Levandary cafe case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Levandary bistro - Case Study Example This was for the most part as far as plan of the store just as menu determination. Along these lines, it is principal for Foster to get increasingly engaged with the China’s business and key arrangement for viable selection and guarantee extension in this locale. Louis Chen is a self-propelled CEO accountable for lavendary China yet he faces gigantic opposition and negative mentality towards both the firm’s arranging and announcing forms. This has yielded an excessive number of worries among the Lavendary the executives therefore there is a requirement for Foster to make a trip to China. This is to address shifted and rising administration issues refered to above. Mia Foster can pick to recruit a worldwide monetary expert for the Denver group This is significant however costly to empower the utilization of the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Consequently, guarantee the manageability of the china business as it develops. Lessen the opportunity given to Louis Chen through acquiring more data about the China activities and including the home office in these tasks. Also, the Involvement of Mia encourage in the china marketable strategy will help in guaranteeing that Chen doesn't go too disconnected with his plans. My proposal envelops lessening the additional opportunity given to Louis Chen that he obtained from Howard. This will permit the administration in the US to be engaged with all the conversation concerning the China activities. Along these lines, Chen can't take a shot at his power alone and henceforth significant structure and menu determination changes must be endorsed by the administration in the US. The administration can likewise effectively force Chen’s group to utilize the standard announcing methodology utilized in the US. On the off chance that this occurs, a ton of costs will be decreased. Utilizing the acknowledged norms will likewise make the review a lot simpler subsequently upgrading the business uprightness. Pundits may contend that chopping down the opportunity of Louis Chen isn't

Formal Assignment #4 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Formal Assignment #4 - Essay Example These progressions identify with US socioeconomics, including age, sexual orientation and ethnic sythesis. The adjustments in the work market can influence both the local and settler populaces. This paper talks about changes in the US work showcase in the course of recent decades. The paper expect that similar changes were in New York since it is a piece of US. One of the most significant changes in New York and U.S. work showcase is the expanded work power cooperation of ladies (Ricardo, Kristie and Michael 50). The previous quite a few years recorded a consistent increment in the quantity of ladies taking part in the work advertise. Since 1999, the work power support pace of these ladies stayed consistent. Another significant segment change that is influencing the work power is the advancement of the population’s age conveyance. In the course of recent years, age is assuming a significant job in deciding work power interest in New York too the U.S. the vast majority of the working populace has a place with the time of increased birth rates age (Ricardo, Kristie and Michael 53). These are individuals conceived somewhere in the range of 1946 and 1964. Notwithstanding, this may effectsly affect the general work power support rate since the vast majority of these individuals are becoming more seasoned. The impact old enough on the nati onal economy may result from a decrease in the work power investment rate brought about by maturing of the time of increased birth rates age. Racial and ethnic decent variety of the U.S. populace is another significant segment change that influences work power cooperation. Ethnic assorted variety might be a direct result of social, financial, or political elements. In any case, obviously this decent variety influences the work showcase somehow. In the course of recent decades, there is a huge distinction in labor power investment among various races. Somewhere in the range of 1980 and 1990, the quantity of migrant populaces in the US work showcase expanded. The quantity of migrant populace utilized was additionally high. The number developed by around 50 percent during that

Thumbtack founder Marco Zappacosta about his entrepreneurial journey

Thumbtack founder Marco Zappacosta about his entrepreneurial journey INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are in San Francisco with Thumbtack. After announcing a big round of financing one month ago we are talking to Marco the founder of Thumbtack. Marco, who are you and what do you do?Marco: So, my name is Marco and Thumbtack helps customers find and hire local professionals. So if you need to paint your house, find a math tutor for your child or a caterer for your event, we are the best way to get introduced to the right professional. And it’s something that we have been working on for the last 5 years.Martin: Can you tell us, what is it like to start a company?Marco: So it’s a very satisfying sort of scene of vision that you had sort of come to life, attracting great people and working with them to realize that vision. But it’s also fairly stressful because everybody get’s sort of wrapped up in this dream. And it’s hard to realize your dreams and so there is a lot of stress and making sure it’s coming about the right the way and working the way you want it to.Martin: What have been the major obstacles and how did you overcome them?Marco: I’d say there were three major obstacles.The first one was learning to attract customers and professionals, as a market place without that network you really have almost value and so we had to learn how to attract these people to us and do that in a very scalable and repeatable way. That took us a long time to figure out.Then the challenge became, Okay we have a network of customers and professionals, what’s the best way to introduce them such that it gives the customer confidence to hire and it gives the professional a real shot to sort of win the business. And we tried sort of lots of different interphases and had to really learn the right way to bring people together. And that was another big challenge.And then the final one was, how do we sort of layer on our business model on top of these interactions, now we knew how to bring people together, but what was the right thing to charge for, how should we charge, how much should we charge, that also took us quite a bit of time to figure out.So it was probably three and a half years until we had it all figured out and in the last 18 months things have really accelerated because thankfully it worked.Martin: Great and how do you test your hypothesis of how you want to acquire customers or how you want to match the professionals with the customers by not only having incremental improvements but maybe also testing some revolutionary hypothesis?Marco: So I mean, I think there are two answers, one is sort of cultural and organizational and one is tactical.It is very important for the process and the organization to let people take big bets because the truth is you don’t always know what’s going to work. We’ve been surprised many times by things we thought would be great that didn’t work or things that we didn’t think would be that important and turned out to be hugely important. And so you have to sort of organizationally allow for that otherwise you are going to stifle innovation.And then the other question is tactically, actually how do you do it. It’s a scientific method. It’s not new, you have a hypothesis, you run a very controlled test and you measure the results in a statistically sound way and from that you are able to look back and say, ‘Was my hypothesis validated? And did I sort of learn what I thought I was going to learn?’ and then sort of think again and run another one.Martin: What did you do before you started this company?Marco: So I started Thumbtack right after I went to college and so the short answer is not much. But the longer answer is that my co-founder and I during college had started a student advocacy group together. It was non-profit, it was very different then the sort of technology business we’re in today but it was still start up and it was very fun to build something out of nothing and we sort of got hooked on that and decided to do it again and that’s why sort of after graduating I decided to pursue this dream.Martin: But why did you focus on that specific market? What is your relation to that? Why does it motivate you?Marco: So, we did in some ways what you’re not supposed to do which is decide to start-up a company and then go think of an idea. But thankfully, I think we did it in a good way in that we didn’t index on our interest or our passions but instead said, what’s the biggest problem we think we can solve with technology? And we started thinking and looking and what we realized was that there was this gigantic market, this local services market with hundreds of millions of customers, 10 of millions of professionals and it was very old. There really hadn’t been much innovation in how they found each other, how they came together, how they worked together and we felt that it was inevitable that technology would help these people. And I think what really motivates me and really I think Thumbtack is tha t both the macro and the micro of it. The macro of it is a big problem and it’s satisfying to work on sort of big things that can have a huge impact. But then like what really likeâ€"you feel day to day is the stories of impacting individuals, it’s the pest control guy in Brooklyn sending us flowers to say thank you for all the business that we’re now sending him, or the busy mom who is sending pictures of her birthday party that she was able to throw with Thumbtack. That feels great and that’s certainly is a bigger part of the motivation that we all feel.BUSINESS MODELMartin: And you said you tried to change this old model of match making into a new one. Can you tell us in terms of the business model what is the innovation behind Thumbtack?Marco: When you think about it, people have been hiring plumbers since plumbing existed, so a long time. And since the dawn of the yellow pages, it’s been very easy to find names and numbers, but that’s only half of the challenge, the n you have to figure out which of the these plumbers out of this entire list is available to serve you, what they are going to charge you and how qualified are they to do the job. And to do that today or before Thumbtack was an incredibly manual process. You, the customer, had to call, you had to sort of get quotes, then you had to call their references or sort of see what past work they’d done. And it was immensely time intensive. So instead, we created software to replace that, such that you tell us what you need. As a customer you sort of itemize the project, we package that up, send that to our network of qualified professionals who serve your areas and the ones who are then sort of available and interested get introduced directly to you and with that we bring all the reviews, the pictures, the credentials that you need to make a confident hiring decision. And so for the first time, the data that you need, the professionals that you need come to you. And this is much better fo r the customer obviously and it’s actually much better for the professional as well. If you think about their past in terms of marketing solutions they had, they had the yellow pages, they had things like that but they were always sort of fishing blindly, they just put up an ad and hoped people saw it now we bring them a customer and we say, ‘Hey, there is a customer that is looking for your services in your area, here is what they want, are you interested?’ And they have all the discretion to decide, ‘Okay yeah, this is a great customer, I am free that day’ and at that point they get introduced, so we’ve made it better for both sides and that’s why the model is growing so fast.Martin: And is the service provider only paying for the introduction or really for the closing of the deal.Marco: Yes, they pay for the introduction. Interestingly, we try doing it on a deal, but it actually caused problems because for the professional, there was no fee up front and so they figu red, they just respond to everything, even when they weren’t a great a fit. You, the customer, said, ‘I need the plumber to come on Saturday’ and me as a plumber says, ‘Well, I’ll say I can come on Sunday, maybe he’ll change his mind’. But that’s not a great response for you. So we had to change the incentive such that only the professionals who were really motivated to sort of get introduced to that customer were actually the ones who got through and we have to make sure on our end to charge appropriately such that they have a great ROI and they sort of get a lot of value out of Thumbtack.Martin: And how do you analyze this kind of incentive network?Marco: Quantitatively and qualitatively. There is a lot of data that you could look at to understand what are the dynamics at play and how is it evolving and then also you have to listen to the qualitative feedback, talking to professionals, talking to customers, seeing the support tickets that we get to learn, again wha t’s working and what’s not.CORPORATE STRATEGYMartin: Let’s talk about the corporate strategy. I mean, Thumbtack is some kind of a market place so it’s driven by network effect and effects of scale. What other type of competitive advantage do you want to create or already have compared to other competitors?Marco: So, you are absolutely right that there are network effects at play but in our case there is not just one network. In fact we have as many networks as we have customers because what matters to you as a customer is only the professionals who will come to you. You don’t care about the ones that are 100 of miles away. And so that is the huge challenge with the space is that you have to build local networks over and over and over. Our advantage over our competitors is that we’ve created a marketing sort of solution, a way for these professionals to grow their business that is so much better and so obvious that we don’t need a sale force to push it onto them, we cer tainly buy ads to build awareness of this solution, but they then sign up and it’s totally self serving, we start sending them customers and because of that we’ve been able to reach a scale much faster than really anybody else. We now have more paying professionals than Yelp or Angie’s list and they’ve been at it over a decade each. So that’s really where the advantage comes in, it’s the model that unlocks the growth potential.Martin: Marco, when you