In What Ways Have ASDA Maintained Competitive Advantage Essay Example

In What Ways Have ASDA Maintained Competitive Advantage Essay Example In What Ways Have ASDA Maintained Competitive Advantage Paper In What Ways Have ASDA Maintained Competitive Advantage Paper The supermarket industry is fiercely competitive and is currently dominated by the Big Three companies: Sainsburys, Tesco and ASDA. To ensure that they remain in these three, it is important that each company gains and maintains their own competitive advantage. So, in what ways does ASDA do this? The three main factors that help ASDA maintain a competitive advantage are: * Reputation * Advertising * Market Research ASDA is well known for being the friendliest and cheapest supermarket. Customers can expect the legendary service with personality from all employees and the products they want at the lowest prices. This reputation is invaluable as it is the main reason why people shop and continue to shop at ASDA. To maintain this competitive advantage, ASDA make sure that their staff are as helpful as possible and regularly check to ensure that they are. All members of staff also wear Happy To Help badges to make them more approachable. ASDA try to emphasise this as much as possible, even one of their popular slogans is, Always Happy To Help. To ensure that they also have the lowest prices possible, ASDA hire employees to price check at rival supermarket chains. This has proven to be effective as they have been awarded the title of Britains Best Value Supermarket for the fifth consecutive year. Since 1999, ASDA have cut their prices by around i 0. 5 billion. Customers obviously recognise and value this as they continue to shop at ASDA. ASDA utilise advertising as an extremely powerful tool to attract customers. ASDA air more television commercials during daytime than any of their main competitors. They use this to make existing and potential customers aware of their latest deals and of course, that they are, always happy to help. These advertisements not only interest customers with their products but also make familiarise them with the name and associate ASDA with friendliness and great value. This association will make people who tend to shop at different supermarkets want to shop at ASDA if they feel that they offer a better service and are better value. Market research is also vitally important to maintain their competitive advantage. Market Research ensures that ASDA provide everything that their customer needs and also finds new products that customers would be interested in. To make this competitive advantage as long-lasting as possible, ASDA frequently research into customer care, consumer issues and product development, as well as ongoing advertising campaigns and price comparison. This helps ASDA keep ahead of the game and offer goods and services that their main competitors do not yet offer. Customers are also welcome to submit their feedback to ASDA through questionnaires available on their exit. These questionnaires help ASDA to find out the needs of their customers by interacting directly with them. Although these are the three main factors that help ASDA maintain a competitive advantage, others are just as important. These include the use of the Internet and innovation. ASDAs Internet shopping system has proven to be extremely popular. It is also a very cost-efficient way of advertising, which ASDA use to their full advantage. Internet shopping is becoming increasingly popular as it allows customers to shop from their own home instead of having to make the journey to the supermarket. Many customers prefer this because it allows them more free time, something that many people do not have much of in a busy, modern life. ASDA recognised this very early on and was one of the first UK Supermarkets to try out this system. Advertising on the Internet allows ASDA to target potential customers by advertising on a website that potential customers would be interested in. ASDA hire a group of people to constantly think up new ideas to stay ahead of the game and encourage staff and customers alike to make any suggestion that they want. ASDAs constant innovation has allowed customers a wider range of products available in ASDA. New specialised counters are constantly being added to help customers find what they want more easily and to ensure that the food is of high standard. These include specialisation in pizza, chicken, and fresh salads and fruits. Specialisation allows ASDA to assign employees to make a certain type of food. By just concentrating on this food, this ensures that it is of high quality and the employee will be as helpful as possible because they will know a lot about it. Conclusion ASDA rely on competitive advantage to keep their existing customers and to encourage other people to shop there. ASDA have many ways to ensure that they maintain this advantage. These include market research, advertising, the Internet, innovation and most importantly, their reputation. All of these factors guarantee that ASDA is more attractive to shoppers than their main competitors and make people want to shop there. ASDA take competitive advantage very seriously and this has caused them to win numerous awards including, Britains best value supermarket and also become the most popular supermarket in the UK.

