Differences in ethnic experiences of criminal justice system Essay

Ethnic minorities, afro-Caribbean’s and, to a lesser extent, Asians, are vastly over represented in official statistics for criminal offending, and convictions, but these statistics are not necessarily representative of what is real. An example of these statistics is that black people make up 2. 7% of the British population, and Asians 4. 7%, but black people make up 11% of the prison population, and Asians 6%. Experiences amongst different ethnic groups who interact with the criminal justice system are still very diverse. Whilst self-report studies show that whites are more likely to offend than blacks and Asians even less likely (Indians 30%, Pakistanis 28% and Bangladeshis 13% according to Graham and Bowling) this does not represent the experiences of said ethnic groups. The criminal justice system consists of a number of steps which include policing, stop and search, arrests/cautions, prosecutions, trials, convictions, sentencing and prison and at each stage it appears that blacks, and more recently Asians, are much more likely to face injustice, abuse or negativity within the criminal justice system. Phillips and Bowling note that since the 1970s many allegations of oppressive policing towards ethnic minorities have been put forward with â€Å"mass stop and search operations†¦ excessive surveillance, armed raids, police violence†. With policies such as the Stop and Search and the Terrorism Act (2000), police officers may stop at any time or place, any vehicle or person and search them for any or no reasons, but the patterns of how these policies put to use are disproportionate towards ethnic minorities; black people are 7 times likely to be stopped than whites, and Asians 3 times as likely. Police disproportionately using stop and search techniques against minority ethnic groups may be the result of police racism, which the Macpherson report of 1999 highlights. Institutional racism within the police force and its individual members may make officers more suspicious, weary and paranoid about ethnic minorities. This could also be the result of demography, ethnic minorities are over-represented in the social groupings most likely to be stopped and search, such as young, unemployed, working-class males. However this could simply reflect the differences in offending between ethnic groups. But more evidence for institutional racism towards certain ethnic groups appears when we investigate more, white people are given cautions for crimes much more often than blacks or Asians, arrest rates for blacks are 3. 6 times higher than for whites. This again indicates some kind of unfair or racist treatment; however it could be the result of blacks or Asians being more likely to deny an offence and look for legal advice out of mistrust for the police, leading to an eventual arrest, as we have already noted that these minorities are more likely to be unfairly policed by officers. The mistrust of the system may also result in ethnic minorities who go on trial opting for a jury. Although in contrast, 60% of white defendants found guilty as compared with only 52% of blacks and 44% of Asians, and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) more likely to drop cases against ethnic minorities. This suggests that police are bringing weak cases against ethnic minorities to court, thus being abandoned. Although this suggests a more fair treatment in regards to prosecution and conviction, it indicates police racism in forcing ethnic minorities into court for frivolous crimes. Ethnic groups such as blacks and Asians possibly have a much harder and more negatively perceived experience of the criminal justice system because they are subject to a lot of discrimination, for instance in self-report studies when asked for the perpetrators ethnicity, many people would often guess † black † even if they aren’t sure, reinforcing the negative ethnic stereotype. Since the 9/11 attacks suspicions about Muslims have risen greatly, even though they cannot be justified on the large scale discrimination and prejudice they experience, this prejudice can often lead to over policing in ethnic minority areas, thus adding to the disparity in the criminal statistics, it may not be that these ethnic groups are committing more crime, it could just be that there are more police acting in a vigilant way around and towards these groups, so they are punished more harshly. It could be argued that if the same amount of vigilance and over-policing was applied to white communities equally, the statistics may equalize. Whilst it is clear that Blacks and Asians are overrepresented in criminal statistics, the extent of this remains to be seen, it is possible that the reality is that those ethnic groups, on average, do commit more crimes than others, it is also possible this is false.

New Heritage Doll Company Write-up Essay

Introduction New Heritage Doll Company is a firm that has ventured into doll production which has sought to extend its brand in order to broaden its market framework and more importantly capitalize on high levels of customer loyalty. The vice president of the Company, Emily Harris, is to forward her project proposal to the Budgeting Committee for evaluation. The Vice-president’s objective for proposing the project was based on potential to strengthen the Company’s division of production and drive future growth. Emily Harris has to produce a compelling project to avoid the committee from declining the proposal. Basis of Assessment There are two projects between which the company can choose from or drop the proposals in their entirety. The methods of project evaluation would be based on discounting cash flows analysis and thereafter determining the Net Present Value (NPV) of each of the proposed project with Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Profitability Index and Payback Period. If the project has a positive NPV, it would suggests the project is generating more cash than is required to service the debt and provide the appropriate returns; thus, the higher NPV, the better it is for the company. The project proposal with the positive and highest NPV, IRR and profitability index along with the shortest payback period would be acceptable for investment. New Heritage Doll Company managed to produce a capital budgeting structure in order to evaluate the revenue generated in the Doll industry. It is clearly evident that a segment of the Doll industry generates income progressively with an increasing rate of 4.6%. Cash flows forecast is used to capture the incremental effect of a proposed project in order to acknowledge the breakeven point and profit or loss time frame. If the company continues with its investment in the toy and game segment, it is going to experience the economies of scale and have high operating profits. However, for a company  to embrace another project proposal, it has to evaluate its financial capacity to fund the project. Thus, any project which does not generate significant revenue, the company must cultivate the capital rationing. Similarly, the company must consider some factors in the assessment of project’s risk, such as whether the project product’s required new traders or consumers who are willing to accept the goods or services rendered by the company; where the project proposal requires high level of the fixed costs, the project to be appraised is at very high risk considering such costs do not generate high returns; sensitivity of the selling price of the finished goods, and high level of breakeven production volumes. The prudent way to evaluate the company’s feasibility whether or not to inves t on a new venture is by analyzing the returns or the operating profits. If the firm’s expects to experience some losses, it should reject the proposal. However, if the firm is operating at a breakeven point, the company may have the option to forecast whether it is an on-going concern. Problem Identification The Heritage Doll Company is appraising two proposed projects, Match My Doll Clothing and Design Your Own Doll. Emily Harris, vice president of the company’s production division must have compelling reasons to influence the budgeting department to accept the project for implementation. The theoretical reasons behind Match My Doll Clothing to be implemented by the company budgeting committee is that the products produced fully match all seasonal clothing for the young girls and their preferred doll; the popularity of the company’s product; and it is the best time for expansion due to its popularity. The reasons for choosing Design Your Own Doll is that the company’s products would have high correlation with the consumers; the company’s doll can be customized based on the tastes and preferences of the consumers; permanent customer loyalty; dolls demand a strong selling probability; and the company’s potential to strengthen its future growth. However, the company is also limited to take this project due to several constrains including: low production runs and volumes, limited gradation of customization increased manufacturing complication; increase in production and development costs for the technology modification and infrastructure. One of the key distinctions between the two projects is that Design Your Own Doll and Match My Doll Clothing are two mutually exclusive projects. Their  cash flows are related and have the same function and they compete with each other meaning that the acceptance of one project eliminates consideration of the other project. DCF and Sensitivity Analysis The Company should maximize on cash management by capital rationing on the project accepted. NPV of the project should be implemented as it reflects the time value of money invested in the accepted project. Similarly this can be further elaborated by computation of IRR of both project proposal. The analysis was performed by comparing the two projects using the same fixed terminal growth rate of 3% because both projects include a terminal growth rate element. For both projects, it would also be beneficial to know how the terminal growth rate value is generated. Because the â€Å"medium†- risk projects in the production division received a discount rate of 8.4% in 2010, this rate was used for the Match My Doll Clothing line’s DCF analysis. Design Your Own Doll project is long-term project and it is considered to have a higher risk; thus, the rate of 9.00% was used in the analysis. The results of the analysis are presented below. Design Your Own Doll Match My Doll Clothing NPV = $7,310.21 The NPV is positive – the project is feasible. NPV = $7,139.18 The NPV is positive – the project is feasible. IRR=18.24% IRR=23.6% Profitability Index = 1.26 Profitability Index = 2.03 Payback Period = 9.3 years Payback Period = 9.2 year Recommendations From the Working Capital requirements assumptions, Design Your Own Doll requires a higher amount of working capital than Match My Doll Clothing; however, the results of the analysis of the Operating Profit show that Design Your Own Doll line would generate a higher operating profit than that  of the Match My Doll Clothing line. Also, Design Your Own Doll generates higher cash flows compared to the Match My Doll Clothing and this is another argument for choosing Design Your Own Doll for its investment. From the NPV method standpoint, the NPV rule chooses a project in terms of net dollars or net financial impact on the company; thus, it can be easier to use when allocating capital. Also, NPV method requires an assumed discount rate and also assumes that this percentage rate will be stable over the life of the project. In the real world, this assumption does not always work because the interest rates are fluctuating. From the analysis, both of the projects are feasible but Design Your Own Doll has the higher NPV than the Match My Doll Clothing line. IRR method doesn’t assume a discount rate and the worthiness of the investment is purely a function of the internal inflows and outflows of that particular investment. However, IRR does not assess the financial impact on a firm; it only requires meeting a minimum return rate. The internal rate of return is the most critical method to determine the decision option for accepting the project proposal. Also, the highest operating rate of returns with the shortest payback period of the cost of capital is opted to be accepted. From the analysis, Match My Doll Clothing line has the higher IRR than the Design Your Own Doll line. In conclusion, even though both projects are feasible and Design Your Own Doll has the higher NPV, Match My Doll Clothing line project has a higher IRR, profitability index and a shorter payback period. Thus, the budgeting committee should accept Match My Doll Clothing line instead of Design Your Own Doll since Match My Doll Clothing line has the higher IRR, profitability and the shortest payback period. The NPV of both proposals are not significantly different.

CapitalimSocialism Essay Research Paper There are many

Capitalim-Socialism Essay, Research Paper There are many different economic systems that reside in someway throughout the universe today like capitalist economy and socialism. Here in the United States, we live in a assorted economic system? ? one in which private endeavor and governmental engagement coexist? . Presently Americans? lives are centered on the person, harmonizing to Adam Smith. At the same clip, the authorities controls many facets of American? s lives. In order to make up ones mind which economic system I sided with, I realized I must understand what each system stands for. Socialism is the belief that wealth should be distributed every bit among people. Although this sounds like a great manner for all people to be affluent, I have a job with their non being a wages for those who work hard and have an outstanding imaginativeness. Socialism rejects private ownership and competition for net income. I think these are things that persons need to do themselves more productive in the concern universe today. I believe that competition for net income helps an person to endeavor for greater personal accomplishments. On the other manus, I like the fact that socialism emphasizes cooperation and societal duty. Capitalism is merely the antonym: it is centered more around the people and their achievements. It is based on private ownership, where as socialism dismisses it. Capitalism allows people to work to bring forth their ain economic value. I believe that people should be rewarded for their difficult work, and socialism doesn? t allow much room to make so. Capitalism, or the free endeavor system, lets persons set up and run their ain concerns. It was noted that the? United States depends on the energy and thrust of 1000s of single capitalists? . After this spot of research, I would hold to hold with both Paul Johnson and Adam Smith. Johnson said capitalist economy provides the best economic construction and Smith was the 1 to state that in doing everyone wealthy, the state will go affluent excessively. I wholly agree that each person is entitled to his or her ain free belongings and free will, which is granted by capitalist economy. I wish we could populate in a capitalist economic system with a socialist medical specialty system. I don? T think it? s carnival that merely because one individual has more money than another, they have a better opportunity to have medical aid. The idea of a kid acquiring turned off from a surgery that could salvage their life because they are hapless interruptions my bosom. So, if there was a manner to unite the medical ways in socialism with the profitable ways of capitalist economy I think there could be a really strong economic system.

