Using The Body Shop as the company, examine the factors behind any Essay

Using The Body Shop as the company, examine the factors behind any changes that have taken place in the structure or geographical location of its Value Chain in - Essay Example Its stock appeared on London’s Unlisted Securities Market in April 1984, opening at 95 pence. The Body Shop was fully listed on London Stock Exchange in January 1986 and at that time, the company’s stock was selling at 820 pence. The market value of the company had reached at  £350 million ($591 million) by 1991. The journey was not smooth; ups and downs came when Littlehampton manufacturing plants were sold. In the year 2000, manufacturing was outsourced. Even then, the Body Shop commanded the same market value in the year 2004 ( £334 million as of September 2004). The Body Shop’s value chain has expanded vertically and horizontally, transgressing its physical boundaries from the UK and the Republic of Ireland into America, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa. A business system in itself is the value chain of a firm. From business perspective, value is the amount customers are ready to pay for the goods of the firm. A firm’s produce is measured by its total revenue – means the number of units sold times the price. A firm remains in profit only until the total value is above the costs borne by all of the firm’s value activities. Michael Porter uses the term ‘value chain’ for this business system. In an industry, value chain of a company depends on its history, strategy and ways of applying that strategy. The set of activities required to collect inputs, design, manufacture, market, deliver and support the goods and services, creates a generic business value chain. A generic value chain is complete in all value activities with added margin, which comes after subtracting the cost of all activities from the total value. The supplier and channel value chains also carry margins, which are included in the total price paid by the ultimate end-user. (Reimann, The Planning Forum 1989) Michael Porter developed the value chain approach in his

Research Journal Based on Personal Experience and Observation Assignment

Research Journal Based on Personal Experience and Observation - Assignment Example The message drew her attention from the television, and she began to reply. 5:23pm After replying, she took her laptop and opened the tab where she has logged into facebook, and found more than five people have already initiated chats. She commenced replying to their chats, and before she was done with it, her attention was drawn by the television. Therefore, the television distracted her from continuing with the chats on Facebook; in fact, she did not respond to some of the comments from her friends. In the meantime, she was also waiting for her friend to respond to the message that she had sent earlier, via the text messaging. 5:35pm Her friend replied through the phone messaging services, and this drew her attention again. The message seemed to be more interesting than the television: due to a reflection from her smile as she read through. Before replying to the message received, friends on the facebook drew her attention, and she decided to reply to three of her friends. It is ev ident that both messaging and Facebook seemed to be more interesting to her, than watching American Idol on the television, since every time the messages were received, she was drawn from watching the television. 6:01PM 6:10 PM 6:15 PM 6:18 PM She was not paying attention to the television anymore, since she was concentrating on her laptop, while typing on Facebook chats. Therefore, she was not able to pay attentions to the television and Facebook at the same time, though the phone was also demanding attention from her at various instances like reading messages and replying. At this moment, she remembered about her drink, she took it, though her mind, and eyes were focusing on the laptop. Another message was sent to her through the SMS, and this drew her attention to the phone in order to check the message. She replied to the message, thereby taking about three minutes. Finally, her attention was drawn to the television, whereby she stopped typing on the laptop, and commenced watchi ng an iphone 5 commercial on the television. The features of the phone were exiting to her in a way that drew her attention, thus making her to leave all other activities and concentrate on the television advert.   MY REFLECTION During my observation, I was able to identify the way people have been sending and receiving messages in the past using the phone, while comparing to the new social media, Facebook. It is evident that, the new social media is allowing accessibility of numerous people through different avenues of communication at the same time. My subject seems to be distracted while watching the television, since she had to check on the messages received from her friend, while still chatting with her friends on Facebook. However, the new social media offer an opportunity to enjoy watching the same program on the cable television, while chatting with friends, hence reducing the interruption. Subject 2: Myself Date: Monday 10 September 2012 Situation: Texting message using m y phone, while chatting on Twitter   Ã‚   Old  Media: Phone messaging services New (social) Media: