Ford Motors and Its Leadership Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Ford Motors and Its Leadership - Term Paper Example The term paper "Ford Motors and Its Leadership" talks about the productive efficiency that makes an organization successful and also the leadership style that directs the organization towards a unified organization goal. Henry Ford introduced a structure whereby employees and workers were only responsible for the tasks in their job description and the decision making was highly centralized: only the top management could do that. Though Ford’s production line was perfect, it only made sales in the USA and Canada in1999. Jacques Nasser, Ford’s CEO in 1999 believed that there was an urgent need to relax the rigid and slow structure and he recommended ‘nimble leaders at all levels’, in order to speed up decision making. Only when lower level employees were allowed to make decisions, they could feel confident and trusted. This improves efficiency and performance of the overall workforce. Ford’s present ideology is that to start a revolution, one has to train revolutionaries. This was not the case back in 1999. To develop leaders, Ford sent around 2500 of its managers to Leadership Development Center. These programs were not only aimed at defining good leaders but they also taught the skills and strategies to become good leaders. At Ford’s New Business Leader Program, Janine Bay retorted: "How many of you feel comfortable being here? About half. Okay. Well, I hope to change that this week. I want all of you to be uncomfortable. Because if you're comfortable, you can't re ally be a revolutionary, can you?" (Hammonds, 2000). Only when managers work outside their comfort zones, they can learn different new tasks and bring about innovations and revolutions. Leadership at grass root level made Ford a more nimble entity. It instills risk taking ability at lower levels of the hierarchy. If employees at grass root wait for instructions from the top management, there can be hold ups in the whole production process. Ford encourages leaders to be teachers because it makes them stronger and insightful leaders. Teaching transforms managers into leaders who can strike a balance between work and family (Hammonds, 2000). In 2009, General Motors and Chrysler filed for bankruptcy and agreed to government bailout. The year 2008 was the worst period for Ford as it incurred a loss of $14.6 billion in sales. It had made $24 billion which was less than the $25.8 billion debt. In spite of this blow, Ford turned down government help because it wanted to save it for times wh en the economy worsened to the greatest extent. Ford also experienced declining sales the following year: and its sales in February 2009 were 48% lower than its sales in February of 2008. But Fords did not follow the footsteps of General Motors or Chrysler. The crisis that it faced did not shake its integrity as an organization. It stood strong in times of economic trouble and refused government loans in order to bounce back. The reason why Ford survived even after refusing a government bailout was that in 2007, Ford had raised $23.6 billion by getting loans against its North American assets (that served as collateral). The idea as per the then chief executive Alan R. Mulally was that this loaned money will protect Ford’s in times of recession. Unlike Chrysler and General Motors, Ford’s was protected in recession by this loaned money. Planning for contingencies by its top management gave Ford the security and stability it needed in recessionary period. In 2009, Ford tu rned out to be the only automaker survivor, when most automakers filed for bankrup

Introduction To The Vietnam War History Essay

Introduction To The Vietnam War History Essay The Vietnam War remains today to be one of the most memorable and long-standing conflicts in recent history in which the US involvement has played a huge role. This paper shall discuss and highlight certain points in the course of the development of the Vietnam War, from its beginnings and up to the present-day implications that it has brought about in the political life of the country and the balance of powers in the international community. The researcher has also chosen to include visual images of the devastation and the ramifications of this dispute in order to further underscore the fact that even if the Vietnam War happened more than half a century ago, the effects of this conflict live on today and has in fact brought attention to the consequences of a states intervention in the domestic (especially political) affairs of another. The Vietnam War was, as we shall see throughout this paper, caused not by any one factor that was escalated to the level of an international dispute. The fact of the matter is that the war was caused by a number of factors that have come together to push the issue into the arena of international politics and therefore warrant the attention and subsequent intervention of other states. However, one thing remains clear: the Vietnam War was primarily a consequence of the US anti-Communist foreign policy in the 1960s. This in itself merits scholarly interest in the involvement of the US government in the war, and a look into the real reasons why the US chose to engage itself in the local political conflicts of this country to the extent that it did. Years of bitter guerrilla warfare in the rugged jungles and villages of Vietnam eventually resulted in a North Vietnamese victory and the reunification of Vietnam.   