Business Skills Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Business Skills - Personal Statement Example A web presence will be crucial, optimised for search engines. Consumers are impatient with poorly designed sites, or sites which do not provide them with instant gratification to the answers they are seeking. Besides the inbuilt functions, it is possible to design a data capture application customised to the needs of the business. This could be something as simple as a quotation application, all the way through to an accounting package. Project management is increasingly important to the property professional. I used this tool to assist in scoping a project, in terms of resources such as manpower, time and money. It can be used in a variety of ways, for example as a time-management tool for the itinerant business man, all the way through to costing a major property development. The seasoned professional needs to take on board the basic underlying principles involved. At the heart of ADR is the importance of Customer Relationship Management. Throughout the whole exercise - from initial contact through to sign off - it is crucial to ensure that the client understands, accepts and agrees the terms and conditions of the proposal. I find it important to keep written/typed records of all communications made with a client. This assists in determining where - if at all - mistakes were made and provides learning opportunities to prevent such situations arising again. Although the lettings sector is not as heav

Immigration Reform Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Immigration Reform - Essay Example For instance, the statement made by President Barrack Obama gave a clear indication that immigration reforms was a weighty issues that required adequate deliberation for the sake of the U.S. global competitiveness. The US government has noted that Mexico border has acted as an entry point of illegal immigrants in the United (Grossmann 193). In my opinion, immigration reform would change the face of United States labor market. Immigration reform debate seeks to identify amicable methods of solving immigration problems in the United States. Immigrants willing to come into America for whatever reasons should seek a Visa. This is the requirement provided by the immigration laws of the United States of America. Notably, many immigrants that come to United States seek this process. However, after stepping into the United States, some fail to show up to the authority after the expiry of their visas. The second category of immigrants that United States house, are immigrants who illegally cross the border of Mexico. The third category of immigrants is those who have followed legal channel to get into the United States, and are in the United States legally. These categories make immigration reform a complex issue, which requires policies which argue on a broad spectrum. Arguably, solution to the immigration problem lies on proper policies that aim at bettering the current immigration situation (Coates 40). Social contract perspective argues in favor of the role of the government and the relationship that exists between the government and its subject (Stacy 123). The role of government in instituting policies that guide immigration reforms is quite elaborate in this perspective. In representative governance, a body that governs a particular segment of the society must take charge as per the mandate bestowed upon it. In this case, the body charged with the reform agenda has to weigh the gravity of the issue and recommend or execute

The tax issues Starbucks is facing with the UK government Essay

The tax issues Starbucks is facing with the UK government - Essay Example Their action of tax evasion stoked public protests whereby demonstrators brandishing ply cards flushing harsh words against Starbucks. Example of one held in a crowd huddled up in one of the entrances of a Starbuck coffee branch read â€Å" 74% of 45 billion pounds benefit cuts taken from women’s income† while another screamed in bold â€Å" Starbucks have not paid tax since 2009 (Mangold, 2010)†. The protesters seething with vent also threatened to switch allegiance to rival companies like Costa. These threats appeared to shake-up Starbuck who feared their customers were starting to decline and this compelled them to appease the population by volunteering to the British taxman 10 million pounds more tax than required by law for the years 2013-14. Since the start of the economic depression that ails most of the western world there has been deliberate action to conjure up ways to hoard up monies to revive the economy. One of ways to expand the exchequer is to invoke strict laws to close down on tax evaders and enact tougher punishments for offence (Gilbert, 2008, p. 67). This has been the main attribute as to the disclosure of how much cooperation tax Starbuck and other large corporate pay and prompting the revenue collectors up to their ante. A scrutiny at a SWOT analysis of Starbucks reveals its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Starbucks Corporation serves restaurants and coffeehouses worldwide with its headquarters in the USA. Its revenue and profits for 2012 were $ 13.29 billion and $ 1.38 billion respectively (Barney, 2009). With its CEO Howard Schultz, Starbucks employs 149,000 employees. Some of its biggest competitors include MacDonald Corp., Costa Coffee, Caribou Coffee Company, Dunkin Brands Group, and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters among others. Starbuck is the no. 1 brand coffeehouse chain in the

English-zen story Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

English-zen story - Essay Example Yet, when he was caught by the master, instead of rebuking him for his misdeeds, the master felt pity and gave his clothes. This was a virtue of sharing since the prowler came long down to visit without getting something out. The thief was amazed. He accepted the gift and ran away. The master then was pondering the poor thief by wishing to give him the moon. In the short Zen story, human nature is manifested. It is natural to human to seek and desire to obtain what they need for survival. The thief did whatever to sustain his desire of having things even in a wrong way. While the master living contented in a small hut has everything he needs in his way to live out happily. He did not even think twice about giving his clothes to the thief but he showed care and love. The moon represents the naturally bountiful of needs which human needs. If only the thief though of any other way of means to survive, the earth which is the human habitat has created by God with complete things which the basic needs of human are ample. One must only be resourceful in the rightful way. The earth's resources are free and abundant. What human need to do is to make use of it in the right approach. Freedom is always there but there are limitations. Freedom is freedom in true sense when it is utilized in the rightful way.

Human Resource Management-Research Project Research Paper - 1

Human Resource Management- Project - Research Paper Example Global organizations should engage in the best practices with regards to the people side of the organization because they can be a source of competitive advantages that can help them survive the mounting pressures of the fast-changing global business environment. Following a promotion that put me in charge of a junior employee at the City Bank, I have been tasked to recruit a replacement to my former Head of Finance position and to oversee the new recruit in discharging bank’s goals and objectives. After a thorough job analysis, I have developed a detailed job description, recruiting plan, Selection strategy (including testing and interviewing), performance evaluation, motivation, employee training, and development. Job Description City bank is a leading financial institution that seeks to recruit a self-driven and experienced Head of Finance; the successful candidate will take charge of the financial management function of the bank ensuring the establishment of appropriate fi nancial plans that will secure the bank’s assets from potential loss. The individual will be responsible for ensuring the bank has appropriate policies and processes and their optimal controls, and carrying out analyses and financial projections in support of the bank’s strategic growth, generate the annual financial budgets and monitoring of the bank’s progress versus these goals. The job also entails maintaining comprehensive yearly cash-flow forecasts, carrying out strategic financial analyses, ensuring the bank’s compliance with regulatory laws, maintaining good relationships with suppliers and other service providers, and supporting external auditing processes. In addition to that, the individual will develop and execute investment plans to ensure maximization of outcomes, continually review and upgrade the accounting systems and procedures in line with the bank’s operating systems, manage and optimize the IT platform to ensure efficiency in d ata keeping and retrieving. Recruitment Plan The key guidelines for the recruitment plan are the specific skills and competencies that are desirable for the position of the Head of Finance position in the bank, advertising mechanism, and the applications evaluation criteria. Applicants must have a Degree in accounting or financial management and at least 10 years’ worth of experience in financial services; desirable skills for the job include financial accounting, planning, and management expertise. Apart from that, prospective candidates must also be experienced in the development of banking policies and procedures, budgeting and budgetary controls. Knowledge of tax laws and regulations, excellent IT skills and in-depth knowledge of accounting software and staff management, development and discipline skills will be an added advantage.

Report Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 3

Report - Assignment Example ly reduce its cost burden and be reflected in affordable prices that will act as a competitive measure against other global corporations (Wintzer 56). In regard to its quarterly performance snapshots, it is advisable that the firm would enjoy competitive advantage by diversifying in terms of its products. This would significantly cushion it against loses from other products due to tastes and seasonal demand disparities. There is seemingly a regional difference in terms of revenue and costs which can majorly be attributed to tax policies and other government regulations. For this firm to remain competitive and command greater market size in year 11, the management needs to reorganize its regional inventory size (Wintzer 96). This would mean that the company concentrate much of its sales effort to developed economies but shift much of its value creation processes in developing economies with cheap labor and raw materials. The global performance overview indicates positive outcome in terms of the firm’s shares pricing. This sets a good pace for overall rating of the firm in comparison to its other competitors. It would only be advisable that the company focus on more equity financing than debt financing to boost its security and restore faith of the shareholders thereby competing favorably with other companies in the industry in year

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.-Jurist and his particular relevance in the Essay

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.-Jurist and his particular relevance in the world of Jurispudence - Essay Example His biggest achievement associated with justices was the elimination of the legal and official reasoning, which were actually supported by the philosophy of natural law and natural right (Watson). Historical Context Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. originally came from Boston and was a student of Harvard College. During his academic life, he participated in the Civil War of 1857, which had a great impact on his life and perceptions of the law and ultimately leaded him to join the Massachusetts Bar in 1867 after graduating from the Harvard Law School. He served in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts till 1902, after which he joined the Theodore Roosevelt Supreme Court, where he remained held the position for about twenty-nine years. In addition to being associated with the judicatory, he was also a successful and renowned writer. Wendell and Jurisprudence Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. had the following basic visions and outlooks about the Jurisprudence (Watson): He convinced people tha t Law is basically sustained by the experience rather than logic as experience makes its life longer whereas logic at times is left behind. Apparently, he was the supporter of judicial control when the conventional judicial advocacy was targeted and condemned by the system of liberal activities. He induced the thought of realism in to the Court by introducing the concept of forecasting. He compelled people and lawyers to see law from other dimensions, that is, of the dreadful man and how he was convinced to break the law. He also proposed his arguments pertaining to positivism as opposed to ethical language in law. Wendell has also made significant contributions to the Pragmatic Approach of Jurisprudence, which was actually founded by him as he was the member of Harvard related club initiated by John Dewey. He was a person who used to keep a close eye on the consequences and results of a potential idea. He used to analyze things with exceptionally experiencing outlook as far as law and jurisprudence were concerned. He thoughtfully expressed this idea in his book The Common Law. He had a great emphasis over the external factors in the matters of court rather than the internal ones. Through his writings and expressions he demonstrated a strange dimension of philosophy of law, especially in the area of jurisprudence. He wanted to liberate the law from the restraints to the way of formality and automatic frame of deductive thinking. To do this, he applied the mechanical, experimental, experiencing and consequential approaches also known as ‘pragmatic maxim’ to the principles of law (Watson). Wendell had a distinctive thinking about law and jurisprudence. Previously he had a close relationship with the natural law and natural rights, which encouraged him to maintain a close eye on the consequences of law and jurisprudence. He considered that values and morals did not have a strong relationship with the proceedings of court. The right and wrong aspects attached to the cases presented in courts are not based upon the purposeful standards, which makes their significance very low. The law differentiates between the good and bad or the culprit and the innocent on the basis of prevailing norms of the society, which in reality do not have any affiliation with the constitution. The realistic approaches of Wendell denied the existence of constitutionalism. By the end of the Civil War, pragmatism had already founded its way into law and jurisprudence superseding the concept of natural law and n

Current Rights of Women in India Essay Example for Free

Current Rights of Women in India Essay In America women have the right to work, vote, and own just about anything that they can afford. The only thing limiting them is their credit score, or the limit that the bank determines. These may seem like rights that are universal because the reality of America is not the dismays that other countries have to deal with. In other countries this luxury of Equal Rights is not common, and is actually rejected and avoided by all costs. Some countries do not believe in these rights because of their religion, and what they’ve been taught. How can a fundamental value not be learned? Other countries just do not know any different than the man as the hunter or provider, and the woman as the caregiver or housekeeper. These roles in America only recently began to be shared amongst the genders, and to this day these roles are not confirmed by any means. Other countries are beginning to open their mind to other policies mostly because of influences of other cultures, and it is about time this happens. Some of the horrifying conditions that women in India have to deal with are issues that no women would ever want to fathom, and is very unfortunate. Not always being granted the ability to gain an education, being married at a youthful age without any say in the choice of a partner, and unwanted abortion of female fetuses are just a few that surface news channels. Those disturbing issues listed above are what these women have to deal with regularly and have no hope of these problems ever changing because of what some people in some cultures call beliefs. Media has placed great emphasis on the stories that depict that the women’s rights in India have been improving over the past few decades. Improvement can be misinterpreted when a third world country is involved, because any change that is not for the worst can be considered an improvement. What has really improved? Is it going to be up to the women to determine at which point they feel like they are an equal gender in this country? Until this point, there is no telling how long this can take. Cultural Belief of Equality The problem lies in the internal practices of the country. India is a country which mainly operates from the religious inclinations of the population. Be that as it may, how can anyone question their beliefs, and furthermore, who is to say that these practices do or don’t work? Shouldn’t the answer of whether or not their current policies are effective come from the source – the women in this country? In 1926 Sarojini Naidu, the first female president of the Indian National Congress party, had helped achieve the right for women to vote along with the men. It had taken, like most political victories in India for women, a great deal of time and patience (Roy, 2012, para. 15). Indian society is also one of the worlds most culturally diverse, with innumerable linguistic, cultural, and religious groups. Due to the diversity of the Indian populace, Indian policy makers have faced a tough challenge in ensuring that the individual rights of its citizens, including women, are protected (â€Å"Balancing Minority Rights and Gender Justice: The Impact of Protecting Multiculturalism on Womens Rights in India,† 2005, p. 05). This is a country where religion has always ruled their judicial and ethical structure, and because of this it will need to be a common agreement that there needs to be a change from within. The Butalia (1998) website describes a poor woman Rojammas who took a literacy class. She read a story about a woman who had to endure physical abuse from her husband due to his drinking habit. The woman in the story went through the village speaking with the other women to see who had the same problem as her. She determined that the reason for most of the abuse is that their husbands would go to work, and come home and spend all of their money on alcohol. The husbands would get upset when the women weren’t able to feed them because all of their money was spent at the liquor stores. The women rallied and protested at the liquor stores and eventually, in Andhra Pradesh liquor was banned. As a result, families were able to save, violence rates dropped, and life seemed to improve for these people. Unfortunately women are no longer able to be seen in the streets protesting. These brave women were able to make a difference, and had the strength and tools to do so. Since then, their power of protest and voice has been taken. Is this an improvement, and if so, what is next? The nineteenth century was to be considered â€Å"the age of the women†, because all over the world women’s rights and wrongs were the main topic of heated discussion amongst the world. Different countries such and France, Russia, England and Germany began spreading women consciousness, and more towards the mid nineteenth century, Russia began having issues with reformers and anarchist because of the question that was being widely spread across the nations; should women have rights? Although these issues were now arising throughout most countries, in India, the men still see it as men have all power and women obey as they are told. This now brings us with today’s issue that is still being fought in India and even in some other countries. Women now come across broken promises and the â€Å"possibility† of women rights when those rights were already being fought for and stated in the Indian Constitution. In the Constitution it states that â€Å"every single woman’s and girl’s well-being and safety paramount; that their liberties and rights are not to be challenged on the basis of attire or profession; that they are treated equally. † (Women’s Rights in India, 2009) With that being said, this is not the case of what is going on with the women in India; one in particular that was being socially, economically, and politically deprived. This is what is being said about this situation. â€Å"The police commissioner on the other hand has referred to the recent attacks on women as mere incidents of eve teasing. While eve-teasing is itself a term specific to the South Asian region, associated with unsolicited verbal harassment like catcalls, whistles and/or remarks directed towards women, the incidents that he so casually referred to were actual assaults on women for being dressed in western attire. More importantly, even eve teasing calls for action against the perpetrators† (Women’s Rights in India, 2009). It is not ethical for any one person to use their stature for their own personal gain. Although, different countries do have different ethics/cultural ethics, morals and religious beliefs they choose to abide by, does not mean it is not right to degrade women as sexual objects, â€Å"different† because of their personal beliefs, or even their own sense of style. How can one be punished because of the attire they chose to wear? Women have come so far from being just a â€Å"house wife†, to working while World War 1 was taking place, to joining the army to help our fellow soldiers fight for this country, to running as a presidential candidate. Women bleed, breath, think, feel emotion and get hurt physically just like men do, so why do we treat women any differently than a male? If you look back into Egyptian history, Greek Mythology and even some of the â€Å"Gods† that were â€Å"Political† figures to us at one point in time were women: Aphrodite, Artemis, Isis and etc. Women should be granted the exact same rights as the men in this world because they contribute to a lot of the findings we discover, cures we find, the birth our children, some of the things we study and so forth. Will we ever be able to look passed all of the things that we say and do about/towards women? Is it possible to give the rights that we promised for so many years to the women of our country and the other countries that have promised the exact same thing? Discrimination is such a huge discussion amongst our community today because it continues to thrive off of those that are not subjective to change. Change is exactly what we need to bring out the different opinions between cultures, and religious beliefs. Although it is a belief, that does not mean that it is morally right to believe it is ok to treat women in a certain fashion that we see as correct. The mixed bag of laws, bills, commitments, broken promises, new pledges and fresh possibilities for women’s rights comes with its share of anticipation and disappointments. Will promises be converted into laws and will prejudices make way for a little more tolerance and a little less chauvinism? Will social perceptions of women and their traditionally assigned roles in society witness a change under the collective pressure of government laws and social campaigns? And will society eventually look at girls through the same lens that they see boys? And yet hope survives†¦

