Tuesday, December 24, 2019

My Life - Original Writing - 956 Words

I never liked going to school and loved to stay at home with my mom, my brother, Christopher, and my puppy, Zoe Belle. Kindergarten was a struggle for me; I did not like my teacher and I did not like leaving my safe, comfortable home. I went to kindergarten on Monday, Wednesday and every other Friday, so on my days off my mom and I would practice my writing and penmanship skills. I remember the day vividly! I was extremely happy that I did not have to go to school! It was a bright and sunny afternoon, with the fresh wind blowing through our screened in sliding glass door. My mom had just made my brother and me some SpongeBob macaroni cheese with hot dogs. This definitely was not my favorite meal for lunch, but my little brother, Christopher has always loved it! I always want everyone around me to be happy, and since this was his favorite meal, it made him happy, so I was happy. My brother and I are three years apart, we used to get along back then but as we both got older, the sibling nagging, pestering and arguing began to develop. Deep down we love each other but we never tend to express those emotions. After finishing our hot cheesy lunch and a nice warm chocolate chip cookie straight from oven, my mom put my brother down for a nap. When she came downstairs, my mom told me that it was time for me to do my homework and practice my penmanship. Practicing my letters and writing three lettered words was a struggle for me; my hand could never hold the long,Show MoreRelatedMy Life - Original Writing1267 Words   |  6 PagesI yawn and arch my back in a big stretch. I could see my breath in the air. It would be getting colder from now on. I take a look around the small hut we call home. Adam is still curled up on the old mattress, a bundle of blankets wrapped around him. Mom isn’t sleeping next to him, probably out tending the garden. It seems that’s all she’s been doing these past few months. I stand up and walk over to Adam. He is sound asleep, a small amount of drool collecting on his chin. I smile at this and grabRead MoreMy Life - Original Writing977 Words   |  4 PagesWhen my son was ten years old, he asked me if I had ever been bullied before, or if I’d ever bullied anyone. I told him no! Not me! He said, â€Å"Mom, Nana told me that you were bullied, and you bullied people before, too.† I wondered if I should tell him the truth in that moment, that yes, when I was your age and younger, I was bullied, and yes, I bullied others, too. The thought that I could jeopardize my relationship with my son scared me. I could see it dwindling. The actions from my past might makeRead MoreMy Life - Original Writing850 Words   |  4 Pagesto go!† My sister vanessa yelled at me as I was packing the last of my things . I was fifteen and I had just arrived to my new home in Garland. I had just moved form Plainview and I was leaving my friends and family that I had grown up with behind. Moving to Garland while still in High School was one experience that changed my life. I had just finished my freshman year In high school when I had gotten the news that my mom decided to move. She decided that it was best for her and my step dadRead MoreMy Life - Original Writing1463 Words   |  6 Pagesgrim gossip about my old babysitter which made me think of a particular summer morning, bookmarked in my long-term memory. During the school holidays in my ninth summer, I was lying under the garden tree, staring at a singular leaf that was eclipsing the summer sun as the zephyr tenderly blew it back and forth; giving it a seductive allure, while thinking about the previous night. Mother and father were having an agitated discussion downstairs in the living room. Sitting on my bed not able to sleep;Read MoreMy Life - Original Writing1725 Words   |  7 Pagesheavy cry, the physical cracking of my innocent heart. All things that I felt, but hid, in the summer of 2013. This was the day that my family, my world, fell apart for good. Everything was a lie, or so I was told by one party and by the other half, there were no lies. Forced to choose sides between my loved ones, I broke down and grew up in a matter of hours. The day was hot, in June or maybe even July. I had just returned from a fantastic vacation with one of my best childhood friends. We had goneRead MoreMy Life - Original Writing978 Words   |  4 PagesThen my world fell apart. A piercing scream filled the air, one that I will never forget. It was my mother’s... Then everything went black. All the memories poured back, the hospital, hearing the words, â€Å"dear your mother and father are gone. They didn’t make it, I’m so sorry.† And now... The rain washed down my red face along with my tears. Without any sympathy the thunder and lightning bolted down on the damp earth. There I stood my black shoes sinking into the muddy ground. I lifted my blurredRead MoreMy Life - Original Writing1236 Words   |  5 Pagesmoney my dad gave me for ice cream, tight in my hand. I saw the group sitting outside getting ready to go.I could see myself sitting in the back on the porch, eating the delicious flurry that I was soon to order. My brother,my best friend Cassie and her two brothers along with her dad and I were going to ride our bikes through a trail off in the woods and go to Whistlestop Park and then cut through town and head to Houseman s, an ice cream shop near our house. I quickly finished tying my shoe andRead MoreMy Life - Original Writing912 Words   |  4 Pagesfinally decided to have the have the guts and ask my mom the question I had been wanting to ask her. Growing up I had strict parents but not that strict as if I were a prisoner in my own home. Almost every parent appear to be strict others on the other hand are not strict. Entering high school would be the most scariest chapter in my life, I going to meet several new people in my life. Biting my nails as I’m walking in on my first day of highschool, I turn my head left and right as if I were an owl. SeeingRead MoreMy Life - Original Writing1319 Words   |  6 Pageschild, I always used to think that my parents were indestructible. I n my eyes, there was absolutely nothing that could hurt them. Obviously, there is no logic behind this preposterous belief, yet I still felt that way for almost a decade of my life. Unfortunately, my idealistic views came to an end when I was nine years old. My father, who was always some sort of superhero in my life, was diagnosed with end stage renal failure in the summer of 2006. All of a sudden, my super hero didn’t seem so indestructibleRead MoreMy Life - Original Writing1046 Words   |  5 PagesI’m about 13 years old, married to a 35 year old man, and pregnant with the son of God while I’m still a virgin. Yes, my life’s going great. I was a Jewish girl getting ready to marry a well-established carpenter, then a man came to me in my house and told me I was pregnant. I was shocked, because I’m only 13 and was still a virgin. Well, it happened. I conceived when the angel told me I would, went into labor on the way to Bethlehem, and gave birth in a stable because the innkeeper didn’t have any

