Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Loyalty Program Essay Example for Free

Loyalty Program Essay We go through 7 strategy steps to design a loyalty program for Cabo San Viejo which are as follows:   Before we suggest a customer rewards or loyalty program, it is important to understand what is the company’s long term vision, For whom this program is to be implemented i. e. who are the company’s best customers, what are their needs and expectations, the reasons for having such a program and the expected outcome. So the first question is: What is Cabo San Viejo’s long term vision? Was the company directing its activities in overall achievement of this vision? The vision of the company was to help people live healthier lives. Initially there was a gap between the operational objectives of making people lose weight by way of low calorie diet and the vision of getting people to live healthier lives by inculcating sustainable lifestyle ways. However, this gap had been bridged but the positioning gap remained. Who were Cabo San Viejo’s targeted customers? Was there any gap between targeted and actual customers? If we go by the vision statement, anybody wanting to live a better and healthier life was Cabo San Viejo’s targeted customers. These could include smokers, obese men and women, even obese children, stressed couples or singles, workaholic professionals, over worked top executives and managers etc. However, Cabo San Viejo was attracting mostly females (70%-80% of the guests) with an increasing average age over the years, the last average being 57 in the year 2004. Thus, mostly older females were visiting the resort who wanted to indulge themselves and feel better about their body and themselves. Also, their household income was high. Comparing this with the summer guests, the latter group had less income and was also comparatively younger in population. Thus, we can link the age, income level and affordability. Usually younger people are less wealthy and thus find such vacations expensive. Not only this, the perception of Cabo San Viejo first as a fat camp and then as a boot camp was discouraging people to come there. Also, 67% of guests came through word of mouth indicating that the above line marketing was performing poorly. Campaigns targeting specific groups of people showing indulgence in activities of their interest like hiking for young crowd, spa treatment for women, consultation for couples etc would be likely to bring out the varied health solutions offered by Cabo San Viejo. What were the needs of the guests at Cabo San Viejo? Was there any gap in meeting the needs or their expectations? The individual needs of the customers varied quite a lot. To understand and cater to the needs of the customers, the company had efficiently trained its reservation staff who helped customers choose the appropriate package as according to their goals and objectives. The very fact that 95% of the customers rated their experience as either very good or outstanding shows that Cabo San Viejo was operating efficiently. However, if Cabo San Viejo was to target a more demanding and younger customer base in future, it would have to exceed is current delivery promise. The needs have been met but the expectations of repeat customers have not been satisfied some of whom have expressed their resentment for not being rewarded for their continued patronization. Therefore we have recognized: Perception of Cabo San Viejo as a boot camp needed to be changed. †¢Young customers needed to be attracted. As they had higher expectations and smaller pockets, loyalty program needed to focus on value proposition by means of discounts etc. †¢Older customers were mostly wealthier and would not be looking for a value deal like the younger customers. Cabo San Viejo had around 5000 repeat customers each year which a healthy figure is making up about 60% of the total arrival figure. Around 3500 new guests arrive each year of which 32% revisited within 5-6 years and 62% of repeat visitors returned again within 5-6 years. The primary reason for not returning was the high costs. Here we reiterate that to attract more repeat customers, value must be offered. Why does Cabo San Viejo need a customer loyalty program? †¢Retention: One of the primary reasons for most loyalty programs is o retain the loyal customers by appreciating them and the business they generate for the company by making them feel special and good about their association with the company. †¢Offer enhanced value proposition: A loyalty program which offers a value deal to its customers who need it will get Cabo San Viejo more patronization. However, it is to be understood that not all customers need or expect value deals. Enhanced Satisfaction: Recognition by way of loyalty program makes a customer feel good and thus enhances satisfaction which in turn leads to more positive word of mouth. †¢Positive Word of Mouth: Around 60% of Cabo San Viejo’s customers called in for inquiry based on word of mouth. †¢Enhance image as a responsive company: Cabo San Viejo explicitly encourages customers to complain if unsatisfied. It is through such feedbacks that Cabo San Viejo has got to know that customers expect such a program implementation. Whenever a company asks for and receives complaints, it is best to respond or may lead to customer resentment. Counter Competition: If not rewarded for loyalty, customers may switch to other competitors. How much is the desired/expected impact? Having analyzed this, we now estimate the impact. The impact of a loyalty program is usually incremental and observed over a period of time. The expected increase in retention is say, 10%1 over a period of say, 5 years2. Also, people coming from reference is expected to increase over the years enabling the company to cut marketing costs elsewhere. 1The expected retention percentage is found either based on internal company data or industry expert advice.