Target Corporation Essay Example for Free

Target Corporation Essay Operator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Target Corporation’s Fourth Quarter Earnings Release Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Wednesday, February 26, 2014. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Gregg Steinhafel, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead. Gregg Steinhafel Chairman, President and CEO Good morning, and welcome to our 2013 fourth quarter earnings conference call. On the line with me today are Kathy Tesija, Executive Vice President of Merchandising; and John Mulligan, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This morning, I will provide a high level summary of our fourth quarter results and strategic priorities for the year ahead, and Kathy will discuss category results, guest insights, and the holiday season. And finally, John will provide more detail on our financial performance, along with our financial outlook for 2014. Following John’s remarks, we’ll open the phone lines for a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, we are joined on this conference call by investors and others who are listening to our comments via webcast. Following this conference call, John Hulbert and John Mulligan will be available throughout the day to answer any follow-up questions you may have. Also as a reminder, any forward-looking statements that we make this morning are subject to risks and uncertainties, the most important of wh ich are described in the 8-K we filed this morning. Finally, in these remarks, we refer to adjusted earnings per share, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. A reconciliation to our GAAP results is included in this morning’s press release posted on our Investor Relations website. Target’s fourth quarter financial results reflect better than expected U.S segments performance in the first three weeks of the holiday season, followed by meaningfully softer results, following our December 19th announcement that criminals had gained access to guest payment card data in our U.S stores. In total, fourth quarter comparable sales decreased 2.5% consistent with our updated guidance in January. Throughout the quarter our  team managed the business extremely well, adjusting both inventory and expenses to match the rapidly changing pace of sales. As a result, our US operations generated fourth quarter adjusted earnings per share of $1.30 at the high-end of the updated guidance we provided in January. In Canada, we worked diligently to leverage holiday traffic in an effort to clear excess inventory. Markdowns resulting from this effort drove a very low gross margin rate, but allowed us to reduce average inventory per store in Canada by approximately 30% between the beginning and end of the fourth quarter. Canadian segment EPS dilution was $0.40 in the quarter, $0.05 better than the updated guidance we provided in January. We are pleased that our early cycle Canadian stores have seen the most improvement giving us confidence that we will continue to see continued improvement across all our Canadian stores in 2014. Fourth quarter GAAP EPS of $0.81 reflects U.S and Canadian segment performance along with costs related to our recent restructuring in data breach along with small accounting and tax matters. As we work to address the impact of the mid-December data breach, we have put the welfare of our guests at the center of every decision we’ve made. We have communicated in early and often providing the best information we had about new facts in ongoing on the ongoing investigation. We consistently assured our guests that they would have zero liability for any unauthorized charges on their card accounts resulting from the breach. We increased fraud detection for REDcard holders and extended free credit monitoring and identity theft protection for any guests who has ever shopped one of our U.S stores. We are truly sorry for the impact this breach has had on our guests, team members and other stakeholders and I want to reiterate that we are committed for making things right. We know these initial steps are part of a longer process. We continue to listen to our guests and we know that this incident and recent security breaches at other companies have shaken their confidence in both Target and the U.S payment system more broadly. To rebuild guest confidence, we’re committed to an end-to-end review in cooperation with third-party experts to understand how the breach occurred, the identification and acceleration of solutions to provide enhanced protection in the future and engagement with third-party experts to protect the industry and consumers from future threats. Accordingly, were taking the following steps. We are conducting an end-to-end forensic investigation  of our processes, systems and personnel to make informed decisions on potential security enhancements. We are accelerating the adoption of advanced chip enabled technology, investing more than $100 million to equip our stores and to issue Target branded smart chip credit and debit cards. We have long supported this more secured technology; a broad adoption in the U.S market has been elusive. We believe that recent events will help the industry to reach a tipping point to an accelerated option in the U.S and we are investing to ensure that Target is a clear leader in driving this change. We are working collaboratively with a broad set of stakeholders in the payment card space including banks, retailers, trade associations, payment processors and networks to share in advance best practices and foster future innovation. We helped launch and will be an active leader in retail industry, cyber security and data privacy initiative. In addition, we are investing $5 million in a new coalition with the Better Business Bureau and National Cyber Security Alliance and the National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance to advance public education around cyber security and the dangers of consumer scams. While we cant yet assess the full impact of this crime against Target and our guests, we’re pleased that sales have started to recover from the trends we observed following breach related announcements in December and January. Importantly, because we’re in a strong financial position, we expect to absorb any near-term financial impacts while continuing to invest in projects that are key to our long-term success. Our Company has a long history of innovation, disciplined management, and a strong long-term financial performance and we are committed to upholding the principles which has have sustained this Company success for many decades. And while 2013 was a disappointing year financially, we have entered the New Year with the right plans in place to grow profitably and generate meaningfully improved financial performance in 2014 and beyond. In the U.S., we have demonstrated our ability to manage the business with discipline and generate strong financial performance even in a challenging environment. In fact, Kathy will outline in more detail we were very pleased with our holiday season results prior to the announcement of the data breach. In preparation for fourth quarter, we may change this to our holiday promotion and marketing and we were pleased that our in stocks were running at all-time highs. As a result, U.S segment fourth quarter  sales were running ahead of plan prior to December 19th. Looking ahead, we will apply the insights we gained in the holiday season to connect with our guests at delivering merchandize and promotions thoughtfully designed to appeal to them based on whats on their mind at each poi nt in the year, moving Target beyond compelling, to becoming irresistible for our guests. We made enormous progress in our multichannel efforts throughout 2013 as we meaningfully increased conversion both on our website and on our mobile apps. We acquired Chefs Catalog, Cooking.com and Dermstore, extending our online assortment by providing our guests access to additional high-end brands in key home and beauty categories. We launched Cartwheel, our unique mobile savings tool which has far exceeded expectations in both adoption and engagement and we accelerated our investments in flexible fulfillment. As a result, throughout the year, growth in our digital traffic and sales outpaced industry averages. We launched in-store pick up chain-wide at the beginning of November and with very little marketing, this new offering became a meaningful driver of digital traffic and sales. Our store teams did an outstanding job delivering great service when guests arrived to pick up these orders and this is particularly impressive since we launched the service during the busiest time of t he year. We will continue to invest in systems, data and processes to enhance our flexible fulfillment capabilities in 2014 and beyond. In our stores we are committed to enhancing the guest experience by adding dedicated service to key categories like beauty, baby and electronics and by providing training and technology that allows our stores team to go beyond providing basic service to solving problems for our guests. And were continuing to pilot innovations to our store formats. Based on the initial rollout of the CityTarget format and the high single digit comparable sales were seeing in our second year CityTarget stores, were analyzing opportunities to redeem the size and enhance the flexibility of this format opening up a wider universe of potential sites in dense urban areas. While on the work on CityTarget continues, weve also developed a separate smaller format called Target Express at about 15% of the size of one of our general merchandize stores, we believe this design provides us w ith a fantastic opportunity to expand into new trade areas providing a convenient solution to guests who can easily visit one of our other formats. While we expect to offer a carefully curated assortment in frequency  categories like food, health care, beauty and other household essentials, Target Express will also offer discretionary categories including home, electronics and seasonal. Throughout the store we will feature our own brands which offer guests an unbeatable combination of quality and price. We plan to open our first pilot location of this format here in our home market in July so we can carefully study both operational and financial results before we determine our plans to expand this format to other markets. Throughout the organization we continue to find new opportunities to optimize expenses, freeing up resources we can apply to new initiatives. In 2013 our teams saved approximately $200 million by reprioritizing their activities and finding more efficient ways to get things done. Our expense optimization efforts are not a short-term project but a complete overall of the way we work and the team continues to fi nd new opportunities. As a result, we expect the benefit of our expense optimization efforts to reach $1 billion in annualized savings by 2015. Im proud that our entire team has embraced this effort to transform how we work. In Canada the team has moved from a year focused on opening a record number of stores to optimizing the business in run state. As we enter 2014 with a much cleaner inventory position, the teams number one operational focus is on in-stocks, ensuring we have the right quantity of each item in the right place at the right time. In addition, we continue to invest in technology and training to enhance both the tools our team uses and their ability to deploy them most effectively. Were also continuing to implement innovative marketing and merchandizing programs in Canada to raise awareness for our frequency categories like grocery, household essentials, beauty and healthcare. Throughout 2014 we will focus on conveying the depth and breadth of our assortment in those categories and the unbeatable value we provide to our everyday pricing, 5% of the awards, price match and our flier. With enhanced guest awareness of our unbeatable prices combined with the benefit of improved operations, we expect guest shopping frequency to build throughout 2014, driving improvement in sales and profitability. While 2013 will clearly be remembered as the challenging year, I am proud of teams efforts to transform our business and position the company for long-term success. And I want to sincerely thank the Target team for their tireless effort to help our guests recover from the data breach. While there is much more work  to be done, Im inspired by their singular focus on our guests and making things right. As a result, Im confident we will look back on this incident and see that we emerged from it even stronger than before. Now Kathy will provide more detail on our fourth quarter results and key initiatives as we enter 2014. Kathy? Kathy Tesija EVP, Merchandising Thanks, Gregg. In our last conference call, we outlined our plans for the holiday season and mentioned that fourth quarter sales were on track through the first half of November. As we progressed through Black Friday week and the first two weeks of December, guests continued to respond to our promotions and sales ran ahead of our plan. Following the data breach announcement and the rapid change in the pace of our sales, the team reacted quickly making nimble adjustments to minimize our excess inventory. This quick response allowed us to end the year with a clean inventory position. And while our fourth quarter gross margin reflected the addition of clearance activity resulting from the sales slowdown, our team did a great job minimizing the impact. As we built our holiday plans, our goal was to cut through the clutter and reach our guests with compelling offers on exciting merchandize, specifically we aligned our weekly deals and events so guests were receiving a clear message across all channels. And because our guests are budget conscious and love to find deals, we intentionally layered promotions across our circular, cartwheel and our catalog to provide unbeatable value. We used our direct channels to drive urgency at key points of the season and we offered more broad attention-getting promotions like 40% off sweaters. Consistent with past years, we featured hot deals on key items but attracted more attention by offering deeper discounts on fewer items and we were very pleased with the guest response. For the quarter overall, our non-discretionary categories generally saw the strongest sales performance. However, on our more discretionary categories electronics saw an increase in fourth quarter comparable sales led by mobile phones, tablets and video game hardware and software. We also saw relative strength in our sporting goods and housewares categories. Digital channels had a very strong holiday season. Thanksgiving was our biggest digital sales day ever with mobile devices accounting for a full 