Dansk Minox Case Study Essay Example for Free

Dansk Minox Case Study Essay Problem: A/S Dansk Minox is a company based in Copenhagen, which specializes in branded vacuum-packed meat and other food products. Through consumer survey, the company found that there was a large untapped market for a ‘Complete meal’ product which included sliced pork along with a vacuum-sealed bag of red cabbage salad. After long discussions among the marketing and finance departments, the complete meal pack was introduced at a price of $ 8.20 per pack of 1 kg. It sold only 30 tons as against the budgeted sales of 85 tons. The problem facing the company is that whether it has to stop further production of the ‘complete meal’ product or establish a new consumer price of $ 6.85 per pack, in order to boost sales. Considerations and Analysis: In order to decide the course of action we may look at the following facts and considerations. Consumer Price 8.20 6.85 Retailer Price 5.72 4.78 Variable Cost 3.49 3.41 Volume Sales (in kgs) 30000 85000 Advertising Costs 0.3 0.3 Impact on Profit 41,400 90,950 As we can see, impact on profit is higher when 85000 kgs of complete meal is sold at $6.85/kg, rather than selling 30000 kgs at $ 8.20/kg. Now, another point to note is if production expenses are to be revised to $ 1.20/kg, then on a full cost basis, the complete meal would cost. Total unit cost (new) = Total unit cost (old) Production expenses (old) + Production expenses (revised) Total unit cost (new) = 4.64 0.54 + 1.20 = $ 5.30 And Profit per unit would be = Retailer price Total unit cost (new) = 4.78 5.30 = (-0.52) (i.e) there would be a loss of $ 0.52/kg, on a full cost basis, when the ‘complete meal is sold at $ 6.85. Conclusion and Recommendations: The point to be focused here is that though the new product might sell 85Â  tons at a revised price of $ 6.85 per pack, it will incur losses on a full cost basis. Also it is not feasible to lower the production costs anymore because, the resources of A/S Dansk Minox which were specialized for meat processing were now processing Vegetables. This is not their core competency and hence they would incur more costs in performing activities that they do not specialize in. Furthermore, the need for a single package containing sliced pork and red cabbage salad is itself questionable because the same packs are also individually available and these individual packs are of better quality because slice pork is Dansk Minox’s speciality and red cabbage salad is its competitior’s specialty. Hence, it is recommended that Dansk Minox stop further production of ‘complete meal (because red salad is not its core competency) and concentrate on selling its ‘standard packs, which are in fact having a significant boost in their sales or the management can look to collaborate with the best ‘red cabbage salad making company and together give the customers the best quality of ‘complete meal at the best price. The final decision would however be dependent upon managerial discretion and organizational guidelines/objectives.

Understanding Ones Culture :: essays research papers

Introduction: Cultures in American Samoa Because of its history as a growing populated area of the Pacific, American Samoa has provided a huge experiment in multicultural understanding not only in the Pacific but also worldwide. Settlers from literally every neighboring Pacific Islanders as well as settlers from all around the continent have joined this country's indigenous inhabitants. These days, American Samoa is said that it would be a "melting ice " where diverse cultures would mingle and lose their distinctness as they came together, Instead, though cultures have mixed here, they have never "melted". Some have been strengthen in their distinctiveness. So, instead of a "melting ice ", we could see American Samoa as a kind of tile mosaic. On its useful surface, the bright focus of each culture contributes to a pattern in which all elements work together. It appears that this is how cultures work all over the world. They have a power in themselves, which resists dilution and homogenization. This power is based on the close relationship between the cultures and their members. In this identity lies strength; this strength is the reason we should celebrate, rather than challenge, diversity of culture in every group and individual. Culture is adaptive, integrated, and always changing. It shares these characteristics with organic life. In other words, with systems oriented towards survival. Customs that diminish the survival chances of a given society are not likely to persist. Those which enhance survival chances of a given society are not likely to customs are tried and honed as aids to survival, the mechanisms of human understanding move them constantly into integration with other facets of society. Thus change occurs in culture in an organic way. Humanities and its Cultural Explanation The humanities are involved in cultural understanding in ways with roots as deep as humankind. The mental capacity of humans today connects us absolutely with the mental capacities of our remotest ancestors. We share not only our ability to think and reason, but also the capacity for aesthetic and moral sensibilities. The humanities, the storehouse of values and traditions that form the foundation of society, work to make clear these shared capacities, these shared understandings. The humanities, in effect, help us to understand other cultures, including the cultures of the past. They do this by showing the shared intellectual and artistic heritage with which people of all cultures have made sense of the world.