Monday, December 16, 2019

B2B Report Free Essays

string(208) " According to Civil Law Network \(2010\), the ministry has implemented a new regulation for food safety, and requires all enterprises in food industry to strictly comply with the law of standard safety food\." EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The report will firstly analyze the external audit of Processed Food Food Service and Confectionery Bakery industries, which consist of two parts – market analysis and customer analysis. From these two parts, the opportunities and threats of the suppliers in these industries, especially DKSH, will be outlined. In the market analysis, business environment, the market and competitors will be examined respectively. We will write a custom essay sample on B2B Report or any similar topic only for you Order Now Particularly, the opportunities about the increase in demand or a good signal of industrial development will be explained in social factors, economic factors and industry part; these factors will give general information about Vietnam young population and their Western culture receptivity, which will easily increase the demand in such industry. On the other hand, legal factor will threaten DKSH due to the strict requirement in canned food industry that the firm needs to take caution in order to adapt to new regulation; while the economic factors once again strengthen the opportunity from social factors due to the increase in GDP growth and income. However, the inflation rate should also be considered because it could cause the inconstant demand and be difficult to forecast future demand in the future. The market part also gives some general information about the size based on the value of packaged food industry around US$12. billion in 2011 with the prediction of 4. 2% growth rate in next two years, which promises the development of these two clusters in the near future. Secondly, customer analysis is divided into two main features, which are current customers and potential customers. In current customer analysis, the report will give the information about each cluster’s market share of the top companies holding the highest percentage; Masan in sauce market, Acecook in instant noodles market, and Kinh Do in confectionery bakery market. Then, more details information about these current customers will be examined in term of sales, their expectation such as building up deeper relationship with their multinational suppliers, and difficulty such as high input cost. After that, potential customer part is analyzed based on proposed potential customer list; this part contains some companies regard to Lien Hoa, Hieu Cau Den in processed food; and Huu Nghi and Hai Ha in bakery and confectionery. Especially, some reasons will be given based on the research and analysis about these companies in order to prove that they re ideally potential customers of DKSH. Thirdly, the internal audit is conducted to give the brief idea about the company; DKSH sales structures are activated in product and geographically based, and the strengths of the company about qualified staffed and good value added service are figured out in resources and marketing mix management part. From industry and customer analysis, the SWOT gives the summary of c ompany strengths and weakness; and opportunities and threats in graph illustration form. Next, the marketing plan is proposed in order to give the best fit with the SWOT. The marketing objective that applied SMART approach will aim to increase the demand, brand awareness as well as the way to approach to potential customers with the specific point of time which is from 1st October 2012 to 1st April 2013. Then, the implementation plans relied on marketing mix, including direct marketing, personal selling and sale promotion will be planned specifically. To give more visual prospect about the marketing plan, the marketing program gives detail schedule as an action plan; and finally the performance evaluation will give some idea about how to evaluate the success of this marketing plan. Contents I. Introduction5 II. External Audit6 A. Market Analysis6 1. Business Environment6 2. The Market8 3. Competitors10 B. Customer Analysis11 1. General Information11 2. Current Customers13 3. Potential Customers17 III. Internal Audit23 A. Company Analysis23 1. Sales23 2. Management of marketing mix23 3. Resources23 IV. SWOT25 A. Strengths25 B. Opportunities25 V. Marketing Objectives26 VI. Implementation Plans26 VII. Marketing Program27 A. Direct Marketing27 1. Telephone Marketing27 2. Email Marketing27 B. Personal Selling29 C. Sales Promotion29 D. Action Plan29 VIII. Performance Evaluation31 IX. Conclusion32 X. Appendix33 A. Potential Customer List33 B. Mapping Itinerary37 1. Southern37 2. Northern40 XI. Reference41 * Introduction DKSH is one of leading companies in market expansion services that has been established in 1865 and exist for 150 years in Asia. Thus, â€Å"Think Asia, Think DKSH† is recognized as company’s slogan and that could tell how successful DKSH is in Asia. With a strong financial performance that has increased rapidly from 2002 to 2011 that exceed 8. % in net sales, DKSH becomes a strongest successful market leader recently. Obviously, its objectives are to help firms to grow their business in new and existing market by supplying knowledge, advice, relationship to reach each individual’s goal, expand company’s revenue opportunities and increase their market shares by making sure that their client’s products are always visible on the shelves at all tim es. DKSH’s business units are divided into 4 main business lines: Food ; Beverage (F;B), Personal Care, Pharmaceuticals and Specialty Chemicals. In fact, this report is going to analyze on 2 small clusters: Confectionary ; Bakery, and Processed Food which included in F;B industry in order to help DKSH to remain on the existing market and expand their business to the new market. To be more specific, integrated marketing communication tools that are direct marketing (telephone ; email), personal selling and sales promotion (trade promotion) will be applied to support push strategy in order to approach to potential customers. External Audit Market Analysis Business Environment Social Factors According to General Statistics Office (2010), Vietnam population in 2010 is around 88 millions with 51. 9% of this figure is younger than 30. Hence, it could become an opportunity for confectionery and processed food markets in increasing demand for consuming these kinds of product due to the receptivity of young population as well as the influence of Western culture. For this reason, suppliers of ingredients for these products can potentially enhance the number of customers as well as their sales in Vietnam market. Legal Factor According to Civil Law Network (2010), the ministry has implemented a new regulation for food safety, and requires all enterprises in food industry to strictly comply with the law of standard safety food. You read "B2B Report" in category "Essay examples" To be more specific, the Government encourages food manufactures in using high quality ingredients and adding more nutrition in their products. Moreover, they also require the manufactures in focusing on managing the supply of ingredients from upstream. Consequently, it could be the threat for food manufacturing companies to manage and have a specialized knowledge about supplied ingredients and their suppliers are expected to invest more in innovating their products in order to meet the regulation and more persuasive for the manufacturing firms to use their products. Furthermore, the regulation for environmental friendly packaging in food service also stricter (Civil Law Network 2010). Thus, it requires food service suppliers to put more effort in investing new or innovating current kinds of packaging that could adapt to environment issues. Economic factors In 2010, Vietnam’s GDP growth rate was 5. 83% (tradingeconomics. com 2012), hence the monthly average income per capital had increased to 39. 4% compared to 2008 and was estimated to be 1,387 thousand VND. As the result, this increase in income have gradually shifted Vietnamese consumers in premium segments such as sweet, ice cream or cakes and consumers also have higher requirements of diverse tastes, food quality, and nutrition for package food and also bakery (Vietnam package food, 2011). It is the good opportunities for supplying companies to catch up with these trends by developing current and new ingredients in respond with these market trends. However, the significant influence of the inflation rate cannot be denied. Based on tradingeconomics. com data, the Vietnam inflation rate in the third quarter in 2011 was around 22. 42% whish was the highest rate in Asia (bbc. co. uk). Hence, the demand in food market had declined in this period; therefore, manufactures can be threatened in forecasting future demand due to some unpredictable economic factors. Consequently, the suppliers are also affected by that because it could be difficult for them to rank the potentiality of their customers in near future. The Market In the report â€Å"Newzealand Trade;Enterprise† (2011), the author states that the value of packaged food industry in Vietnam was approximatelyUS$13. 3 billion in 2011 with the average growth rate at 4. 2% in the next two year. In addition, based on General Statistics Office website (2011), the value of confectionery sales is predicted to increase to US$ 471. 6 million at the end of 2012 and this figure is going to increase more than 10% each year for the next four years. These numbers indicate that there is a very highly potential demand for confectionery and processed food industry. * Competitors Connell Brothers, DKSH and Brenntag have been ranked as top 10 leading chemical distributors in Asia in 2011. Specifically, they all operate in Vietnam and engage in many types of industries such as food ; beverage, pers onal care, specialty chemicals, and pharmaceutical industry. As shown in the graph, it can be seen that DKSH has much less sales as well as power compared to Connell Brothers in the global market in 2011. At the meantime, the sale of DKSH and Brenntag is slightly different. Therefore, DKSH is required to put more efforts to gain its market share globally in order to build further distance with Brenntag and shorten the distance with Connell Brothers. Customer Analysis General Information First of all, the paper is going to show some figures related to market share of some leading firms in Vietnam (2011) for two industries: processed food and bakery. For processed food market, market share of sauce and instant noodles have been displayed; while in bakery industry, confectionery and biscuit market have been demonstrated. Market Share- Processed Food (Source: Euro Monitor International) Sauce market For the diagram above, it shows that Masan owns comparatively larger market share than any other firms in such market. But since the portion of â€Å"others† still has 25% of the marker share, it is believed that some potential customers in this category can be found. Instant noodles market The major key player in this industry is Acecook, with 51% of market share while the other firms are holding less than 20% respectively. The report selects Masan food as an instance to explore knowledge under current customer analysis. Market Share – Bakery (Source: Euro Monitor International) Confectionery market Confectionery market is diverse, with many firms hold similar portion of shares. Among them, Kinh Do takes the 1st place in the market, follow by Huu Nghi and Hai Ha. The 2nd and 3rd key players in the market can be the potential customers for DKSH. Further information related will be given below in â€Å"Potential customer†. Biscuit market There are mainly two key players in the market, Kinh Do and Kraft Food, while each of other firms retain from 4~11% as their market share in the biscuit industry. Due to Kinh Do has an outstanding performance on the market share, the report will take it as a specimen in analyzing current customers. Current Customers There are many customers that DKSH is currently having connection with, including both local and foreign firms. The paper will choose one customer from each cluster, Masan Food and Kinh Do, to analysis the position of it through searching on background information, sales performance, and then raise opportunity and threat. Masan Food (Processed food) Mason Food is belonged to Masan Group, a firm that specialized on Techcombank financial services. After years of operation, Mason Food has become leading brand of processed food market in Vietnam, which has dominance on market share in some product categories. The product range includes fish sauce, soy sauce, instant noodles (74%, 78%, 14% of the market respectively) and other kinds of product. Sales Performance (Source: Business Monitor International ) Opportunity Despite Masan Group is established as a local enterprise, it recently decides to build a relationship of acquisition with Nuiphao Mining Joint Venture Company Ltd, becoming one of the largest private sector resources companies (Masan Group Investor Update n,d). Cooperating with local or foreign investment is an opportunity for firm to receive more capital to invest in its operations. Due to DKSH is a multinational firms already, the business is expected to be enrich by cooperating with local firms in other industries to expand the operation range. Threat As a processed food manufacturer, Masan Food faces a problem that sometimes the price for raw materials is fluctuating(Business Monitor International, 2012). For the earning benefit point of view, Masan Food should pass the costs from consumers, but that can threaten the chance of losing customers. To illustrate, the FMCG industry is a price sensitive environment that contains many brands at similar level. If one brand’s price is higher result from increasing costs to reflect its margin, customers can easily choose another brand because the switching cost is low. Volatile input costs can be a threat to the food manufacturer because the manufacturer needs to choose whether to burden itself or to pass on customers. Same story is applicable in DKSH’s case, if the input price has a significant increase, DKSH has to decide whether to bear the costs or compensate from its customers; both decisions are having certain drawbacks needed to be considered. Sales Breakdown (Source: hsc company update) Kinh Do Corporation (Bakery and Confectionery) Kinh Do is a local brand that established in 1993, which is one of the largest food producers in Vietnam nowadays. The core business of the firm is food related products: confectionery (cakes, candies), beverage (water, juice) and dairy products. Kinh Do also involved in some other industries such as real estate and grocery retailing. The brand creates a good image that allows them to gain certain customer awareness and even awarded as top ten of Vietnam’s best brands (Ha 2011). Sales Performance (Source: Business Monitor International) Opportunity As indicated before in the report, health awareness has raised from customers when they purchasing confectionery product. Consequently, higher level of quality is required from food manufacturer in order to satisfy customers. As showed from annual report, Kinh Do provides best materials in manufacturing their products, aim to satisfy its customers in a better extent. Indeed, sellers should be responsible to meet the requirement when there is a concern about product’s specification such as â€Å"health† mentioned above. Without doubt, they can gain more recognition if they can achieve the condition. DKSH is getting involved in this health concerned manufacturing process due to it is one of sellers of Kinh Do. If DKSH can attain the requirement, which it already does, it is expected that the buyers will be satisfied, and they are willing to create more opportunities to corporate with DKSH in the future. Threat Kinh Do depends largely on the domestic market but that makes the company fragile with the fluctuating customer demand (Business Monitor International, 2012). Actually, change in customers’ preference can affect organizational demand in both positive and negative ways, but here it seems more likely to be threat from the view of the Kinh Do. Because local buyers are the main sources of generating sales, if the number of them is not stable, firm’s overall performance will obviously be affected. Likewise, inquiry that DKSH received from food manufacturers is affected by customer’s demand. If the perception of buyers is low, sellers will gain lesser results from the declining demand, and vice versa. Being instable with the demand can be interpreted as the firm is actually dependent by the market trend. In this case, DKSH has no control over the changing demand; therefore it can be a threat. Sales Breakdown (Source: hsc company update) Potential Customers Apart from keeping relationship with current customers, exploring new customers is also important for a business. To give our more precise information, the report lists four potential customers from the two clusters, with background information, product range and reason why it is recommended as being â€Å"potential†. Detail contacts of other potential customers can be founded in appendix. Lien Hoa (Processed food) Lien Hoa was established since 2008, by Thierrty Pham, an industrialist who has more than 15 years’ experience in the industry. The firm operates following