25% of those sales. We were recently recognized as having the most browsed app by a smartphone and tablet in 2013  and Mobile Commerce Daily just named T arget Mobile Retailer and Commerce Website of the Year. This is the second time weve been named Mobile Retailer of the Year and were pleased to be the only retailer to be honored with the award twice. An important factor in our digital success was the fourth quarter rollout of the opportunity to buy online and pick up in-store. In-store pick up requests represented about 10% of fourth quarter digital orders but they peaked at a much higher rate before Christmas as guests relied on the service as a great solution for last-minute gift shopping. About 30% of store visits to pick up an online order resulted in store shopping on that same trip and the size of that store transaction was much larger than an average store trip. While weve rolled out the capabilities with an external commitment to have orders ready in four hours or less, our team quickly attained our internal goal to have most orders ready in one hour or better. Our survey showed consistently high levels of guest satisfaction with this service and this capability has accelerated our mobile conversion rates. Were also pleased with the continued growth of Cartwheel, our digital savings app, which ended 2013 with over 5 million users who have already saved more than $43 million. Younger guests are particularly engaged by Cartwheel as more than half of its users are Millennials, a much higher percentage than they represent in our overall guest base. Redemption rates on Cartwheel are more than 10 times higher than DC and other direct channels like receipt marketing and email and our analysis indicate that its driving incremental trips and sales. Our pre-Black Friday deals resulted in one of the biggest days ever for Cartwheel as they drove one-third of our active users into Target stores on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We continue to work to enhance the Cartwheel experience. We recently added the ability to scan bar codes to find out if theres a Cartwheel deal on an item and added the capability to sign up for Cartwheel directly through a Target account and email while continuing to provide access to the App through Facebook. As Gregg mentioned, we continue to listen to our guests to understand how we can help them move beyond the data breach and feel confident in shopping at Target. While sales have started to recover in recent weeks and sentiment metrics have begun to improve most notably among our best guests. We continu e to invest to ensure this recovery continues. Beyond our efforts in data  security and chip enabled technology were applying insights from the holiday season to make our merchandise stores and digital channels even more irresistible to our guests. We continue to innovate in ways that differentiate both our product assortments and the guest experience, and we’re investing in pricing and promotions to make our value proposition even stronger. We’re very pleased with the response to Peter Pilotto for Target our most recent designer partnership which launched earlier this month. This collection which features a limited edition assortment of women’s apparel, accessories and swimwear is available at most of our U.S. and Canadian stores and on target.com. We have also partnered with Net-a-Porter.com to offer a curated assortment of the collection to fans across the globe. With lots of social media buzz we a saw long lines outside many of our urban stores on the morning of the launch, and the collection quickly became Net-a-Porter’s fastest selling collaboration in history. Based on last years results Target and Sports Illustrated are once again partnering in support of the magazines annual swimsuit issue w hich is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Target is the exclusive mass retail advertiser and official marketing partner for the issue. This years partnership includes the new 20 page flip cover that celebrates swimsuit style over the past 50 years and features Target’s limited edition swimwear collection. The collection launched at Target stores and on target.com February 17, in advance of the issues on stand date and includes 10 black, gold and ivory swimsuits priced from $15 to $30. Earlier this month, Target began offering AMBAR a new apparel collection designed with the Latina guest in mind. AMBAR is set in 50 U.S. stores this month and is also available on target.com. The line of apparel and accessories features vibrant prints and flattering cuts and silhouettes. This stylish and affordable collection has items ranging from $17 to $40. This spring Target will introduce an assortment of premium skincare featuring seven notable brands, four of which will be exclusively sold at Target. 29 by Lydia Mondavi, Borghese, Laneige and MD Complete by Dr. Zelickson along side industry favorite Vichy, La Roche Posay and Own Skin Health. These brands will be merchandised in two distinct sections, dermatological skincare and specialty skincare, and they have already launched on target.com. We’ll begin rolling out the assortment to 749 U.S. Target stores beginning in March. So whats likely to be the biggest Blu-ray  and DVD release of the year Target will offer an exclusive addition of Catching Fire the second film in The Hunger Games trilogy in stores and on target.com next month. The Target exclusive Blu-ray addition includes 45 minutes of exclusive content from never before seen footage and cast interviews to a behind the scenes looks at the making of the film. This spring award winning singer Shakira is teaming up with Target for her 10th studio album and our exclusive deluxe edition featuring three bonus tracks hit stores on March 25. We announced the partnership and kicked off album preordering with a special spot during the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in January. Last month we became the exclusive retailer to feature Beats music playlists. Beats music is curated digital music streaming services that allows its users to peep into the personal music librarie s of their favorite artists and brands and have them create playlists just for them. By subscribing to Target’s playlist guest can expect a very mix of songs inspired by Target’s rich heritage of music and the taste of the millions who shop for albums at Target each year. In December we launched The Awesome Shop, a beta site that features the top target products recently pinned on Pinterest. The site lets guests explore, get inspired and see what other guests love just like they do in stores. Awesome Shop highlighted the best of the best by only featuring items at the target.com review of four stars or better. We’re also leveraging Pinterest in another unique way to collaborate with three of the sites most influential pinners on a series of party planning collections that will make it easy to throw a Pinterest worthy event. Joy Cho of Oh Joy, Jan Halvarson of Poppytalk and Kate Arends of Wit Delight will each create limited time only collections launched over the course of 2014 including party decor, paper products and serving pieces designed in their signature esthetic. Beyond differentiated merchandise, we continue to provide enhanced service in key areas of the store. Based on guest response to last years launch we have expanded the Target Beauty Concierge’s program to more than 300 stores across the country with new markets including New York, New Jersey, San Francisco and Dallas-Fort Worth. These beauty consultants are brand agnostic and provide guests with detailed, unbiased information and a friendly face in what can often be an intermediating category. We also continue to see great results from the pilot of our new baby layout, a completely redesigned shopping  experience that offers guests inspiring insightful solutions combined with the great value they’ve come to expect from Target. This new layout features a dedicated service desk with a knowledgeable baby advisor to help guests navigate the area and provide unbiased product information. Digital screens and iPads feature inspiration and interactive comparison tools and Bab yCenter content such as buying guides and product reviews We have also incorporated an in department registry kiosk for expecting mom’s or guests looking to give a gift. Merchandised displays have been lowered so guests can more easily interact with large products by travel systems in stores. We have removed barriers to enhance navigation between apparel, gear and baby essentials and we have highlighted the availability of additional online only items in key categories. This summer we plan to grow from 30 stores to more than 200 locations featuring this enhanced baby experience. And based on encouraging initial results in 2014 we’ll expand our test of using mannequins in apparel in our largest format U.S. stores to elevate the store experience, create an enhanced sense of discovery and bring our unique deigns to life. We also continued to augment our digital capabilities driving traffic and sales to all of our channels. Online our top priority in 2014 is continuing to improve the guest experience. All of our efforts will be designed to make things simple, seamless and enjoyable for our guests. To support this priority we continue to hire external talent with deep functional expertise in online merchandising, site merchandising, mobile and analytics. We have recently made enhancements focused on search, product information and checkout making it easier for guests to browse and purchase. In addition now nearly all store products are viable online making this the only place that guests can use Target’s full assortment. Importantly we’re making enhancements while continuing to focus on stability and speed, as a result target.com consistently ranks in the top 10 for retailer site availability and performance. Given the profile of our guests, mobile is more important at Target than for many of our peers. For example, Target’s guest traffic from tablets and mobile phones is greater than our traffic from traditional computers and the shift towards mobile shows no signs of slowing down. In fact usage of the Target App doubled in the short period between last su mmer and the end of the year. To maintain our strong momentum in mobile we’re testing and learning from new features including List  Building, Mapping and Cartwheel capabilities launched during the holiday season. We’re improving conversion by streamlining checkouts and enhancing product information and dynamic content and we are investing to amplify the in-store mobile experience by rolling out guided maps, in-store search and expanded assortment chain wide later this year. We also continue to invest in our flexible fulfillment capabilities which combine the strengths of our digital, store and distribution aspects to provide speed and convenience for our guests. These capabilities allow our stores to add value in new ways, serve our guests as both showroom and fulfillment centers. Following the holiday seasons success of in-store pick up we are moving quickly to roll out the capabilities to shift online orders from our stores this fall. This new capability will create multiple benefits for both T arget as our guests, including shorter shipping times, reduced expenses, lower markdown rates and improved in-stocks. And because our investments in flexible fulfillment drive greater utilization of our existing stores and distribution center assets, we expect to earn an outstanding return on these investments over time. Finally, were pleased with initial performance of Target Ticket, our streaming video service and we continue to invest in features to better serve guest changing needs and behaviors both inside and outside their home. In 2014 we will coordinate our promotions across channels to provide irresistible video offers across our stores, Target.com and Target Ticket. While our fourth quarter results softened following the December 19 announcement of the data breach, we are pleased with the guest response to our holiday season merchandizing and marketing efforts and were confident in our plans for 2014. As always our focus remains on our guests helping them regain their confidence in their Target while delivering irresistible content and experiences in every channel. We believe that our efforts will drive a continued recovery in the pace of our sales and position Target for profitable growth in 2014 and beyond. Now, John will share his insights on our fourth quarter financial performance and our plans for the coming year. John? John Mulligan EVP and CFO Thanks, Kathy. Our fourth quarter financial results reflect strong efforts by our team to handle separate challenges in both our U.S. and Canadian segments. In the U.S. comparable sales declined 2.5% consistent with the  updated guidance we provided in our January press release. This sales performance reflects a 5.5% decline in transactions partially offset by an increase in average ticket. Prior to the announcement of the data breach, fourth quarter comparable sales were running positive reflecting the success of our holiday merchandizing marketing plan. Immediately following news of the breach, sales turned meaningfully negative but began to recover in January. And while its impossible to measure precisely, we believe we would have seen even more improvement had there not been extreme weather across much of the country. Fourth quarter sales penetration on our REDcards was 20.9%, up 5.4 percentage points from a year ago. While the rate of increase slowed down following the breach, year-over-year penetration continued to grow hundreds of basis points through the end of the quarter. Fourth quarter U.S. EBITDA and EBIT margin rates were down more than a percentage point from last years rates, which we were advised to reflect combined results from our former U.S. retail and credit card segments. These profit margins were below our expectations going into the quarter, driven almost entirely by gross margin rate which declined about 20 basis points from the year ago. This performance reflects about 20 basis points of benefit from this years change in vendor payments offset by higher than expected markdowns related to the 10% off we offered prior to Christmas as well as the impact of clearance markdowns at the end of the holiday season. Margin mix was somewhat less favorable than the recent quarters, driven by strong sales in electronics. While below our expectations, fourth quarter U.S. segment gross margin rate was remarkably strong considering the team had to rapidly manage excess inventory in the middle of the quarter when we experienced a sudden change in the pa ce of sales following the data breach announcement. Our fourth quarter U.S. segment SGA rate was 18.4%, about 110 basis points above last years revised rate. About 