Chinese Movie review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Chinese Movie review - Essay Example , the movie follows the story of a crime lord (Tang) in Shanghai during in the1930s and his singer mistress (Xiao Jingbao) as revealed gradually by their new boy servant (Shuisheng). The boy servant provides the point of view in the movies, often detailing the dynamics off the relationship between the powerful triad boss and his unpredictable mistress. In all aspects, crime is involved in acquiring power and making it in life. Shuiseng uncle (also a city criminal) is the one that links him up with the opportunity to work for the triad boss after getting him from the countryside. In the cause of working for the crime boss, he becomes accustomed to the happenings of the crime world such as seeing executions, hearing disturbing conversations and noticing the struggles of eth boss in making his mistress conform to his will. This gangster movie plotline presents the crime scene in Shanghai during the early years but fails to bring something unique to the audience. The viewers are likely t o see it as pointless and repetitive when they compare the film with other works in the gangster Chinese movies. The movie was made after the Chinese authorities ensured that there was no external funding. Production would only go ahead after falling under the local production category. This means that the movie was funded locally. This was an effort to ensure that the external sources did not influence the plot to paint a bad image of the Chinese authorities in its communist ways. Though there is no heavy use of stereotypes, the film nevertheless alludes to a particular political message that concerns the nature of the pre-revolutionary Shanghai and China in general. It depicts the lawlessness that was in China at the time rendering crime as a way to active power and stakes a claim in the society. Zhang Yimou manages to insert the social effect the criminal underworld and point to the larger problem in the Chinese society. The Forbidden Kingdom is presumably targeted for the U.S

Globalization Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 5

Globalization - Essay Example In addition, technology facilitates constant connectivity, which has led to establishment of a current generation living in a globalized world. Therefore, tracking communication and interaction with technology through my Smartphone for a period of four-hours depicts that there are numerous features offered by these device. After tracking use of my technological devices such as Smartphone and laptop, I acquired understanding of the way people use technology to communicate. In this case, people are able to connect through social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. In fact, accessibility to these social networking sites has been facilitated by the internet. Therefore, through my Smartphone, I was able to access information and services that I was interested in. Nonetheless, the internet plays a significant role in processes of reducing traditional barriers of communication across different parts of the world. During this period, I was using my laptop, and this made me realize that there are numerous software that have been developed along with protocols and standards aimed at enabling computers to interact through the internet. In fact, I was interacting with students from different parts of the world, thereby discussing issues regarding school projects. Therefore, collaboration platform has been developed in order to enable people share digital content (Friedman, 3). In fact, these collaboration platforms are referred to as flatteners, which expand opportunity through which people communicate and interact. These technological devices integrate internet functions, thereby making people’s lives more enjoyable. In fact, during this assessment period, I was able to watch new videos and play a game. Moreover, there are other emotional experiences, which are thrilling and exciting such watching a movie. Internet has become a social club since people have managed to develop and maintain friendships. For instance, during the assessment period, I had a g ood feeling of being socially connect with friends living in different parts of the world. In this case, we were able to interact and share some ideas, while making new friends. People have acquired ability to multitask, while using the internet and other technological devices. For instance, during the assessment period, I was logged into my Facebook account, whereby I was chatting with my friends; I was also logged into my tweeter account at the same time. Moreover, I was listening to Smartphone’s music, and I was still receiving calls from friends. In addition, during the same period, I got a chance to check my e-mail and play and online game. Therefore, use of technological devices among people in different parts of the world is increasing gradually with increases in levels of innovativeness and technological advancement. In addition, technology is used in order to achieve certain tasks in peoples’ lives such as learning and offering health care services. Part Two: Living Without Technology In order to understand the condition of living without technology, I conducted an assessment for a period of one hour. In this case, during this assessment, I refrained from using technological devices such as my laptop and Smartphone. On the other hand, I focused on using pens, paper and face-to-face conversation. Nevertheless, during this period, I was tempted to look at the messages and incoming calls from my friends on my Smartphone.