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

A Knowledge Entry System for Subject Matter Experts :: essays research papers

The High Performance Knowledge Bases (HPKB) project demonstrated that the teams of knowledge engineers working together could create knowledge bases (KBs) roughly at the rate of 10K axioms/year for a pre-specified task and evaluation criteria. The HPKB effort showed that it is possible to create KBs by reusing the content of knowledge libraries, and it demonstrated reuse rates ranging from 25% to 100%, depending on the application and the knowledge engineer. It was acknowledged that the ability of a subject matter expert (SME) to directly enter knowledge is essential to improve the KB construction rates. The SRI team is developing a system for direct knowledge entry by SMEs as an integrated team of technology developers. The SRI team includes Boeing, Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at University of Southern California, Northwestern University, Pacific Sierra Research (PSR), Stanford University, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, University of Texas at Austin, and University of West Florida. Knowledge Systems Laboratory at Stanford, Pragati Systems, and Massachusetts Insititute of Technology joined the team after the contract award. The claim of this effort is that SMEs, unassisted by AI technologists, can assemble models of mechanisms and processes from components. These models are both declarative and executable, so questions about the mechanisms and processes can be answered by conventional inference methods (for example, theorem proving and taxonomic inference) and by various task-specific methods (for example, simulation, analogical reasoning, and problem-solving methods). A related claim is that relatively few components, perhaps a few thousand, are sufficient for SMEs to assemble models of virtually any mechanism or process. We claim that these components are independent of domain, and that assembly from components instantiated to a domain is a natural way for SMEs to create KB content. The research in this project exploits and extends previous work in the HPKB project, as well as work in process description languages, qualitative physics, systems dynamics, and simulation. One scientific innovation, and the principal extension to Cyc and the "HPKB standard" of knowledge bases, is the idea of declarative and executable models (DEMs) assembled from components. The declarative aspect of DEMs supports conventional inference, whereas the executable aspect supports reasoning by simulation. For example, the declarative part of a model of aerosols is sufficient to answer questions like, "Will a 5-micron filter afford protection against this aerosol?" while the executable part is necessary to model the dispersal pattern of the aerosol.

Monday, January 13, 2020

Occupational Health And Safety Practices Construction Essay

As mentioned in Chapter 1, the purpose of the study was to analyze the occupational wellness and safety patterns in topographic point at the Municipal Council of Port Louis, concentrating on the administrative cell. Correlating the consequences of the survey to the aims set, grounds shows that the existent wellness and safety patterns at the Council are really hapless and on the job conditions are in a distressing province. The first observation made is the deficiency of consciousness of respondents with respects to affairs associating to wellness and safety issues. For case, 72.6 % of the 84 respondents are non cognizant of the OSHA 2005, which sets out all the commissariats modulating wellness and safety at work ( Figure 1 ) . 77.4 % of the respondents are non cognizant of the Council ‘s Health and Safety Policy ( Figure ) . A Health and Safety Policy, as explained in Chapter 2, sets the way for the administration to follow on affairs associating to wellness and safety and demonstrates how aims of wellness and safety are integrated in the overall direction system. The two grounds that can explicate this state of affairs are: The involuntariness of employees to larn about the OSHA 2005 or the Council ‘s Health and Safety as they may non experience concerned by them these paperss were non communicated to the Staff of the Council as it can be observed that even 6.2 % of senior and 23.1 % of in-between directors are non cognizant of the Policy ( Figure ) . Health and safety does non fall to the full under the duty of direction. Under the OSHA, employees have the duties to larn about the commissariats of the statute law and to collaborate with direction in staying by the rules dependably. Besides, by non larning about the jurisprudence, they are seting themselves at hazard by non continuing good wellness and safety patterns in their day-to-day undertakings and direction can non be entirely blasted for any accidents, as dictated by the celebrated antediluvian