50 basis points of this headwind was related to the credit card portfolio reflecting a smaller asset base, last years reserve release and this years profit sharing arrangement with TD Bank. Another 20 basis points of headwind was driven by this years change in member payments. The remaining unfavorability reflects the deleveraging effort of negative comp sales. The fact that we experienced only 40 basis points of deleverage reflects strong control of variable expenses, given the magnitude of our comparable sales decline. In the Canadian segment, sales  came in just below expectations. Importantly, as Gregg mentioned, we took advantage of holiday traffic to clear through a significant amount of excess inventory in the quarter. And while we expect some small lingering issues with long lean receipts this year, the Canadian segment ended 2013 in a much cleaner inventory position, paving the way for smoother operations in 2014. In all, the segment drove $0.40 of EPS dilution in th e fourth quarter better than the expectations we provided in our January press release. Turning now to our consolidated metrics, fourth quarter interest expense was 21% lower than last year reflecting the continued benefit of debt retirement funded by the proceeds from the sale of the credit card portfolio. We paid dividends of $0.43 per share in the quarter, an increase of more than 19% from fourth quarter 2012. This was our 185th consecutive quarter in which our company has paid a dividend and 2013 marked the 42nd year of annual dividend increases, a track record of few companies to match. Consistent with last quarter, we didnt purchase any shares in the fourth quarter reflecting current performance and our desire to maintain our debt rating in the middle A range. This approach aligns with our longstanding point of view on capital deployment. First, we invest what we believe is appropriate in our core business. Second, we support the dividend which weve grown annually for more than four decades. And third, we use share repurchase to return cash within the limits of our middle A debt rating. We believe a middle A rating is strategically important as it supports our ability to reliably deliver on our unbeatable pricing strategy over time. In addition, our balance sheet provides the flexibility to maintain our long-term focus in the face of unexpected events like the data breach enabling inves tment and strategic initiatives like flexible fulfillment while we deal with a temporary setback in traffic to sales along with other costs related to the breach. In addition to operating results in the U.S. and Canada, our fourth quarter GAAP earnings reflects several items that reduced EPS by approximately $0.09. These items include charges related to our January restructuring, data breach related costs net of an insurance receivable and continued reduction in a beneficial interest asset partially offset by a small benefit from a resolution of income tax matters. Combining fourth quarter results with performance in the first nine months of 2013 yields full year results that reflect the impact of clear successes and certain challenges. In our  U.S. segment, full year comparable sales declined 0.4% well below our expectations going into the year. This reflects the tougher than expected consumer environment including the impact on the payroll tax increase which just annualized last month, the fourth quarter impact of the data breach and recent headwinds from unfavorable weather, as youve heard from many other retailers. On our U.S. sales, we earned a gross margin rate of 29.8% in 2013, up about 10 basis points from 2012. This rate reflects about 20 basis points of benefit from this years change in vendor payments combined with very strong underlying margin performance in the face of softer than expected sales. Throughout the year, Kathys team did a great job managing inventory resulting in outstanding in-stock levels while avoiding unnecessary clearance markdowns. Our full year SGA expense rate in the U.S. was 20%, up about 90 basis points from last years revised rate. Contrary to what you might initially think, this reflects outstanding performance in light of softer than expected sales and some notable challenges representing more than $600 million of incremental pressure. Including credit card portfolio income, which as you know reduces our SGA rate, about $400 million lower than 2012 reflecting profit sharing with TD, prior year reserve reductions and a smaller asset base this year. And more than $200 million of expense pressure from incremental investments in technology and supply chain to support our multichannel efforts. Without these impacts, our SGA expense rate would have been slightly higher than 2012 but would have been neutral without this years change in vendor payments. This is better expense performance than wed expect on a decline in comparable sales and was driven primarily by two factors; outstanding performance by our stores organization which continued to provide outstanding guest service while delivering productivity increases and our company-wide expense optimization efforts through which our teams are finding better ways to work while deprioritizing less productive activities. As Gregg mentioned, the team continues to find new opportunities to optimize expenses and we expect to reach $1 billion in annualized savings by 2015 helping to fund our efforts to drive profitable growth over the next several years. For full year 2013, U.S. REDcard penetration grew nearly 6 percentage points to 19.3% of sales as more and more guests increased their level of engagement and their spending with Target. Penetration in Kansas City where we began offering  REDcard awards a year ahead of the rest of the country continued to run well ahead of the U.S. overall. Importantly, as part of our broader effort to rebuild traffic and sales in 2014 we will work to reaccelerate REDcard growth in light of the recent slowdown in growth weve seen following the data breach. In Canada in 2013 we generated just over $1.3 billion in sales on 124 stores which were opened on average for a little more than half the year. These sales were well below our plan going into the year leading to grea ter than expected markdowns on a meaningful amount of excess inventory Expense rate were unusually high as well as a result of opening early cycle stores with too many payroll hours, incurring incremental expense relating to clearing inventory and experiencing less leverage on fixed expenses. In the face of these challenges, the team worked tirelessly to improve operations and work through excess inventory throughout the year, clearing the way for an acceleration of sales and profitability beginning this year. Our early cycle store continued to outperform later cycle stores giving is confidence that our operations will continue to become more efficient as our business matures. And having dramatically reduced the congestion in our Canadian supply chain, we will increase the intensity of our marketing message in 2014 regarding value and assortment in our frequency categories. Over time we expect this will lead our Canadian guests to choose Target more often in these categories, driving meaningful increases in traffic and sales. Turning to capital deployment, our total capital investment was about $3.5 billion in 2013, somewhat lower than expected as U.S CapEx of about $1.9 billion was approximately $300 million lower than anticipated. This outcome doesnt reflect a change in strategy, but is simply the result of a lower than expected cost for certain projects and retiming of suspending into 2014. Having sold our credit card portfolio, for about $5.7 billion in March, we significantly reduced our net debt position in 2013, including the early retirement of Haikupon debt. And importantly even in a year of peak CapEx and dilution relating to the Canadian segment combined with the impact of softer than expected U.S sales, we still have the capacity to return about $2.5 billion to our shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchase. With that as context, lets turn now to our outlook for 2014. But before we get to the numbers, I want to discuss a change in our reporting and guidance practices in 2014. Given that our Canadian segment is  now fully operating, beginning with the first quarter of 2014 we will no longer exclude Canadian segment performance from adjusted EPS. To allow for appropriate comparison, l ast years adjusted EPS will also reflect Canadian segment performance as well. With that, lets turn to our full-year outlook beginning with sales. While trends have improved in recent weeks, severe winter weather has been a headwind and we continue to see the impact of the data breach on guest sentiment and traffic. We believe that we will continue to see muted trends in the next few months, but the breach impact will diminish throughout the year as we engage in a vigorous effort to address our guests’ concerns and provide irresistible content offers driving business to our stores and digital channels. In addition, while economic trends are improving, we continue to expect our lower and middle income guests to shop very cautiously in 2014. With that backdrop, our current view is that U.S comparable sales will grow in the range of 0% to 2% in 2014. On those sales we expect a U.S segment EBITDA rate of 10.1% to 10.3%, meaning EBITDA dollar should grow between 5% and 8% this year. Among the drivers of EBITDA margin, we expect gross margin will improve 30 or 40 basis points from our 2013 rate of 29.8%, reflecting improved cl earance markdown rates and more significantly the gross margin benefit of our expense optimization efforts. These benefits will be partially offset by the impact of additional promotional activities and continued investment in 5% REDcard rewards. We expect the U.S segment SGA expense rate slightly better than last year’s 20% rate, reflecting continued discipline expense control and the benefit of our expense optimization efforts offset by our continued investments in distribution and technology in support of our multi-channel efforts. We expect these (indiscernible) investments to be worth $0.05 to $0.10 of incremental EPS pressure in 2014. In Canada, we expect total sales will be approximately double our 2013 experience. As we annualize last year’s124 openings and begin generating comparable sales growth in mature stores. On those sales we expect to earn a much higher gross margin rate in a range approaching 30%. But clearly we continue to see some near-term volatility until the Until the Canadian business matures. While we expect to see better fixed expense leverage in 2014 , the SGA rate will likely remain well above our long-term outlook in a range approaching 40%. Altogether, this will lead to a Canadian segment EBITDA margin rate of minus 8% to minus 10%,  representing more than $400 million of expected EBITDA improvement from 2013. We expect U.S capital expenditures of $2.1 billion $2.3 billion, up slightly from actual 2013 spending. The mix of U.S CapEx will continue to tilt from investments in new stores towards supply chain and technology as we accelerate our multi-channel efforts and continue to find a limited number of new store sites that meet our strategic and financial criteria. I should also note that U.S CapEx reflects incremental investments related to our recent decision to accelerate deployment of chip enabled card readers to all of our U.S stores before the end of the year. In Canada we expect 2014 capital expenditures in the $300 million to $400 million range, down more than $1 billion from peak spending in 2013. We expect once again to raise our annual dividend in the neighborhood of 20% this year, which will mark our 43rd consecutive annual increase. And even with a temperate outlook for near-term traffic and sales and understanding there will be further costs relating to the data breach, our current outlook envision share repurchase capacity of $1 billion to $2 billion in 2014, beginning later in the year as our business stabilizes and we have more clarity on potential breach related costs. Altogether, these expectations would lead to full-year adjusted EPS representing results from operations in the U.S and Canada of $3.85 to $4.15. This estimate excludes approximately $0.07 of dilution related to the continued reduction in the beneficial interest asset. These 2014 expectations represent an improvement of more than 20% from combined U.S and Canadian segment results in 2013. Please note that our full-year outlook does not include potential additional costs relating to the data breach beyond what we already recorded in the fourth quarter, as they’re not estimable at this time. While I realize this may result in a wide range of speculation on the magnitude of these costs, given that our investigation of breach is ongoing it would not be appropriate to say anything more about it than we already have this morning. Regardless of the ultimate dollar amounts, as Greg mentioned, we have the financial strength to move beyond these near-term impacts while we continue to in vest in the future. And as always, we are focused on whats most important, addressing the concerns of our guests and helping them to feel confident shopping with us. Now lets briefly turn to our first quarter outlook. In the U.S we expect first quarter comparable sales in the range of flat to down 2%. So far in February  comparable sales have been running within that range, ahead of our forecast and nearly flat to last year. And I should note while growth isn’t running where it had been earlier in 2013, REDcard penetration so far in February has been running 100s of basis points ahead of last year. On our first quarter U.S sales, we expect an EBITDA margin rate of 9.7% to 9.9%. In Canada, we expect to generate first quarter sales in a range of $400 million to $450 million with EBITDA of minus $150 million to minus $170 million. In light of this near-term operating outlook, we dont expect to have the capacity to repurchase shares in the first quarter, but we expect to resume this activity later in the year. Altogether, our expectations would lead to first quarter adjusted EPS reflecting operating results in the U.S and Canada in the range of $0.60 to $0.75, excluding $0.02 relating to the reduction in the beneficial interest asset and any potential costs related to the data breach. While this has been a challenging year, we are proud of the work of our team and we believe we have the right plans in place to generate meaningfully improved performance in 2014. As we focus on making Target irresistible for our guests, both today and over time, we believe we will go profitably for many years to come. With that, well conclude todays prepared remarks. Now Greg, Kathy and I will be happy to respond to your questions. uestion-and-Answer Session