Alcoholic beverage Essay Example for Free

Alcoholic beverage Essay Are children of alcoholics more likely to be alcoholics themselves? In answering the question, researchers sampled 451 people in Alcoholics Anonymous to see how many would say that one, or both, of their parents were alcoholics. People in AA used in the study currently attend AA somewhere in Ohio, Michigan, or Indiana and were asked by people in charge of the local AA programs to volunteer to fill out a survey. The research found that 77 percent of the respondents had at least one parent they classified as an alcoholic. The study also surveyed 451 people randomly from the same states who claim not to be heavy drinkers. Of the non-heavy drinkers, 23 percent would label at least one of their parents as alcoholic. 1. In your own words, please write the conclusion of this passage. – 3 points From this passage, it is concluded, that commonly, one or both parents of alcoholics are accounted as alcoholics too. Therefore, it means that usually, children of majority heavy drinkers are also become alcoholics. 2. Please identify the reasons used in this passage. – 3 points So, author gave several reasons in the form of facts such as questionnaire, for the conclusion above. They made two general surveys, where 451 alcoholics and 451 not alcoholic people were asked. For the first survey, results were justified expectations by 77% out of 100%. By this I mean, that approximately 347 of respondents from AA said that at least of their parents were alcoholics. However, for the next survey, only 23% of whole respondents, who were out from AA approved that one or both their parents were drinkers. 3. What are some weaknesses in the argument, in your opinion? – 5 points There are some weaknesses in this argument. First, all participants of this study were from only three states, there are Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. It is not sufficient to claim, that it happens all around the world. Secondly, they wrote about non-heavy drinkers too, moreover, from the study, there are alcoholic parents in their family. Consequently, the argument against the fact. 4. What would be an appropriate title for this passage? – 3 points The basic reason of becoming alcoholics is alcoholic parents. 5. Do you think children of alcoholics are more likely to be alcoholics themselves? Explain why. – 6 points Sure, this might be possible claim, because, that kind of children ( with alcoholic parents) live with heavy drinkers from birth. Even, they would be brought up with alcoholics, or it is also possible that they will not have enough attention from their mothers and fathers, so it is more likely, that they will have a bad behavior from their childhood. Although, from my point of view, having a mother or father, who are drinks a lot is not sufficient cause of becoming alcoholic individual. There are other numerous reasons for being dependent on alcohol, such as impatience, being nervous, addicting to bad habits, mental or moral instability and so on. In addition to that, on the contrary, according to the survey, which is done for us, there are still many people who are not depend on their parents, and if their parents are heavy drinkers, it doesn’t affected on them. To conclude, we cannot label the person like alcoholics, just if their parents are alcoholics.

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How to Organize Your Home Office It is always the desire of many homeowners to have his or her home office well-organized. Many people know that there is no other way to become more productive than having organized home offices. When the home office is well-organized there are many things one would gain from that. It would help the person in easing the type of work he or she is doing; this is because it helps in doing the work better and faster. When the office is clustered it would become extremely difficult for the person to focus or concentrate on the work he or she is doing. The problem like looking for one office material or the other would always be there; this is because the place is in a mess. There are some negative implications to this. One of them is that the person would spend more time in getting small tasks done. He or she could be losing money in the process. The worst is that it makes the person stressful which has some negative health implications. The only way out of all these is to have a well-org anized home office. Here are some simple steps to organizing the home...

