the cross selling and up selling opportunities, understanding the propensity of different customer segments to purchase and increase sales. The implementation if CRM system in a bank helps the business organisation to obtain a complete picture of their existing customers, design both customer-oriented and market-driven financial products and services, as well as implement extensive and reliable financial marketing research and efficient campaigns, to achieve and enhance customer loyalty and profitability. The above goals can be achieved through the seamless integration of information technology solutions and business objectives at every process of the bank business that affects the customer. 2.3 THE PHASES OF CRM The main phases of CRM are as follows; Customer selection or Segmentation According to Dave Chaffey (2009), customer selection is defining the types of customers that a company will market to. It means identifying different groups of customers for which to develop offerings and to target during acquisition, retention and extension. Different ways of segmenting customers by value and by their detailed lifecycle with the customer are reviewed. Many companies are now only proactively marketing to favoured customers. Seth Godin (1999), says â€Å"Focus on share of customer, not market share fire 70 per cent customers and watch your profits go up!† According to Efraim Turban (2008), the most sophisticated segmentation and targeting schemes for extension of customers are often used by banks, which have full customer information and acquire history data as they search for to boost Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) through encouraging increased use of products overtime. The segmentation approach used by banks is based on five main basics which in result are covered on top of each other. The amount of options used, and therefore the complexity of approach, will depend on resources obtainable, opportunities, capabilities and technology afforded by catalog. i. Identify customer lifecycle groups When guests use online services then they basically pass those seven or more stages. The organisations have clear these segments and establish the CRM infrastructure to categories customers in this manner; then they deliver focused messages, whichever by modified web messaging or by e-mails that are triggered routinely because of various rules. First-time guests recognized by a cookie placed on their PC. When guests registered, they are tracked through the residual stages. The customers who have purchased one or more products are one particular important group. The key challenge is for a company to encourage a customer to shift from the first product to the second and then go on. Explicit offers can be try to push customer for further products. In the same way, when customers turn into an inactive then the customer required follow-up. ii. Identify customer profit characteristics This is a conventional segmentation which is based on the nature of customer. For Business 2 Business Companies it includes sex, age and geography. It includes volume of the organisation and the type of sector or application, the organisation operates in. iii. Identify behaviour in response and purchase As shown in figure 2.2 through analysis of data base when customer progress through the lifecycle, company is capable to build up a detail reaction and buy history which judges the details of frequency, recency, group of product buy and monetary value. This approach is known as ‘RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary value) analysis. iv. Identify multi-channel behaviour In spite of of the eagerness of the company for online channels, various customers are chosen for using online channels and others customers are chosen conventional channels. This is an degree, be indicated by RFM and rejoinder examination since customers with a preference for an online channel is more reactive and make more use online. Customer who likes online channels is focused mostly by online communications such as e-mail, but when customer like conventional channels is focused by conventional communications such as direct mail or phone. This is known as ‘right-channelling. v. Tone and style preference In a same way to channel liking, customers are respond in their own way to various types of message. Some customers like rational application, in that time a detailed e-mail may work best. On the other hand some customers are preferred an emotional appeal. Companies are test for this in customers or conclude it using profit description and response performance and then expand various inventive treatments consequently. 2. Customer acquisition Processes used to add new customer. According to Turban (2008), customer acquisition refers to marketing activities intended to form relationship with new customers while reducing acquisition cost and targeting high-value customers. Service value and selecting the right path for various customers are essential at this stage and during the lifecycle. The conventional manner to customer acquisition include a marketing manager developing a blend of mass marketing (billboards, magazine advertisements etc.) and direct marketing (mail, telephone, etc.) campaigns based on their knowledge of the particular customer base that was being focussed. Marketing campaign trying to pressure new customers to buy a particular type of diapers, the mass marketing ads might be determined in parenting magazines. The advertisements could also be positioned in more conventional publications whose readership demographics were alike to those of new parents. Customer acquisition is comparatively similar to mass marketing. A marketing manager selects the demographics that they are involved in and after that works with a data vendor to obtain lists of buyers who meet those features. The data vendors have large database holding millions of eventual customers that can be segment based on explicit demographic criteria. The idea of â€Å"similar demographics† has conventionally been an art rather than a science. Usually there are not hard-and-fast systems about whether two groups of buyers share the similar features. Most of the segmentation that took place in conventional direct marketing involves hunches on the division of the marketing professional. 