started, what was your go to market strategy, did you just expand on local cities, or did you just try to reach more national, or grow several cities at a separate time, or did you take it step by step? How did you do it?Marco: The sort of traditional way to do it is city by city and I think that was the advice that we were getting at the time. But the city by city model is expensive. You’re investing a lot of dollars in one city and we honestly did not have that much money to start, so we said, ‘Is there a more scalable way we can do this and what that really means is, is there any software or programmatic way to do it? And that’s what we focused on early on, how can we get these markets going, without a big investment but simply with software to find the right professionals and find the right customers and bring them together. And we found that, it took us a couple of years to figure it all out but that then unlocked the ability to go sort of nationwide very quickly. So we’re already now nationwide, we serve hundreds of categories across all these cities and it’s really sort of the model but also sort of then marketing strategies that allowed that.Martin: Can you a little bit elaborate on how the software that you used works?Marco: So I mean there are a couple of things that you have to do, you have to find professionals, so you have to go out to the web and figure out who is a professional, in what city and what do they do. Then you have to sort of bring them the right customer at the righ t time and so it’s sort of a matching problem. By doing that, it’s a great way to sort of build a relationship with a professional because we can say, ‘Hey, here is a customer, are you interested? Come to Thumbtack and there’s a lot more like them’. And so it’s really sort of a ‘matching and discovery’ challenge that we’re able to solve programmatically.Martin: Actually, can I imagine it working like this: You have started with a platform, people come to the website, both sides. But when you see, ‘Okay, there is some demands generated but we don’t have the right profession, then we go out there and search the web, contact those guys, sending them emails and say, ‘Okay, we have some kind of demand, would you be interested in this kind of purchase order then register at our platform’.Marco: That’s right.Martin: Okay great.Marco: And these small businesses they all want more customers and so when you bring them one, they are very receptive to that and obviou sly the onboarding has to work well, the marketing messages has to be correct, but at the end of the day we are bringing them what they want and so that’s a great way to start the relationship.MARKET DEVELOPMENTMartin: When looking at other platforms that are similar but not identically alike, Elance or Odesk, I perceive a very big trend towards lowering prices over there for the offering, what type of trends can you identify on your platform?Marco: So, both Odesk and Elance are virtual marketplace so they source their labor globally and I think there is definitely a sort of downward pressure on price when you are looking at these global markets. On the more localized basis, we don’t see that happening as much. There are some industries where the market is expanding tremendously like digital photography, it is much easier to be a photographer today than it was 20 years ago and so the market has gotten a lot bigger and therefore prices has come down. But by enlarge we don’t vie w ourselves as a way to increase or decrease prices, we want to help bring transparency to this sector such that customers are assured that they’re paying a good prices and that the professionals are educated about what the market is going for these days. But we ourselves aren’t trying to move it up or down because we just want to make matches based on what the buyers and sellers want, both of their interests matter to us.Martin: You said that you currently have round about 100 categories or so called sub-markets that you are trying toMarco: Hundreds actually.Martin: Hundreds okay. Are there any other specific markets you think are worthwhile pursuing in terms of matching buyers or sellers, related to those professional services? I suppose that is what you are going after.Marco: So, one big category that we don’t do today is sort of child care. We think that’s one that will be well suited for an online market place in fact there are a few companies doing this, we chose not t o focus on it because it is sort of unique in its sort of demands and sort of needs and that. I think is a big one that we will add at some point but for the time being we’ve got our hands full with all the categories we have so we’re not going to be expanding anytime soon.Martin: I could imagine that the matching process or algorithm in this different sub-market is slightly different for each of the sub-markets. How do you manage this kind of complexity by having different kinds of algorithm?Marco: It’s one that adapts to the local environment, so matching professionals, thinking about sort of distances, travel, there are affects on the local level which really matter. If you are based in New York City, New Jersey is very close but it takes forever to get to, so you’d much rather travel in New York City than across the Hudson into New Jersey. So we have to be smart about these sort of local needs when we match but at the end of the day what we are doing is bringing people t ogether and that is fortunately a generalized solution across all of our categories and across all of our locations.Martin: Great.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS In San Francisco, we talked with entrepreneur Marco Zappacosta, the co-founder CEO of Thumbtack, of about the business model and history of Thumbtack. Furthermore, Marco shares his learnings and advice for young entrepreneurs.The transcript of the interview is included below.INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are in San Francisco with Thumbtack. After announcing a big round of financing one month ago we are talking to Marco the founder of Thumbtack. Marco, who are you and what do you do?Marco: So, my name is Marco and Thumbtack helps customers find and hire local professionals. So if you need to paint your house, find a math tutor for your child or a caterer for your event, we are the best way to get introduced to the right professional. And it’s something that we have been working on for the last 5 years.Martin: Can you tell us, what is it like to start a company?Marco: So it’s a very satisfying sort of scene of vision that you had sort of come to life, attracting great people an d working with them to realize that vision. But it’s also fairly stressful because everybody get’s sort of wrapped up in this dream. And it’s hard to realize your dreams and so there is a lot of stress and making sure it’s coming about the right the way and working the way you want it to.Martin: What have been the major obstacles and how did you overcome them?Marco: I’d say there were three major obstacles.The first one was learning to attract customers and professionals, as a market place without that network you really have almost value and so we had to learn how to attract these people to us and do that in a very scalable and repeatable way. That took us a long time to figure out.Then the challenge became, Okay we have a network of customers and professionals, what’s the best way