Deceptive Advertising Essay

Advertising is considered one of the most important tools of marketing for attracting customers towards the company and increasing the sale of its products and services. Advertising is done in a number of ways, the most effective being the television and print media. Though the main purpose of advertising is to attract customers and increase the profits of a company through increased sales, it has often been regarded as false and misleading. In today’s world a majority of customers are being wary of advertisements since it contains information which is actually false and misleading. Advertisements often promise certain benefits which the products or services when purchased fail to provide to their customers. Such types of advertisements are increasing on a gradual basis and today every ad is being suspected on this ground. These types of advertisements fall under the category of ‘Deceptive Advertisement’. These sort of advertisements make false claims or misleading statements and give their viewers a false impression which instigates them to try the product. People who most frequently use deceptive advertising are retailers and shopkeepers when they advertise for low-price products available in their shop just to get the customers in the shop but fail to produce them when asked for. There are many forms of advertisement which fall under the category of being deceptive. These include false promises, unsubstantiated claims, incomplete descriptions, false testimonials, partial disclosure or visual distortion of products. Deceptive advertisement includes all those ads which induce a person to make a purchase on the basis of false claims and promises about the price and quality of competitive products. The Federal Trade Commission is responsible for enacting laws against unfair and misleading advertisements and punishing the companies involved in the offense (Yeshin, 2005). Deceptive advertisement is not a new concept, instead it was practiced since the beginning of time and the trend is increasing in the business society with the passing time. This has led advertisement to become an ethics issue since it is sometimes being done unintentionally whereas most of the times the intention is to fool the customer in making the purchase through attractive and misleading advertisements. The customers are made to believe that they are getting some great benefits from the product however; this is not so the case after the purchase has been made. Deceptive advertisement is used for targeting customers of all age groups through intelligent marketing tricks and tactics therefore, people need to be aware. Retailers, airlines, weight loss programs, mobile phone warranties are some of the few companies who use this tactic for gaining sales. Such advertisements are illegal and unlawful in the eyes of law and legal action is taken against such companies even if the ad actually fooled the people or not. The overall impression counts in front of law which if false will create legal problems for the company besides its technical truthfulness (Davis, 1994). Consumers are faced daily with countless ads instigating them to try the product due to which they are unable to differentiate between true and false advertisements. People ponder why companies need to make use of false and misleading tactics to attract the customers since truth can also get them enough customers to make high profits. Often companies produce products which have a very low quality and are not competitive so they won’t demand high prices. For making their product sale in the market as a competitive one, they mark down its price and use eye-catching advertisements which mislead the consumers in making the purchase. This doesn’t mean that every other new company or others existing in the market adopt this strategy. Some of the advertisements are based on true and honest information while some others deceive the customers with false information. Educated customers can often see through such false claims but most of them fail to do so and end up wasting their money on deceptive products and services. According to the Federal Trade Commission, the ad must not always entail a purchase for it to be counted as deceptive; just the presence of misleading information or a false claim can demand an action against the company. The commission has taken action and filed lawsuit against many businesses and companies who have been accused for being a part of deceptive advertising. The consumers on watching such ads or after making the purchase can file a complaint against the company and sue them for damages. The FTC is doing along on its behalf for stopping the fraudulent activity by enacting various laws against deceptive advertising (Stern, 2000). The theory states that there are different models of advertising. There are three types of deceptive advertising that are done mostly (Hameroff, 1988). These are: †¢ Fraudulent Advertising which is also termed as ‘outright lie’ where the ad states a lie clearly about the