Hundreds of thousands of people, American and Vietnamese alike died in the war, and the country today still struggles to re-establish itself after the damages on its economy, land, and people the war caused. The researcher has employed systematic review methodology for searching online academic journals and electronic databases for relevant literature on the subject as well as graphics and photographs. It is the primary tool for determining how far US involvement in the war went and the different courses of action that it had undertaken to support its advocacy. Systematic review methodology is more typically applied to the primary data on health care technologies such as drugs, devices and surgical interventions (Green and Moehr, 2001, p.315). But there is a growing tendency to apply this kind of review methodology to other topics such as policy-making and social research. The Cochrane Collaboration has taken the lead in this type of application, which consists of a regularly updated collection of evidence-based medicine databases. Systematic review methodology allows the researcher to have a wider look at the question at hand by looking at the various perspectives offered by previous research, and then synthesizing them to come up with a coherent answer as to the what, how, why and so what of the topic. However, care should be made in choosing the right electronic sources that can offer us with the most number of relevant researches, as well as in establishing the key words that will be used exhaustively for turning up previous findings on the topic. For the purpose of this paper, several key words were used to search Google, Questia and other suitable online sources for information on the development of the Vietnam War and the role of the US government in it. The keywords used for the research are US involvement in Vietnam War, development of Vietnam War, US anti-Communist policy in the 1960s and US and Vietnam War. Other formulations of the main research topic yielded the same results and so only these three major key phrases were considered for the review of related literature. Body of the paper This paper shall look into five main points of the war, but these are not by far the only important topics or questions that the conflict has raised for the US, for Vietnam and for the international community at large. Specifically, the researcher shall focus on the following: 1. The reason why the US entered into the Vietnam War 2. The beginning of US intervention in the war 3. The US anti-communist policy in the 1960s 4. The war at home 5. The long term ramifications of the war The US governments role in the war Vietnam was split into two in 1954, as part of the Geneva accords in order to pacify the different stakeholder nations who were nervous to begin another large-scale conflict after Korea (Vassar College, n.d.). It had a communist government in the north and a democratic south which were due to be reunified after a national election was held.   A series of events led up to a full scale war between the two countries which included not only the Vietnamese, but people from America, Australia, and other nations.    The Americans supported the widely unpopular southern regime, and although in the beginning they attempted to keep their involvement limited, they sent millions of soldiers to war in Vietnam to prevent the spread of Communism. The US was unwilling to make any major commitments in the war, but it soon became apparent that the French troops needed help battling an enemy who was willing to willing to absorb tremendous losses in terms of manpower in order to protract the war while waiting for the French to tire (Weist 2003). As Frances ally in the war, the US was in a difficult position in order to protect the interests of France by helping out in its campaign against the Northern guerrillas, but it was not ready to commit itself to something that could potentially become the Third World War. It was a dangerous situation insofar as it was beginning to look like France was not capable of crushing the Communist guerrilla forces (Mintz 2007). The financial support coming from the US was not enough to help the French troops in the war and it looked like something had to be done, which was first started by President Harry Truman in 1950 to help France retain control of its Indochina colonies, covering Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam (Nelson 1999). The US was also very much opposed to the idea of having Vietnam split at the seventeenth parallel to accommodate the different political views governing the separate sides of the country. It was at this point that the US consolidated its hold over the Southern portion of the country and to exercise direct control over the government there, and thus heralded the beginning of actual US involvement in the conflict (Nelson 1999). It put Ngo Dinh Diem at the help of the Southern Vietnamese government, which was supposed to rally support for the anti-Communist sentiment in the country (Vassar College, n.d.). The start of actual US intervention in the war According to Nelson (1999), the US involvement in the Vietnam was vastly different from the