Latin legal philosophy â€Å" Ignorantia juris non excusat † ( Ignorance of the jurisprudence does non pardon ) . However, ideally, direction should hold communicated the necessities of the Act to the employees, informing them of their rights and responsibilities. From the secondary information available, it was found out that the Council has a Health and Safety Policy which is dated back to 2002 ( Find at extension ) . It was besides found a Health and Safety Officer, who has late been appointed by the LGSC on a substantial footing has been posted at the Council. This was confirmed by the extremely positive response ( 88.1 % ) of the respondents ( Figure 5 ) . A 2nd observation made is the presence of physical jeopardies at the Council. This substantiates consequences found on the hapless conditions of the office environment ( Table ) . Harmonizing to 61 % of respondents, the edifice is in a distressing province. This can be explained by the fact that being a public establishment, it is really hard to happen financess for the building of new office edifices. However, edifices should hold been maintained on a regular footing. Harmonizing to Section 34 of the OSHA 2005, the office constructing demand to be of sound building, have a watertight roof, kept free from moistness and be decently maintained. Proper drainage system is needed. Therefore, it can be seen that the Council is non following with the jurisprudence. It was found that there is hapless airing ( 51.2 % ) and the uncomfortable temperature in the office ( 59.5 % ) can be explained by the hot clime in Port Louis. The office contains countless beginnings of air pollutants and therefore demands to be aerated on a regular footing to forestall diseases like the Legionnaires disease which occurs as a consequence of ill maintained airing systems. Management should imagine the installing of mechanical air conditioning, and modulate temperature to do workers comfy. High noise degrees are upseting to the concentration of respondents ( 52.4 % ) . As explained in the literature reviews, inordinate noise can take to interference in communicating and can impact the concentration of workers, cut downing their productiveness. Poor housework has resulted in dirty offices ( 52.4 % ) and obstructors such as draging computing machine and electrical overseas telegrams ( 65.5 % ) which represent a serious trip and autumn jeopardy. Accumulation of trade wastes as explained before, can give rise to biological jeopardies like genteelness of sources taking to diseases. Harmonizing to Section 35 of the OSHA 2005, the office country needs to be unbroken clean so as to forestall accretion of soil and trade wastes have to be removed on a regular footing, with the floor being cleaned atleast one time hebdomadal. This shows non-compliance to the jurisprudence. Besides, in the populace sector, it is common cognition that files are stored in unfastened filing cabinets which consequences in accretion of dusts, taking to the dissatisfaction of employees ( 61.9 % ) . It was found that though many respondents are satisfied with the degree of illuming ( 50 % ) , it should be noted that they were non asked to stipulate the types of illuming used. Artificial lighting can be damaging to the wellness of employees in the long term. 36.9 % of respondents who claim on occasion suffer from occupational unwellnesss and strivings stated the cause of their agonies to be the hapless office environment: hapless temperature and airing systems doing allergic reactions in workers, concerns and oculus annoyances owing to the lighting provided, trips and falls from draging overseas telegrams and unequal filing cabinets. The unequal safety steps were besides noted. Harmonizing to 66.7 % of respondents, electrical equipments are non serviced on a regular footing. This consequence in electrical contraptions being damaged taking to overheating, short circuits, or detonations. Harmonizing to the Guidelines from the Government Fire Services dated 28 November 2006, the chief cause of fire is â€Å" defective electrical installation/equipment † . Hence, electrical installings and equipments have to be decently maintained and tested so as to minimise the hazard of fire. For an administration to be certified by the Fire Services, it has to fulfill some standards, which has been explained in inside informations before. It has to be able to supply to life safety, fire bar, fire protection and fire combat steps. From the statement of consequences, it can be noted that: — — % of respondents claim that no clear fire instructions have been issued to them ( Figure ) Inadequate safety marks displayed harmonizing to 60.7 % of respondents in Table Inadequate exigency exits harmonizing to 51.2 % of respondents ( Figure ) Harmonizing to 83.3 % , equal fire contending tool are available ( figure ) Lack of fire drills harmonizing to 61.9 % of respondents ( figure ) Fire dismay system, but whether it is effectual of non, is s really subjective inquiry, as from the above information, it can be deduced that no drills have been carried out to prove the effectivity of the fire dismay system Lack of emptying programs harmonizing to 70.2 % of respondents ( Figure ) Therefore, from the above observations, it can be deduced that the Council has non been award a Fire Certificate. This is confirmed by the 44 % of negative responses and 42.9 % of impersonal responses ( Figure ) . A 3rd observation made was the deficiency of proper hygiene provided to the employees ( Table ) . Without proper public assistance installations, workers may experience that their demands are non being catered by direction. The deficiency of separate healthful comfortss harmonizing to 81 % of respondents, indicates a misdemeanor of Section 39 of the OSHA 2005 where it has been stipulated that each organisation has to do proviso for separate and clean healthful comfortss which are good lighted and ventilated for each gender. This creates a deficiency of privateness for members of both gender and this can take to much uncomfortableness among them. Harmonizing to Section 41 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 2005 â€Å" suited installations for rinsing which shall include a supply of clean H2O, soap, clean towels or other suited agencies of cleansing and drying, and the installations shall be handily accessible and shall be kept in a clean and orderly status † . This shows that the Council is non following with the jurisprudence ( 67.9 % respondents non satisfied ) . The deficiency of proviso of a muss ( 83.4 % ) , which consequences in go againsting Section 44 of the OSHA 2005, leads to workers holding their repasts in the office itself. This causes the workstation to be untidy, ensuing in hapless housework. The deficiency of first assistance box is noted with much concern. Coupled with the deficiency of show of exigency phone Numberss ( Figure 32 ) , and a first assistance box, in instance of any incidents or accidents, there is a hazard of employees non being given first assistance intervention which can ensue in their status being aggravated by the clip they are taken to the Hospital. A 4th observation made is the ill designed workstations of workers ( Table ) . Out of the 61.9 % of respondents who are non satisfied with the infinite allocated to them in the office ( Figure 40 ) , 75 % are operational workers ( Figure 41 ) . This can be explained by the fact that they have to portion their office infinite with other office equipment like the photocopiers, scanners, pressmans, which take up much office infinite. Besides, ozone gas from these equipments can be really damaging to the wellness of the employees. Inadequate seating ( 68.2 % ) can do musculoskeletal upsets as explained in the literature reviews. It can besides be noted that non merely of respondents, ergonomic computing machine equipments are non provided harmonizing to 57.9 % of respondents, but they are non good positioned in the workstation. Harmonizing to 66.9 % of respondents, their computing machines are non straight in forepart of them when working. This can be explained by the cramped office infinite allocated to them, which causes them to strive to the sides to be able to work on the computing machine, doing MSD as explained before. Poor workstation design coupled with a deficiency of proper office accoutrements as indicated by the 74.8 % of respondents, this makes office work more uncomfortable and boring and besides deleterious to the wellness of the workers. This explains the 23.8 % of workers who claim to endure all the times while 36.9 % on occasion suffer from strivings and hurts ( Figure ) . Respondents were asked to stipulate the grounds for their strivings or unwellnesss, and it was found that many of them stated they suffer from back hurting owing to hapless siting agreements and leg strivings owing to miss of footrest, arm and carpus strains to work on the keyboard, insistent clicking of the mouse ensuing in strivings in fingers and carpuss and blaze from computing machine screen ensuing in concerns and oculus annoyances. A 5th observation made is the hapless interpersonal relationships of workers at the Council. Merely 28.6 % of respondents entertain good relationships with their co-workers ( Table degree Fahrenheit ) . As has been noted in the statement of consequences, it was found that employees holding more than 24 old ages of working experience at the Council tend to hold better relationships among co-workers compared to the younger coevals ( those holding less than 7 old ages of service are non on good footings with co-workers ) It was besides found that all respondents holding less than 7 old ages of service in the organisation are operational workers. ( figure 80 ) The younger coevals tends to be more competitory