3. Customer retention Dafe Chaffey 2009 said that customer retention refers to the marketing actions taken by a company to keep its current customers. Identifying applicable offerings based on their personal needs and complete position in the customer lifecycle (e.g. purchase value or number) is key. Customer retention strategy aims to keep a high percentage of valuable customers and a customer development strategy aims to boost the value of those retained customer to the organisation. Customer retention is based on customer loyalty. And customer loyalty is the point to which a customer will continue with a specific brand or vendor. Customer acquisition to retain and extend create long-term customer relationship. We need to calculate customer satisfaction, as satisfaction drives loyalty and loyalty drives profitability. This relationship is exposed below; The marketers aim is to push customers up the curve towards the affection zone. But the majority are not in that zone. Marketers must understand to achieve retention,why customers defers or are indifferent. 4. Customer extension This technique is encouraging customers to increase their involvement with a company. According to Turban 2008, customer extension is increasing the range of products that a customer buys from an organisation. Sometime it is referred ‘customer development. Increasing the lifetime value (CLV) of a customer is the main objective of customer extension by encouraging cross-sell. For example a customer of Egg credit card may be offered the loan or a deposit account. There are many of customer extension technique for CRM as follows; Re-sell: same type of products to existing customers-particular vital in some Business 2 Business background as re-buys or modified re-buys. Cross-sell: sell extra products which may be closely related to the original buy. Up-sell: this is mean, selling more expensive products. Reactivation: Customers who have purchased for some time or have lapsed can be encouraged to buy again. Referrals: generating sells from recommendation from existing customers. 2.4 CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE MODELLING Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is also an important theory and practise of CRM. But the calculation of CLV is not straightforward. There are so many company, they do not calculate it. According to Dave Chaffey (2009) â€Å"Lifetime value is the total net benefits that a customer or group of customers will provide a company over their total relationship with the company†. CLV is based on estimating the income and costs related with each customer over a phase of time and then calculating the net present value in present monetary terms using a discount rate value applied over the stage. Efraim Turban (2006) said there is various scale of complexity in calculating LTC. Those are exposed in figure 2.6. Option 1 is a realistic way or estimated proxy for future LTV, but the true LTV is the future value of the customer at individual level. CLV modelling at a segment level 4 is crucial within marketing since it answers the question; How much can I afford to invest in acquiring a new customer? Lifetime value analysis helps marketers to: Create the true value of a companys customer base Recognize and compare crucial target segment Calculate the effectiveness of another customer retention strategy Plan and calculate investment in customer acquisition programmes Make decisions about product and offers Figure 2.7 gives an example of how LTV can be used to develop a CRM strategy for different customer groups. There are 4 (four) main types of customers are indicated by their present and future value as bronze, silver, gold and platinum. Separate customers groupings (circles) are recognized according to their current value (as indicated by current profitability) and future value as indicated by CLV calculation. Every group will have a customer segmentation based on their demographics. Therefore this is used for customer selection. Within the four main value groupings, there are various strategies are developed for various customer groups. Few bronze customers such as group A and B practically do not have development potential and are usually unprofitable, therefore the objective is to reduce costs in communications and if they do not stay as customers this is acceptable. Some bronze customers like group C may have potential for growth; therefore for group C the strategy is to extend their purchases. Silver customers are focused with customer extension offer and gold customers are extended. Platinum customers are the best customers; therefore the communication is very important with these customers. 2.5 THE TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS OF CRM According to Davenport and Short, (1990); Porter, (1987) ‘information technology is an enabler to thoroughly redesign business process to achieve improvements in organisational performance. ‘Information Technology help helps a business process by facilitating changes to job practices and establishing new techniques to link a customer with organisations, suppliers and stakeholders (Hammer and Champy, 1993). Eckerson and Watson (2000) advocated that ‘CRM take full advantage of technology to collect and analyze data on customer patters, expand predictive models, interpret customer behaviour, proper respond with communications, and deliver product and service to individual customers. By using technology a business can generate a 360 degree view of consumers to find out from past interactions to optimize future ones. Peppard (2000) said that ‘the leading factors in CRM development are improvement in set of connections communications, client/server compute, and business cleverness application. CRM collect, store, maintain and distribute customer knowledge all over the organisation. The effectual management of information has a vital role to play in CRM. In the case of scheming customer duration importance, consolidated view, product tailoring and facility improvement, the