others that it had participated in because it had no definitive beginning. The US actually entered the war gradually, from 1950 to 1965. It even experienced transition in the terms of support that it was willing to provide France, starting from mere financial and economic aid to its European ally and moving towards actual military occupation and engagement with the guerrilla forces there. In a little less than ten years, the US had given France $2.6 billion for recovery and rehabilitation of its Indochina colony, but it was scarcely enough to cover the escalating costs of the war and the losses in manpower that the French experienced (Mintz 2007). The losses for the Northern government and for the people of Vietnam are by far greater because of the sustained military offensive against the South and the subsequent participation of the US. It must be noted here that the US did not even give a formal declaration of war against Vietnam, it just started sending out troops to the Southern portion of the country, beginning with 2,000 soldiers deployed by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 (Nelson 1999). Jones (2003) noted that the intensification of the Cold War only prompted Kennedy to put the Vietnam situation higher up on his list and employ more stringent counterinsurgency efforts against the guerrillas. It was President Lyndon Johnson who, after serving the unexpired term of the assassinated John F. Kennedy and being elected to the presidency in 1965, brought the country to war. Under his administration, the number of American troops deployed in Vietnam increased and became more involved in supervising the Southern governments movements against the guerrillas (Pike 2005). The total number of Americans soldiers sent to serve in Vietnam was 2.7 million, and the costs of the war amounted to more than $140 million. This is probably the most expensive war that America has ever seen, and the reasons for its participation in the first place still remain suspect. There are a lot of doubts as to the veracity of the claims and beliefs made by the US government in terms of protecting the interests of the free world. The US anti-Communist policy in the 1960s The different presidents who oversaw the US military campaign in Vietnam all had one thing in common-they considered the northern faction in the country to be agents of global communism and therefore an opponent in terms of aspiring for the very opposite of all that America holds dear (Nelson 1999). US policymakers were of the opinion that Communists were opposed to human rights, democracy, and free trade especially to capitalist countries. They thought that communism as a contagious disease in the sense that once it took hold on a nation, neighboring states can easily become infiltrated with the Communist ideals and turn into such a state as well. For this reason, America joined the fray and waged its war against what it perceived to be the growth of Communism in Asia by fending off the Communist movement in northern Vietnam. It created some sort of puppet military government that was under its direct supervision and control. As already stated, the overarching geopolitical goal of the US in its act of participating directly in the Vietnam dispute was its conviction that the spread of communism must be stopped. However, the real commitment to holding back Communism was soon forgotten (Nelson 1999) as US administration after administration realized that the war might simply never end for the reason that their enemy troops are not getting any smaller or easier to fight. The guerrillas were good at employing tactics aimed at confounding American soldiers who were more efficient at face-to-face combat. Moreover, the Northern Vietnamese forces received tremendous support from the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China that enabled them to carry out the offensive for as long as they did (Pike 2005). At the same time, serious doubts as to the authenticity of the US governments reasons for intervening in the war also became apparent. Yet presidents were afraid to pull out from the war and admit to the faults of his predecessor, knowing that such an act would create a huge political backlash in the home country (Nelson 1999). First of all, even though the US governments first step into the war was only financial and economic in nature, it still belied the that they were staunch believers of the idea that the problem in Vietnam was largely military in nature, and not economic or political. Secondly, to put it bluntly, the US government was already in too deep in the Vietnam conflict that any sign of wavering belief in the campaign could easily be read as admitting to defeat. This was unacceptable to the administrations that waged open war against the Northern Vietnamese forces, so the offensives dragged on for years and years. The strong anti-Communist sentiment of the US may have been the first to trigger its adversarial reaction to the spread of communism in Vietnam but it was certainly not the only thing that made the war last for far longer than it should have. The war at home Even as the US administration was facing serious difficulties that were compromising its military campaign in Vietnam, it was also faced with real domestic challenges, particularly the increasing opposition from the American public with