Realization of Customer Importance by Firms - 2214 Words

MBUS INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT: Why many firms fail to recognize the importance of customers until they are faced with a crisis? Done by Mohammed Fawas tp023152 word count:2149 Contents Introduction 3 Importance of Customers 3 Word of mouth 3 Feedback from customers 4 Link between loyalty and profitability 4 Reasons why companies fail to realize the importance of customers until they are faced with a crisis 5 An Example: Why U.S Internet giants like E-bay, Amazon, Google and Yahoo failed badly in China 6 Conclusion 9 References 10 Introduction Customers play a key role in the functioning of any business. For a business to function smoothly they should ensure the satisfaction of their customers. Many†¦show more content†¦Companies should be able to retain their customers in order to attain high profitability. It is claimed by Reichheld and Sasser (1990) that a 5 % improvement in customer retention can cause an increase in profitability between 25% and 85%. According to Buchanan and Gilles (1990), loyal customers tend to be less prices sensitive and are satisfied with their relationship with the company and also less likely to switch to competitors. As loyal customers have more experience with the business, they need less assistance, make fewer calls to the call centre and require fewer visits from the sales representative. This reduces cost for the business and increases profit. (Dean, 2004) Reasons why companies fail to realize the importance of customers until they are faced with a crisis Many companies fail to take into consideration the desired needs of the customers which result in their failure. They do not do a proper research of the market which leads to misconceptions and finally the customers switch to other firms from which the desiredShow MoreRelatedFormulation and Implementation of Corporate Strategy Essays709 Words   |  3 Pagesand human organization it is or intends to be, and the nature of the economic and non-economic contribution it intends to make to its shareholders, employees, customers, and communities (Ghoshal, Lampel, Mintzberg, Quinn, 2004, pp. 72). This paper will discuss formulating strategy. It will also discuss implementation and its importance. Formulation Corporate strategy has two components; formulation and implementation. Formulation produces a clear set of recommendations that help revise theRead MoreThe Relevance Of An Organization898 Words   |  4 Pagesrelevance that knowledge has in an organization. According to Popsa and Nicula, knowledge is directly proportional to the competence of employees working in a firm. 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Joseph Conrad s Heart Of Darkness - 1321 Words

In what is considered to be one of his most important works, Joseph Conrad pulls largely from his own experience in the Congo Free State. Heart of Darkness tells the story of Englishman Charles Marlow and his adventure as a steamship captain on the Congo River to rescue Mr. Kurtz, an ivory trader living deep in the jungle. Conrad is quoted as having said, â€Å"My task is, above all, to make you see.† His experience of seeing inhuman slave labor and the ruthless search for ivory in Belgian King Leopold II’s privately owned Congo Free State left him seriously ill and traumatized. By examining the philosophy of modernism, it becomes perfectly clear what Conrad wanted his readers to see: the evils of imperialism and the disastrous effects they have on those involved. In order to begin to understand what Conrad is saying, it is important to analyze how he goes about saying it. Central to the modernist style of writing, Heart of Darkness is not written with one clear interpretation. Rather than come right out and draw clear distinctions between right and wrong; good and evil; or black and white, Conrad structures his story as a framed narrative told in various shades of grey. Through Marlow, Conrad weaves a story that unfolds in various levels of discovery, sometimes moving ahead in time and at others flashing back. This style cautions the reader to be aware that every experience is an individual interpretation subject to different points of view; there are no absolute truths. At theShow MoreRelatedJoseph Conrad s Heart Of Darkness957 Words   |  4 Pages Chinua Achebe’s controversial essay published in 1977 focuses on the racist views woven into Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella, Heart of Darkness. Achebe claims that Conrad uses many western stereotypes of Africa and subtly weaves them below the surface of his writing. However, due to the popularity of the novella and the skill of Conrad, his racist views go undetected. 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Conrad skews Natives language, culture and intelligence to fit Europeans schema for Africa and Africans. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is placed in a colonized Congo. ...despite Heart of Darkness s (Joseph Conrad) obviousRead MoreAnalysis Of Joseph Conrad s Heart Of Darkness1504 Words   |  7 Pagescontrol over others and can be found in both people and objects. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness the main character and narrator Marlow identifies a force within ivory that conveys a sense power within the enigmatic Mr. Kurtz. The African ivory trade was flourishing in the early 1900’s. Obtaining the precious object transformed some into greedy connoisseurs with endless intentions to get their hands on all of the continents ivory. 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There is no proof that Mr. Kurtz is based on a real person, so it is assumed that he is a made up character. When Mr. Kurtz is first introduced the audience learns that he is a Belgian ivory trader and he was sent to Africa by his employer for work. At first glance, Mr. Kurtz just represents a normalRead MoreAnalysis Of Joseph Conrad s The Heart Of Darkness 1801 Words   |  8 PagesAlly Jones Professor Smith English 1302 November 18, 2014 Female Roles in Joseph Conrad s the Heart of Darkness: In regards to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, many literature reviews focus on the motifs of Imperialism, the symbolism of darkness and fog, or the aspect of racism in Conrad’s work. During the era which Conrad wrote, England was going through the Victorian Era, which was marked by a shift in views on morality. The term â€Å"Victorian morality† is used today to describe values which

Depictions of Death and Disease Free Essays

The use of the word â€Å"plague† is reserved for only the most momentous and devastating diseases in history. This word has been specifically set aside for diseases that strike a certain type of fear into the masses as with the Bubonic Plague, also called the â€Å"Black Death†, and the AIDS epidemic. The word has an effect of biblical proportions and epidemics like AIDS and the Bubonic Plague both display the social reaction to these maladies in the religious connections or rejections made toward both. We will write a custom essay sample on Depictions of Death and Disease or any similar topic only for you Order Now There is, also, evidence of the unraveling of complete societies due to these illnesses in the abandonment of the sufferers to their fates and the perpetuation of causation of these â€Å"plagues† to stories that confuse and confound communities into states of despair and disillusionment. The swiftness by which the â€Å"Black Death† struck victims to death is opposed to the lengthy period between the contraction of AIDS and a death that is not always certain or imminent. The words and descriptions of these diseases, however, did spread quite quickly and served as a lens by which society at the respected times viewed the chaos in the world. The Bubonic Plague quickly sickened and killed its sufferers and this swiftness of the disease left little time for people to react, there was no predicting it‘s path, no preventions, and no remedies. People expected death and the â€Å"Black Death† struck the consciousnesses of the people before the illness ever did. â€Å"‘And no bells tolled’, wrote a chronicler of Siena ‘and nobody wept no matter what his loss because almost everyone expected death†¦. and people said and believed, This is the end of the world’† (Tuchman, 413). People also were cited as living joylessly, attending funerals with no tears and weddings with no cheer. With the feeling that this was indeed the end of the world, it was as if an ominous black cloud had accompanied this black plague, leaving much room for superstition and little for hysteria. There was little emotional and physical energy left for the afflicted communities to remain gripped in a hysterical frenzy for long periods when death became so commonplace. The feeling at the time was that an evil presence was surrounding the affected areas and this apocalyptic, creeping fear soon was replaced by emptiness. There was no sense in tending to religious ideas, as many people died without being given their rites of death. In this way, many of the positive ideas of God and heaven were abandoned, as the people’s sentiment was that God must have been responsible for attempting to exterminate the human race altogether. In the collective imaginations of religious persons all through the world, the â€Å"Black Death† was proof that the devil had won and God was no longer in support of the once devout. There was little mercy for the sick and parents were even found to abandon their own children to their fates. The callousness of the living was written about in such a way that existence during these times was made to seem like a hellish tribulation, those who did tend to their families and the sick however were made to seem like saints. There seemed to be these pious individuals, who were revered as the sober and saintly men at a time when â€Å"men and woman wandered around as if mad†¦.. because no one had any inclination to worry themselves about the future† (Tuchman, 417). The â€Å"Black Death† concept, then became a metaphor for the darkness, disorder, dementia, and despair that was part of the fear that the world was at it’s end and there was no future. The horror of both AIDS and the Bubonic Plague was fueled mostly by the uncertainty of each disease’s origin. Those in the â€Å"Black Death† era looked to astrology and employed adjectives that referred back to nature itself as the culprit. According to Tuchman, the plague was said to be spread