Ikea Essay Example for Free

Ikea Essay Ltd. is a furniture operations company that offers â€Å"quick assembly† furniture with 15% lower price than its competitors. IKEA’s success brought imitators, such as Sears. In order to analyze IKEA’s competitive position in the Canadian Furniture Industry as well as Sears competitive threat, a model of competitive rivalry was used. IKEA and Sears both compete against each other in multiple markets across Canada, they both have market commonality and resource similarity. The Sears catalogue has almost the same format of an IKEA catalogue, and they both offer knock-down, self-assembled line products which allows the customers to create particular designs. In addition, the price for Elements’ products in Sears seemed almost identical to IKEA prices. They both go closely to the supplier in marketing, research, design and development, production standards and production planning. Some of the suppliers of the Elements line for Sears were from Sweden, which is the same as IKEA, but it didn’t show that they had any suppliers in common. It’s evidently that both of the market commonality and resource similarity are very high between those two companies. The market commonality and resource similarity can influence the drivers of competitive behaviour. The awareness of IKEA to recognize the degree of imitation by Sears is very high. High awareness enables IKEA to understand the consequences of Sears’ actions and responses. IKEA has a high motivation to respond Sears’s imitation. In order to protect IKEA’s position in the furniture market, IKEA has a philosophy to dealing with the copyright. IKEA would like to make a new model to replace the stole one rather than bring a lawsuit. Furthermore, IKEA has the ability to attack or respond to Sears’ actions. Since they both hold the similar resources, the ability to attack and respond is similar. IKEA should consider all important issues before taking action or respond to Sears. First-mover incentives, organizational size, and quality are the three factors that IKEA may take action to its competitors. As a first mover, IKEA’s business approach was fundamentally different from the traditional Canadian retailers. IKEA focus on â€Å"quick assembly† furniture and allow the customers assembled at home. Due to this reason, its price is 15% below the lowest prices for traditional furniture. The size of IKEA Canada is relatively small than Sears. The smaller size enables IKEA to launch competitive actions to defend their market position. The quality of IKEA’s product can be guaranteed. As one of the competitive strategy, IKEA had nearly 100 production engineers to assist suppliers in every way to low costs, introduce new technology, and design. The company has a philosophy to â€Å"create a better everyday life for the majority of people. † In order to defend its market position, IKEA may response Sears’ imitation in the following ways. IKEA may implement some strategic action, such as new innovation, to replace the stolen model from Sears. IKEA may lower its price, always by 10 to 15 percent on a particular item, than Sears. If IKEA can’t do it, IKEA may just drop the item and select some other one, to compete against Sears. Sears is one of Canada’s largest merchandising operations, and offering a wide range of medium price and quality goods. IKEA can predict that Sears with relatively lower market dependence are less likely to respond strongly to attacks threatening their market position.

Free Process Essays - Preparing a Pumpkin Pudding :: Free Expository Process Essays

Preparing a Smashing Pumpkin Pudding It's that time of year again, pumpkin season! Two wonderful family holidays are just around the corner. Traditionally, we spend Thanksgiving or Christmas (or both) with the family to have a nice holiday dinner. There is always delicious food prepared for dinner, but what's dinner without dessert? The most traditional holiday dessert is pumpkin pie, but how about "spicing" that dessert up a little this year? Well, here's the way to do it, a delicious holiday dessert that the whole family will love and it's quick and easy! The first step in baking, of course, is to gather all the ingredients necessary for the job. Luckily with this dessert, most of what you need, you'll already find in your kitchen. Whatever you don't have, you can just pick up at your local grocery store: 1 can pumpkin, 3 eggs, 1 cup milk, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. ginger, 1/2 tsp. cloves, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 box spiced cake mix, 1 1/2 cubes margarine or butter, and 3/4 cup favorite chopped nuts (if desired) and a 9 x 13 inch baking pan. You may also need a measuring cup and measuring teaspoons if you want to measure the ingredients evenly. Also, you'll need a small bowl, to beat the three eggs and melt the butter in, and a large bowl to mix the ingredients together. Now that you have all your ingredients, you can get started on the fun, but first, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Before you mix all the ingredients, beat the three eggs together in the small bowl until they are well mixed. Now mix together the can of pumpkin, the three beaten eggs, the milk, salt, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, and sugar in the large bowl. You can use anything to mix it all with, a rubber spatula, a wooden spoon, or if you have neither of those, a large spoon will do the trick. Be sure to mix everything so that it's mixed evenly. There's no need to grease the pan first. Just pour the mixed ingredients into the baking pan. Pour it all so that it covers the pan evenly. Don't just pour it all in one spot. If you couldn't get it even while pouring, smooth out the top of the pudding with your mixing tool. Rinse the bowl in which you beat the eggs; or if you'd rather, just grab a new bowl.