regards to continuing the war. One of the most deeply-felt consequences of the war was that it was siphoning off taxpayers dollars to a conflict that seemed impossible to win. The 1966 local and state elections in the US showed just how much public dissent has gathered around the issue of the wars costs on the national treasury (Pike 2005), even as the government was claiming that its troops were gaining against the enemy in Vietnam. Johnson wanted an all-out war that will not be felt across the Pacific Ocean and will not be felt in the everyday life of the Americans (Vassar College, n.d.). Unfortunately, this goal was never met because the repercussions of the war were widely felt even in the homeland. For example, during the start of the war, the American army had very little or no manpower problems at all and was able to send troops to Vietnam regularly. However, as faith in the military campaign waned, the number of volunteers decreased dramatically until the administration instituted a draft for the war. As more and more soldiers died, more and more Americans felt that it was wrong to continue sending people to what was becoming a hopeless and no-win situation in a distant country. Nelson (1999) noted that the movement attracted different factions from across the country-college campuses, labor unions, middle-class suburbs and government institutions all erupted in anti-war protests as the war continued on. Defense of civil rights also became an issue towards which Americans gravitated, and they were concerned not only for their fellow citizens who were getting injured and dying abroad, but also for the Vietnamese who were suffering intensely from all the conflict being waged in their land. The war ended in 1973 when President Richard Nixon announced the withdrawal of US troops because of the popular sentiment against it and the unsustainability of the war effort. The ramifications of the war As we have already seen, the Vietnam War is the longest time that the US has been involved in hostile action. It is also a highly debated topic because people continue to question the propriety of entering into a war that is being waged by an ally and the wisdom of Americas taking it upon herself to become the number one defender of democracy. It must be recalled that the war was not really Americas problem, but Frances. It only entered the picture when France began to falter and America feared that what was happening in Vietnam would spread to other Southeast Asian countries. The war cost so much in terms of human casualty, damage to infrastructure and economic loss to both sides that the general idea is that no one really won when the war was over. The losses sustained by the Vietnamese forces and the US troops cannot be fully appreciated in pecuniary terms, because the war also did damage to the national spirit of each country. Moreover, the subsequent reunification of Vietnam under the communist regime seemed to defeat the very purpose for which the US had entered into the war. From an economic standpoint, the war brought about a mean cycle of inflation because of Johnsons unwillingness to impose taxes to pay for the costs of the military campaigns (Mintz 2007). It was also thought that the military did a little inflation management on its own by increasing the actual number of enemy casualties to show that the war effort was getting better and better, when in fact the guerrilla numbers were not as badly hurt as the American troops during the latter part of the conflict. The war also created grave political consequences for America. The public began to suspect the honesty and integrity of incumbent officials because of their prior experience with the manufactured war statistics and reports on the Vietnam situation. This slow dissolution of faith likewise weakened Americas image of herself as a world superpower. If the countrys well-trained, well-supplied and well-compensated military could not defeat a ragtag group of guerrilla fighters not even trained in military tactics, what could it do? This doubt in American supremacy was carried over as the US tried to intervene militarily in other international conflicts such as the Iraq war. Conclusion This paper has traced the development of the Vietnam War, beginning from the socio-political context from which it emerged and the subsequent involvement of the US government in the effort to prevent the spread of communism. While the actions of the US troops may be seen as noble and warranted by the situation, the fact that the war cost so much in terms of lives and money makes any semblance of victory in it seem insignificant. There is indeed no true winner in this war because of the incredible losses that each side had sustained over a decades worth of fighting. America withdrew its troops and ended the war of its own accord when the public furor against the Vietnam War escalated to such a degree as to make continued military campaigns futile. The Paris Peace Accord also gave Vietnam a new lease on its own political life, but it cannot erase the destruction and suffering that the war had brought upon the people and the land. It was a fight that could have been shortened and made less dangerous if only each side was able to negotiate matters peacefully instead of launching military attacks against each other as the primary course of action.