to introduce them such that it gives the customer confidence to hire and it gives the professional a real shot to sort of win the business. And we tried sort of lots of different interphases and had to really learn the right way to bring people together. And that was another big challenge.And then the final one was, how do we sort of layer on our business model on top of these interactions, now we knew how to bring people together, but what was the right thing to charge for, how should we charge, how much should we charge, that also took us quite a bit of time to figure out.So it was probably three and a half years until we had it all figured out and in the last 18 months things have really accelerated because thankfully it worked.Martin: Great and how do you test your hypothesis of how you want to acquire customers or how you want to match the professionals with the customers by not only having incremental improvements but maybe also testing some revolutionary hypothesis?Marco: So I mean, I think there are two answers, one is sort of cultural and organizational and one is tactical.It is very important for the process and the organization to let people take big bets bec ause the truth is you don’t always know what’s going to work. We’ve been surprised many times by things we thought would be great that didn’t work or things that we didn’t think would be that important and turned out to be hugely important. And so you have to sort of organizationally allow for that otherwise you are going to stifle innovation.And then the other question is tactically, actually how do you do it. It’s a scientific method. It’s not new, you have a hypothesis, you run a very controlled test and you measure the results in a statistically sound way and from that you are able to look back and say, ‘Was my hypothesis validated? And did I sort of learn what I thought I was going to learn?’ and then sort of think again and run another one.Martin: What did you do before you started this company?Marco: So I started Thumbtack right after I went to college and so the short answer is not much. But the longer answer is that my co-founder and I during college had s tarted a student advocacy group together. It was non-profit, it was very different then the sort of technology business we’re in today but it was still start up and it was very fun to build something out of nothing and we sort of got hooked on that and decided to do it again and that’s why sort of after graduating I decided to pursue this dream.Martin: But why did you focus on that specific market? What is your relation to that? Why does it motivate you?Marco: So, we did in some ways what you’re not supposed to do which is decide to start-up a company and then go think of an idea. But thankfully, I think we did it in a good way in that we didn’t index on our interest or our passions but instead said, what’s the biggest problem we think we can solve with technology? And we started thinking and looking and what we realized was that there was this gigantic market, this local services market with hundreds of millions of customers, 10 of millions of professionals and it was ver y old. There really hadn’t been much innovation in how they found each other, how they came together, how they worked together and we felt that it was inevitable that technology would help these people. And I think what really motivates me and really I think Thumbtack is that both the macro and the micro of it. The macro of it is a big problem and it’s satisfying to work on sort of big things that can have a huge impact. But then like what really likeâ€"you feel day to day is the stories of impacting individuals, it’s the pest control guy in Brooklyn sending us flowers to say thank you for all the business that we’re now sending him, or the busy mom who is sending pictures of her birthday party that she was able to throw with Thumbtack. That feels great and that’s certainly is a bigger part of the motivation that we all feel.BUSINESS MODELMartin: And you said you tried to change this old model of match making into a new one. Can you tell us in terms of the business model w hat is the innovation behind Thumbtack?Marco: When you think about it, people have been hiring plumbers since plumbing existed, so a long time. And since the dawn of the yellow pages, it’s been very easy to find names and numbers, but that’s only half of the challenge, then you have to figure out which of the these plumbers out of this entire list is available to serve you, what they are going to charge you and how qualified are they to do the job. And to do that today or before Thumbtack was an incredibly manual process. You, the customer, had to call, you had to sort of get quotes, then you had to call their references or sort of see what past work they’d done. And it was immensely time intensive. So instead, we created software to replace that, such that you tell us what you need. As a customer you sort of itemize the project, we package that up, send that to our network of qualified professionals who serve your areas and the ones who are then sort of available and interest ed get introduced directly to you and with that we bring all the reviews, the pictures, the credentials that you need to make a confident hiring decision. And so for the first time, the data that you need, the professionals that you need come to you. And this is much better for the customer obviously and it’s actually much better for the professional as well. If you think about their past in terms of marketing solutions they had, they had the yellow pages, they had things like that but they were always sort of fishing blindly, they just put up an ad and hoped people saw it now we bring them a customer and we say, ‘Hey, there is a customer that is looking for your services in your area, here is what they want, are you interested?’ And they have all the discretion to decide, ‘Okay yeah, this is a great customer, I am free that day’ and at that point they get introduced, so we’ve made it better for both sides and that’s why the model is growing so fast.Martin: And is the service provider only paying for the introduction or really for the closing of the deal.Marco: Yes, they pay for the introduction. Interestingly, we try doing it on a deal, but it actually caused problems because for the professional, there was no fee up front and so they figured, they just respond to everything, even when they weren’t a great a fit. You, the customer, said, ‘I need the plumber to come on Saturday’ and me as a plumber says, ‘Well, I’ll say I can come on Sunday, maybe he’ll change his mind’. But that’s not a great response for you. So we had to change the incentive such that only the professionals who were really motivated to sort of get introduced to that customer were actually the ones who got through and we have to make sure on our end to charge appropriately such that they have a great ROI and they sort of get a lot of value out of Thumbtack.Martin: And how do you analyze this kind of incentive network?Marco: Quantitatively and qualitatively. Ther e is a lot of data that you could look at to understand what are the dynamics at play and how is it evolving and then also you have to listen to the qualitative feedback, talking to professionals, talking to customers, seeing the support tickets that we get to learn, again what’s working and what’s not.CORPORATE STRATEGYMartin: Let’s talk about the