information is essential. Along with data warehouses, enterprise resource planning (ERP) organization and the internet are the vital infrastructures to CRM application. Fickel (1999) said ‘CRM application links front office (e.g. marketing, sales and customer service) and back office (e.g. financial, logistics, operations and human resources) functions with the businesses customer contact point. A companys touch point is â€Å"all of the communication, human and physical interactions your customers experience during their relationship lifecycle with your organisation. Whether an commercial, Web-site, sales individual, store or office, finger points are vital because customers from perceptions of your organisation and brand based on their cumulative experiences† (Source; http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/4508.imc at 16/10/2009 on 15:25) According to Eckerson and Watson (2000), ‘CRM integrated touch points is something like a common view of the customer. A separate information systems controlled these touch points. Figure 2.8 demonstrates the correlation between customer touch point with back and front office operations Peppers and Rogres, (1999) said ‘In many companies, CRM is just a technology solution that extends divide databases and sales force automation tools to link sales and marketing functions in order to develop targeting efforts. On the other hand some organisations consider CRM as a tool that is exclusively designed for one-to-one relationship. According to Goldenberg (2000) ‘CRM is not just a tools application for sales, marketing and service, but when CRM completely and successfully implemented, customer-driven, a cross-functional, technology-integrated commerce process management scheme that improves relationships and encompasses the whole organisation. 2.6 DATA WAREHOUSE TECHNOLOGY According to Watson (2000) ‘data warehouse is a tools of information technology management that helps business decision makers to instant access of information of customer data throughout the organisation by combining all database and operational systems like sales and transaction, human resource, inventory, purchasing, financial and marketing system. Data warehouse pull out, clean, convert and manage large volumes of data from various systems and creating a historical record of all customer. Data warehousing technology is the most crucial part of CRM because it makes CRM possible. Shepard et al. (1998) said ‘a better understanding of customer behaviour is possible because data warehousing technology consolidates correlates and convert customer data into customer intelligence. Thoughts of customers and their buying pattern can improve information relating to customer service interactions, bill and account status, back orders, product returns, product delivery, and internal operating cost. The capacity of a data storehouse to store hundreds and thousands of gigabytes of data compose an analysis feasible as well as immediate. Organisational benefits with a data warehouse are as follows; exact and faster access of information bad and duplicate data eliminate by quality data and filtering customer profiling and retention modelling it compute total present importance and approximate future value of every customer it gives detail report 2.7 DATA MINING TECHNOLOGY Peppers and Rogres, (1999) said that ‘the first analytical step of data mining is to describe the data. Data mining summarize its statistical attributes like standard deviations and means, visually review it by use of charts and graphs and distributes the value of the field in our data. But alone data description can not provide an action plan. We have to build a analytical model based on pattern determined from known output and after that we have to test the model on result outside the original sample. An ideal model must never be puzzled with reality, but it is useful guide to understanding our businesses. According to Eckerson and Watson (2000) ‘we can use data mining for both classification and regression problems. In first problem we can predict what type something will fall into. In second problems we are predicting a number like prospect that a person will react to an recommend. In CRM process, data mining is often used to allocate a score to a particular customer. Data mining is also often using to recognize a set of characteristics, which is called profile. Data mining segments customers in to groups with similar behaviour like purchasing a particular product. 2.8 THE CRM PROCESS CYCLE IN BANKS Pound (2000) said that exploration and alteration process should be done by the banks on basis of customer information captured; this shows the full value of CRM initiatives. Banks set up a closed CRM cycle with the help of an integrated CRM solution, which composed of a set of continuous iterative process. It manages the whole customer related process for bank, analysing customer profile, customer data and life time value, which is helping to making marketing decision and optimizing the execution of marketing campaigns, customer service strategies and sales strategies across various channels during the bank. According to Professor Constantin Zopounidis (2002) CRM process cycle is based on a generic business view. It presents a continuous improvement of value between customers and banks across touch points. Pound 2000 said that ‘recent banking data sources are extremely heterogeneous. Geographic information is dispersed due to continual acquisitions, mergers and reorganizations. For example a bank might use web site, ATMs, e-mail, sales, call centres and marketing automation applications that must be integrated in a unified environment of CRM banking. An effective multi-channels customer interface will not be possible without a centrally integrated warehouse driving the entire CRM process cycle. This should be update real time. The historical data should be recorded by it, which is used to create propensity models and customer life time value models to recognize past behaviour and action in order to take future marketing strategy. 2.9 CUSTOMER DATA COLLECTION Kristin Anderson Carol Kerr (2002), said that in banki