Human Resources Development Strategies Essay -- Human Resources

This paper describes how to implement HR Strategies which are being formulated and planned for human resource of a company. Human resource is the most valuable part of the organization. It plays a crucial role in enhancing the productivity of the organization. Plans are prepared, but the implementation is the most important part. This paper gives guidelines of implementing various processes in Human resource. Guidelines for implementation of strategy related to Human Resource Development: People: It is important for people in the organization to have work life balance in order to lead a happy life, so the foremost work is to implement the actions for work life balance. Action that should be taken is to conduct a pressure profile audit; compliance audit to see working time pressure on employees. After completion of the audit, results must be evaluated and identify the need for Flexible Roster options. The action should be conducted by the committee whose head must be the Head of the Employment Practice (Human Resources Strategy: implementation plan, 2004). It is necessary to attract local members and youth to the organization for which the Student Support Officer within Human Resources and Young Promotion working group can come together to form a working committee to prepare promotional materials such as Choose a career which provide safety and growth folders. On-site visits can be conducted for students to introduce professional and technical jobs so that they can be attracted to work in the organization. Partnership with various schools and colleges can be established and training can be provided to those who are willing to join the organization. The organization can maintain an on-line database for summer student hire... ...e taken to overcome the delays. Hope the assistance provided by me is sufficient to address the queries. It will surely help you better understand the topic discussed and enhance your knowledge. I am also including the references, from where I found the content. At the end, I wish you happy learning. Sources Cited Human Resources Strategy: implementation plan. (2004). Retrieved June 25, 2014, from http://www.nhs24.com/content/mediaassets/board/2004-09-29%20Item%202.3%20HR%20Strategy%20App%202%20Imp%20Plan.pdf Implementation plan. (2004-09). Retrieved June 25, 2014, from http://www.hlthss.gov.nt.ca/pdf/reports/human_resources/2005/english/five_year_comprehensive_human_resource_implementation_plan.pdf Report on the Implementation of the New Human Resources Strategy. (2006). Retrieved June 25, 2014, from http://www.adb.org/adf/HRS-Paper-ADF-IX.pdf

Perfect Competition vs Monopoly

M&S (perfect competition) Vs Thames Water (monopoly) At one end is perfect competition where there are very many firms competing against each other. Every firm is so tiny in relation to the entire trade that has no power to manipulate price. It is a ‘price taker’. At the other end is monopoly, where there is just a single firm in the industry, and for this reason no competition from inside the industry. Perfect competition e. g. Marks & Spencer, they have many competitors such as, Asda, Next and Tesco. They productively have over 600 UK stores, in addition expanding international business.They employ over 75,000 people in the UK and abroad. On the whole, their clothing and homeware sales account for 49% of their business. The other 51% of business is in food, where they put on the market everything from fresh produce and groceries, to partly-prepared meals and ready meals. Nevertheless on the other end, there is a Monopoly e. g. Thames Water, which is UK’s largest water and wastewater, services company. They play a very important role in providing everyday 2,600 million litres of tap water to 8. 5 million customers across London and the Thames Valley.They also get rid of and take care of 2,800 million litres of sewage for an area covering 13. 5 million customers. The main strong point of National Grid is that there are no competitors. Having many firms rivalling not in favour of each other e. g. Marks & Spencer, it is then good for consumers. The hypothesis of perfect competition demonstrates an intense form of free enterprise. Within it, firms are utterly issue to market forces. They have no power at all to influence the price of the product. The price they face is dogged by the interaction of demand and supply in the entire market.M&S are ‘price takers’. There are numerous firms in the industry that each one manufactures an unimportantly small quantity of entire industry supply, and consequently has no power at all to change t he price of the invention. For M&S and their other opponents, there is full liberty of admission into the industry for fresh firms. Active firms are not capable to discontinue new firms setting up in business. New firms will find it relatively straightforward to enter markets if they feel there is irregular profits to be made.The entries of new firms make available competition and guarantee prices are kept low in the long-run. Manufacturers and customers have ideal awareness of the market. That is, manufacturers are completely alert of prices, costs and market chances. Customers are entirely aware of price, excellence and accessibility of the product. Thames Water has sustained their monopoly situation, by including obstacles (barriers) to the entry of new firms. Even if a market could support more than one firm, a new participant is unlikely to be able to start up on a very huge scale.Accordingly the Thames Water who is already experiencing economies of scale can charge a price und er the cost of the new participant and force it out of