Driving Consumer Needs: Evaluating the Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman Essay

Introduction Wal-mart has transformed the corporate and consumer culture in America and the rest of the world- by focusing on its corporate mission of Very Low Prices, Always, Wal-mart placed itself as a fixture in the everyday lives of millions of people. Fishman (2006) in his book The Wal-Mart Effect shows us exactly how Wal-Mart figures in everyday corporate and consumer lives making it the biggest and most influential company in the world today. This paper evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the book using a sociological perspective particularly on how the author characterizes the impact of Wal-Mart in our contemporary society. Significantly, Fishman had successfully presented us with the positive and negative impact of Wal-Mart both on the business and consumer front. Moreover, to a considerable extent, Fishman was able to show how the interplay of society’s many forces can yield both positive and negative effects. The Wal-Mart Effect Fishman (2006) characterized the economic power of Wal-Mart: it is bigger than ExxonMobil, General Motors and General Electric and rakes about US$244.5 bullion sales in 2005 and it outcasts the competition by selling in three months what the number two retailer Home Depot sells in one year. Rich with anecdotes and stories, the primary thesis of Fishman’s The Wal-Mart Effect is that there is a price that needs to be paid in order to have the cheapest possible prices in everyday Wal-Mart stores- and this price significantly affects the greater part of the American as well as the global society in that Wal-Mart pushes its suppliers and employees to take the negative side of providing its customers with the lowest prices. The fundamental strength of the book is the ability of Fishman to dissect the core strategy of Wal-Mart in lieu with the consumers’ demands. Wal-Mart is projected by Fishman as merely an instrument in feeding the need of consumers for very low prices- or paying for something with almost nothing. Even consumers’ who rejects the cheap prices at Wal-Mart is shown by Fishman to spend at least US$450 a year at Wal-Mart- a proving testimony that consumers are willing to sacrifice the quality of products in order to get the cheapest prices. Furthermore, Fishman successfully showed how Wal-Mart fosters a business relationship with its suppliers and its competing companies- suppliers and other companies are powerless in lieu with the invincibility of Wal-Mart in the retail sector. Almost all companies’ sells at Wal-Mart- being the number one retail store in the country, companies cannot afford not to sell at Wal-Mart. Fishman contends that despite the negative impact of Wal-Mart on the suppliers’ end, they choose to sell at Wal-Mart because not selling at Wal-Mart would mean losing their biggest clientele. Interestingly, Fishman provides the readers with an entertaining work through the illustration of examples. For instance, Fishman showed that while Wal-Mart is a very powerful player in the retail industry, not all suppliers and companies are scrambling for Wal-mart to sell their products. Fishman (2006) illustrated the case of Snapper, the maker of quality and durable lawn mowers where the CEO had refused to sell at Wal-Mart because of the incompatibility of their corporate values with that of the company. Selling prices at almost the same level of the production cost would mean sacrificing the quality of the products- not to mention the salary cuts and the ends to which suppliers would go through just to meet the price that Wal-Mart dictates for their products. Thus, this leads to the fourth argument of Fishman- the cost of low prices for Wal-Mart consumers is manifested in the very low wages of its employees, driving its suppliers to lower their employees’ wages themselves and prompting others to make production in sweatshops exploiting children and workers in third world countries, and in driving the mania of consumers for low-priced but products stripped of the product quality that corporations have initially offered. While Fishman’s The Wal-Mart Effect is essentially driven by the popularity of Wal-Mart, its primary weakness lies in its inability to provide a deeper evaluation of the long-term impact of The Wal-Mart Effect on the consumers. For one, the benefits of Wal-Mart to the consumers is not long-term in nature, Fishman however, did not explore this topic. Moreover, Fishman neither provided a business and sociological framework that shows how Wal-Mart is perceived in the greater part of the society and how Wal-Mart perceives its consumers. Wal-Mart has been a subject of many commentaries and success stories in the business world. For consumers, Wal-Mart is like a haven and similarly, the literature has also projected Wal-Mart on all the positive qualities that can be given to a company. Fishman (2006) in his book provided us with the good and the bad effects of Wal-Mart- whether it is more positive or negative; the author does not say but argues that the impact of Wal-Mart on world markets is very vast. The impact is such that an American eating a Salmon from Wal-Mart significantly affects the economy of Chile. What Fishman (2006) shows is not just the business side of Wal-Mart but its larger impact on the American and world society in general. For one, Wal-Mart significantly dictates the economies of most countries because of their ability to dictate the supplier of their products. Hence, Wal-Mart’s goal for low prices is not a simple mathematical formulation- it involves the interplay of the society’s political, economic and sociological actors. According to Fishman, in their bid to get the lowest prices, consumers are suffering both in terms of quality and in forcing suppliers’ and their workers to cut down on operational and production costs. On the other hand, political institutions are being pressured by Wal-Mart to submit to their demands because of the possible change in a country’s economy once Wal-Mart decides to do business with them. Fishman’s audience spans all individuals regardless of gender, age or socio-economic status. This is because Wal-Mart spans all sociological barriers as well- businesses, suppliers, workers, housewives, even the young adults and adolescents are all familiar with Wal-Mart as a part of their everyday lives. Fishman’s The Wal-Mart Effect is therefore more than just an interesting book; it presents an open-minded presentation and analysis of Wal-Mart and its impact on the greater society. By illustrating examples, Fishma’s the Wal-Mart Effect succeeded and how it had benefited the common American in providing low prices and at the same time, illustrated the cases of Wal-Mart’s suppliers and how Wal-Mart has twisted their corporate values in order to adhere to their own. Using simple illustrations, Fishman was able to tell us that Wal-Mart gives what the consumers ask for- cheaply priced products. However, he also showed the cost of these low prices- sweatshops, measly wages for its employees, changing corporate goals and driving consumers to demand for cheaper products. Feeding this type of consumer system is the goal of Wal-Mart and it is the very reason why consumers are rewarding the company. While Fishman is a journalist, he offered his viewpoints using investigative journalism means and with scholarly ethics not to go overboard. The goal of Fishman is not to show the myth surrounding Wal-Mart but rather to offer an alternate view on how the company operates and how it achieves its goals. Notably, Fishman was successful in providing a book that covers not just a description but rather a deeper understanding of how Wal-Mart works and how it affects every individual and the society. Conclusion   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Fishman’s The Wal-Mart Effect does not offer to provide the scholarly or deeper understanding of the success of Wal-Mart but rather it seeks to present a more balanced view of how Wal-Mart strives to give cheaper products to the consumers. Using an easy-read tone of writing, Fishman captures the imagination and the interest of its readers and takes them into a journey of the different facets and strands of the company. Fishman succeeds in providing the details that readers need in order to form their own conclusion. While most part of the text is judgment-free, one is left asking how the biggest company in the world has achieved that much power to change the very society that created it. Reference Fishman, C. (2006) The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World’s Most Powerful Company  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Really Works–and How It’s Transforming the American Economy. The Penguin  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Press: 294 pages.