by â€Å"sheets of fire†, â€Å"a vast rein of fire† and â€Å"foul blasts of wind†. The metaphors here were probably not so much intended to be metaphors, but instead were parts of folklore that spread just as the disease did. The uncertainty of it’s origin certainly led to wild imaginations and a need for storytelling to put the horror into words, however magnificent and impossible these Eastern stories were. With AIDS, just as with the Bubonic Plague, the idea was that this disease originated from somewhere else, it presented itself as both geographically transcending and personally transforming. In this sense both were socially viewed as an invasion of a community and of the bodies of the afflicted. The wording surrounding AIDS and the â€Å"Black Death† made these afflictions seem like a retribution, as well. With the Bubonic Plague, it was the poor that were looked upon as being the most at risk while AIDS had and continues to have it’s own risk groups. Though both diseases proved indiscriminate in it’s victims with the idea of disease as retribution, there must be scapegoats to cognitively connect this reality. Sontag believes that the way AIDS is portrayed â€Å"revives the archaic idea of a tainted community that illness has judged† (683). The scapegoats, however, are also the so-called â€Å"third world† countries of disease origin, such as AIDS. The same type of confusion and calamity surround the explanations of the origin of the disease. If it is not God’s wrath or some other supernatural event, then a more modern version of the â€Å"Black Death† stories can be found in the belief by some that AIDS was manufactured by man. This is truly the hallmark of AIDS as a modern â€Å"plague†, as the idea of the Bubonic Plague being manmade would not have been possible. This points to the collective imagination of those in fear of both disease and technology, a new phenomenon. Many Africans subscribe to the idea, according to Sontag, that AIDS was manufactured in the United States by the CIA proving their suspicion toward technology and the American government. Americans, conversely, look at the spread of AIDS as originating from a primitive place, where the spread of the disease cannot be stopped by American, conventional technology. In either sense, the fear is projected toward the disease from an origin of an already instilled cultural belief. For Americans it is that what is â€Å"foreign† that is dangerous and to Africans what is American and technological is alarming and suspicious. Sontag effectively explains the outcome of the plague metaphor in that no matter where a person resides geographically or what their beliefs may be as to the origin of what is deemed to be a plague, the malady becomes understood socially as inescapable. She does offer, however, the idea that Europeans tended to believe that they held some moral superiority over the origin of disease, condemning other countries for spreading disease, but failing to observe their own role in spreading disease to indigenous peoples during colonization. However, the diseases spread by Europeans were not viewed as plague-like or morally reprehensible. The idea that morality can be traced to disease and it’s afflictions is an interesting social phenomenon that equates â€Å"sick† with â€Å"dirty† or â€Å"immoral† and â€Å"healthy† with â€Å"moral†. â€Å"Health itself was eventually identified with these values, which were religious as well as mercantile, health being evidence or virtue as disease being evidence of depravity† (Sontag, 686). This is evidence of the cultural values of the early twentieth century, according to the author, in the fact that middle class values and religious observation was seen as a deterrent from disease. Those, who led a life of supposed depravity, however where viewed as not only more likely to become ill, but more deserving of their suffering. AIDS has been portrayed in such a moral sense, that homosexuality and it’s immorality to some is the blame for the â€Å"plague† and a deserved consequence. Sadly, the same callousness that was displayed in the abandonment of suffering children still occurs today in the social abandonment and outcasting of AIDS victims. According to Sontag, the disease metaphor is especially beneficial to anti-Liberals and those that which to address issues of supposed moral decay. Therefore, Conservative opportunists have laden the language associated with AIDS to further political aims. In conclusion both the Bubonic Plague and the AIDS epidemic illustrate the ability of communities and cultures to transmit feelings of fear and the value of many social institutions within the context of a disease spread. Religion, politics, and the accusations and scapegoating of disease origin and spread permeate the spectrum of the social scene when such a heavily laden word as â€Å"plague† is perpetuated. With the fast spread of the first â€Å"plague† the idea that the end of the world was near was common. With the slower spread of AIDS in the Western world, however, a fierce anti-foreign, pro-technology, and anti-Liberal stance has been taken. Just as these diseases can devastate, so can the words and the world as it can slip into disorder and darkness. How to cite Depictions of Death and Disease, Papers