corporate strategy. I mean, Thumbtack is some kind of a market place so it’s driven by network effect and effects of scale. What other type of competitive advantage do you want to create or already have compared to other competitors?Marco: So, you are absolutely right that there are network effects at play but in our case there is not just one network. In fact we have as many networks as we have customers because what matters to you as a customer is only the professionals who will come to you. You don’t care about the ones that are 100 of miles away. And so that is the huge challenge with the space is that you have to build loca l networks over and over and over. Our advantage over our competitors is that we’ve created a marketing sort of solution, a way for these professionals to grow their business that is so much better and so obvious that we don’t need a sale force to push it onto them, we certainly buy ads to build awareness of this solution, but they then sign up and it’s totally self serving, we start sending them customers and because of that we’ve been able to reach a scale much faster than really anybody else. We now have more paying professionals than Yelp or Angie’s list and they’ve been at it over a decade each. So that’s really where the advantage comes in, it’s the model that unlocks the growth potential.Martin: Marco, when you started, what was your go to market strategy, did you just expand on local cities, or did you just try to reach more national, or grow several cities at a separate time, or did you take it step by step? How did you do it?Marco: The sort of traditional w ay to do it is city by city and I think that was the advice that we were getting at the time. But the city by city model is expensive. You’re investing a lot of dollars in one city and we honestly did not have that much money to start, so we said, ‘Is there a more scalable way we can do this and what that really means is, is there any software or programmatic way to do it? And that’s what we focused on early on, how can we get these markets going, without a big investment but simply with software to find the right professionals and find the right customers and bring them together. And we found that, it took us a couple of years to figure it all out but that then unlocked the ability to go sort of nationwide very quickly. So we’re already now nationwide, we serve hundreds of categories across all these cities and it’s really sort of the model but also sort of then marketing strategies that allowed that.Martin: Can you a little bit elaborate on how the software that you used works?Marco: So I mean there are a couple of things that you have to do, you have to find professionals, so you have to go out to the web and figure out who is a professional, in what city and what do they do. Then you have to sort of bring them the right customer at the right time and so it’s sort of a matching problem. By doing that, it’s a great way to sort of build a relationship with a professional because we can say, ‘Hey, here is a customer, are you interested? Come to Thumbtack and there’s a lot more like them’. And so it’s really sort of a ‘matching and discovery’ challenge that we’re able to solve programmatically.Martin: Actually, can I imagine it working like this: You have started with a platform, people come to the website, both sides. But when you see, ‘Okay, there is some demands generated but we don’t have the right profession, then we go out there and search the web, contact those guys, sending them emails and say, ‘Okay, we have some kind of demand, would you be interested in this kind of purchase order then register at our platform’.Marco: That’s right.Martin: Okay great.Marco: And these small businesses they all want more customers and so when you bring them one, they are very receptive to that and obviously the onboarding has to work well, the marketing messages has to be correct, but at the end of the day we are bringing them what they want and so that’s a great way to start the relationship.MARKET DEVELOPMENTMartin: When looking at other platforms that are similar but not identically alike, Elance or Odesk, I perceive a very big trend towards lowering prices over there for the offering, what type of trends can you identify on your platform?Marco: So, both Odesk and Elance are virtual marketplace so they source their labor globally and I think there is definitely a sort of downward pressure on price when you are looking at these global markets. On the more localized basis, we don’t see that happening as m uch. There are some industries where the market is expanding tremendously like digital photography, it is much easier to be a photographer today than it was 20 years ago and so the market has gotten a lot bigger and therefore prices has come down. But by enlarge we don’t view ourselves as a way to increase or decrease prices, we want to help bring transparency to this sector such that customers are assured that they’re paying a good prices and that the professionals are educated about what the market is going for these days. But we ourselves aren’t trying to move it up or down because we just want to make matches based on what the buyers and sellers want, both of their interests matter to us.Martin: You said that you currently have round about 100 categories or so called sub-markets that you are trying toMarco: Hundreds actually.Martin: Hundreds okay. Are there any other specific markets you think are worthwhile pursuing in terms of matching buyers or sellers, related to those professional services? I suppose that is what you are going after.Marco: So, one big category that we don’t do today is sort of child care. We think that’s one that will be well suited for an online market place in fact there are a few companies doing this, we chose not to focus on it because it is sort of unique in its sort of demands and sort of needs and that. I think is a big one that we will add at some point but for the time being we’ve got our hands full with all the categories we have so we’re not going to be expanding anytime soon.Martin: I could imagine that the matching process or algorithm in this different sub-market is slightly different for each of the sub-markets. How do you manage this kind of complexity by having different kinds of algorithm?Marco: It’s one that adapts to the local environment, so matching professionals, thinking about sort of distances, travel, there are affects on the local level which really matter. If you are based in New York City, New Jersey is very close but it takes forever to get to, so you’d much rather travel in New York City than across the Hudson into New Jersey. So we have to be smart about these sort of local needs when we match but at the end of the day what we are doing is bringing people together and that is fortunately a generalized solution across all of our categories and across all of our locations.Martin: Great.