Erving Goffman The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life Essay

Erving Goffman has completed a wonderful presentation of human behaviour and face-to-face interactions, of a first meeting between two people, who may or may not have an audience. The use of a theatrical performance to explain the interaction was indeed an ingenious idea that kept me intrigued until the very end. This book was written in 1959 but its referencing to human behaviour is still very much relevant to today’s life style. Human behaviour patterns have been written about by many individuals over the years, why we do the things we do or how long we have been undertaking these behaviours. Is there any relevance to the patterns in our behaviour? It would seem there definitely appears to be. As a society, to influence how another person perceives who we are. We give appearances and refinements of someone we want people to see, yet not particularly who we truly are. Goffman describes this as a performance, a play that we put on to give a good first impression. This play could become a nightmare, if we do not keep it under control. It can be difficult to play the part of someone you are not, for the reason that it can rebound on you. It is better to persist with who you are, and not reveal all of yourself in the beginning, like a good story. To present who we are, we should start at the foundation, begin with presenting an opening act. This act should be near to true life, the person you would like to be known as. Currently a person of importance gives the impression that they know what they are doing, example your doctor. If they were a person who, on first meeting gave the impression that they were unsure, confused and unconfident, would you go back to them? No, perhaps not. Even when they are having a bad day your doctor will always appear to be in control, so that we feel more at ease. When we first meet new people we try to acquire information about them, it is then how the person delivers this information, that we base our assumptions. People give information verbally and non-verbally by expressions, movements, gestures and other presumably unintentional communications, like a slight smile. Our brain takes all this information into consideration then makes a personal judgment based on the material it collects. There is so much information for us to collect and make our decision on, that we sometimes need a second meeting to be able to make a correct judgement on a particular person we have meet. Goffman concludes that his own assumptions are made upon a face-to-face interaction and the result of an encounter, the performance that is given to each particular participant and their performance as a basic point of reference. In conclusion, Goffmans writings clearly represent how we present ourselves in everyday life today, and possibly well into the future. References Erving, Goffman (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, New York, Anchor Books, pp. 1-16.