European standard to ensure the quality of the products. As mentioned from the official website, Lien Hoa has signed exclusive contract with other brands such as Uni-President and Siam Brothers to be its business partners. Moreover, the products of Lien Hoa are widely distributed with supermarkets like Giant, Metro and Big C (Lien Hoa, 2011). Reason Although the brand is new compares to some other existing sellers in the market, it is expected to grow due to qualified and experienced methodology used by the firm. Furthermore, the brand has shown its ambition to boost the market by cooperating with well-known brands like Uni-President. Product range Hieu Cau Den Sausage (Processed food) It is a sub branch of Black Bride Food from Taiwan. The brand mainly offer traditional Taiwanese dished rice dumplings, meat floss, and some products commonly seen in Vietnam such as sausage and dumplings. The brand is also an importer for some food and beverage from Taiwan. Even though the brand is not as famous as other brands in the existing market, it is quite popular among the Taiwanese because the products fit their taste better. Reason Situation is slightly different compares to dealing with other brands in this case because the brand is not really concentrating on mass market but more likely on niche market, for Taiwanese currently. Becoming the supplier of it creates an opportunity to enhance brand awareness towards foreign consumers. Moreover, the location is in the same district with DKSH, and therefore it will be easier for DKSH to access. Product range Huu Nghi (Bakery and Confectionery) Huu Nghi is known as a noticeable confectionery brand in Vietnam since 1950’s. is having more than 120,000 retailers throughout Vietnam. Similar to other brands in confectionery industry, the brand holds eligible qualifications as criteria to control fabric of the products. The business expands its relation across the nation to many countries: United States, Japan and Singapore. In addition, Huu Nghi also exploits the business to agricultural products such as pepper and corn (Huu Nghi, 2011). Reason The firm pos sesses proficient knowledge in trading with businesses across the country, thus, it is foreseeable that their experience can abound the business prospects. Also, as DKSH is a multi-national enterprise, Huu Nghi can understand the operation or regulations better result from their sophisticate. Product range Hai Ha (Bakery and Confectionery) Hai Ha Confectionery Joint Stock Company (HaiHaCo) has set up for more than 40 years and turns it status from public to private in 2003, aiming to provide qualified products to serve its customers. With advanced technology, Hai Ha can utilize its equipment plus the specialists to maximize its effort to engage in confectionery industry. Consumers of Hai Ha choose it as â€Å"Vietnam high-quality goods† for continuous 13 years (Hai Ha, 2011). Reason Apart from dominant brands like Kinh Do, Bibica and Kraft, Hai Ha ranked as 4th in market share of both confectionery and biscuit sector in Vietnam. It can be a great opportunity if DKSH can work with them as a seller due to Hai Ha’s high portion of sales caused by variety products. Product range Sales performance (Source: hsc company update) Internal Audit Company Analysis Sales DKSH has structured its sales force by product based, in which different sales team will be organized based on business lines. This method has created the strength for sales team as it can offer professional and skillful staffs with deep knowledge about their products. Face to face communication facilitates the interaction with customers by allowing them to question and negotiate directly, and thus lead to the opportunity to build long-term relationship. Additionally, to ensure the effectiveness of sale team, DKSH also divides its sales force based on geography, in which each sales team will be located and responsible for different areas across Vietnam. Management of marketing mix The annual report of DKSH claimed that DKSH will work with its customers to understand their needs, and then provide customized solutions to them. This is indicated that they are achieving cooperation relationship, which integrated into NPD (new product development) and new resolutions. Moreover, in order to strengthen their relationship, DKSH has provided customers the access to knowledge, advice, relationship, and logistics. At the mean time, DKSH ensures that the customers’ products will successfully grasp the right market. This is shown that there is a chance to build long-term collaborative relationships between them. If this relationship remains well, then there will be potential to create long term alliances – to build specialist knowledge or strategic partnerships. Resources Due to the world wide sourcing network in more than 70 markets and the expertise in each cluster, DKSH is very confident in providing any needed ingredients for its customers. Moreover, for highly applicable purpose, research and analysis service can also help customers in creating and developing new or customized product ideas. Obviously, this is also one of DKSH strengths as it helps customers to be able to sustain in their market and differentiate their product offerings over competitors. DKSH has applied SalesForce. com as its own tool to manage sale teams. It allows each individual sales person to organize the new, potential and current customer’s information and the managers then can look at the working process of their inferiors. Moreover, DKSH can also translate all customer data to up date information in timely manner. Another strength of DKSH is that it can efficiently manage its distribution channel. To allocate the channel tasks, the firm needs to achieve four main factors regarding reduce complexity, increase value, transaction efficiency and service quality. DKSH has industry expertise and offer â€Å"comprehensive Market Expansion Services†; therefore the firm can help its customers to reduce the number of separate exchange that they need to take place in order to collect different ingredients that are needed for their production. The firm does not only provide materials to manufactures but it also provides the concepts and formulations that go with these materials. For this reason, understanding what customers expect is one of the necessary key that takes part in DKSH’s success; therefore value is added in each process. Moreover, DKSH offers the whole supply chain management; hence its customers can be beneficial in getting lower operational costs and also in increasing the value. Non-stop in innovating the new sources or materials to meeting customer’s needs for their own application or market trend is one of the advantage that illustrates for DKSH’s good service quality. Furthermore, the organization also have good after sales services such as monitoring of technical staff at customer site, order processing and warranty timely delivery. SWOT Strengths DKSH recruits experienced staff and professions in the field, the prominent knowledge level can be a base for providing stronger technical support. Instead of only supplying for ingredients, DKSH offers formulation description discussion with customers to understand them better for value-added services. With this tradition, DKSH can set up a long term relationship with its customers. DKSH offers â€Å"comprehensive market expansion service†. This benefits customers by reducing the number of exchanging points to go through. Consequently, operating and transaction costs can be lessen. Opportunities Purchasing power of customers in Vietnam is enhanced caused by an increase in GDP; they have better earning to make purchase and thus greater demand of luxury food items can results. It is expected that lifestyle of young population in Vietnam will differ from Generation X, preferring more ready meal like confectionery products and processed food. Hence, a growth in demand is foreseeable. Marketing Objectives Objectives of the marketing plan will be outlined based on SMART approach. Firstly, the new potential customer list which does not include in DKSH’s current customer list helps DKSH to expand its customer database in its internal network regard to salesforce. com. Secondly, the direct marketing such as telephone and email marketing plan will be proposed from 1st October 2012 to 8th March 2013 in order to approach the potential customer list step by step and enhance the brand awareness in both current and potential customers. It will be able to achieve 40% of number of potential customers who are willing to answer through phone call or email. Thirdly, personal selling plan is applied from 15th October 2012 to 31st October 2012 to achieve the remained number of potential customer from above step; hence the sales of the company is estimated to increase by 30%. This plan will be conducted according to the mapping itinerary which helps the sale team easily to visit customer based on the efficient action plan. Finally, sales promotion program is planned as the boom strategy in order to help DKSH easier to create the demand among potential customers that applied in direct marketing and personal selling plan. Implementation Plans The most appropriate B2B marketing communication strategy that should be used to approach to potential customers as well as make them become DKSH’s â€Å"current† customers is push strategy. Specifically, direct marketing, personal selling, and trade promotions will be used by DKSH to make its potential customers aware of its products and create demands, as well as to maintain and strengthen relationships with the current customers. Marketing Program Direct Marketing Telephone Marketing Potential customers In direct marketing, telephone marketing should be used to directly communicate with these potential customers; DKSH should come up with the calling schedule, which indicates the number of sales people and the number of manufacturers (potential customers) need to be contacted in each region in one day. To illustrate, there are around 60 potential customers founded by the research team; DKSH can assign its sales people to make the call to 10 manufacturers in one day. This means DKSH will reach all 60 manufacturers within 6 days. In order to save customers’ time and the company’s costs, the sales persons should not introduce too much about DKSH’s history and its achievements via telephone. Instead, they should go straight to the core information such as types of products or ingredients that the customer needs, the price, and what DKSH can do for them. Moreover, the good point of this strategy is that it offers two-way communication and thus allows customers to question directly. For this reason, it is very important for DKSH to assign skillful spoken sales people to this project. Current customers In addition, it is also important to schedule the calls to current customers in order to inform them about DKSH’s new products or ingredients, promotions, as well as to remain relationships with them. To illustrate, DKSH now has totally 105 current customers for food ; bakery cluster; assume that it will call to 10 customers in 1 day, so it will finish calling to all 105 customers within 11 days. It is recommended that DKSH should make this calling schedule every six months; at the beginning of each month for the current customers in order to keep frequent contact with them to update their latest situation and their new demands. Email Marketing Potential customers As mentioned above, telephone marketing is used for the purpose of reaching potential customers by going straight to the core issue and providing them the core information. Therefore, other general information such as company’s background, history, achievements, number of skillful staff and techniques, and types of business lines will not be discussed in detail via telephone marketing. For this reason, it will be a good idea to email this information to DKSH’s potential customers so that they can have a clearer sight about DKSH. It is recommended that DKSH should email to the potential customers that it cannot successfully reach in telephone marketing for once a month to remind them and make them aware of DKSH products; it should do this at the beginning of each month. Current customers In telephone marketing, the sales people will inform the current customers about new products or ingredients, and the promotions. Then, in the email marketing, these sales people will email to the customers the related information in detail, such as the price table that indicates the price of each type of new product. Obviously, this tool is faster and incurs lower costs compared to other tools. Moreover, it tends to be more convenient to the customers compared to the telephone marketing. To illustrate, some contacted customers are so busy that they cannot listen too much what DKSH sales people want to tell them. In this case, email will be a better choice. As mentioned above, DKSH should make calling to the current customers every 6 months to frequently update their new demands. Simultaneously, DKSH should also try to come up with new products every 6 months to help its current customers to sustain in the competitive market as well as to retain them. Then, the sales people will email this related information in details to these customers; also do this for every 6 months, and at the beginning of each month. Personal Selling In personal selling, sales representatives of DKSH will be assigned face-to-face to these potential manufacturers in each region; these manufacturers (potential customers) are those that DKSH cannot catch in direct marketing. The number of sales representatives will be decided relying on the number of manufacturers in a particular region. To be more specific, DKSH can go to visit 4 manufacturers in 1 day; keeping doing this until it can catch up all of the potential customers that left in direct marketing. The main task of these representatives is to try to understand customers’ purchasing criteria as well as to provide brief information about DKSH’s main industries and products in order to increase the product awareness. Moreover, it is important to emphasize the benefits that DKSH can bring to them. Sales Promotion In trade promotions, the telephone marketers and sales representatives should emphasize that DKSH will offer lower prices (5% discount) compared to the market price to its potential customers for their first purchases; this means the more they purchase, the more discount they can get. Therefore, it will be the incentive for these customers, and this type of promotion will be applied to the potential manufacturers in all regions. Action Plan Task| Timeline| | 1st October – 31th December 2012| | W1| W2| W3| W4| W5| W6| W7| W8| W9| W10| W11| W12| Telephone Mkt| | | | | | | | | | | | | Email Mkt| | | | | | | | | | | | | Personal Selling| | | | | | | | | | | | | Sales Promotion| | | | | | | | | | | | | | Timeline| | 1st January – 1st April 2013| | W13| W14| W15| W16| W17| W18| W19| W20| W21| W22| W23| W24| Telephone Mkt| | | | | | | | | | | | | Email Mkt| | | | | | | | | | | | | Personal Selling| | | | | | | | | | | | | Sales Promotion| | | | | | | | | | | | | Performance Evaluation | Objective| Strategies| Evaluation| 1| Increase Brand Awareness| * Telephone * Email * Personal Selling| * Numbers of customer who are willing to answer a call and give helpful information. Numbers of customer who reply email and make a request for further discussion. * Numbers of customer who are willing to interact with sell person and distribute in the conversation. | 2| Increase Sale| * Personal Selling * Sale Promotion| * Numbers of customer who accept to make a contract with DKSH in supplying necessary ingredients. | 3| Create Demand | * Sale Promotion| * Number of customer s who firstly have no demand in finding new suppliers but changing later due to competitive proposed price. Conclusion In this report, the general information about Processed Food ; Food Service and Confectionery ; Bakery clusters will be analyzed in order to outline the SWOT analysis for DKSH. Additionally, Push strategy will be applied to reach 60 potential customers. Specifically, integrated marketing communication tools such as direct marketing (telephone and email marketing), personal selling and trade promotions will be used to support the push strategy to approach to the potential customers. At the same time, these tools can help to retain and strengthen relationships with the current customers. Appendix Potential Customer List Mapping Itinerary Southern Northern Reference 1. ‘DKSH seeks a boost in Asia’ 2012, ICIS news, posted 13th August, viewed 1st September 2012, ;https://docs. google. com/a/rmit. edu. vn/viewer? a=v;pid=gmail;attid=0. 1;thid=1392e4d1b429e96b;mt=application/pdf;url=https://mail. google. com/mail/u/0/? ui%3D2%26ik%3D0e4ae12cf9%26view%3Datt%26th%3D1392e4d1b429e96b%26attid%3D0. %26disp%3Dsafe%26zw;sig=AHIEtbQnvWZ6Rh09SpbtN_3J-u-kBRPiKg; 2. Agri-Food Canada 2011, Package Food in Vietnam, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, viewed 14 August 2012, ; http://www. gov. mb. ca/agriculture/statistics/agri-food/vietnam_packaged_food_en. pdf; 3. BBC 2011 â€Å"Vietnam Inflation Rate Hits 13. 9%†, BBC, 22 March 2011,viewed 15 August 2012, ; http://www. bbc. co. uk/news/business-12845809; 4. Brenntag Asia Pacific 2012, Brenntag Vietnam Co Ltd, vie wed 28th August 2012, ;http://www. brenntag-asiapacific. com/en/pages/Brenntag_Asia_Pacific/Lo How to cite B2B Report, Essay examples