Impact of Dementia on Quality of Life | Intervations

Impact of Dementia on Quality of Life | Intervations Dementia and Incontinence An exploration of the impact that these conditions have on quality of life and a discussion of strategies that may be employed to manage the problem and/or enable the sufferer and carers to cope. Based on the 2001 census, it is estimated that the total number of people living with dementia in the United Kingdom (UK) is 775,200 and that this figure will rise to 870,000 by the year 2010 and to 1.8 million by 2050 (Alzheimer’s Society 2004). Dementia affects about one person in 20 over the age of 65 years. This figure rises to one person in three for people over the age of 90 years (Gow and Gilhooly 2003). Studies have estimated that 18,000 people with dementia are under the age of 65, and that the number of people in the UK with dementia in minority ethnic communities could be as high as 14,000 (Alzheimer’s Society 2004). Dementia is described as â€Å"a syndrome due to disease of the brain, usually of a chronic or progressive nature† (World Health Organization 2001). Dementia is associated with a range of symptoms including impaired memory, disorientation, poor concentration and difficulty in naming and use of language. Patients with dementia have an impaired ability to learn or recall learned information, difficulty in using motor skills and co-ordination, difficulty thinking in a clear and coherent way and in understanding or following a sequence (Jacques and Jackson 1999). The significant disabilities associated with dementia can be accompanied by personality and mood changes, and changes in judgement. The term â€Å"dementia† is an umbrella term used to describe a number of conditions in which these symptoms occur, and where a differential diagnosis has been undertaken to rule out other causes for these symptoms (Cheston and Bender 1999). These include Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia and Lewy body dementia. It is proposed that dementia commonly leads to incontinence of urine, faeces, or both. Urinary incontinence us up to four times more common in individuals with dementia than in people without dementia. Loss of continence may be more prevalent in Alzheimer’s disease than in vascular dementia, and becomes more common with increasing dementia severity (Skelly and Flint 1995). Men are more at risk than women, possibly because of associated prostatic problems. Faecal incontinence is less common than urinary incontinence, however both urinary and faecal incontinence are strongly associated with caregiver stress and possible premature entry to nursing and residential homes (Armstrong 1999). In fact, the rates of incontinence are particularly high among patients in hospitals, nursing homes and residential homes, where it is debated that approximately half might be affected (Irwin 2001). This essay will briefly discuss the pathophysiology of the different types of dementia and incontinence with a view to investigating how these linked conditions affect quality of life. There will also be a discussion about various strategies that may be employed to manage the problem and/or enable the sufferer and carers to cope. It is proposed that approximately 55 percent of patients diagnosed with dementia have Alzheimer’s disease, also known as Alzheimer’s dementia (Killeen 2000). It is a degenerative disease affecting the brain. This is a result of changes in the structure and function of two proteins, beta-amyloid and tau that cause the formation of plaques and neurofibrillary tangle form in areas of brain tissue, which destroy them (Burns et al 1997). The cause of this process is not yet fully understood. The temporal and parietal lobes of the brain are generally affected in Alzheimer’s disease, which can result in significant memory loss and an inability to recognise people and places. This can be extremely distressing, particularly if the person no longer recognises his or her image or that of friends and family (Kitwood 1997). As the condition progresses, basic skills and capabilities can be lost. Visual-spatial skills can become impaired, resulting in the patient becoming unabl e to put sequences of an activity or movement together (Jenkins 1998). The frontal lobe can also be affected and this can result in difficulties in communication and judgement resulting in disinhibited behaviour (Jacques and Jackson 1999). In Alzheimer’s disease the symptoms progress gradually but persistently over time (Burns et al 1997). Vascular dementia, also referred to as multi-infarct dementia, is another common type of dementia. It is caused by problems in the circulation of blood to the brain, which results in multiple strokes to brain tissue resulting in significant cognitive impairment (Sander 2002). These strokes can cause damage to areas of the brain responsible for speech or language and can produce generalised symptoms of dementia. As a result, vascular dementia may appear similar to Alzheimer’s disease. Vascular dementia can progress in an irregular manner with episodes of sudden loss. It can also take the pattern of gradual change, as in Alzheimer’s disease. The rate of memory loss and impairment of insight appear to progress at a slower rate than in Alzheimer’s dementia. Vascular dementia has been identified as a distinct condition in up to 20 percent of people with dementia (Miller and Morris 1993); however, as with all types of dementia it can co-exist with other forms of the co ndition. Vascular dementia is considered the second most common form of dementia in the western world (Nor et al 2005). Another common form of dementia is Lewy body dementia. Lewy body dementia is characterised by fluctuations of cognitive impairment, which are defined by episodic confusion and lucid intervals. These fluctuations in cognition can occur over minutes, hours or days. They can occur in as many as 50-70 percent of patients and are associated with shifting levels of attention and alertness (Archibald 2003). Patients with Lewy body dementia can experience visual and auditory hallucinations, secondary delusions and falls. These symptoms can result in the person presenting with behaviours that are challenging. Lewy bodies are tiny spots containing deposits of a protein called alpha-synuclein. These are found in the hippocampus, temporal lobe and neocortex in addition to the classic sites in the substantia nigra and other subcortical regions (Del Ser et al 2000). Lewy body dementia is ranked as the third major type of dementia. It is estimated that around 20 per cent of people with dementia wil l have the Lewy body form of the disease (McKeith et al 1995). However, this figure could be much higher, and it is estimated that up to 36 percent of people with dementia could have this type (Del Ser et al 2000). It is posited that continence is a basic function that should be maintained in healthy elderly people, regardless of age. Loss of continence can be interpreted as a dysfunction of either the lower urinary tract or bowel, or of some other system that participates in the maintenance of continence, in particular the nervous system (Crome et al 2001). Loss of continence in the patient with dementia is related most commonly to alteration in basic factors necessary for its maintenance or to use of medication (Ouslander 2000). People with dementia are also more prone to suffer delirium which is associated often with incontinence. Immobility can soon lead to loss of continence and the frequency, and severity of incontinence is strongly associated with dementia severity and incapacity to walk or make transfers (Skelly and Flint 1995). Resnick (1995) analysed the relationship between incontinence and a series of factors outside the lower urinary tract. He found that if patients maintained inde pendence to make transfers and to dress, even though their dementia was severe, they could maintain continence. The influence of sedative drugs, physical restrictions and other environmental or social factors must not be forgotten. Furthermore, the attitude of professionals, with over-use of absorbent or palliative products for incontinence, can itself lead to loss of continence. Since the aetiology of incontinence in the older person with dementia may be multifactorial, it is suggested that a multidimensional assessment is required to identify the pathogenic mechanisms involved. The diagnostic assessment should be individualised, depending on the characteristics of each patient (clinical, functional, life expectancy) as well as the impact of incontinence (Khoury 2001). Generally, it is accepted that the basic assessment should include several components such as a medical history, clinical type of incontinence, the severity of incontinence, and the timing of leakages. A functional assessment focusing on mobility (transfers, walking, and skill grade) and mental function should be undertaken and a formal assessment should be made of the severity and nature of the cognitive impairment and of any depression or behavioural disorders that could influence presentation, as well as management of incontinence. Finally, an environmental assessment would prove useful to detect the existence of barriers that could limit access to the lavatory (Alzheimer’s Society 2004). It is posited that incontinence has an adverse effect on the quality of life. Quality of life can be defined as the awareness of the capacity to meet personal, psychological and social needs on a daily basis. It is proposed that incontinence is very distressing and it can affect an individual’s sense of dignity and self-esteem especially if the person needs personal help from a carer or relative as a result of incontinence (DuBeau et al 2006). Treatment of urinary incontinence is based on various approaches, which should be used in a complementary way to obtain the best results. It is fundamental to establish realistic therapeutic objectives. However, it is argued that it will not be easy to obtain positive results in all patients, because of immobility and lack of co-operation. Trying to reduce the severity of incontinence and maintenance of patient well-being, good perineal hygiene and â€Å"social continence† may be a more realistic goal. Thus, an individual approach is essential, adapted to the characteristics and situation of each patient (Irwin 2001). It is proposed that treatment measures should include the identification and treatment of concurrent medical conditions, active management of constipation, hygienic-dietary recommendations (reduction of stimulant substances e.g. caffeinated drinks, modification of timing of fluid intake). An improvement in mobility, a review of usual treatment and change of drugs that are potentially involved in incontinence recommendations should be included in treatment measures. The type of clothes worn such as clothes with simple opening and closing systems can help with toileting and incontinence. Utilising environmental interventions such as; enhanced visibility by painting toilet doors bright  colours, signposting and good lighting, ensuring easy access to toilets, providing grab-rails and raised toilet seats, and ready availability of mobility aids, commodes and urinals, preferably with nonspill adapters, will be of immense help. Debatably, these measures might assist the dementia patient w ith any possible confusion as to where the toilet is (Alzheimer’s Society, 2004). Other strategies for the management of incontinence in the dementia sufferer could include behavioural techniques. These techniques attempt to promote a change in the patient’s (or caregiver’s) behaviour, trying to re-establish a normal pattern of bladder-emptying or to prevent the patient from being wet. Simple, non-invasive, behavioural techniques are relevant for almost all types of patients and incontinence, and can be used jointly with other therapeutic options, especially drug treatment (Khoury 2001). Two groups of techniques are differentiated: those performed by the patient (pelvic floor exercises, bladder-retraining, biofeedback) and those by the caregiver (micturitiontraining, scheduled voiding, prompted voiding). It is argued however, that the patient-dependent techniques require previous instruction as well as understanding and collaboration by the patient, so they may be impracticable  for people with advanced dementia. The most used behavioural techniques are prompted voiding, micturition training and scheduled voiding. Prompted voiding has the greatest scientific support. The objective  of this technique is to stimulate the patient to be continent through periodic assessments by the caregivers and positive reward systems. Several studies demonstrate the effectiveness of behavioural techniques in institutionalised elderly subjects with dementia, especially in reduction of incontinence episodes. However, most data report its effectiveness only in the short term (Eustice et al 2002, Durrant and Snape 2003). Dementia is a distressing long-term condition that affects both sufferers and their carer’s quality of life. Coupled with that incontinence can be humiliating for the individual with dementia and upsetting for their significant others around them. It is important to assess the person’s individual needs as incontinence in dementia is multifactorial. There are various strategies and treatments that can be put into place that will assist both the sufferer and their carer. Behavioural techniques such as prompted voiding, micturition training and scheduled voiding have been found useful as a treatment alongside environmental and current review of medical history. It is important to note that incontinence should always be viewed as associated with, rather than caused by dementia and therefore potentially treatable. References Alzheimer’s Society (2004) Policy Positions: Demography, www.alzheimers.org.uk/News_and_Campaigns/Policy_Watch/demography.htm,  (Last accessed: August 2006) Archibald C (2003) People with Dementia in Acute Hospital Settings: A Practice Guide for Registered Nurses, Stirling, The Dementia Services Development Centre Armstrong M (1999) Factors affecting the decision to place a relative with dementia into residential care, Nursing Standard, 14, 16, 33-37 Burns A, Howard R, Pettit W (1997) Alzheimer’s disease: A Medical Companion, Oxford, Blackwell Science Cheston R, Bender M (1999) Understanding Dementia: The Man with the Worried Eyes, London, Jessica Kingsley Crome P, Smith AE, Withnell A (2001) Urinary and faecal incontinence: prevalence and health status, Reviews in Clinical Gerontology, 11, 109-113 Del Ser T, McKeith I, Anand R, Cicin-Sain A, Ferrara R, Spiegel R (2000) Dementia with Lewy bodies: findings from an international multicentre study, International  Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 15, 11, 1034-1045 Durrant J, Snape J (2003) Urinary incontinence in nursing home for older people, Age Ageing, 32, 12-18 Eustice S, Roe B, Paterson J (2002) Prompted voiding for the management of urinary incontinence in adults, Cochrane Database Systemic Review Gow J, Gilhooly M (2003) Risk Factors for Dementia and Cognitive Failure in Old Age, NHS Health Scotland, Glasgow Irwin B (2001) Management of urinary incontinence in a UK trust, Nursing Standard, 16, 13, 15, 33-37 Jacques A, Jackson G (1999) Understanding Dementia, (3e) Churchill Livingstone,  Edinburgh Jenkins DAL (1998) Bathing People with Dementia: The Bathroom and Beyond, Stirling, The Dementia Services Development Centre Khoury JM (2001) Urinary incontinence: No need to be wet and upset, North Carolina Medical Journal, 62, 74-77 Killeen J (2000) Planning Signposts for Dementia Care Services, Edinburgh, Alzheimer Scotland Kitwood T (1997) Dementia Reconsidered: The Person Comes First, Milton Keynes, Open University Press McKeith IG, Galasko D, Wilcock GK, Byrne EJ (1995) Lewy body dementia: diagnosis and treatment, British Journal of Psychiatry, 167, 6, 709-717 Miller E, Morris R (1993) The Psychology of Dementia, Chichester, John Wiley  and Sons Nor K, McIntosh IB, Jackson GA (2005) Vascular Dementia: Series for Clinicians, Stirling, The Dementia Services Development Centre Ouslander J (2000) Intractable incontinence in the elderly, British Journal of Urology International, 85, 3, 72-78 Resnick NM (1995) Urinary incontinence, Lancet, 346, 94-100 Sander R (2002) Standing and moving: helping people with vascular dementia, Nursing Older People, 14, 1, 20-26 Skelly J, Flint AJ (1995) Urinary incontinence associated with dementia, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 43, 286-94 World Health Organization (2001) Alzheimer’s disease: The Brain Killer, Geneva, WHO Leadership and Management Case Study: Selfridges Leadership and Management Case Study: Selfridges Introduction 1.1 Company and Organizational Culture Selfridges is a well reputed department store chain in the UK which is targeting the high end customers. In the 1856 the company was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge. They have opened the second largest flagship stores in London on 1909 and another prominent three stores opened recently. The company could be managed to come to the current position due to the perfect directions and leadership shown by the top management. This practice is already added in to the corporate cuture and values. (en/StaticPage/Our+Heritage/?msg=, 2010) The fashion retail industry is extremely competitive due to the highly saturated marketplace. It is therefore vital for retailers to develop a competitive strategy so they can position themselves in the market to attain a sustainable competitive advantage and increase revenue. Attaining competitive advantage is dependent on the careful construction of a clear vision and mission with perfect leadership that reflects and utilizes the competitive strategy and indicates the intended positioning while incorporating the values, culture and competencies of the company. By making the strategic direction of the company explicit with a set mission and values, all internal operations will have a clear foresight allowing them to position the company in a synergistic manner, achieving stated goals and objectives. Aligning an organizations leadership to achieve the mission and position is therefore fundamental in remaining strategically fit, and this report will assess the extent to which Selfridges stated mission, values and objectives reflect their intended positioning in the fashion retail market. 