Maternal Health Child Mini

1) Do you believe there is a need for public health influence in the area of family planning? What would be the role? I believe public health has many benefits for every individual especially women. One of the benefits is that family planning services allows individuals to aimly achieved their own family size, and contributes to improved health outcomes for infants, children, women as well as families (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1999, pg. 1075). Some these benefits services include educating about preventing sexually transmitted infection such as HIV, herpes, syphilis etc. Besides from education, they also counsel patients especially women who are taking contraceptives and/or IUD devices. Counseling is critical part in health care because it helped women and men to be aware of the risks that they are taking when it comes to having another child and know all the unexpected and expected outcomes when it comes to prenatal and postnatal care. Effective methods such as Breast, pelvic examinations, breast and cervical screenings are found the first step for women who are at risk for breast or cervical cancer. Without these services, there is a high chance of more unintended pregnancies in America as well as premature babies and mortality. Recent article, Guttmacher Institute (2012) stated â€Å"Each year, publicly funded family planning services prevent 1. 94 million unintended pregnancies, including 400,000 teen pregnancies (Guttmacher institute, 2012, pg. 3). With that being said, family planning services have been effective for women who decided not to get pregnant. It also helped Medicaid, a federal USA health program for low income adults and children, by Medicaid saving a lot of expenditures from pregnancy-related care ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1999, pg. 1074). With the help of Family planning program, this helped save a lot of families from psychological problems to financial problems. Unfortunately, Guttmacher (2012) listed most women who are in a poverty line, have low education level or are single parents are less likely to have access of family planning services (pg. 5). Some of the obstacles for these women who are not on the family planning services are because of lack of awareness about family planning services, limited access to publicly funded services and access to insurance coverage. These obstacles challenges because many americans are still left out of insurance. With the help of Obama administration which is trying to get every single american to have affordable insurance. This will help bridge the gap even more close for more additional women to take the step into getting family planning services. Elements of preconception care should be integrated into every primary care visit for women of reproductive age. 23 Preconception care must not be limited to a single visit to a health care provider, but rather be a process of care designed to meet the needs of an individual. 25 As part of comprehensive preconception care, providers should encourage patients to develop a reproductive life plan. A reproductive life plan is a set of goals and action steps based on personal values and resources about whether and when to become pregnant and have (or not have) children. 3 Providers also must educate patients about how their reproductive life plan impacts contraceptive and medical decision-making. Increased awareness of the importance of preconception care can be achieved through public outreach and improved collaboration between health care providers. Currently, only 30. 3 percent of women report receiving pre-pregnancy health counseling. 13 Future efforts should promote research to furth er define the evidence-based standards of preconception care, determine its cost-effectiveness, and improve tracking of the proportion of women obtaining these services. Reference: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Achievements in public health, 1900–1999: Family planning. MMWR Weekly. 1999 Dec 3;48(47):1073-1080. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4847a1.htm Guttmacher Institute. In brief: Facts on publicly funded contraceptive services in the United States. Washington; Guttmacher Institute; 2010 April. Available from: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contraceptive_serv.pdf [PDF – 375 KB]