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURSMartin: Marco, we always try to share some knowledge from entrepreneurs like you to people interested in starting their business. What advice can you give them? Maybe we can start by sharing your advice, dos and don’ts on raising money or managing investor relationships.Marco: Okay. I think one piece of advice with regard to raising money that is important to keep in mind is that every round is a bridge round and it is a bridge to somewhere and the most important thing to articulate is not your past success but what are the milestones that this money is going to take you too and why those milestones are worth achieving. I think people often look backwards when thinking about their pitches, ‘Oh we did this, we accomplished that’ and that’s great but really what investors are looking for and what matters is where you going to get? And why is that somewhere I that I should invest in.Martin: So would you recommend saying, ‘Okay, currently my status is x, like my company valuation is x, by taking your money we will increase more of the equity value or enterprise value’?Marco: Ah, yeah though, I think you have to break it down a little bit more and instead say, ‘Okay, we raised angel money to validate the product and to begin to unlock some sort of growth through a couple of distribution channels. We’ve now proved that and now we are looking to raise a series A to really scale this. And we think if we raise x million dollars we will be able to get to y traction and if we do that puts us in a great place to raise a follow on sort of amount of fundraising’. It’s about getting to a milestone that’s valuable and interesting and sort of articulating that very specifically.Martin: What other advice would you give your friend who is coming to you and saying, ‘I want to start a company’.Marco: I think it’s people should assume it will take a decade. So, when you are thinking about an idea or thinking about working with someone you should ask yourself, is this something I want to work on for a decade? Is this somebody I want to work with for a decade? I think that perspective helps clarify sort of whether things are worthwhile or not because in the moment sure, I can stomach most things but for a decade you have to be very sure. But that’s really the timescale over which these things happen and they don’t happen overnight and you have to have the sort of determination to grind it out over that many years.Martin: That’s right. Thank you very much for your time, Marco.Marco: Alright thank you.Marti n: And next time you’re looking for a job maybe as a service professional, maybe use Thumbtack. Thank you very much.Marco: Good, thank you.Martin: Thank you very much, Marco.

The Myth Of Baucis And Philemon, And Chylde Roland And The...

Every story provides good examples of morals with each containing an important lesson to learn. Morals are conveyed in stories to give the reader an idea or thought. All stories have some, if not many things to say and every story conveys a message to whomever may be reading. The answer to the question of why morals are conveyed in stories is that it’s simply just a helpful learning tool. Moral values are characterized as a helpful learning tool that involves improving respect and behavior and also improving/enhancing relationships. Knowing what appears right and what appears wrong shapes a character’s element. Right decisions and interactions with other people are considered improved when involved with good moral values. As individuals we understand that life is important and moral values shapes us throughout our lives. â€Å"The Myth of Baucis and Philemon,† â€Å"The Story of Five Heads,† and â€Å"Chylde Roland and the Goblin King† are all examp les of different stories that portray morals. Infants are taught to show respect to adults along with other people by morals. Parents fight to enforce these values into their children for their own personal good with establishing what’s considered right and wrong. Moral values teach an individual that being honest improves the chance to be recognized while achieving their goals. The important role in moral values is overall stability. Every story has something to say and that something can impact all us all with how we learn. Moral values

Procter Gamble From Top to Bottom †A Consultant’s View Free Essays

Not only does PG demand an outside the box thinking model, but they also demand collaboration inside and outside the Company. This is in addition to strict project management guidelines and the desire to be in communication with consumers, retail customers and outside stakeholders. (Leadership Development, 2014) Recommendation 1 – One recommendation here is to involve employees on a greater level. We will write a custom essay sample on Procter Gamble: From Top to Bottom – A Consultant’s View or any similar topic only for you Order Now The mission statement itself covers everything an employee should take to heart. However, involvement at the local level may increase the publics awareness to the firm’s existence. Employees being more involved in going to local retailers and attempting to market P’s products, giving away products to local homeless shelters and charities, providing charity work in the local communities by PG employees can take a company to another level in this area. PG is heavily concerned with improving the lives of others around the world. It is this author’s opinion that integrating a greater hands-on approach an help accomplish this. P holds a lot of strength in its organizational structure. P feels the organization’s structure is an important part of its continued growth. With products touching the lives of nearly 2 billion people every day, it combines its strength of product benefits and a local focus to win consumers and retail customers in all the countries where the products are embedded. There are four major portions of the organization, all embedded neatly in the company’s Selling Market Operations sector. These include – Beauty, Hair and personal Care Baby, Feminine and Family Care Fabric and Home Care Health and Grooming (Corporate Structure, 2014) Specifically, the division of that delivers products to market is the Selling and Market Operations division. The division name was changed from Market Development Organizations because of the intense pride it takes in bring its products to the people of the world. The name change was not just a name change, it clarified the work the firm does and the work they do best. This division handles every portion of marketability including superior, effective and efficient selling, distribution, shelving, pricing execution and rescheduling – every day, every week – in every store and in all its markets. Markets include Asia; Europe; India, the Middle East, and Africa (MIME); Latin America and North America. (Corporate Structure, 201 4) Recommendation 2 could likely benefit from a stronger focus in where it does not hold a strong enough market share. For example, in Personal Health Care, which is considered a $240 billion market, P is a market leader, but with only a 5% share. Another area is Beauty and Grooming, and while leads the consumer market, it only holds 13% of the share. (P – 2014 Annual Report, 014) Organizational management is key to a business’ growth opportunities. It has a number of billion-dollar and half-billion-dollar brands that cover a number of markets. PG is certainly not lacking in performance. However, it is possible that it could build in certain areas. It has strong relationships with retailers, suppliers and a competitive advantage where innovation is recognized. Recommendation 3 – It is possible that could reach its hands into undeserved and unseeded consumers. There are a number of markets where consumers are not reached such as those watching a lot of television. With Digital Video Recorders (DVD) available for