Carnival Cruise Line

The IT improvement will help CCL to achieve the future goal that attract more loyal customer, help CCL to arrange customized activities, lower inventory cost and attract more first timers and repeaters by cooperating with travel agencies to promote their product. Provide Fun ship service with low cost and customer friendly strategy Carnival is a low-cost and customer oriented company which provides fun for a broad market. (Exhibit1 illustrates the core competiveness and key activities of CCL. ) â€Å"Fun Ship† theme is the key competitive advantage of CCL which â€Å"wants to think of the boat as the destination, and the ports as secondary†.At the same time, they use various promotional channels and wide ticket price range to attract broader market. Low cost strategy, customer friendly service and efficient product distribution enable CCL to be the leading company in the cruise industry. CCL performed well in the past and boasts bright future market, but there is still a large room of strategic improvement to break the bottleneck and achieve an even stronger market position. Recommend an IT investment in cruiser behavior analysis system Make an investment in developing a Cruiser Behavior Estimation system will optimize the current CRM system.In analysis of the current CRM system (Exhibit 2 virtualizes the process of current CRM system), I find that CCL has already embraced a comprehensive IS and the FSS perfectly create a cashless society on board with the SS card, but they don’t take full advantage of cruiser activity data. In the Exhibit 2, we can find that CCL don’t have any further estimation of the customer behavior. I improve the CRM process by adding a cruiser behavior estimation process, numbered as process 8 in the DFD (Exhibit3). With the process, the aligned CRM will improve customer service and create business value in four aspects.Raise customer satisfaction with the Behavior analysis system The newly added cruiser behavior estimation system will enable CCL to make quick response and give provide diversified activity recommendation. (Exhibit 3 presents my proposed IT-enabled process improvement and the aligned process numbered as a). After the analysis of the cruiser activities data, CCL can estimate that preference of on-board cruisers and make the personalized activity recommendations to encourage continuing shopping in the following days on board, which is similar to the â€Å"Amazon Recommendation for you†.The system will also help â€Å"Cruise staff quick learns guests’ name and preference. † Information from the system lower the inventory cost The customer pref erence and actual on-board consumption information will be recorded in customer database and used to predict their future consumption of inventory. (Exhibit 3 process b)The system will use the data to estimate the customers’ demand in the following days. Then the inventory center uses the estimation to adjust their supply. Therefore, the action will definitely save money for CCL with accurate inventory supply.Evaluate the customer loyalty with the system The evaluation results of customer loyalty will serve for further marketing promotion. (Exhibit 3 process c)Many customer behaviors will act as an evident to predict the potential customers. For instance, the most first timer wants to try some brand new activities, while the repeater prefers to more enjoyable experience. With the data analysis, they can predict the potential repeaters and send the information to PVPs to make the further promotion. Enhance the corporation with travel agency

Starbucks Marketing Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Starbucks Marketing Report - Essay Example As the discussion declares Starbucks has successfully entered in several potential international market places with proper realization and understanding of the impact of external environment factors on the business practices. In order to reveal the impact of several external environment factors on the business operation of Starbucks in global market, a PESTLE analysis has been undertaken. This paper stresses that the political stability of a country is very much important for a global business organization in order to run the business successfully. It has evidenced that; the organization has chosen every single international market place after understanding and examining the political stability of each and every specific country. Moreover, the organization has effectively followed specific industry regulations and rules in every foreign country apart from USA in order to avoid the international political business threat. It has evidenced that, Strabucks has maintained high-level relationship with the government of every business operation and coffee beans producing country. The European financial crisis in 2008-09 and global recession in 2007-08 has affected the global economy drastically. The condition of global economy has suffered from several reasons, such as high taxation level, reduced consumer buying power, low exchange rate of currency in global market place, economic slowdown of several developed and developing country and low disposable income of middle class people. However, several developing countries, such as BRICK Countries has not affected much from the affects of Recession and Financial crisis due to sufficient natural resources and highly controlled administration. Presently, the global economy is recovering from the effect of these economic downturns. The local economic situation and environment within each operation country is shifting towards growth. Therefore, the business output of strabucks is gradually increasing. Social It is becoming global trend to have the taste of coffee in a coffee chain. Moreover, the changing of family patterns in UK, USA and Asian countries have influenced the buyers to consume high quality coffee. Due to high customer preference, the organization is effectively doing their business practices.

Elite Running Inc Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Elite Running Inc - Case Study Example The inventory of Elite rose by 39% in 2003 as compared to 2002. The rise in the level of inventory was preplanned by the management in order to be prepared to grab the offers from the suppliers when they offer favorable prices for the company. The changes also indicate that while the sales have declined for the company by 24%, the gross profits have declined by 53.8%. This fall in gross profits was mainly due to the changes in the product prices due to the change in competitive market scenario with the appearance of a new entrant named, Stampy. The other significant changes include fall of retained earnings of the company by 11.2% and the fall of equity by 8.4%. Explanation for tick-marks b, e & k The explanation for the tick-marks has been explained as follows. Tick-mark b The fall in the accounts receivable of Elite Running Inc. in 2003 as compared to the value of 2003 could be explained by the fall of sales figures of the company. Due to the fall in the level of sales volume of th e company, the credit offered for sales also reduced. Thus the accounts receivable also declined in 2003 as compared to 2002. Tick-mark e The inventory of the company increased by 17 million dollars which is a rise of 39% in inventory level of 2003 as compared to that of 2002. ... Tick-mark k Elite running Inc. has faced unprecedented competition in 2003. The management forecasted a 10% rises in the sales as compared to 2002. However, due to entry of a new competitor and offers of a similar footwear and apparel product by the competitor eroded their market share as the customers inclined towards the products offered by Stampy. This led to the fall of revenue earnings of the company. In order to respond to the changed external environment, the company reduced its product prices. Although, it allowed the company to retain a large number of customers, the gross profit of the company declined. Discussion: auditing and accounting issues for identified changes The accounting and auditing issues identified in the valuation accounts receivable suggest that the valuation of accounts receivables should have been $51m instead of $60m that has been recorded in the books of accounts. The issue behind this gap is that the management has influenced the accountant and the aud itor in disclosing consistent value of aging account (AICPA 18). The accounts receivable figure for a period of less than 30 days has also been suggested to be maintained at 85%. In order to do this, the accounts receivable from the three sales transactions of the new sales and marketing tool of the company, named Andy Dufresne has not been recorded under the assurance of the management. This is an auditing issue as it shows clear deviation from standards of accounting (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission 1). The accounting and auditing issue involved in the rise of inventory level of Elite Running Inc. questions the gap between the available information on the receipt of supplier materials as the reason for rise in inventory and the