Assignment 10 Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

10 - Assignment Example (Picturing the Past) These words are brought to life from the picture in the advertisement. We see a ship that appears to have docked and is unloading cargo which is Pears’ soap, and another picture showing a black man crouching in front a white man with a bar of soap by their side. It is implied that the white man has brought in the soap to help the black man achieve cleanliness which is the mark of western civilization. This can also be seen from the picture of the white man who seems to have washed his hands in a very clean bathroom. He is meant to epitomize cleanliness that is the mark of the white man’s civilization. (Picturing the Past) Non Europeans are referred to as ‘dark corners’. The white man is said to use the soap to brighten the dark corners of the earth; which they consider their burden, as civilization advances. This refers to non Europeans who are supposed to be receiving civilization by being made clean. The picture of non Europeans that is presented in the advertisement is one who is inferior to the white man, crouching before him to receive the gift of civilization, Pears’ soap. (Picturing the Past) The phrase ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’ can be related to this advertisement because both the phrase and the image portray the white man as superior and the helper to Non Europeans. This is because these are God-like traits that the white man is assuming in trying to ‘lighten their burden’, i.e. make everyone like them, which is also a God-like trait as he made everyone in his own image. (Picturing the Past) The white man’s burden is to bring cleanliness to the whole world by lightening up the dark corners of the earth, and the use of Pears’ soap will enable everyone who uses it to achieve cleanliness. By accepting to use the soap, Non Europeans will be accepting the white man’s ways and in the process lightening up the dark corners of the earth. (Picturing the Past) On analyzing the map of Africa

Business of Fashion COS shopping mystery Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Business of Fashion COS shopping mystery - Essay Example The essay "Business of Fashion COS shopping mystery" concerns Business and Fashion. The objective of establishing COS was therefore to provide people like these with the opportunity to purchase classy and fashionable goods without necessarily paying exorbitant amounts of money. On the other hand, it is also important to note that offering cheap products was not part of this strategy; the goods were supposed to be cheaper but not cheap. Finally, after months of talking about it, I visited the COS Flagship Store at 222 Regent St – near Oxford Circus. I must say that the store had a very good ambience, and the setting gave it a grandeur that I did not expect to see given the â€Å"cheaper† slogan that H&M had adopted for use in selling COS to its customers. The store was generally clean, and the dressing rooms were nice, presentable and welcoming. The attendants were all dressed in casual clothing, which was not a surprise considering the line of work they were in. From th e entrance, I could see both classic and casual attire. It is also worth mentioning that all the employees wore the current season trends from the brand; this is a promotional strategy that is used by businesses all over the world. If you want to popularize your products and get people to use them, start closer to home. One thing that left me disappointed during my visit was the service. I mean, it is one thing to set up shop, and a different thing to create good customer service that promotes a good rapport between a business and its customers.

Water, Flexibility and the Tao Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Water, Flexibility and the Tao - Essay Example This verse of the Tao Te Ching holds up water as a model for human flexibilty and adaptiveness. Water, it says, is softer than any elements in its way, and yet it dissolves those elements with its very gentleness. This is true in nature, of course. Water turns rocks into sand, making soft what is hard. Many things dissolve in water, when all the water is able to do is flow around those elements. Water yields to anything in its way, a phenomenon easily seen by any mountain stream. Water yields to a rock in its way, flowing around it. In this way the â€Å"gentle overcomes the rigid,† and the water finds its way to the sea without being stopped by boulders or fallen trees. As the Tao says, everyone has seen this, but few are able to make this truth work for themselves, in their own lives. This difficulty stems from the human tendency to direct our own actions, and can be solved by an understanding of the Tao as the natural state to which things can return. In a commentary by the Center for Taoist Thought and Fellowship, the writer suggests that people misinterpret this verse, thinking that being flexible like water means being weak. However, most people do not see the small bits of hardness that are in water. â€Å"It is not the water which attacks the hard and strong, it is the little tiny bits of hard and strong suspended in the water which do the job.† This suggestion gives the verse a new meaning, allowing the reader not to be solely soft but to allow his or her softness to surround a powerful hardness.