every home in the world, it is possible that is not reaching these consumers because people typically fast-forward through commercials. If these consumers were targeted in other areas such as highway billboards, mobile app advertisements, and e-commerce, PG may see a rise in its consumer markets. Employee performance management is not the only concept that creates an effective firm like Procter Gamble. Another tightly held idea is their efficacy in the use of partners and suppliers. PG’s network of partners and suppliers is critical to our long-term success ND in our purpose inspired growth strategy to touch and improve more consumers’ lives, in more parts of the world, more completely. † (Partners and Suppliers, 2014) PG’s supplier diversity goes deep and is historical. Since the sass’s, there has been a strong focus on its ability to diversify its supplier strategy. PG holds a special pride with min ority and women-owned businesses around the world, investing more than $2 billion in the last six years. This figure has placed PG on a short list called the Billion Dollar Roundtable, which specifically invests more than a billion dollars a year with a minority or woman-owned business. Recommendation 4 A recommendation to be considered might be the insertion of deeper rooted supplier networks. Possibly delving into more privately owned businesses for their product sales. One of PG’s greatest weaknesses is its inherent ability to rely on â€Å"big box† retailers such as Wall-Mart for revenue generation. With P product insertion into stores like Wall-Mart, the world-wide retailer is at an advantage with potentially greater bargaining power. With this comes less profit for Procter Gamble. Spreading the market share to smaller entities could help level the playing field with these large retailers. Chuan, 2010) Investing in a number of partners, P has not only generated awards for its partnership strategies, it has also helped to better the lives of the people who work in these companies. With well-treated employees comes greater confidence in the products created. P has set a very important standard in its desire to be a trusted company. P’s goal, where its products are concerned, is family safety. They need the consumers that purchase their products to come back and purchase more. The organization considers its commitment to safety as a part of its heritage and future. There are more Han 700 experts that work for PG globally, specifically to ensure the safety of its products with respect to environmental safety, human safety and the various regulatory compliance agencies around the world. Product Safety, 2014) Recommendation 5 Where product quality is concerned, PG is heavily involved. For example, in 2007, there were a number of product recalls in its pet food division. With keeping its powerful brand name, PG eventually sold off its pet division. This is an example of a recommendation that was followed and came out on top. With fast moving product, which is what PG relies on, having re-stocked rodents is important. Generating sales i s heavily reliant on new and innovative products. There is a possibility of having greater product quality if third party assets assisted in quality management. With so much product oversight on the inside of PG, this leaves room for bias. Outside experts, working independent of PG, and not under financial collusion, could assist in bringing greater product value to the market. (Chuan, 2010) Considering the size and reach of PG, their use of technology plays a significant role in its daily operations. They are reliant on IT systems for internet sites, data costing, processing facilities for tools and other hardware. The use of these IT systems includes services such as ordering and managing materials from suppliers; converting materials to finished products; shipping products to customers; marketing and selling products to consumers; collecting and storing customer, consumer, employee, investor and other stakeholder information and personal data; (PG – 2014 Annual Report, 2014) The firm has clearly stated A breach of information security, including a cyber-security breach or failure of one or more key information technology systems, networks, processes, associated sites or service providers could have a material adverse impact on our business or reputation. (PG – 2014 Annual Report, 2014) Recommendation 6 It is recommended that instead of relying heavily on its own employees for security management, to consider moving to a third party company and outsourcing its security. Ideally, with the extensive product development and its classified nature (until necessary patents are obtained), it is recommended that the firm receive the same level of security as the Department of Defense receives. Additionally, while the following details are likely classified, PG’s yester should be regularly hacked by white-hat hackers to determine potential security holes and assist in having them plugged. The culture at P is very strong. They lend the strength of their culture to its powerful innovation Structure. Is constantly displaying their formidable position on the planet as a leading innovator. A well-known process of moving the innovation from idea to prototype, to development, to qualification, to centralization is in place for the product launch model. Bob McDonald (2008) stated â€Å"Innovation requires a certain kind of culture, one that is curious ND courageous, connected and collaborative culture, and open-minded – a culture in which people want to take risks to identify game changing, life enhancing innovations. † McDonald went on to say that culture is not something that can fall under a mandate or be imposed. Good culture is grown on an organic level and while it cannot be demanded, it can be shaped and influenced. Recommendation 7 – Change management exists in all companies around the world, big and small. Dealing with the change comes down to working with employees in the firm to ensure the smooth transition. With constant changes in laws and isolations around the global, a global organization like Procter Gamble should consider a Change Consistency department, whereby change is predicted and the firm can then get ahead of it. Working with regulatory agencies around the world, it is possible that P can obtain potentially conflicted items based on ingredients. For example, in China, a number of products were found to have banned substances in them. Had there been a department designed to specifically combat these issues, P could come out on top and release products that do not interfere with a country regulatory efforts. With the above stated Change Management, there comes number of issues involving power, politics and conflict. With that in mind, everything comes down to quality leadership and effective communication. Without these two ingredients, it is too easy for a firm of this size to fall into complete disarray. How to cite Procter Gamble: From Top to Bottom – A Consultant’s View, Papers

My Aspiration to Become a Doctor free essay sample