Sunday, December 8, 2019

European l Accounting Auditing And Finance -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The European L Accounting Auditing And Finance? Answer: Introducation On 7th April 2017, Ms. Inshanalli was sentenced to three and a half years as a punishment for engaging in fraudulent activities (R. v. Inshanalli, 2017). Prior to the judgement She had pleaded guilty to the offences on during one of the court hearings. In her judgement Justice Peter C. West revealed that the offender had in the previous years participated in several fraudulent activities which even included going against a court order that prohibited her from taking any form of accounting jobs while on probation from the previous charges. Ms Inshanalli was employed by the victim between April 2014 and January 2016, during the period she fraudulently wrote herself 134 cheques which were not authorised each cheque was of an amount between $ 1456 to $ 5839. She worked as a bookkeeper during her employment tenure with the victim and took the opportunity to forge the signature of Gerard Waslens as a way of authenticating her frauds. Ms. Inshanalli had a history of defrauding unsuspecting clients and employers who put their trusts in her. On May 2004 she was given a conditional sentence for defrauding 407 ETR an amount totalling $750000 while working for them in Newmarket. The same behaviours were replicated between the year 2010 and 2012 when she defrauded her employer Sherwood Innovations of $141000. In many of the cases the offender took an opportunity of the trust the employers put on her as a bookkeeper to steal from them. Theoretic Analysis In trying to understand the mindset of fraudsters several theories have been explored. The aim is to gain an insight of how and why fraudulent activities occur. In this analysis some of the theories will be highlighted. The Fraud Triangle This is a combination of three situations which when converged can make an honest person turn to fraudulent activities (The Fraud Triangle, n.d.). The factors are: Perceived pressure; this is the primary motivation behind the fraud. The trusted person sometimes experiences financial issues that she/he may not be able to solve in a legal manner hence consideration of fraud. Perceived opportunity; The trust put in the individuals normally give them an avenue to still by abusing their trust. Rationalization; fraudsters are normally not criminals by career hence have a personal justification for carrying out the offence (Johnson, 2004). Ms. Inshanalli had very many previous records of fraud from the year 2004 to 2016. In almost all the companies she had been employed in she found a chance to breach her contract and steal money from them. despite the numerous cases surrounding her during her trials she pleaded guilty of the offences which showed signs of remorse, in addition she went ahead to make a voluntary restitution payment. She blamed the pressure to a company her friends to casinos and her gambling addiction as the reason behind her actions (R. v. Inshanalli, 2017). The gambling addiction has been proven by the court when it was discovered that she had initially been put under psychiatric care to assist he overcome it. The Fraud Scale This theory was introduced in 1984 and it replaces the fraud triangle idea of rationalization with ethics and integrity (ACFI Fraud Manual 8th Edition. ). A persons integrity is judged by the commitment to adhere to ethical standards in decision making. In such cases the people rarely engage in fraud. By assessing the individuals integrity, it's therefore possible to gauge the fraud scale. When an individual with low integrity are exposed to high opportunity and high pressure their chances of engaging in fraud becomes very likely. The issue of integrity is reflected in the case of Ms. Inshanalli. She goes against the court order to sat away from the bookkeeping jobs, in addition she is repeatedly involved in fraud in the various companies she worked for (R. v. Inshanalli, 2017). With this we can claim that Ms. Inshanalli is a person of low integrity and give little space for ethics. The judge decision to put her in jail rather than on probation therefore seems justified. Part 2: Illuminating Rationalization with Behavioural Science The rational theory is applicable in criminology to try explaining why individual indulge in criminal behaviours. As the case with fraud triangle its is characterised by three main assumptions; offenders regard themselves as people, people tend to optimise their objectives and people have self-interests. The rationale behind the rationalization theory is that crimes are selected based on their advantages over the costs. should the outcome of a crime outweigh the consequence then the crime will be committed. In the Inshanalli case the objective was to satisfy the gambling desire. The offenders previous convictions were light, and she even managed to maneuver and get another job regardless of her probation status. To her the cost of her crimes was minimal just being kept on probations and so she chose to continue exploiting her employers. As per the rationalization theory the low cost of the actions triggered further frauds. Conclusion The fraud theories discussed above are all geared towards highlighting the rationale behind criminal behavior. Ms. Inshanalli is presented with an opportunity as a bookkeeper. She had a superb knowledge of accounting which she could easily use to cover up her behaviours. In addition to this the offender had a gambling addiction and the urge to accompany friends to casinos these factors contributed to the occurrence of the frauds. As per the rationalisation theory the offender had a past record of frauds which were classified as massive with heavy consequences but ended up attracting minor charges. With this the cost of fraud was lowered to the point that the benefits she derives outweighed them. To fully understand the fraud cases its essential to identify the nature of the fraudster to optimise the illustrations of the theories in explaining the behaviours (Gbegi, 2013). References ACFI Fraud Manual 8th Edition. . (n.d.). Association of Certified Forensic Investigators of Canada. Gbegi, J. A. (2013). The New Fraud Diamond Model How Can It Help Forensic Accountants in Fraud Investigations In Nigeria? . European Journal of Accounting Auditing and Finance , 133. Johnson, J. G. (2004). Southeast Decision Science Institute. Retrieved from The Fraud Diamond vs. Fraud Triangle Analytics: Evaluating Capability as a Modification for Auditing Unstructured Enterprise Data: https://www.sedsi.org/2013_Conference/proc/proc/P121012004.pdf Inshanalli, 2017 ONCJ 234 (Central East Region: Oshawa 16-33970 April 07, 2017). The Fraud Triangle. (n.d.). Retrieved from The Association of Fraud Examiners : https://www.acfe.com/fraud-triangle.asp

Saturday, November 30, 2019

YOLO! free essay sample

YOLO. You only live once. To most people it’s just a popular saying notarized by a famous rap artist, but to me, it holds so much validity and motivation. We go about life everyday nonchalantly like we have all the time in the world, and we forget that you DO only live once. Time will loose itself and before you know it, you’re going to be thinking about all the more useful things you could have spent it on. I mean, that’s what happened to me. I was taking that awaited walk across the stage when I realized how fast time has passed and how fast it’s still going. Just ten months ago I was starting my last year of high school. I had four best friends, Chavonne, Randa, Nichelle, and Kai, a cool job, and a great year ahead of me to be filled with laughter and memories. We will write a custom essay sample on YOLO! or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In what felt like half the time, I was graduating without three of my friends and a broken home. I hadnt gone to Prom or Homecoming and I wasnt enrolled in college yet. I began to get wrapped up in work and my depression that I came to the conclusion that it was too late and my chance at college was over. I spent so much time doubting my ability to go that I hadn’t of even tried. Eventually the end of August and the beginning of September rolled around and I began watching everyone around me leave. Many kids in my graduating class began to go to orientation and move into their dorm rooms, Nichelle, one of the two friends I had left, was going on to continue her life with her family in Virginia, and Kai moved with her father down to Florida. Everyone was moving on and doing something to better themselves†¦everyone except me. Life went on day by day and I found myself sitting around with nothing to do thinking about all of the things I could be doing. Opportunities just seemed to fade away. Chavonne lost her chance to go to college when she made a bad decision and got caught up in the law, and Randa couldn’t afford it, she couldn’t get financial aid because her parents hadn’t of done their taxes. I was not staying at home and I was unhappy and depressed because of the problems with my mother that just never seemed to stop. I didn†™t have anywhere to go and anyone to turn to. I soon realized what would be my reality if I didn’t do something about my situation. Life is just too short and I refused to sit idly by and watch it pass, especially when I have so much talent and potential. I couldn’t let myself become the girl that could’ve been great, and I definitely did not want to be another Niagara Falls statistic. So I logged onto SUNY and began my application for spring 2013. The moral of the story is you only live once. You will only get as far as your motivation and determination will take you. Don’t waste your time sitting around fretting and post-poning things until tomorrow because, what happens when tomorrow comes and your chance is gone? So here I am, giving myself the chance for a brighter future that I had denied to myself before. You see, ten years from now I will be 27. I want to be able to look back on my life and see how far I’ve come, to be proud of myself and have a sense of accomplishment. This is my life and it’s whatever I make out of it.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Compound Definition in Chemistry

Compound Definition in Chemistry The word compound has several definitions. In the field of chemistry, compound refers to a chemical compound. Compound Definition A compound is a chemical species that is formed when two or more atoms join together chemically, with covalent or ionic bonds. Compounds may be categorized according to the type of chemical bonds holding the atoms together: Molecules are held together by covalent bonds.Ionic compounds are held together by ionic bonds.Intermetallic compounds are held together by metallic bonds.Complexes are often held together by coordinate covalent bonds. Note that some compounds contain a mixture of ionic and covalent bonds. Also note, a few scientists do not consider pure elemental metals to be compounds (metallic bonds). Examples of Compounds Examples of compounds include table salt or sodium chloride (NaCl, an ionic compound), sucrose (a molecule), nitrogen gas (N2, a covalent molecule), a sample of copper (intermetallic), and water (H2O, a covalent molecule). Examples of chemical species not considered compounds include the hydrogen ion H and the noble gas elements (e.g., argon, neon, helium), which do not readily form chemical bonds. Writing  Compound Formulas By convention, when atoms form a compound, its formula lists the atom(s) acting as a cation first, followed by the atom(s) acting as the anion. This means sometimes an atom may be first or last in a formula. For example, in carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon (C) acts as a cation. In silicon carbide (SiC), carbon acts as the anion. Compound Versus Molecule Sometimes a compound is called a  molecule. Usually, the two terms are synonymous. Some scientists make a distinction between the types of bonds in molecules (covalent) and compounds (ionic).