product which is disclosed when the customer makes the purchase and does not finds the benefit promised. †¢ False advertising includes ‘a claim-fact discrepancy’ where all the conditions for receiving a promotion or a prize are not disclosed beforehand. †¢ Misleading advertising also called ‘claim-belief interaction’ where an ad can make people believe about a claim which is not want the product provides. Deceptive advertising mostly consists of three commonly found elements or in other words the representation, omission or practice of deceptive advertisements will be examined from three sides. Firstly, the representation, omission or practice that will likely mislead the consumer such as giving misleading price claims or misrepresenting a product or services orally or in written. One of the most common forms of deceptive advertising is oral misrepresentation and must taken great care of. The Better Business Bureau once stated that an advertisement can be misleading when seen complete though every single sentence treated separately might be true. Secondly, the representation, omission or practice is examined from the eyes of a reasonable consumer or a particular target group like the youth or elderly. This means that the misrepresentation, omission or practice in the advertisement has been introduced in order to attract a particular group of customers. For example, the weight loss programs target the fat people through false and misleading claims of reducing weight in 15 days etc. Thirdly, the representation, omission or practice must be analyzed from the perspective of being a material one. This means that the misrepresentation is a material one if it influences the consumer decision of buying the product or not. The consumer must have decided for something different if he would have not come across the deceptive advertisement (Richards, 1990). Furthermore, internet also falls under the category of deceptive advertisement since most of the websites often collect the personal information of the user without his or her consent. Deception through internet is mostly related to the privacy issues. Some examples of companies who have been cited for deceptive advertising include United Weight Control, Nutri-System, Inc. , The Diet Center, Physician Weight Loss Clinic, Weight Watchers International, Inc. , and Jenny Craig. Action was taken against these companies and they were made to modify their advertising and marketing practices. Not only are these companies held liable for deceptive advertising but also the advertising agencies who participated in designing the advertisement. All others who participated in the creation of deceptive ad are held liable by the law especially the advertising agencies that knew about the deceptive element in the ad but failed to substantiate the claims. Sometimes the producers are also held liable since they know about the true traits of a product and by not raising a voice against the ad means that they are backing the claim. The liable companies are subject to penalties by the law which may be stopping the ad immediately, paying for damages to the customers, correcting the ad or even requiring the company to leave the industry or banning it for a certain time period in extreme cases of deception. Besides Federal Trade Commission, Better Business Bureau and National Advertising Review Council has been also given the responsibility of monitoring the truth in advertisements. Moreover, competitors can be the greatest and most important source for detecting deceptive advertisements in their industry since they serve as watchdogs on their competitors marketing practices. The competitors can sue the company involved in the deceptive advertisement in order to gain market advantages. The customers too can file a complaint against the deceptive ads with the above mentioned organizations who will investigate the accusation (Garza, 2000). A question that comes to our mind is that is there anything which helps in identifying boundary between truth and deception in advertisements. When we see a number of advertisements daily flashing in front of our eyes, it is very difficult for us to pierce through the flash and identify the element of deception in them. This influences us to buy the product and to ultimately find that the benefit promised is not attained or that we have paid much more than what we got. However, if advertisements are watched carefully then consumers can keep an eye out for deception constantly. One should know of the many ways in which advertisers can trick the customers in buying the product they want us to buy. Advertisers usually incorporate into their ads the feelings, reactions and responses of customers which they obtained through tests and surveys in creating advertisements. They use these to trick the customers by including in their advertisements those claims which consumers want the most. There are several things which customers can look for while identifying a boundary between truth and deception in advertisements (Stern, 2000).

Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy Essay

Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy Rene Descartes’ third meditation from his book Meditations on First Philosophy, examines Descartes’ arguments for the existence of God. The purpose of this essay will be to explore Descartes’ reasoning and proofs of God’s existence. In the third meditation, Descartes states two arguments attempting to prove God’s existence, the Trademark argument and the traditional Cosmological argument. Although his arguments are strong and relatively truthful, they do no prove the existence of God. At the start of the meditation, Descartes begins by rejecting all his beliefs, so that he would not be deceived by any misconceptions from reaching the truth. Descartes acknowledges himself as, â€Å"a thing†¦show more content†¦Descartes is able to examine ideas and gain knowledge form them. Innate ideas mean they are present at birth, in other words we are implanted with certain ideas at our creation. He often uses ‘innate ideas’ to explain the mind’s original programming. â€Å"An infant’s mind is programmed with the rules of logic. Consider as an example the valid rule, modus ponens. Let P and Q stand for variables†¦ the rules states that, if P then Q is true and P is true, then it follows that Q is true. We know that we are programmed with this rule because young children, who have never studied logic and have never entertained the rule, when given an argument in which the variables above are replaced by actual sentences, are able to in tuit the validity of the argument.† Descartes believed our minds are programmed with eternal truths, â€Å"Whatever comes into existence must have been brought into existence by something else.† He also discovers that the idea of God is only part of his initial programming but also that God, operating through secondary sources such as his parents, is the programmer. Adventitious ideas are created by outside objects but Descartes, â€Å"points out that, even if his adventitious ideas are produced by external objects, he has no reason for believing that his ideas resemble the objects which produced them.† Descartes believesShow MoreRelatedRene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy1234 Words   |  5 Pages In Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes does and experiment with wax to try to prove that things actually exist in this world. This essay is going to prove how we can tell that things actually exist and what can perceive the wax. Rene Descartes starts off with a description of the wax so he can prove to us the changes that will happen throughout his experiment. â€Å"Let us take, for instance, this piece of wax. It has been taken quite recently from theRead MoreMeditations On First Philosophy By Rene Descartes Essay839 Words   |  4 PagesPrà ©ciso of Meditations on First Philosophy Through his series of books, Meditations on First Philosophy, Renà © Descartes enlightens his philosophical ideas about knowledge in which we should discard all belief we aren’t absolute certain about and establishes what we know for sure. In the introduction he clarifying the main ideas of each of the 6 books and using to them build up to his belief. Starting with the First Meditations, he discusses about doubt. He believed that there are no real foundationsRead MoreThe Meditations On First Philosophy By Rene Descartes916 Words   |  4 Pages The Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes is a thorough analysis about doubt. Descartes describes his method of doubt to determine whether he can truly know something. One of his major arguments is the proof of the existence of God. In this paper, I will attempt to unravel the flaws in Descartes proof that God exists. In the meditations, Descartes evaluates whether or not everything we know is a reality or a dream. Descartes claims that we can only be sure that our beliefs are trueRead MoreMeditations On First Philosophy By Rene Descartes1062 Words   |  5 PagesIn Meditations on First Philosophy, Renà © Descartes philosophies made a substantial advancement in enabling us to understand the world around us by querying many of the Aristotelian doctrines that are still being discussed in philosophy today. He attempts to answer the question; can you fully trust your senses? Descartes uses methodological doubt, which is a process of being skeptical about truths of someone’s belief to revoke from his senses. In Meditation One: Concerning Those Things That Can BeRead MoreRene Descartes Meditations On First Philosophy1758 Words   |  8 PagesPerhaps the most startling conclusion reached by Renà © Descartes in Meditations on First Philosophy is his proposed disconnection between the Mind and Body. Striving to separate the spiritual from the corporeal to enable scientific examination of the earthly without interference from the divine, Descartes conceives that the two basic human substances, Mind and Body, are distinct and therefore able to exist separate of one another in his [in]famous claim of substance dualism. His conclusions rest uponRead MoreEssay on Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes1561 Words   |  7 Pages In his work, Meditations on First Philosophy, Renà © Descartes writes to rid pre-conceptions, and disprove all belief in thoughts that are not certain, accepting only what can be known for sure. In his Meditation VI: Of the Existence of Material Things, and the Real Distinction between the Mind and Body of Man, he discusses his belief that the mind and body are two separate substances, claiming that the nonmaterial mind and the material body, while being ontologically distinct substances, causallyRead MoreRene Descartes s Meditation On First Philosophy802 Words   |  4 PagesRenà © Descartes objective in Meditation on First Philosophy is to construct philosophy as a solid methodical study and discipline alike the sciences. To do so he must first suspend belief in all things doubtful and from their go about verifying the true concepts of the world. In meditation II he verifies that he is a thinking thing and finds that the certainty of the cogito â€Å"I think therefore I am† lies in the distinct perception of what he affirms. From this he generates a general rule of evidenceRead MoreEssay on Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy2121 Words   |  9 Pages  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Descartes believes that knowledge comes from within the mind. This is a single indisputable fact to build on that can be gained through individual reflection. While seeking true knowledge, Descartes writes his Six Meditations. In these meditations, Descartes tries to develop a strong foundation, which all knowledge can be built upon. In the First Meditation, Descartes begins developing this foundation through the method of doubt. He casts doubt upon all his previous beliefs, including â€Å"mattersRead MoreAnalysis Of Rene Descartes s Meditations On First Philosophy 1399 Words   |  6 PagesPhilosophy Essay 1 Rene Descartes was born in in La Haye, France, in 1596 and he studied at La Fleche Jesuit College and University of Poitiers. Descartes also lived in Germany, Holland and Sweden. He then worked in the army as a private councillor and then as a court philosopher. Descartes book ‘Meditations on First Philosophy’ was first published in 1641. The edition used to write this essay was edited by John Cottingham and was published by the Cambridge University Press in 1996. Descartes wasRead MoreAnalysis Of Rene Descartes s Meditations On First Philosophy1066 Words   |  5 Pageswhat is reality? Among these writers were Renà ¨ Descartes and George Berkeley, who respectively argued that everything perceived must be real due to God being unable to deceive, and that the physical world only exists in one’s mind. In my view, it is not certain that the physical world is real, but one should act as if it is. Renà ¨ Descartes, in Meditations on First Philosophy, wrote each section after successive â€Å"meditations.† In Descartes’s first meditation, he claims it is unable to be proven whether