Search Engine Optimization Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Search Engine Optimization - Research Paper Example This is to mean that, white hats use terms appropriately to ensure that their websites are visible. On the other hand, black fill their websites with content or words that get plenty of hits from search engines. White hats, when compared to black hats have distinct characteristics that put them apart in favor or against one another as one of the uses unscrupulous means and makes attractive promises (Creative Momentum 1). In relation to white hat search engine optimization, it follows regulations and guidelines to the letter, as provided by search engines to ensure that websites are visible to all that require information from them. This includes careful use of words that get numerous hits from search engines such that the words used are not meant to bloat documents or articles in the website. Instead, the words used are of a unique nature in that they are informative and, at times, act as support words for the whole article and not for exploiting the abilities of search engines. As s uch, websites are designed with certain aspects in mind; these include rules and norms, as well as a code of ethics to ensure that all internet activities are conducted with transparency. Based on this, following the guidelines of search engines for optimizing visibility, ensures that the ever-changing algorithms applied by search engines (Revenuewire 2) achieve transparency. This shields legal or appropriate sites from relegation, and thus gets high ratings by following meeting the terms of use on multiple levels. The white hat optimizers or designers, therefore, apply to the intelligence and needs of internet users to deliver quality content that does not fool search engines by giving false information, including in the titles of the websites. In relation to domain naming, white hat optimizers allow the actual intent of the website to appear rather than mislead the search engine user into logging into it for irrelevant content. These are the distinct characteristics of â€Å"whit e hat† search engine optimization due to their compliant nature, which offers protection from removal and relegation. On the other hand, black hat search engine optimizers have their own code of ethics, or lack of it thereof that sees them dump the rulebook and carry the day, but only for limited moment (Smith 5). Black hat optimization in search engines involves the application of hidden content, where there are numerous links and articles, as well as documents that are spammed with keywords, which serve as crucial gateway points for search engines. This is in relation to search engines accessing the site due to its heavy saturation with such words that are mainly used by internet users to query information from the internet. Information is usually hidden in scripts and non-script parts of code in a website, where search engines only expose it as its algorithms crawl the internet. In addition black hat optimizations tends to have meta-keyword stuffing, where in the descriptio n of the website, or even in its headers, it has numerous keywords (Wilding). These words raise the flags, both red and white for search engines thus improving the ranking of a website, especially in marketing and sites that market content to generate revenue. Through this, it is evident that black hat optimizers are only

Biomedical Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Biomedical Ethics - Essay Example According to Starson, taking the medication would disrupt him from pursuing his research; being a gifted theoretical physicist, he believed that this research was the only reason he felt his life carried a meaning. In this sense, being unable to carry on with it would simply render his life â€Å"useless† and â€Å"meaningless.† However, the physician felt that Starson's refusal was informed by his inability to appreciate the value of treatment. Consequently, the physicians petitioned to have Starson's treatment decision transferred to a surrogate. Though the petition was granted, Starson would later appeal, and the petition was reversed at the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court held that a patient, in this case Starson, was not required to make a decision that is in their â€Å"best interest† as determined by the physician, and thence they are permitted to disagree with a treatment recommendation. The Court also reasoned that Starson was a competent pati ent capable of making his own medical decisions. This case has both legal and ethical implications; firstly, this study delves into examining the ethicalness in a physician imposing treatment, and secondly, the study also looks at physicians’ position in determining a patient’s â€Å"best interest†: whether they are entitled to make this decision on behalf of the patient and how far can they go with this. The study will also look at the concept of informed consent and the idea of competence. Argument 1 The above case represents a conflict of these two rather ethical considerations. On the one hand, the physician feels compelled to do what he believes is in the best interest of the patient. On the other hand, the patient feels that it is his right to refuse medication based on his own grounds. Under these circumstances, how far is the physician expected to go with his persistence? Most legal cases, not only in Starson’s case, often uphold the position of t he patient. This is referred to as patient autonomy. The principle of patient autonomy states that competent patients have the opportunity to choose among medically indicated treatment and to refuse any unwanted treatment. Under these circumstances, the physician must respect the patient’s decision. It is necessary to understand that treatment decisions are not only based on objective medical considerations but also involve a considerable level of personal value judgments and preferences (Meier, Isaacs, and Hughes 95). Therefore, to some extent, the physician may compel a patient to take a certain medication not only because it is the right and objective medical step but also because he feels, based on his values and preferences, it is the right thing. For the latter, he is imposing his personal feelings, not professional mandate, to the patient. In these cases, a physician may be ethically driven to compel a patient to take medication because he feels it is the right thing t o do. However, it is essential to note that a physician demonstrates respect for human dignity, a biomedical ethical consideration, when he acknowledges the freedom and right of the patient to make choices based on their own beliefs and values (Kluge 7). Perhaps another consideration arising from Starson’s case is the idea of sound medical treatment. Starson, for some reason, felt that the medication offered was disruptive and would interfere with his ability to complete his physics research. Indeed, physicians are ethically forbidden to