Friday, November 22, 2019

Creating High-Quality Content With Geoffrey Keating From Intercom

Creating High-Quality Content With Geoffrey Keating From Intercom There are some companies that have extremely high standards for the industry that they’re in. When it comes to content teams, one of the best is Intercom. Today we’re going to be talking to Geoffrey Keating, an editor for the Intercom content team. He’s going to let us in on his secrets when it comes to the jobs-to-be-done theory, how to create unique content, and how keep yourself on schedule by planning and prioritizing. Some of the highlights of the show include: Information about Intercom and what Geoffrey does there. Thoughts on crafting a message that reaches the readers where they are. The types of content and marketing collateral produced by Geoffrey’s team. How a small team gets all of the work completed that needs to be done. Why Geoffrey shies away from calling himself a content marketer. What Jobs-to-be-Done is and how it can help people create better content and better reach and engage with their target audience. The four main â€Å"buckets† that the Intercom team draws its ideas from when developing unique content. Geoffrey’s best advice for marketers who are not happy with the status quo. Powered by PodcastMotor Actionable Content Marketing powered by By AMP040: How To Create Exceptionally High-Quality Content With Geoffrey Keating From Intercom 00:00/00:00 1x 100 > Download file Subscribe on iTunes Leave Review Share Links: Geoffrey on LinkedIn Intercom Jobs-to-be-done method BaseCamp Groove HQ Priceonomics If you liked today’s show, please subscribe on iTunes to The Actionable Content Marketing Podcast! The podcast is also available on SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Google Play. Quotes by Geoffrey: â€Å"I like to think of us as the internal journalist of the company. We’re always digging for our latest scoops.† â€Å"When someone buys a drill, they’re looking to drill a 3/4 inch hole you want to make progress in your life. That’s what Jobs-to-be-Done is. It’s about understanding the emotions that drive people to buy the products.† â€Å"My main advice for anyone working content marketing or starting at a content team is make sure that you have a really, really clear opinion about the world.†

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Answering questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Answering questions - Essay Example I think, this is the main ambivalence of the first paragraph. Also, the author calls this desire a â€Å"shame†, but at the same time he is angry that his wood is intercepted by a public foot-path. His feelings of a property owner are interfered with his consciousness. Forster assumes that â€Å"creation, property, enjoyment form a sinister trinity in the human mind† (Forster 263). According to the author, a man owning property â€Å"ought to do something to it†. Property brings restlessness, which is different from the same restlessness accompanying the act of creation. Property can substitute the material basis needed for creation and enjoyment (which are both good, as the author writes). He thinks that our world is â€Å"material and carnal† and that we should learn how â€Å"to manage our materialism and carnality†. I can’t agree with the author on that. Forster, for example, mentions Tolstoy and his negative attitude to property. But, as a matter of fact, Tolstoy was an earl; he owned a large estate with slaves and was definitely a man of property. Property allowed him to obtain a good education and a material basis to create, i.e. he could waste no time on earning his living, but spend it on thinking and wr iting. Therefore, possessing property does not always mean â€Å"restlessness† about it. However, there are exceptions, but it only means that one should not be so categorical in this issue. II. In her essay Toynbee elaborates on Richard Wilkinson’s idea that inequality is the main peril of society. For her â€Å"equality for its own sake† means a better and healthier society. This opinion is based on Wilkinson’s assumptions that â€Å"social environment can be more toxic than any pollutant† (cited in Toynbee 365). In simple words, poor people see the rich and it leads to envy and other negative emotions, which, in their turn, lead to unhealthy life. It can be proved, the author argues, by the experiments with animals. And since

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

How Has The Global Financial Crisis Impacted Consumer Behaviour with Dissertation

How Has The Global Financial Crisis Impacted Consumer Behaviour with Reference to The UK Car Industry - Dissertation Example h 40 3.8.2 Plagiarism 40 3.9 Chapter Review 41 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS 42 Chapter 5: ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS 55 5.1 Conclusions 55 5.2 Recommendations 56 5.3 Reflections 57 REFERENCES 59 List of Figures Figure 1.3.1: Factors influencing Car Buyer Behaviour 6 Figure 2.1.1: GDP Growth in the United Kingdom 13 Figure 2.1.2: Financial Conditions and Housing Price Developments in the United Kingdom 13 Figure 2.1.3: Unemployment in the United Kingdom during the Global Financial Crisis 14 Figure 2.1.4: Seasonally Adjusted Household Final Consumption Expenditure for the UK 16 Figure 2.1.5: UK Consumer Confidence 17 Figure 2.1.6: Seasonally Adjusted Durable Goods Expenditure Growth Rates for the United Kingdom 18 Figure 2.1.7: Seasonally Adjusted Transport Growth Rates for the United Kingdom 19 Figure 2.1.8: UK Mortgage Approvals 20 Figure 2.1.9: UK Investment Risk Appetite 20 Figure 2.2.1: New and Used Car Sales in the United Kingdom 23 Figure 2.2.2: New Car Market Volume and Value in the United Kingdom 24 Figure 2.2.3: Steps that Consumers Took to Offset Rising Fuel Prices 25 Figure 4.1: New Car Registrations for Ford in the United Kingdom 44 Figure 4.2: New Car Registrations for Vauxhall in the United Kingdom 44 Figure 4.3: New Car Registrations for Volkswagen in the United Kingdom 45 Figure 4.4: New Car Registrations for BMW in the United Kingdom 45 Figure 4.5: New Car Registrations for Audi in the United Kingdom 46 Figure 4.6: New Car Registrations for Nissan in the United Kingdom 46 Figure 4.7: Income Distribution Level of those Contemplating Buying a Car after the End of the Global Financial Crisis 49 Figure 4.8: Price Paid for Current Car in the United Kingdom after End of the Global Financial Crisis 50 Figure 4.9: Factors Initiating Decision to Buy a Current Car in the United Kingdom after the End of the Global Financial Crisis 51 Figure 4.10: Number of Models Considered when Buying a Current Car after the End of the Global Financial Crisis in the United Kingdom 52 Figure 4.11: Sources of Information Used when Deciding about Buying a Current Car after the End of the Global Financial Crisis in the United Kingdom 53 Figure 4.12: Trade-offs when Deciding about Buying a Current Car after the End of the Global Financial Crisis in the United Kingdom 54 List of Tables Table 4.1: New Car Registrations for Various Models of Cars during the Global Financial Crisis 43 Table 4.2: Most Popular Models of Cars Sold in the United Kingdom in the Year 2010 47 Acknowledgements Declaration of Originality MASTERS DISSERTATION SUBMISSION FORM Student’s family name: First names: Student ID No: Course: Supervisor: Dissertation Title: How has the Global

Saturday, November 16, 2019

Flexible work options Essay Example for Free

Flexible work options Essay With our personal lives busier than ever, offering flexible work options to your employees could be the best way to keep the good ones around. By offering flexible work options, such as flextime, it will allow employees more family time, go back to school, if desired, to further education, as well as decrease absenteeism at work. Now, who wouldn’t want a job that offered the time allowed to do those kind of things? I know I would. Flexible work hours allow employees more time with their family. It allows more time to spend with their children, and to attend all school programs and plays. It allows a parent the opportunity to be able to take their child to school, and go back to pick them up from school. This makes for happy children which makes for happy parents, which in turn, makes for a happy employee. Happy parents working flexible schedules, are more productive at work and produce better quality of care. Not only does it allow for family time, but employees working flexible work hours are able to return to school on their own, and pursue that college degree they have always wanted. Not only does it allow to obtain a college degree, it allows one to go back to school to further the degree they already obtain. Working flextime allows the time to go back to school without interrupting the work schedule at work. This allows a person to work full time and attend school. Flextime allows the ability for employers to retain key, dedicated employees whose personal needs conflict with traditional work hours. By offering flextime, youll gain increased productivity and worker satisfaction, along with decreased absenteeism and turnover; all great money-savers for the company. Flextime helps create a happier, more satisfying workplace, too. Because employees are often so glad that their employers are willing to allow for a work-life time adjustment, they tend to work harder and in a more dedicated fashion to hold on to their now-perfect schedule and re-balance their lives, and actually enjoy coming to work. This is why no one calls-in to work. They love it. To keep happy employees, employers, fathers, mothers, or the entire family, offering flextime is the way to go. It allows for so many benefits, neither one can go wrong with working flexible work hours. It will produce happy parents, happy children, and happy employers. Work progress will improve so much as well as the quality of work provided. With the busy lives of people and everything that is required of some of them, flextime is the best way to go. Going with flextime makes everyone happy. Yay for flextime.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

The Montessori Method Essay examples -- Teaching Education

The Montessori Method (Word count includes Annotated Bibliography) The Montessori method began in the early 1900's by the first female doctor in Italy, Dr. Mary Montessori, as a way of educating mentally disabled children. Her ideas were so successful with these children that she began to apply her understanding of learning to study the potential of normally functioning children (Oalf, 2001). Dr. Montessori's approach to education stresses the importance of learning styles, independence and responsibility. According to Maria Montessori, 'In the special environment prepared?in our schools, the children themselves found a sentence that expresses their inner need, 'Help me to help myself.' ? (Standing, 1957). The ?prepared environment?, according to Montessori, consists of clean, bright, multi-sensory stimulating materials that are engaging for the child and that are placed in at their level so they can be accessed freely. There is a concentration on ?discovery moments?, defined as when a child learns new information through personal exploration (Fisher, 1964), in reading, math, social skills, and other subjects. The guided discovery approach means careful planning and direction for the child and that adults must know the purpose and meaning of each activity the child chooses in the classroom. Montessori teachers attempt to instill an internal drive into the children using this child-centered approach to teaching. An example of this is the use of mats or rugs in the classroom. Eac h child has a mat or rug to spread their materials out on. Every other child is respectful of this child?s space and he/she, in turn, is respectful of others. The result of this approach is a classroom full of self-monitoring students. ... ...cation Week, 21, 24. Retrieved April 14, 2004 from ERIC/EBSCO database. This article discusses the difference between direct instruction and the Montessori method, using the example of one school in Texas, which offers parents a choice of which instruction they would like for their child. The end of this article tells that test results from each classroom turn out about equal, despite the radically different teaching approach. This is because different children do well in different types of classrooms. Zad, M. (1990, November 18). Montessori way highlights video for preschoolers. The Washington Post, pp. y.08. This is a local article taken from The Washington Post regarding the use of video in Montessori classrooms. The use of video technology corresponds with the Montessori method if it is stimulating to the child and aids in discovery learning.