Pablo Ruiz Picasso Life - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1104 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2019/08/16 Category People Essay Level High school Tags: Pablo Picasso Essay Did you like this example? Have you ever made collages? Out of newspaper articles or a magazine? Do you know who created that? Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born on October 25, 1881 in Malaga, Spain. His father worked as an artist, was also a professor at the School of Crafts and he also worked as a custodian for a museum in Malaga. Picasso indicated a passion and an ability to draw at a young age. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Pablo Ruiz Picasso Life" essay for you Create order At seven, Picasso was being trained in drawing figures and oil painting by his father. At fourteen, he was traumatized when his seven-year-old sister, Conchita, died of Diphtheria which is a bacterial infection that affects your mucous membranes. Later on, Picasso was sent to Madrids Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, a highly respected place but then stopped attending classes at sixteen because he didnt like how they taught. 1901 to 1904 was known as Picassos Blue Period. Most of his paintings were in shades of blue and blue-green which was influenced by an emotional turmoil he was suffering as a lot of his loved ones passed away during this time. It started in 1901 when he met his closet friend Carlos Casagemas but their friendship ended suddenly when Casagemas committed suicide due to his significant other. It was thinking about Casagemas that got me started painting in blue (Artsy). La Vie (Life) is one of Picassos most respected painting in his Blue Period. Made in 1903, the painting shows Casagemas being clutched by a woman while the two are looking at a mother and child with two canvases in the background of people crouching. In opinion, the two canvases in the background shows grief. After the artist finished La Vie, he moved to Paris and unfolded from his Blue Period, into soft, joyful pinks. Picasso went from themes of poverty, loneliness and despair in shades of blues to themes of happiness and cheerfulness in hues of red, orange, pink and earth tones. This was known as Picassos Rose Period that started in fall 1904 when he met the artist Fernande Oliver, his mistress, who is known to be one of the reasons he changed his style of painting. Circus performers and clowns appear a lot in the Rose Period and the harlequin, a mute comedian typically dressed in checkered costumes, became a character for Picasso. Picassos Rose Period ended in 1906. Picasso became extremely influenced by African sculptures and traditional African masks because he liked the style. Picassos African Period was from 1906 to 1909. In the early 20th century, African artworks were being transferred to Paris and when Picasso saw African art at a museum, it influenced his style of one of his painting called, Les Demoiselles dAvignon. Analytic cubism is a style of painting that Picasso created with French painter, Georges Braque. This period lasted from 1909 to 1912. Analytic cubism uses monochrome browns and neutral colors. In 1911 Picasso was arrested for the theft of Mona Lisa for having association with Gery Pieret, who was an artist and had a history of stealing artworks. He was later cleared out of any involvement with the paintings disappearance. That didnt stop him from painting though. Synthetic Cubism lasted from 1912 to 1919. It was digging deeper into cubism with making collages out of wallpaper of cut out pieces of a newspaper article. During the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Picasso was living in Avignon, France. After having fame and money, he left Olivier for a woman named Marcelle Humbert, who he called Eva Gouel. Eva was featured in most of his Cubist works and he was shocked when she died from a bacterial infection called Tuberculosis in 1915. During summer of 1918, Picasso got married to a ballerina, Olga Khokhlova. After their honeymoon, Picasso met a French-Jewish art dealer named Paul Rosenberg and he got the couple an apartment in Paris while Khokhlova presented Picasso to high-class people and they had a son named Paulo Picasso. The couple ended up having constant arguments and in 1927, Picasso began a secret affair with Marie-Therese Walter. Picasso never divorced Khokhlova because he did not want her to have half of his wealth, as French law re quires. They stayed married until Khokhlovas death in 1955. Picasso was still with Walter and had a daughter with her, named Maya. Walter hoping Picasso would marry her, hanged herself four years after he died. His Neoclassicism and Surrealism Period lasted from 1917 to 1929. That was his first time traveling to Italy. This period was mostly in the style of visual arts, theatre and music. An example of his style during the period is Two Women Running on a Beach, or Large Bather. During the 1930s, a Greek mythical creature named minotaur replaced harlequin as his theme in most of his work. The minotaur and Marie-Therese Walter were featured in his work, Vollard Suite. Picassos most known work from his time around was Guernica (1937), which was his perspective of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. Asked to explain its symbolism, Picasso said, It isnt up to the painter to define the symbols (Wikipedia). During World War II, Picasso was in Paris and his style of painting didnt fit what the Nazis liked so he did not put his work out to the public. He got searched by the Gestapo, which is a secret police force of Nazi Germany, and they questioned him if that was his work and he continued to reject it. He produced work such as Still Life with Guitar and The Charnel House. Between 1935 and 1959, he began writing poetry and wrote over 300 poems! During that time, he also wrote two full-length plays called Desire Caught by the Tail and The Four Little Girls. In 1944, Picasso began a romantic relationship with a young artist named Francoise Gilot. After growing tire of his other mistress Dora Maar, he began to live with Gilot and they had children named Claude Picasso and Paloma Picasso. Gilot later revealed that Picasso was abusing her and she ended up leaving him, taking the children with her. Picasso ended up having many other affairs with young and old women including Genevieve Laporte and Jaqueline Roque. Picasso final works were a mix between all his different painting styles. He died on April 8, 1973 in Mougins, France due to Pulmonary Edema and heart failure while at a dinner party with his wife, Jacqueline Roque. Due to depression after his death, Roque shot herself in 1986. Pablo Picasso was one of the most influential artists in the 20th century. Whenever you are making a collage out of pieces from a newspaper think of who created that. Pablo Ruiz Picasso. Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working. Pablo Picasso.