as they have merely joined the Council and are get downing to construct their calling. As such, they are really ambitious which consequences in the office atmosphere being fraught with competition. On the other manus, those basking more than 24 old ages of service in the organisation are those holding more than 42 old ages of age ( Table 5 ) . Hence, most of them have already reached the pinnacle of their callings which makes them less competitory six a vis their co-workers. Merely 11.9 % of respondents claim to be on good footings with their supervisors ( Figure 47 ) . One ground that could explicate this is the bureaucratic system of direction in topographic point at the Council. As pointed out by Jerald Hage et Al ( 1971:860 ) ‘as organisations become more formalistic and centralised, communicating between individuals in different sections tend to diminish ‘ . Hence, owing to the hierarchal construction of the Council, the lower class employees do non acquire to pass on much with the top direction. Another ground for the hapless relationship with direction is the favoritism about the distribution of undertakings to the employees. 40.5 % of respondents feel they are overloaded with work ( figure 49 ) . Figure 53 throws more light to this statement, as it was found that out of the 34.5 % of respondents who claim to be enduring from favoritism at work, 96.6 % are workers holding less than 15 old ages of service at the Council and most of them stated that they are discriminated onthe distribution of undertakings by their supervisors. They stated that they are allocated more and complicated undertakings than their older co-workers. 58.3 % of respondents feel they are working below their capablenesss ( figure50 ) . An in-depth analysis ( fig ) shows that workers throughout all degrees of the occupational hierarchy feel they are non working up to their degree. It can be noted that even workers holding less than 23 old ages of working experience at the Council feel they are non working up to their degrees. Today, many employees of the Public Sector are good educated, but owing to the high criterions and processs in topographic point by the LGSC, it is non easy to be awarded publicities. This leads to frustration in workers that they are non accomplishing their coveted place in the administration. They feel they can make a much better occupation than the 1 that has been allocated to them. This explains the competitory behavior among co-workers. This besides leads to extremely qualified and skilled employees go forthing the Council as they find better occupation chances in the private sector. This consequences in a encephalon drain of the administration, which it will endure in the hereafter when it would miss qualified staff. It has been found that 26.19 % of respondents are harassed all the times and 30.95 % who claim to be harassed on occasion ( Figure ) . They were asked to stipulate the types of torment they faced and many stated that they are verbally harassed by their higher-ups and members of the populace. Some even stated they are harassed by their co-workers. As has been described before, torment of strong-arming at work have a negative impact on the mental province and morale of the worker. Some workers stated that they have suffered from aggressive behaviors and even physically abuse by members of the populace. This confirms the unequal system of security in topographic point at the Council by 64.3 % of respondents ( Table ) From the above information, it can be concluded that the Council ‘s population is psychologically ill. Workers are faced with excessively much force per unit area at work to run into deadlines and they have to cover with verbal torment from their supervisors to acquire the occupation done more rapidly. This explains why 40.5 % of respondents feel they have excessively much work to make. As has been explained before, this leads to defeat, high degree of emphasis which can be harmful to the wellness of workers. Coupled with this, there exist hapless interpersonal relationships among workers. From Hawthorne surveies, it can be said that it is non the physical conditions or the organisation construction which affects public presentation but it was the quality of interpersonal relationships, peculiar workers ‘ relationships with their higher-ups that aid to hike morale and productiveness. Another observation made is the deficiency of wellness surveillance provided to the workers harmonizing to 96.4 % of respondents ( Figure ) . Another observation made was the deficiency of preparation provided harmonizing to 92.9 % of the respondents ( Figure ) . Without proper preparation, workers would non be able to execute their plants safely, ensuing in the high rate of unwellnesss and hurts as shown in FigureaˆÂ ¦aˆÂ ¦.. From the above observations, it can be deduced that hazard appraisals are non carried out as confirmed by 86.7 % of respondents ( Figure ) . Had hazard appraisals been carried out, the jeopardies observed in the Council would hold been identify and measures taken to extinguish them. Coupled with this, 57.1 % of respondents claim that accidents are non reported, registered or enquired into ( figure ) . This demonstrates hapless accident coverage system ensuing from a deficiency of communicating between direction and employees. Another observation made is the absence of a good established Health and Safety Committee. Figure 9 substantiates the statement. 