Monday, November 11, 2019

Acct 505 Mid Term

1. | Question 😠 (TCO F) Assume there is no beginning work in process inventory and the ending work in process inventory is 100% complete with respect to materials costs. The number of equivalent units with respect to materials costs under the weighted-average method is: | Student Answer: The same as the number of units put into production. | 2. | Question 😠 (TCO F) Process costing would be appropriate for each of the following except:| Student Answer: custom furniture manufacturing. | 3. | Question 😠 (TCO F) Which of the following accounts is debited when direct labor is recorded?Student Answer: Work in process | | 4. | Question 😠 (TCO F) During December at Ingrim Corporation, $74,000 of raw materials were requisitioned from the storeroom for use in production. These raw materials included both direct and indirect materials. The indirect materials totaled $6,000. The journal entry to record the requisition from the storeroom would include a:| Answer: | deb it to Work in Process of $68,000. | 5. | Question 😠 (TCO F) Valles Corporation had $22,000 of raw materials on hand on February 1. During the month, the company purchased an additional $75,000 of raw materials.The journal entry to record the purchase of raw materials would include a:| | | Answer: debit to Raw Materials of $75,000. | | 6. | Question 😠 Emeril’s Utensils has collected the following production data for the past four months: Units produced Total cost7,000 $16,50010,000 22,5008,500 17,7509,000 21,000If the high-low method is used, what is the monthly total cost equation? | | | Student Answer:| | Total cost = $2,500 + ($2. 00 * units produced | || | 1. | Question 😠 (TCO F) Whether a company uses process costing or job-order costing depends on its industry.A number of companies in different industries are listed below: i. Brick manufacturer ii. Contract printer that produces posters, books, and pamphlets to order iii. Natural gas production compa ny iv. Dairy farm v. Coal mining company vi. Specialty coffee roaster (roasts small batches of specialty coffee beans) For each company, indicate whether the company is most likely to use job-order costing or process costing. | | | Student Answer:| | 1. Process Costing 2. Job-order costing 3. Process costing 4. job-order costing 5. process costing 6. job order costing | | Instructor Explanation:| i.Brick manufacturer | Process Costing| ii. Contract printer that produces posters, books, and pamphlets to order | Job Order Costing| iii. Natural gas production company | Process Costing| iv. Dairy farm | Process Costing| v. Coal mining company| Process Costing| vi. Specialty coffee roaster (roasts small batches of specialty coffee beans)| Job Order Costing| | | | | Points Received:| 13 of 15 | | Comments:| | | | 2. | Question 😠 (TCO F) Job 827 was recently completed. The following data have been recorded on its job cost sheet: Direct materials| $61,050| Direct labor hours| 1,332 l abor hours|Direct labor wage rate| $14 per labor-hour| Machine Hours| 1,480 machine hours| Number of units completed| 3,700 units| The company applies manufacturing overhead on the basis of machine-hours. The predetermined overhead rate is $13 per machine-hour. Compute the unit product cost that would appear on the job cost sheet for this job. | | | Student Answer:| | Direct material $61,050. 00 Direct labor cost $18,648 ($14 x 1332 hours) Manufacturing overhead $19240 (predetermined over head rate $13x 1480) Total = $98,938/3700 units = $26. 4 unit product cost | | Instructor Explanation:| Direct materials| $61,050| Direct labor ($14 per DLH, 1,332 DLHs) | 18,648| Manufacturing Overhead ($13 per MH, 1,480 MHs)| 19,240| Total Cost| $98,938| Unit Product Cost| $26. 74| | | | | Points Received:| 15 of 15 | | Comments:| | | | 3. | Question 😠 (TCO F) Miller Company manufactures a product for which materials are added at the beginning of the manufacturing process. A review of the company's inventory and cost records for the most recently completed year revealed the following information: | Units | Materials |Conversion| Work in process. Jan. 1 (80% complete with respect to conversion costs)| 100,000| $100,000 | $157,500 | Units started into production| 500,000| | | Costs added during the year:| | | | Materials | | $650,000 | | Conversion | | | $997,500 | Units completed during the year | 450,000| | | The company uses the weighted-average cost method in its process costing system. The ending inventory is 50% complete with respect to conversion costs. Required: i. Compute the equivalent units of production and the cost per equivalent units for materials and for conversion costs. i. Determine the cost transferred to finished goods. iii. Determine the amount of cost that should be assigned to the ending work in process inventory. | | | Student Answer:| | 1. 100,000 + 500,000 = 600,000 x 80% = 480,000 equivalent units of production. 1b: Cost per equivalent units Materials = $1. 56 1c: conversion cost= $2. 41 2. Cost of transfered goods: $748,800 + $1156800. 00 = $1,905,600. 00 3. 100,000 x 80% = 80,000 units @ $1. 56; 40,000 units @ $2. 41 =96,400 =$221,200 | | Instructor Explanation:| | | | | Points Received:| 10 of 15 | | Comments:| | | | 4. Question 😠 (TCO F) Hunsicker Corporation has provided the following data for the month of January: Inventories| | Beginning| Ending| | Raw materials| $30,000 | $33,000 | | Work In process| $20,000 | $18,000 | | Finished goods| $52,000 | $60,000 | Additional Information| | | Raw material purchases| $63,000 | | Direct labor costs| $92,000 | | Manufacturing overhead cost incurred| $75,000 | | Indirect materials included in manufacturing overhead costs incurred| $6,000 | | Manufacturing overhead cost applied to work in process| $69,000 | Prepare a Schedule of Cost of Goods Manufactured and a Schedule of Cost of Goods Sold in good form. | | Student Answer:| | Direct Material Raw Material Inventory, beginning $30,000 add: Purchases of raw materials $63,000 Total Raw Material available $83,000 Deduct: Raw Material inventory end $33,000 Raw Material used in production $50,000 Deduct:indirect Material included in Manufacturing overhead $6,000 $44,000 Direct Labor $92,000 Manufacturing overhead cost applied to work in process $69,000 Total Manufacturing cost $205,000 Add; Beginning work in process $20,000 $225,000 Deduct: Ending work in process $18,000 Cost of goods manufactured $207,000 Cost of Goods Sold Finished goods Inventory, Beginning $52,000 Add: Cost of goods manufactured $207,000 Cost of goods avaiable for sale $259,000 Deduct: Finished goods inventory, ending $60,000 unadjusted cost of goods sold $199,000 | | Instructor Explanation:| | Hunsicker Corporation| | | | Schedule of Cost of Goods Manufactured| | | January XXX| | | | | | | | | | Direct materials:| | | | | | Raw materials inventory, beginning| | | | $30,000 | | Raw material purchases| | | | 63,000| | Total raw ma terials available| | | | $93,000 | | Raw materials inventory, ending| | | | 33,000| | Raw materials used in production| | | | $60,000 | | Indirect materials included in manufacturing overhead costs incurred| | | | 6,000| $54,000 | Direct labor| | | | | 92,000|Manufacturing overhead applied to work in process| | | | | 69,000| Total manufacturing costs| | | | | $215,000 | Beginning work in process inventory| | | | | 20,000| | | | | | $235,000 | Ending work in process inventory| | | | | 18,000| Cost of goods manufactured| | | | | $217,000 | | | | | | | | Hunsicker Corporation| | | | Cost of Goods Sold| | | | | January XXX| | | | Finished goods inventory, beginning| | | | $52,000 | | Add cost of goods manufactured| | | | $217,000 | | Cost of goods available for sale| | | | $269,000 | | Deduct: finished goods inventory, ending| | | | 60,000| | Unadjusted cost of goods sold| | | | 209,000| | Add Underapplied overhead| | | | 6,000| | Adjusted cost of goods sold| | | | 215,000| | | | | | | | | |

Saturday, November 9, 2019

Power in Animal Farm

Animal Farm One of America’s most famous presidents, Abraham Lincoln, once said, â€Å"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. † This statement stands through all of history as countless world leaders have abused their power constantly. This also shows in the novel by George Orwell, Animal Farm. The pigs in power, and especially Napoleon, tend to constantly abuse their power and be corrupted by it. Three ways power affects the novel are the corruption of power with Napoleon, the pigs taking advantage of their power, and the eventual outcome of the book.As soon as Napoleon had some power he began to scheme to fully take it. â€Å"Nine enormous dogs wearing brass-studded collars came bounding into the barn. † Napoleon had raised dogs since they were little and readied them so he can one day take over the farm. Napoleon then used these dogs to ensure his power multiple times, especially when an uprising was boun d to happen. Napoleon became corrupted with power and used it to do his biddings. It is also seen that the dogs wagged their tail in a similar manner as they used to for Jones.Along with Napoleon, all the other pigs, who were regarded as the most intelligent of animals, soon began to corrupt their power too. â€Å"The pigs did not actually work, but directed and supervised the others. With their superior knowledge it was natural that they should assume the leadership. † The pigs seemed to have the greatest amount of food and all sorts of luxuries. The pigs would even break the Seven Commandments when they wanted to and used Squealer, Napoleon’s right hand man(pig), to explain to the animals what has happened and take advantage of them. The pigs began to sleep in beds and become more and more humanlike as well.The final outcome of the book is also influenced by the pigs corruption of power. â€Å"Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No questio n, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which. † The pigs began to abuse their power so much they started becoming almost completely humans. They drank alcohol, slept in beds, and walked on their hind feet. With this final transformation into humans, the fate of Animal Farm has been destined for destruction.The pigs will continue fighting for power and then once a rebellion occurs the next animals shall too. Power is certainly a force to be reckoned with. Once obtained the individual or party grows to become more attached to this power and eventually corrupted with it. â€Å"Power Corrupts. Absolute Power corrupts absolutely. † (Lord Acton. ) The animals on Animal Farm felt the effect of corruption in power when the pigs started to constantly abuse it. It is truly hard to find a good leader when power does these horrid effects to most people in control. â€Å"Power Corrupts. Absolute Power corrupts absolutely. †

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Shopping in English Vocabulary