My aspiration to become a doctor dates back to when I was in elementary school. Although as a young person, I did not quite understand what doctors essentially do my desire heightened by the sick people I came across. As I grew up, I steadily understood what it entailed being a doctor and that strengthened my desire even more of becoming a doctor. The fact that doctors save lives also forms part of why I want to become a doctor. When I was eight years old, my grandfather suffered from cancer.This resulted to my mom making endless trips to the hospital to visit him. Occasionally, she would take me along, and the condition my grandfather was in, mortified me. He always seemed to be in too much pain and as I was young and eager to learn more, I asked a lot of questions as to why my grandfather was under going too much pain. We will write a custom essay sample on My Aspiration to Become a Doctor or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page My mom always tried to encourage me by telling me that the doctors will make sure that my grand dad pulls through his sickness. This gave me some sense of hope made me believe that doctors always saved life.That is when my dream of becoming a doctor started as I was pestering my mother with many questions concerning being a doctor. In addition to my grand dads sickness, I also experienced a fatal road accident, which also made me want to become a doctor. The accident involved a saloon car and a cyclist. It happened one evening while I was walking home from school. Suddenly, I heard screeching sounds of a car tire and before I turned around to look there was a loud sound, and the next thing I saw was a lifeless body of a mid aged man behind me.The car then, speed away quickly while we tried to administer first aid to the victim, but it was unfortunate as he had crushed his skull caused by the impact he landed with on the road. Secondly, as I advanced in my education and did some wide reading, I came across a book entitled Treatment Kind and fair: Letters to a young Doctor. The book written by Perri Klass is inspirational, and boosted me as Perri mastered her art of mentorship in this book.In the book, the author addresses several issues concerning the life of a doctor and also tries to explore the lives of those that matter to the doctor. It is a first-hand experience to any person who wishes to become a doctor as it prepares one psychologically on doctor related issues. In addition, the book explores the judgments made by doctors while performing their duties. This gave me an insight of how I can easily tackle some questions related to situations needing quick decisions. The issue of death is also a great deal o doctors and this book handles the topic well. It explains to those aspiring to become doctors how to deal with death in case it occurs to a patient you were treating. The book made me feel like I am already practicing as a doctor as it gave light to my inner vision. Thirdly, I want to become a doctor to be able to help people who are less fortunate in society and those born with deformities. This reason inspired by the plight of people who live in third-world countries and can not be able to afford enough funds to seek quality medical care. In addition, many people in these countries are usually afflicted with natural disasters, which result to, the spread of diseases. Those affected most in such situations are women and small children, and my love and compassion for them makes me want to become a doctor so that I might be able to help them. In third-world countries again, we have children born with deformities such as the cleft lip. Many kids born with this deformity can under go surgery but because their parents lack enough funds to support them, so they spend the rest of their life that way.I believe in being courteous to fellow human beings, and since God wants us to love and care for one another, I want to become a doctor so as I can make people with such deformity have a great smile again. In conclusion, I can attribute much of my wanting to become a doctor to the experiences I encountered while young but also the wide reading I did as I advanced in my education also inspired me. Doctors are meant to be selfless t o be, in a position to serve people without being greedy for money as it is a form of giving back to society.

Writing a Thesis Statement for an Academic Paper

Writing a Thesis Statement for an Academic Paper Thesis Statement Help from Professional Writers Writing an academic essay is quite a usual task in high school, college or university. Students are asked to provide research on a topic, share their ideas and points of view in an essay. You should have precise arguments that will underpin your statement and persuade others. The idea you want to communicate is called a thesis statement. Making a good thesis statement might be tough as you have to put all your ideas and demonstrate personal position in one or two sentences. A lot of students face troubles with it while writing a thesis or an essay. The team of is ready to take care of your thesis. Place an order and our writers will do everything that is required. We can not only review your essay but help you write one on any of the following subjects: Math; Literature; Science (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, etc.); English Grammar; History; Law; Economics; Politics, etc. is a team of professional writers who can easily help you write a thesis statement. They have years of experience in writing and know how to make in powerful, precise, and persuasive. Our professional writers know exactly how to use a thesis statement to make an essay coherent, connecting thoughts into one single unit underpinned by facts and arguments. Students from different countries tend to use our services and ask for thesis statement help. Some of them become our clients and have a chance to enjoy all perks our company can offer. Once you place an order and make a payment, one of the managers will contact you to discuss the details and further steps. Writing a thesis statement seems to be difficult, but our experts are able to help you with that. : We Help Students Whenever you find it hard to write a thesis statement, our skilled writers are here to help you. We hire only native speakers from the USA, who hold a Master’s degree or a PhD in a respective field. Before they are offered a position of the writer, we ask them to pass tests in English grammar and vocabulary. We have to be sure of their professional writing skills. The orders we get are required to be written in academic style and within a stated time frame, so there should be no delays. Apart from writing a thesis statement, our team will help you with the following assignments: Article writing; Book/movie review; Thesis; Dissertation; Essay writing; Creative writing, etc. It is required to provide some personal information while placing an order. Have no worries as all customer’s personal data is kept safe thanks to a great security system. What is more, it is never passed to third parties. We do care about your comfort and confidentiality. The end of term is approaching and you will be loaded with projects or writing assignments that might take a lot of time. It is impossible to cope with everything equally, so you might need help writing a thesis statement or deal with other tasks. In case you have any question in regard to thesis statement writing or you are interested in some other services, it is possible to contact our support team. They are available 24/7 and can answer all your questions. Feel free to use our online services and you will receive the best support from experienced and professional writers. Do not hesitate and prioritize the assignments you have to deal with.