91.7 % of respondents confirmed that there are no wellness and safety commission at the Council. This hypothesis supply some accounts for the above mentioned defects and non conformity of the Torahs detected. Had there been a Safety and Health Committee, it would hold taken into history the grudges of the employees, devised a suited preparation programme, set up a codification of behavior for employees with respects to proper wellness and safety patterns. It would hold ensured that hazard appraisals and audits are carried out to place jeopardies and reported to Committee for appropriate steps to be taken to command or extinguish them. It has besides been observed that overall, there is been a negative response ( 65.5 % ) about the wellness and safety patterns at the Council ( Figure ) . Sum uping the statements of consequences of the study, based on literature reappraisals and associating the office environment, workstation design, hygiene installations, safety and interpersonal relationships, there are ample cogent evidence that the wellness and safety patterns at the Municipal Council of Port Louis is really deficient. This consequences from a deficiency of direction and the council members ‘ committedness and employees ‘ engagement, ensuing from the stiffly hierarchal construction of the Council. This stems besides from the deficiency of wellness and safety officer in the yesteryear. Correlating the findings of the study and the rules of the OHSMS described in the literature reviews, it can be said that there is an absence of a proper system of occupational wellness and safety direction. However, as has been stated earlier in this chapter, a Health and Safety Officer has late been posted at the Council. With the coaction of direction, council members and the employees, he will hold the duty of puting up a proper OHSMS to heighten the wellness and safety patterns at the Council. This can assist construct the psychological environment in which workers would experience healthy, secure, safe and most significantly, they will experience valued.

Sunday, January 5, 2020

Zora Neal Hurston Integrates Folklore with Fiction Essay...

Zora Neal Hurston integrates folklore with fiction in her works. Zora Neale Hurston was an author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance who won Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. She wrote a number of books but â€Å"Their Eyes Were watching God† was by far her most successful book that she has written. â€Å"Their Eyes Were watching God’† was published in 1937 had fifty-two editions and had a rating of 109,737. This was not only the most successful book that she had written but it was also one of the most popular books of her time. That may have been her most successful book she wrote but it is the same as all of her other fiction books with uses folklore in them witch is because of her background. It all started with â€Å"Jonahs Gourd Vine†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦show more content†¦Notasulga is a town in Alabama with a population of 916. If you’ve ever been in a small the south more important a town in Alabama you know they are very traditional. Her family move d to Eatonville, Florida, one of the first all-black towns in the United States witch was very traditional. She he was the fifth out of eight kids and her parents were John Hurston and Lucy Ann Hurston. Her father John Huston was a Baptist preacher and her mother Lucy Ann Huston was a school teacher. In my opinion this was the main reason she was very educated, religious and folklore. In addition she was very interested in other people, other counties’, and other communities’ folklore witch she also displayed in her work. In her book â€Å"Tell My Horse† she writes about accounts of the weird mysteries and horrors of voodoo in Haiti and Jamaica. This is a picture of ceremonies and customs and superstitions because it is based on Hurstons personal experiences in Haiti and Jamaica. Times Book Review said, Strikingly dramatic, yet simple and unrestrained an unusual and intensely interesting book richly packed with strange information. Next Zora Neale Hurston wrote â€Å"Dust Tracks on a Road† published in1942 this book is actually an autobiography that explains her child hood. Therefore she talks about how she was how she is the daughter of the Mayor