Shopping in English Vocabulary Use  polite questions  when shopping or helping a customer in a shop. Polite questions are asked with could, may, and would. You can also ask for advice in shops using should. Shopping for a Sweater Shop assistant: May I help you?Customer: Yes, Im looking for a sweater. Shop assistant: What size are you?Customer: Im an extra large. Shop assistant: Would you like a plain sweater or something else?​Customer: Im looking for a plain blue sweater. Shop assistant: How about this one?Customer: Yes, thats nice. Could I try it on? Shop assistant: Certainly, the changing rooms are over there.Customer: Thank you. (goes into a changing room to try on the sweater) Shop assistant: How does it fit?Customer: Its too large. Do you have a large? Shop assistant: Yes, here you are. Would you like to try it on to see if it fits?Customer: No thats Okay. Thank you. Ill take it. Im also looking for some nice slacks. Shop assistant: Great. We have some very nice wool slacks over here. Would you like to take a look?Customer: Yes, thanks for your help.   Shop assistant: What are your measurements?Customer: Im a 38 waist and a 32 inseam. Shop assistant: What do you think about these?Customer: Theyre nice, but Id prefer cotton trousers if you have them. Shop assistant: Certainly, our summer slacks collection is over here. How about these?Customer: Yes, I like those. Do you have them in grey as well? Shop assistant: Yes, heres a pair. You said you the measurements are 38 by 32, didnt you?Customer: Yes, thats correct. Ill go try them on. Shop assistant: Let me know if you need any help.​Customer: Thank you. (comes back) These are great. So, that makes one sweater and a pair of grey slacks. Shop assistant: ​OK, how would you like to pay?Customer: Do you take credit cards? Shop assistant: Yes, we do. Visa, Master Card, and American Express.Customer: OK, heres my Visa. Shop assistant: Thank you. Have a nice day!Customer: Thank you, goodbye. Key Vocabulary Phrases Could / May I help you?Could I try it (them) on?How does it fit?How would you like to pay?Im looking for...Id prefer... Words Changing roomsSize - extra small, small, medium, large, extra large - Used with standard measurementsMeasurements - used with specific measurements for trousers, suits, etc.  Shop assistant/store clerkTrousers/Slacks/PantsWaist  Inseam  Credit cards Quiz Provide the missing word to fill in the gaps to complete this conversation with a store clerk.   Store clerk: Hello, _____  I help you find anything?​Customer: Yes, Im looking _____  a blouse and some matching trousers. Store clerk: Great. What _____  would you like?Customer: Im _____  for a white blouse and black trousers. Theyre for an important job interview. Store clerk: Okay. Please follow me to the business apparel section.Customer: Thanks for your help. Store clerk:  Its my pleasure. Do you see anything you like?​Customer: Yes, that blouse looks nice. Store clerk: What _____  are you?​Customer: Im a small. Now, lets take a look at the pants. Store clerk: These are nice. Would you like to _____  them on?Customer: Do you have anything else? Store clerk: Yes, we also have these trousers.Customer: I like those, Ill try those _____  . Store clerk: What are your _____  ?Customer: I have a 26 waist and 32 inseam. Store clerk: Heres a pair. Would you like to try them on?Customer: Yes, wheres the _____  ? Store clerk: You can try them on over there.Customer: Thank you. (tries the clothing on, walks out of the changing room to show the store clerk) What do you think? Store clerk: You look fantastic! Im sure youll get that job!Customer: Thanks! Ill take them. Store clerk: Would you like to _____  by cash or by credit card?Customer: _____  , please. Heres my visa card. Store clerk: Thank you. That will be $145. Answers May/could/canForColorSizeTryOnMeasurementsChanging roomPayCredit card