business. If, nevertheless, the new participant is a firm previously established in another industry, it may be capable to endure this competition. Since there is, by classification, only one firm in the industry, the firm’s demand curve is also the industry demand curve. In contrast with other market organisations, demand under Thames Water tends to be less flexible.Thames Water can lift its price and consumers have no substitute firm to turn inside the industry. They moreover pay the superior price, or go without the product altogether. Dissimilar to M&S, Thames Water is consequently a ‘price maker’. It can make a decision to what price to alter. On the other hand, it is still forced by its demand curve. An increase in price will decrease the amount demanded. As with firms in other market structures, Thames Water will make the most of profit where MR (rate price) = MC (Marginal Cost).Given that there are ba rriers to the entry of new firms, Thames Water’s supernormal profits will not be competed away in the lengthy run. The merely dissimilarity, therefore, among short-run and long-run equilibrium is that in the long-run the firm will manufacture where MR = long-run MC. Both M&S and Thames Water face different types of market surroundings. Thames Water will generate a quite diverse output and at a fairly diverse price from M&S type of industry. M&S complete continued existence in the long run makes use of the most well-organized and fficient known technique, and develops new techniques anywhere possible. For example, Plan A. Plan A is Marks & Spencer’s five-year, 100-point ‘eco' plan to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing their business and the world. It will see them working with their customers and suppliers to combat climate change, reduce waste, safeguard natural resources, trade ethically and build a healthier nation. Altogether, they have cut down on f ood carrier bags by 80% – helping to reduce plastic waste. This helped raise half a million pounds for charity.Even though, Thames Water, protected by barriers to entry, be able to still create big profits even if it is not using the most efficient system. It has less motivation, therefore, to be efficient. For this motive, costs may be privileged under Thames Water. On the other hand, Thames Water may be bright to achieve considerable economies of scale due to larger plant, centralised management and the prevention of pointless repetition. Thames Water eradicates the want for numerous sets of rival water mains under each street.If this consequence in an MC curves significantly below that of the same industry under M&S, Thames Water can yet manufacture a higher output at a lower price. An additional reason why Thames Water may well function with lower costs is that it can make use of part of its supernormal profits for investigate and progress and investment. It possibly will not contain the same motivation to develop into efficient as M&S which is fighting for continued existence, but it may contain a much superior skill to become efficient than has the small firm with incomplete finances.Even if Thames Water faces no competition in the supplies market, it may face a substitute form of competition in financial markets. Thames Water, with potentially low costs, which at present runs inefficiently, is likely to be subject to a takeover tender from an additional company. This competition for commercial manage, as it is the struggle for the control of companies during takeovers, may as a result, force Thames Water to be efficient in order to avoid being taken over. Overall, there are two tremendous forms of market structure: monopoly (Thames Water) and, its opposite, perfect competition (Marks & Spencer).M&S is characterised by many buyers and sellers, many products that similar in nature and, as a result, many substitutes. Meaning there are few, if any, b arriers to entry for new companies, and prices are determined by supply and demand. Consequently, M&S are subject to the price of a good, the consumers can just turn to the firm decide to increase its selling price of a good; the consumers can just turn to the nearest competitor for a better price, causing any firm that increases its prices to lose market share and profits.Whereas the more constable the market, the more will Thames Water be forced to take action on like a firm under M&S. If, therefore, Thames Water operates in a perfectly contestable market, it might bring the finest time for the consumer. Not simply will it be capable to accomplish low costs through economies of scale, but also the possible competition will keep profits and as a result prices down. Bibliography McAleese, Dermot (2004).Economics for business: competition, macro-stability, and globalisation Parkin, Michael (1939). Economics Peter J. Buckley, Jonathan Michie (1996) Firms, Organizations and Contracts a Reader in Industrial Organization: A Reader in Industrial Organization Hunter, Alex (1969). Monopoly and competition: selected readings www. tutor2u. net www. econ. rochester. edu/eco108/ch14/micro14/sld063. htm www. bized. co. uk www. ft. com Sloman, John (2007). Essential of Economics Journal of Business & Economic Studies, 09/01/1997 to present

Application of Mis in Marketing