Case Study on East Meets West: Business Joint Ventures Essay

* Why would a joint venture partner from a planned economy have difficulty understanding that the consumer is king or queen? Answer: Every economy has its own characteristics as both good and bad as well. In any economy, there are rules and regulations fortified in the manner to help the citizens and so that the businesses can get enough revenue from their customers. As we see in today’s world, we can see that only the open economies are getting through the international competition and sustaining in the long run of multitasking operations. As in a planned economy like Soviet Union, Marxism-Lenism had some limitations too. Usually there are not many competitors and whosoever the businesses are; the procedures are controlled directly by the govt. The businesses started to think that customers will have to buy whatever they offer because they have not much of alternative choices. Maybe that can be alright for their country but not sustainable for any other country in this world. On an open economy, businesses understand, they have to satisfy the customers only and customers have a set of choices and alternatives available in the market. If their business can’t offer something much superior or different, there revenues will suffer. That’s why, because of the understanding of the business, they treat their customer as kings or queens. * Could a small business owner tolerate a business deal that had little probability of being profitable within the first 10 years? Answer: Small business owner doesn’t mean the entrepreneur doesn’t have any other businesses or way of earning. But if the business is only the way, of course no one will be able to tolerate this kind of business deal. Usually these kinds of deals are inevitable in industries like real estate, long term investment firms etc. There are not much information here about a planned economy right here and we can’t see how much they appreciated the FDIs is in their land. But in an open economy like most of the economies of this world, there have to be revenues actually. The businesses will have to pay their costs and maintain their operations running at any cause. At least their have to be sales enough to maintain both the variable and fixed costs of the business, If there are not much of profits, the business won’t have to pay much tax rate but if there are loans and financial debts, they will have to pay a certain percentage of their profits and if the forecasted profit s are not enough to pay, eventually they won’t get any kind financial help from any financial institution. As 10 years is a long time to build brand equity to the customers in an open economy, any one of the ventures can be impatient and break the deal. At any cost, maybe not for two years, or 3 years, the profit must come then enough to occupy the market and satisfy the contractors. Usually, for the first years of a business firm, they invest in getting brad equity and setting up customer loyalty and also in understanding the consumer behavior in their current operations. But this is brand management in their long term investment. But eventually, in joint ventures any one of the parties are sustainable and able to run their operations and known to be at least a provider of a certain group of customers. Profits may not come to be a point in these areas of generation but when the venture is formed and ready to serve the market, after calculating the time to build a level a brand equity and CRM, they must obtain profit to run their business enthusiasm. Even of there are big business owners. I suspect if they will be able to deal with such improbability. * Why have few Americans been willing to enter into joint ventures with Soviet partners today? Answer: As the situation provided is due to the environment in mid-1991, there are certain points to consider. We know that, in mid-1991, the recession of US was ended. Thus many companies who was facing a huge amount of loss got their heads up and start their operations again. In the 1990s, Gorbachev’s policy of perestroika offered the people little in substantive, near-term economic improvement, and his policies of demokratizatsiia resulted in rapidly raising their expectations while lessening the regime’s controls over society. As a result, in mid-1991 the Soviet Union appeared to be a disintegrating federation with a collapsing economy and a despairing, confused society. In August 1991, Bush and Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which required the United States and the Soviet Union to cut their nuclear weapons within seven years so that each side would have only 4,900 ballistic missile nuclear warheads as part of a total of 6,000 warheads. The two countr ies had been engaged in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) since 1982. In another collaborative effort, the Soviet Union voted with the United States and an international coalition of nations to oppose the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, a nation that had been the recipient of substantial amounts of Soviet military advice, equipment, and weapons. There has been a lot of changes in USA and Soviet Union constitutions on that time, maybe the destruction of weapons and an urge of being able to dominate each other’s economy, they came close to get to business relationships. Both of them were two of the most powerful part of the world and maybe one of them was trying to dominate the other but these are political overlooks. The business point of view strategizes the collapse of socialism in Soviet Union and because to the law changes in the field of business policy, there could be alliance powerful enough to understand the multinational consumer behavior of the other countries. Maybe those are the reasons why there has been so much eagerness of these countries to come close in professional relationships and diplomacy. References: 1. Soviet Union, Country Data, http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-12406.html 2. Business for the 21st century by Steven J Skinner and John M. Ivancevich.2003.

Waste to Energy Essay - 3482 Words

Waste-to-energy Taking Care of Garbage Michelle Rowland Buena Vista University Waste-to-energy Taking Care of Garbage We all have to share this world with its limited resources. We must take advantage of all resources we have, regardless if they came from the earth, are man made, or are waste products. The average person in America throws away 3.7 pounds of garbage every day (Resource Recovery Public Works, 2009). It is no surprise that this leads to landfills that are filling faster than we ever thought due to more people and the increasing throwaway economy. We are facing geological limits for landfills in many areas. Waste-to-energy is a productive method of relieving stresses on natural and man made resources.†¦show more content†¦Garbage is being used at 89 plants in the United States and over 700 others throughout the world (Michaels, 2008). Let’s take a closer look at this miracle fuel. Waste-to-energy is a process of creating energy in the form of electricity or heat from the incineration of garbage. The process has been endorsed by leading environmental scientists. The waste-to-energy facilities of the United States are required to meet the most stringent environmental standards in the world. The facilities are equipped with advanced emissions control equipment available. The US EPA concluded that the plants have dramatic decreases in air emissions, and produce electricity with less environmental impact than almost any other source of electricity. America’s Own Energy Source revealed the EPA has estimated that waste-to-energy avoids the release of 33 million metric tons of carbon dioxide yearly (America’s Own Energy Source). The technology to burn garbage with lower emissions than conventional fuels burned in most power plants is readily available today. The new waste-to-energy plants are reducing greenhouse gas emissions in three ways. One way is by producing electricity that would have been generated by a conventional power plant. Another way they reduce greenhouse gas is by disposing of solid waste that would have gone t o a landfill, decomposed, and then generated methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas. Waste-to-energy plants also recover metals for recycling,Show MoreRelatedThe Need for Waste-to-energy on Ships995 Words   |  4 PagesThe Need for Waste-to-energy on Ships Waste-to-energy power plants are lowering the amount of waste we have in landfills and turning that into energy to meet industrial needs. What if there was a way to shrink these power plants and put them onto cargo and passenger ships? 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