Magazine Advertising – Meaning, Advantages and Disadvantages

Magazines published in the latter half of the nineteenth century were targeted towards special interest audiences and carried very little advertising. Most magazines of this time were either literary, or religious in content. Before the advent of radio, magazines were an important advertising medium for many businesses. Magazines are considered as the most specialized of all the advertising media. The magazine industry has often been described as “survival of the discriminating.” The number of magazines has increased steadily to serve the educational, informational, entertainment and other specialized needs of consumers, business and industry. Availability of a wide variety of magazines makes them quite an appealing medium to a very large number of advertisers. Magazine advertising is equally popular among large and small companies. Their high interest readers are usually willing to pay a premium for the magazines. As pointed out earlier, the role of magazines is different in the media Continue reading

Job Analysis – Meaning, Roles, Purposes and Types

Human resources management has to plan their activity to reach maximum level of organizational objective. Human resources personnel must have knowledge regarding skills required to perform various organizational jobs. Job analysis is done to get information regarding the requirement of skill, knowledge, experience, ability and other work related requirement. A job analysis is a systematic exploration of the activities within a job. Basically it is a technical process, which is used to define the duties, responsibilities, and accountabilities of a particular job. This analysis involves describing detail description about the task one has to perform during work, exploring the relationship with job to technology and determining knowledge, qualifications or the standards of employment, accountability of the person. There is an accuracy in recording activity is involved. The record consist information regarding following matter: Element: A job element is considered as the smallest element in which job is being divided. Job Continue reading

Safety Stock Analysis in Inventory Management

In real life situations one rarely comes across inventory lead times and usage rates that are known with certainty. When usage rate and/or lead time vary, then the reorder level should naturally be at a level high enough to cater to the production needs during the procurement period and also to provide some measures of safety for at least partially neutralizing the degree of uncertainty. The question will naturally arise as to the magnitude of safety stock. There is no specific answer to this question. However, it depends, inter alia, upon the degree of uncertainty surrounding the usage rate and lead time. It is possible to a certain extent to quantify the values that usage rate and lead time can take along with the corresponding chances of occurrence, known as probabilities. These probabilities can be ascertained based on previous experiences and/or the judgemental ability of astute executives. Based on the Continue reading

Conditions for Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Competitive advantage occurs when a firm is using a strategy that is currently not being currently implemented by any of its present and potential competitors. Sustainable competitive advantage continues to exist after the efforts by competitors to copy that advantage continues to exist after the efforts by competitors to copy that competitive advantage have ceased. That means, the inability of competitors to copy the strategy makes for a sustainable competitive advantage. Achieving sustainable competitive advantage is critical for companies since it is the only way to be successful in business. With a sustainable competitive advantage, businesses may expect higher employee retention, higher product margins, more sales and a stronger focus on the company as compared to their competitors. It is difficult to sustain a significant competitive advantage over a time without periodically revisiting the firm’s identity and purpose. For instance, reducing costs is not a true strategy because it simply provides Continue reading

Interest Rate Parity (IRP) Theory of Exchange Rate

When Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) Theory applies to product markets,  Interest Rate Parity (IRP) condition applies to financial markets.  Interest Rate Parity (IRP) theory postulates that the forward rate differential in the exchange rate of two currencies would equal the interest rate differential between the two countries. Thus it holds that the forward premium or discount for one currency relative to another should be equal to the ratio of nominal interest rate on securities of equal risk (and duration) denominated in two currencies. For example, where the interest rate in India and US are respectively 10% and 6% and the dollar-rupees spot exchange rate is Rs.42.50/US $. The 90 day forward exchange rate would be calculated as per IRP as follows: = 42.50   (1+0.10/4)/(1+0.06/4) = Rs.42.9250 And hence, the forward rate differential [forward premium (p)] will be; (42.9250 — 42.50)/42.50 = 1% And the interest rate differential will be; Continue reading

Individual Privacy – A Right Masked as Luxury

Personal privacy is a concept not foreign to most, if not all individuals. Whether it is to keep certain details about themselves private or to stray away from the societal obligations tied to themselves, individuals tend to isolate themselves to prevent things close to them from becoming public. Though in the last twenty years, information technology has essentially erased the barrier dividing what personal and private information should be. Large tech companies have imposed a risk on individuals’ privacy with the way personal information is handled and distributed within those companies. Companies such as Google and Facebook constantly track an individual’s behaviours online and use their data in immoral ways that most individuals are not aware of. Google is notorious for this, and even explicitly states in their terms of service that their “…automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized Continue reading