Information is the basis for every decision taken in an organization. The efficiency of management depends upon the availability of regular and relevant information. Thus it is essential that an effective and efficient reporting system be developed as part of accounting system. The main object of management information is to obtain the required information about the operating results of an organization regularly in order to use them for future planning and control. CONCEPT OF MISDEF: â€Å"A system of people, equipment, procedures, documents and communications that collects, validates, operates on transformers, stores, retrieves, and present data for use in planning, budgeting, accounting, controlling and other management process. † The Marketing Information System â€Å"A marketing information system is a continuing and interacting structure of people, equipment and procedures to gather, sort, analyse, evaluate, and distribute pertinent, timely and accurate information for u se by marketing decision makers to improve their marketing planning, implementation, and control†.Sales and Marketing is a key process for the sustenance of any business as revenues are a direct outcome of it. Information Systems within the Sales and Marketing process implement technologies that allow the personnel to access crucial and updated information related to access crucial and updated information related to customer preferences and market demands to offer prompt services. Information Systems are also helpful in identifying the most effective sales strategy that can be used in any particular case based on specified criteria, such as the market segment or the product category.APPLICATION OF MIS IN MARKETING Major Components of a marketing information system The marketing information systems and its subsystems The above diagram illustrates the major components of an MIS, the environmental factors monitored by the system and the types of marketing decision which the MIS s eeks to underpin. MARKETING MODELS: Within the MIS there has to be the means of interpreting information in order to give direction to decision. These models may be computerized or may not. Typical tools are: †¢ Time series sales modes. Brand switching models. †¢ Linear programming. †¢ Elasticity models (price, incomes, demand, supply, etc. ). †¢ Regression and correlation models. †¢ Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) models. †¢ Sensitivity analysis. †¢ Discounted cash flow. †¢ Spreadsheet ‘what if models. These and similar mathematical, statistical, econometric and financial models are the analytical subsystem of the MIS . MARKETING STRATEGIES USING MIS The role of Information Systems in devising Marketing strategies has been increasing over the years.Organizations derive the following benefits from implementing Information Systems in marketing: ? Creating effective Marketing plans: Target market identification, implementation of the entire m arketing campaign and finally setting up of required standards criteria and evaluating the performance of the plans generated. ? Customizing modules for specific requirements: Information can be used to manage campaigns to retain customers, vendors and optimize services regarding each contact. ? Managing critical business issues: Information Systems are effectively sed to manage critical issues, such as costs and budget analysis, media policies, establishing milestones and segment management for every campaign. ? Creating Product promotional strategies: Information Systems are used to design, analyze and implement product promotional strategies of a particular brand according to its price, quality, and other related issues. ?Conducting market analysis: Information Systems can be used to survey the potential market and this information can be analyzed to develop specific target market strategies. Preparing comprehensive reports: Information Systems can filter information to provide c ustomized solutions to marketers. This information can be viewed in various ways such as summarized views, total, sub total, statistical views or graphic views. DIFFERENT TYPES OF REPORTS USED IN MARKETING SALES CALL REPORT – This report contains data about the potential customer. It also contains details about the types of items customer is interested in. QUOTATION – It is a document that gives a statement of the price, terms and the condition for a sale a supplier offers for the items.PURCHASE ORDER – It is a written document from the customer to the seller listing the required items and providing a description of the goods. INVOICE – It is a note asking for payments for goods and services that have been supplied. The invoice accompanies the delivery of ordered goods. SALES REPORT (product wise) – A sales report suggests the total product wise sales. From this report one can draw conclusions about the product preferences of customers in different months of the year. 1. MONTHLY SALES REPORT (Sales person wise) – Sales persons are given individual sales targets.This report shows the cumulative sales made by each salesperson for a month. OTHER ASPECTS OF MIS IN MARKETING Managing Financial transactions Providing stock and inventory details Maintaining relevant customer information Integrating sales processes MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM IN E – COMMERCE E – Commerce is one of the fastest growing segments of the internet, which is used by businesses.BENEFITS: Information Systems are being used in management of E – commerce. The Information Systems offer the following benefits: ? Integrating existing point of sales systems. Integrating with other E – Commerce driven applications to provide the analysis of market effectiveness in terms of real business. ? Managing customer information that can then be used for effective analysis to predict buying trends. ? Provides various methods that can be us ed for diverting traffic onto the required websites. ? Integrating graphs and multiple report building wizards for the creation of effective reports based on any type of information. ? Information systems also provide various customer retention strategies according to each segment or market campaign or sales force.