1.2 The Vision, Mission and Values of Selfridges As the initial step of the leadership, should have given perfect direction to the organization. Therefore it is necessary to have clearly defined vision, mission and values to achieve and adopt. Vision Statement To be the most innovative and fashion forward department store in Europe, offering the most exclusive brands to customers of all ages in an environment that is entertaining and inspiring. Mission Statement To operate stores filled with brands and events that inspire customers and staff, to deliver profitability. Values Selfridges have four stated values, which they uphold as a priority to maintain; Customers: Our challenge to fulfill the high expectations that customers have of Selfridges makes our stores unique, entertaining and fashionable. We house the best designer wear products in the world and offer our customers exclusive access to highly seek after collections. Employees: We recognize the importance of our employees, and how significant they are to the success of Selfridges. We strive to motivate, encourage and inspire our employees as they work to deliver objectives and push the boundaries of what Selfridges is capable of. Responsibility: We are one of the UKs top ten ethically responsible companys and we endeavor to continue looking after the environment and society. Innovation: We are an iconic brand because of our constant crusade to break boundaries, start trends and provide innovative in-store and online experiences for our customers. 1.3 How the Leadership Operates in the Selfridge Vision The vision statement is explanatory in what Selfridges want to achieve in the future, and this future vision will be useful to employees, as they will be aware of how the company plan to develop, and the direction they are pursuing. The language is clear and concise, and instills a sense of motivation for employees. The vision is available through a few internal distribution channels; intranet, notice boards, contracts, monthly departmental meetings and team meetings. That the vision is so easily accessible will make its clear aims resonate throughout the company, and will ensure that all operations are working with that ultimate goal in mind. Mission The mission statement is not extensive enough in its scope regarding their competitors, their geographical scope and their specified target customer groups for it to satisfy employees want for knowledge of the company. Despite this, it is very accessible. Like the vision, the mission is available via the intranet, notice boards, contracts, monthly departmental and weekly team meetings. The easy accessibility to the statement is certainly strength, however, the lack of clarity in what the companys mission is regarding such vital aspects like competitors and customers, makes its existence like a brief summary of the vision. Values Most employees at Selfridges, being among the best in the industry, will have most likely worked for a large company before settling at Selfridges. They will therefore know that a company, who addresses employees in their values, is a good company to work for as they consider their staff at the heart of their operations. This is what Selfridges are communicating in their values and their use of language such as importance if our employees and significance to the success of Selfridges are key words that will resonate well. The values are available via the intranet, contracts and staff guidebooks, yet they are not posted on notice boards in the same way the vision and mission are. Leadership Managing the Change 2.1 Leadership Style There are number of leadership styles identified based on the reactions, objectives and practical applications with their leadership qualities. 1. Autocratic leadership These types of leaders have higher powers compared to their subordinates and dominating the team. Other team members not propose their opinion and will not accept other suggestions. Due to this type of leadership employee turnover will increase and there is lots of absenteeism. This leadership is suitable for unskilled workforce to fore and get the task done. Anyhow this is not an acceptable method in the management. 2. Bureaucratic leadership Bureaucratic leaders mostly consider the systems and procedures and use the recorded style. They will direct to be conducting the whole process as per the stick process. It is very important in the high risk areas in the factories and serious safety areas. 3. Charismatic leadership This leader is very enthusiastic and energetic to bring their team to the established target. This person should have self confident about the leadership as well as the group achievements. They believe their team members and perfectly give directions to the target. There is a personal rapport between the leader and subordinates. If the leader left the company will affect to the organization. This type of leadership shows bigger responsibility compared to others and the leader has to spend more time and give the maximum commitment to the team. 4. Democratic or participative leadership Get the decision contribution from the other members and leader will take the final accurate decision. This style will increase the soft skills and talents of the team members and creating enthusiasm. Team members feel as they are important people to the organization as giving personal views and decision making involvement. To take a decision will take long time, but the decision accuracy is perfect. As the result will be a common idea it will be a quality decision. 5. Laissez-faire leadership Give the individual responsibilities and take decision to team members and leader will monitor the progress. Leader should maintain effective communication with each member as he is responsible to each decision made by team members. These types of leadership required, when the team members are well qualified and experienced of their job responsibilities. The manager / leader should apply sufficient controls and closely monitor the decisions and routine work of the each team member. 6. People-oriented leadership or relations-oriented leadership The leader will not drive task oriented controls. They consider the people oriented achievements without forcing to the task. Some task oriented leaders are give directions to achieve the responsibilities without concern the major activities. People oriented leaders try to maintain their goodwill and not pressurized on team members. 7. Servant leadership If the leader ready work on requirements of the team named as a servant leader. The entire team will participate in the decision making. Team members prefer to the leader as the person represent the whole team requirements. But the leader should maintain the gap between normal team member and the leader. 8. Task-Oriented leadership Leader required achieving the task only. Mainly force all member to go for given targets and closely follow-up and monitor the progress. Task oriented leaders not care about the well-being of the team members and consider only the achievements. This leadership is similar to the autocratic leadership and members will be not satisfied. Leader is trying to show his / her achievements to the top management and not bothering to think about the fellows. 9. Transactional leadership All the members should obey to the leader and do their jobs properly. They cannot comment on the given responsibilities and leader is having authority to punish who fails to achieve the targets. Also the leader can give incentives and rewards to the successful members of the team. Mainly should be awarded the members who could achieve the management expectation and not the actual achievement. This is purely a management style and cannot accept as the leadership method. 10. Transformational leadership Leaders are encouraging team members to go to the target and achieve the organizational expectation. Always the leader giving advices to each team member and solve minor issues will arise. Always the leader will look after the initiatives and add values. (pages/article/newLDR_84.htm, 2010) 2.2 Feedback from Employees (3600) This is a well accepted human resource management measurements to measure the actual attitude, talents, strengths and weaknesses of the any stage of the employee. Let the employee to set in to a circle / disclose all information and get feedback from manager, supervisors, peers, subordinates and top management. Also get the feedback from external parties such as customers, suppliers, and other stake holders who are the people deal with this person. Self assessment gives to do a self evaluation and find key aspects personally. Managers will give their feedback in traditional report format and other stake holders will just explain their comments in an email or telephone call to the relevant evaluator. 360 feedback methods shows the adequate areas of the person and easily advise and give proper training to develop his / her attitudes, talents and skills. If the result is very satisfied management can give promotions, financial as well as non financial rewards for the excellent performance and it will be a motivational factor to job satisfaction. This approach is mainly focusing to get personal development and add value to the organization. As this is a open policy can clearly identify adequate areas of the each person without considering the rank or the level of the employee. It is necessary to conduct this methodology once per annum to get the maximum result. Also should not de-motivate single employee and show the importance of this application. 2.3 Tuckmans model Under the Tuckmans method there are main four areas realized and Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing in the team development stage. This is the well reputed team building methodology. Forming Stage This is the initial stage of the task and team members are not clear about the objectives and time limitations. Therefore the leader should clearly explain the team objectives, the way of planned approach, available resources and limitation. Team members will have several problems about the target and will raise lot of questions and tolerance. The leader should perfectly and specifically explain the team goals and the requirement to each employee. Storming Stage Even the objectives received team not aware that how to achieve them. There is some confusion in this stage as uncertainties. Team members are having issues about the individual responsibilities and how to arrange the process orderly. There are lots of negotiations, discussions and ideas will come in this stage. Supervisors and team leaders are required to negotiate this situation and minimize confusion. Most of the time tem leaders and managers should avoid this sage as time consuming and create personal issues with team members. Under a clear direction will be possible to neglect the confusion and achieve the target. Norming Stage In this stage team members should be clear about the target and the task. Team functions should be created by giving single responsibilities to the each person. As specifically nominate team members to the responsibilities can clearly identify the role they have to play in the team. After that team managers should link the all tasks together and make specified individual responsibilities to each member. All team members should give their maximum support to achieve the final objective. Performing Stage The all team members will be clear about themselves and others job responsibilities and tasks. Under the clear supervision the team will goes to the target maintaining a shared supervision. If is there any problem the team members will solve the issue inside the team as they are having mutual understanding and clear about the target. At this stage team members no need help / assistance in instructions and guidelines. The leader has to set team objectives and the way of the achievement. Team members need help only in their personal and interpersonal developments. (tuckmanformingstormingnormingperforming.htm, 2010) Work Delegation Managers can get more effective team performance by work delegation. But this task should be conducted in proper way. As he lack of knowledge number of managers are reluctant to give work delegation to team members. The disorganized and inflexible management may be the major cause of not delegating work effectively. The insecurity in the work place and confusion about who is ultimately responsible are the other barriers for effective delegation of work. Managers cannot avoid their responsibility by delegating their difficult tasks to subordinates. They are always accountable for the allocated responsibilities for their designation. Accordingly, managers are responsible for the actions of their subordinates. This may results some managers reluctant to delegate their works. There are different types of subordinates that can be experience by the managers. While some work hard to complete their task effectively, there are some people who would like to avoid their responsibilities and let their managers to make all decisions. Through effective delegation, these barriers can be overcome. Guidelines for effective Delegation: In order to practice effective delegation it is important to keep working relationships alive. Rather than completing a task solely, delegation has a better chance of succeeding. The following are some situations where ethics comes to bear in day-to-day organizational activities. Prerequisites: The basic prerequisite for effective delegation is the willingness of the managers to give freedom to their subordinates to accomplish delegated tasks. This means let them to choose methods and solutions to complete their tasks. This allows employees to make mistakes and learn from their mistakes. Mistaken should not discourage the delegation. Mistakes should be identified as the requirement for training support. The second prerequisite for delegation is open communication between managers and employees. In order to delegate tasks effectively, managers should know the capabilities of each employee. Some employees are prefer to accept many responsibilities if their managers are willing to appreciate and reward them. The third and last prerequisite for delegation is in the managers ability in some specific areas such as corporate objectives, the way to achieve the target, employee capabilities and etc. Tasks of effective Delegation: Clearly define the exact delegation areas specifically based on the requirement, delegating person and the time requirement. Should careful the secrecy and the importance on the particular task before the delegation. Delegate the correct person will be easier and perfect. Have to consider that the task required any special competencies or developmental experience. Also better to check the previous records of the person to identify the special competencies available. Provide required resources and special instructions accordingly. Organisation should have contingency arrangements and financial budget to give resources and trainings immediately. Managers should provide all required date efficiently and effectively. Also necessary to maintain good communication with the delegated person and make further arrangements to get cleared sufficient details. Feedback system reacquired to monitor the progress of the accuracy of the delegation. (4760-barriers-to-delegation/, 2010)