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Best ACT Prep Books 2019

Best ACT Prep Books 2019 SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips There are numerous â€Å"Best ACT Books† lists out there. But we think most of them aren’t very good or thorough, so I’ve tried to write a much better guide here. You’ll learn which books are absolutely critical for your ACT prep, which focus on improving individual sections, and which you'll need if you're aiming for a top score. Most importantly, you’ll learn how to use these top-notch ACT prep books for effective studying. This guide is pretty detailed, so here are some quick links you can use to jump around to different topics. That said, I recommend reading the whole article if you can! What's Better About This Guide to the Best ACT Books? Who Is This ACT Prep Books Guide For? Critical ACT Prep Books Best ACT Books by Subject Best Additional Books for Top ACT Scorers Best All-in-One Book for Less Motivated Low Scorers Other Free Resources for ACT Prep Is Using ACT Prep Books the Best Option for You? What’s Better About This Guide to the Best ACT Books? Because your ACT score is important for getting into collegeand you’ll probably spend a good amount of time studying, it’s important you get the right advice. Follow the wrong advice, and it might be too late to improve your score before you need to apply to college. You'll need to vet the advice you get (including ours) before deciding on your ACT prep plan. As you read each article in your research, ask yourself:why should I trust this person online giving me advice? To be transparent, here’s why we believe our ACT prep books guide is better than others online: I explain in detail why good books are good and what each book's flaws are.You probably haven’t heard of some of the books we recommend because they're either newer or less well known. By contrast, most other ACT book guides just list a few books without much rationale about what makes them worth buying. I believe it’s important to target your weaknesses and where you need to prep.I’ll point out books that are best for training specific sections, and books that are better depending on whether you’re scoring high or low. Other guides tend to assume all students are the same. I don’t get paid for promoting these books over others. I’ve studied dozens of books for ACT prep, and these are the books I'd be using if I myself were prepping. Other sites, such as about.com and reviews.com, are often paid to adjust their rankings and get kickbacks from publishers. I like to think that I know what I’m talking about.I scored a perfect 36 on the ACT and have worked personally with thousands of students prepping for the ACT. I’ve worked with students of all levels, from those scoring below 12 to those aiming for 34+. Other writers don't always have the expertise needed to differentiate between ACT prep books and thus recommend books as an afterthought (and you can probably tell). One important disclaimer: I’m co-founder ofPrepScholar, an online ACT prep program. I believe we’ve built the best prep program available. Itdiagnoses your strengths and weaknessesand gives you a structured all-in-one program, combining the best aspects of the books below, so you know exactly what you need to study at every point in your prep. However, I want to stress that you don’t need a program to excel at the ACT. In fact, writing this guide might lose us some customers if you decide you don’t need a program at all. But if you'd rather not have to manage 10 books and would prefer an integrated, complete program with the greatest chance of raising your ACT score,check out our comprehensive ACT program. No matter what you ultimately decide, if you’re serious about ACT prep like I think you are, keep on reading. Who Is This ACT Prep Books Guide For? First, this guide is for students who are serious about ACT prep.You must be motivated to get a high score, and you need to be willing to put in hard work. Getting through these books will take dozens of hours, simply because the ACT covers so much material. If you plan to study just five hours or so,your choice of book won't make much difference. You should focus your time mainly on taking an ACT practice test and reviewing your answers. With such a short amount of prep time, your score won’t go up much- and you shouldn’t expect a miracle. Buying high-quality ACT prep books is the first and easiest step of ACT prep. You'll need to put in serious work to actually get the score improvements you want. We'll explain below the best ways to use ACT prep books. Secondly, this guide is for students who want to improve their scores by more than 2 points. To make consistent improvements at this level, you need more than just tricks. You need to understand the contentbeing tested- the underlying math concepts and grammar rules- rather than just ineffective "tricks" that make you feel like you've learned something when you actually haven't. Now, if you’re looking to improve by only 1 point, you might be able to do that simply by retaking the test, especially if you’ve taken the ACT only once. Overall, as long as you’re serious about score improvement and want quality ACT books to study with, this is the guide for you. The Best ACT Prep Books of 2019 We’re going to divide the best ACT books into a few categories: Critical Books: These are absolute must-have books for your ACT prep, no matter your skill level or weaknesses. Subject-Specific Books: These are the best books to use for the ACT sections: English, Math, Reading, and Science. Books for Top Scorers:These books are challenging and guaranteed to push you over the top. Books for Low Scorers and Low Motivation: If you want to study for only a handful of hours and improve your ACT score by just a little bit, these are the best books to use. That said, we don't recommend putting such little time into your prep! Critical ACT Prep Books These must-have books are what I believe everyone should have, regardless of your current score or what you need to improve. This category is extremely hard for books to qualify for. In fact, there are only two ACT books out of the dozens I’ve tested that I think are worth buying. TheOfficial ACT Prep Guide 2019-2020 We’ve written at length about theimportance of official ACT practice questions. The ACT is weird and tests concepts in ways you’ve never seen in school before. This means that you need to train with realistic questions so you can learn the patterns of the ACT. Official ACT practice tests released by ACT, Inc., are the gold standard for ACT practice questions. Each test contains real questions given to students at previous test administrations. The quality of official questions is far better than those written by unofficial sources such as Kaplan and The Princeton Review. This particular prep book, informally called the "Red Book," is by far the best source of ACT practice tests. Pros It has the best set of ACT practice tests you can get anywhere, period. The book's five full-length practice tests offer a sufficient amount of practice for most students. Since each test takes at least four hours to complete and review, that's already 20 hours of material! Includes 400 additional practice questions. Answers for each question are available in the book. Cons You can get the same number of official practice tests for free online (although these don’t have answer explanations). Answer explanations in the book are not particularly helpful for self-learning. Most explanations say something like this: â€Å"A is wrong because A is wrong. B is correct for these reasons.† They don't show you how to solve the question from step one, which is what most students need; you need to understand yourself well to be able to learn from your mistakes. Five tests isn't enough for ambitious students. You'll need to supplement your prep with other free practice tests or the official online ACT program, which is good only for the extra test it offers. It doesn’t provide other instructional material. If you’re bad at algebra, you can’t rely on this book alone. You're really only buying it for the tests, and ACT, Inc., knows this. Taking practice tests without learning strategy isn’t going to improve your score, and the book doesn’t provide guidance on how to do this effectively. Most of thisbook is identical to the 2018-19 edition (except for the extra practice test), so if you already ownthat book, it's probably not worth buying this newest version. ACT Prep Black Book, Second Edition This is the only other critical book I recommend for ACT prep. Just using theBlack Bookalone, you’ll likely need supplemental help as I explain below. But what it does have is so good that I believe every student using ACT prep books in their studies should read it. What you’ll get from the Black Book is a way to think about the ACT.But what does this mean? Here are a couple of examples of what you'll learn: The ACT is designed to be a predictable, standardized test. It needs to test basic concepts so that it can be administered nationwide to all students, but it also needs to be difficult, so it distorts the questions in weird ways. Every answer must be unambiguously correct, or else students would complain that their incorrect answers are correct. This means that your strategy should be to rule out all incorrect answer choices, which is especially important on ACT Reading. Some of the concepts in this book were things I understood intuitively back when I took the ACT, but the author here articulates them in a crystal clear way. It’s influenced the way that I think about teaching our students at PrepScholar. Of all books on the market, this book aligns most closely with my personal philosophy on the ACT and how to succeed on it. Pros It offers a very lucid take on the ACT. The ideas in it will change your view on the ACT and hopefully motivate you to work harder, knowing that any student can excel on the test. It contains practical strategies that are more helpful than those in most other ACT books; you don't simply learn to rely on tricks. The book doesn’t assume that all students are the same. It offers a few alternatives for strategies, and then suggests that you try them out to see which one works best for you. It offers a solid set of answer explanations for the hardest questions in the Official Guide (see previous book). The author breaks down the best way to approach each question in a straightforward way. Cons This book requires a ton of self-discipline and insight to use effectively. Because you’re learning from your mistakes and no one is there to guide you, you need to be self-driven to experiment with different strategies and find out which one works best for you. For some students, following a set of straight guidelines could be less confusing. Question explanations are based on the old third edition of the Red Book. If you don't have that book, large parts of this book will be either difficult to use. Most question explanations cover the hardest questions in the Red Book. These serve as good examples for how to think generally about ACT questions, but if you’re scoring at the 8-26 score level on a section, these questions can be pretty confusing. The fundamental content is lacking. If you’re weak in algebra, for example, this book alone will not help you master the subject area. I believe more in recognizing your weaknesses and, throughfocused prep and specific practice questions, mastering that skill. This book is more about teaching an approach to prepping for the ACT. Its English and Science sections are not as strong as its Reading and Math sections are. This is largely due to the nature of the English section, in which it’s less about understanding how the test works and more about mastering grammar rules. Best ACT Books by Subject Beyond the critical books above, you’ll most likely need supplemental help on specific sections. This section discusses the best books for ACT English, Math, Reading, and Science. These books all follow my prep philosophy: Divide ACT content into skills, and get focused training on those skills. Use realistic, high-quality questions to prep effectively for the ACT. Cover only what you need to know- not advanced material that's not on the ACT. Best ACT English Prep Book The best way to excel at ACT English is to understand the grammar rules and how they appear on the ACT. You also need to do a lot of focused practice questions to make sure you learn the patterns of the ACT. That’show we designed our online ACT prep program to teach you grammar. My recommendation for best ACT English book is The Complete Guide to ACT Englishby Erica L. Meltzer. The book is fantastic at distilling grammar into exactly what you need to know for the ACT; you won’t have to learn any arcane grammar concepts that won't appear on the test. As for the rules thatare tested, Meltzer presents them all clearly and covers the essential foundations for those who want to brush up on basic grammar knowledge. Pros This book articulates grammar rules clearly and accurately. It covers only what you need to know for the ACT and cuts out extraneous material. Practice questions use a realistic ACT-passage format. They're also all grouped by topic so you can get repeated practice with the same skill. Cons It's a bit pricey for a book that covers just one ACT section (around $30). Testing a single grammar skill in this format can be misleading practice for the real test. For example, if you know the section is focusing on subject/verb agreement, you might be biased toward recognizing that error on a practice quiz but not on the actual test. Best ACT Math Prep Book My philosophy on ACT Math is thatthe best way to significantly improve your math score is to learn the underlying math content. Learning some simple strategies like plugging in answer choices can get you a little progress, but you’ll quickly run into a ceiling if you have gaps in your underlying math skills. Ultimately, you need to learn algebra, geometry, and number theory to be able to do well on the ACT. Your best bet, therefore, is to find a book that can bothteach you math content in an organized wayand give you practice problems to test individual skills. For these reasons, I recommend theUltimate Guide to the Math ACTby Richard F. Corn. This is a well-written ACT prep book that forces you to buckle down on your weakest math areas. Pros Its lessons teaching math concepts are clear and helpful. They stay focused on math you need to know for the ACT and don't dive into any irrelevant topics. The book divides math into more manageable sub-topics. For example, algebra is divided into solving equations, FOILing, word problems, etc. This division into smaller skills lets you concentrate on and attack specific points in your prep. It contains higher-level strategies on how to prep effectively. Cons Answer explanations are lacking. They show you why an answer is correct but don't teach you how to recognize the problem and solve it. Though high quality, questions could be more creative. The ACT has a host of questions that are unique and unusual, and having this variety is important to mastering the test. The book doesn't distinguish by difficulty level. On the ACT, the hardest questions are much more challenging than the easiest questions. If you're scoring in the average score range, you don't actually need to know how to solve the hardest 20% of questions. Trying to understand these can be a waste of time when you should instead build your fundamental skills. If you’re struggling with ACT math concepts at a basic level (say, scoring 16 or below), I recommend that you supplement your work withKhan Academy, a free online program that offers an engaging way to train your most basic math skills. Note that it's not customized for the ACT specifically, so this program alone won't be enough for your ACT prep. Best ACT Reading Prep Book In my experience with thousands of students, ACT Reading is the most difficult section to improve. It uses logical reasoning skills that aren’t as easy to master as math concepts and grammar rules are. It’s very important to figure out what types of Reading questions will be asked and how you can approach these questions in a systematic way. My recommendation for best ACT Reading book is once again by Erica L. Meltzer: The Complete Guide to ACT Reading.This book dissects the ACT Reading section by both question type and skill. Meltzer does a great job teaching the core of what the question is asking and how to work with the passage to arrive at the correct answer. Of all writers, Meltzer aligns most closely with my philosophy of drilling questions skill by skill to recognize patterns. Pros It offers a great breakdown of the Reading section on a skill-by-skill level.You'll get some of the most helpful strategies for every Reading question type. The book has lots of realistic, high-quality passages and questions.Meltzer uses passages extremely similar to those you’ll see on the ACT. It contains useful strategies on skimming and how to approach Reading passages. Cons For a book that covers just one section, it's a bit pricey ($30). The writing style is dry and clinical, like an academic textbook. I personally prefer this- cut out the fluff- but it can be quite dense for the average student. Its lack of creative page layouts and tendency to use a lot of text on large pages can get tiresome. BestACT Science Prep Book Despite the fact that many students find the Science section to be the most challenging part of the ACT, until recently there were no books specifically dedicated to helping you on ACT Science. At PrepScholar, we know all the tricks for making ACT Science easier, so we decided to compile them into a book. Because it's the only book on the market specifically dedicated to ACT Science, we made sure to make The PrepScholar Guide to ACT Science exceptional.This bookcovers every topic, skill, and question type you'll see on ACT Science, which means that nothingon this section will come as a surprise on test day. Most importantly,this bookalsoincludes all of our best ACT Sciencetest-taking tricks.Many students get tripped up ontheScience section because it's so different from the science tests they've taken in school. However, this book shows you how to identify all the tricks inACTScience and learn how toavoid getting fooled by them. Pros The book contains a complete breakdown of every type of passage and question type you'll see on ACT Science. It includes a list of every science fact you could be tested on, so you're only studying the science you need to know. It also containsmultiple strategies for tackling Science passages so you can choose the method that works best for you. It has lots of expert test-taking tips and strategies. Cons There's no final quiz or exam section at the end of the book. To fully practice everything you've learned from this book,we recommend takingfull-length Science sections. Best Additional Books for Top ACT Scorers Looking at the list above, you can see that you already have your work cut out for you. With nine full-length practice tests and five books at your disposal, you'll be studying for well over 80 hours. If you go through all of your practice using the guidelines we recommend, you’ll likely make huge improvements. If you still want additional practice, though, I recommend Barron’s ACT books- especially if you’re aiming for a near-perfect score. I remember using these books during myown prep in high school, and while Barron's questions are inferior to those in official ACT practice tests, they’re a solid backup source to use if you've finished everything else above. Pros These books offer a lot of content.With Barron's you get thousands of practice questions and detailed lessons with several examples. They're extremely thorough, covering every nook and cranny you need to know. You can be confident that very little is tested outside of what’s contained in these books. Cons Topics can sometimes be too difficult than what you need to know for the ACT. Some questionsget unrealistically hard in a way you’d never see on the actual test. If you’re not an ACT expert, you won’t be able to detect when this happens and might end up wasting time studying content that doesn't ultimately matter. The books often lack clear direction on what’s important and what's not. For example, a grammar rule that appears once every test gets the same number of pages as a grammar rule that appears eight times every test. Again, this is the flip sideof being thorough. As a result, these aren't the books to use if you have limited study time. Not all of their strategies are good.For instance, I have mixed feelings about the reading advice in Barron's ACT 36 (pictured above). Best All-in-One Book for Less Motivated Low Scorers My recommendations have so far been for the ambitious student who really wants to improve his or her score. But I know some students just want to put in five hours, get some exposure to the test, and then take the ACT and forget about it. I personally believe that for most students, improving your ACT score is thebest way to improve your chances of college admission. If you feel like you don't want to put in much effort to studying for the ACT, I strongly suggest reexamining your approach. That said, if you’re stuck in the mindset of simply getting the ACT over with, the book I recommend isKaplan’s ACT Prep 2019. It’s an all-in-one book that covers all four sections and contains practice questions and tests. It doesn’t excel at any of what it’s doing, but it covers the most important bases. It also tends to have more reasonable content than other all-in-one books, such as the ACT book by The Princeton Review. I'll be honest: I don’t love this book. I don’t even really like it. To be frank, I don’t recommend it if you seriously want to improve your ACT score and are willing to put in study time. But if you just want a single source that can do an OK job and is easily digestible, this is the best book out there. Pros It covers all four ACT sections and has a total of three full-length practice tests (two of which are online). At about $17, this book is pretty affordable in terms of the breadth it covers. It offers some helpful, basic strategies that can get you a few easy points if you get stuck answering questions. Cons Practice questions tend to be unrealistic. They often don’t phrase questions the way the ACT would, and they don’t test concepts the right way, either. Questions also don’t trick you in the same ways the real test does. The strategies are not very helpful once you move beyond a 24-score level on a section. Other Free Resources for ACT Prep More important than buying ACT prep books is knowing how to use them effectively. The more books you have, the more important it is to understand how to build a unified study system. We've written thorough guides to walk you through your ACT study plan: 5 Strategies That Will Get You 4+ Points on the ACT How to Get a Perfect ACT Score, by a 36 Full Scorer When Should You Take the ACT? Best Test Dates Is Using ACT Prep Books the Best Option for You? There are a lot of ACT prep methods available to you, and book studying is only one of them. Just to explore all of our options, let's quickly examine whether studying with ACT books is right for you. People who choose to study with books do so for different reasons. Some do it for cost reasons. As I noted above, the best ACT books can get expensive. If you buy all of the top books, you'll be spending around $200. This is already close to the cost of ouronline ACT prep program, which goes beyond books by guiding your studies step by step and motivating you to put in the time. Others study with books because they're self-motivatedand like teaching themselves. If this isn't you, books can be a disappointing way to spend your time- and you probably won't improve, either. By far one of the most important ways to improve your ACT score is to study your mistakes and learn from them. If you can't do this reliably, you'll need extra help to get started. We've written a free guide tocompare other methods of ACT prep. Click the image below to download this guide so you can compare the different methods and see which one is best for you. What's Next? Understanding your ACT target score is critical.Get started by reading ourstep-by-step guide to figuring out what ACT score you need to aim for. Check out our industry-leading online ACT program. We've designed it to cover all of the advantages of ACT books and tutors- and more- at an affordable price. Featuring in-depth strategy lessons and thousands of practice questions, our program uses content from the leading books. We even include the Official ACT Prep Guide above as part of your program. Beyond that,our programacts like your personal tutor. It guides you step by step through what you should be working on at every moment to best improve your score. It customizes to your strengths and weaknesses, and then gives you focused practice so you learn the patterns on the ACT. Furthermore, it motivates you to study so that you put in enough time. There's a 4-point guarantee, too- meaning that if you don't improve your score by 4 points or more, you get all of your money back!