The Office Depot ECommerce Systems Information Technology Essay

The Office Depot ECommerce Systems Information Technology Essay Office Depot Inc., founded in 1986, is one of the leaders in the office supplies industry with its head quarters in Boca Raton, Florida, USA. The Office Depots supplies include business machines, computers, softwares and office furniture whereas the services cover printing, copying, document reproduction, shipping and mailing. The customers to the company include individual customers, small office/home offices, and medium-/large-sized businesses. The sales are obtained through numerous channels which comprises of office supply stores, an outbound telephone account management sales force, internet sites, direct marketing catalogues and call centres. Office Depot Inc., deals to customers in 52 countries all around North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. The company operates more than 40 separate websites in the International Division. While the word e-commerce refers to all the online transactions, B2C stands for business-to-consumer and goes for any business organization that sells its products or services to consumers on the Internet. The business model followed by Office Depot is B2C e-commerce model. The model provides both strategic and operational benefits to the company. The model helps in low order processing costs; brand recognition; improved customer service; market extension to locations where no office supplies store exists; reduces labour cost due to streamlined internal process; and improved information system integration. The company follows click-and-mortar kind of B2C model where the company allows customer to buy products and services online as well as they have physical stores located at various locations. The model tied the e-commerce frontend to the companys inventory and order management systems, and conducted real time inventory checks to ensure stock was available nearby. The model is build in customer centric e-commerce systems were intended to make customers so satisfied with their online shopping experience that they would not bother looking elsewhere on the Internet to save a few pennies. Customers were able to check warehouse inventory in real-time, place orders online, pay for orders online, and arrange for returns at a local store. 4. Customer Value Proposition The customer value proposition basically means the benefits which the vendor is providing to the customers in return to the amount charged for the specific products or services. The Office Depot assures a broad selection of quality office products and services. These products and services encompass the following characteristics: great quality, innovation, value and satisfaction guarantee. The major challenges that officedepot.com has tackled reasonably are simple to use, have an improved search capability, an expanded range of item availability, and they are meeting the expectations of customers with shipping quality and timely delivery. 5. Revenue Model The main goal of introducing B2C website is to bring down the cost or improve customer service, however, the primary aims remains to be generation of revenue and earn profit. The officedepot.com is the website providing products as well as services to its customers. This is the most common type of e-business model for generating revenue. In this model, the electronic catalogue is made available to the consumers; they can select the desired products or services from the catalogue and put it in the shopping cart. Then the payment received from the customer is the source of earning revenue. After the successful implementation of the B2C model, the total sales revenue of the firm has gone up considerably because of e-sales. With over $4.9 billion in e-Business sales during 2007, Office Depot is one of the largest online retailers in the world. They believe in offering customers the best choice of electronic trading solutions available, with different purchasing options according to their needs. The figure1 indicates the sudden rise in the sales after the implementation of the website and the continuous rise thereafter. 6. Marketplace Office Depot deals in the segment of office products and services. They are in competition to be the market leaders in the segment. The range of products office depot sells includes business machines, computers, softwares and office furniture whereas the services cover printing, copying, document reproduction, shipping and mailing. The growing prevalence of the internet access has enabled new markets to emerge online. To tackle with the market of consumers and businesses of all sizes the company is being segmented into three the retail division, the business solution division and the international division. Office Depot operates over 1,200 office supply stores in North America.   Internationally, the company operates another 400 retail stores in 48 countries.   7. Main Competitors The main competitors to Office Depot are Staples and Officemax. Together the three companies are the market leaders in the office industry. However, together they account for about only 10% of the total estimated $300 billion market. They rest of the market is divided widely between supermarkets, wholesale retailers and smaller independent companies. Office Depot stands second to Staples in the total sales and profits but had greater sales and higher operating margin in the international market than the leading competitor. Office Depot by the division of the retail and business solution sales in the international market is trying to take advantage in the international market by acquiring contract office suppliers around the globe in profitable markets such as Asia and South America. Staples: www.staples.com OfficeMax: www.officemax.com 8. Comparative Advantages The Office Depot was the first to introduce the concept of shopping, ordering and managing shipments online for the office products and services segment. Office understands the nature, reasons, needs and concerns of customer by realizing that all the customers are not the same level. Every other customer has different wants and needs. The company has added the brick-and-mortar catalogue on their website and thus have successfully increased choices, selection and searching capabilities. Officedepot.com provides lower prices by discount offers, auctions and promotional prices. Special discounts are given to the schools. The product descriptions are clear and concise, and usually have measurements included, sometimes in graphical format as well. Officedepot.com has the advantage of belonging to a well established distribution infrastructure that can handle peak demand. It also has an established brand with a good and trustworthy image, large customer base, expertise and facilities to serve customers with catalogue sales, and has stores for handling product returns. Bricks-and-clicks retailers enjoy significant advantages over Internet pure-plays including lower customer acquisition and smaller marketing-related outlays. Officedepot.com website is designed with proper attention and it is capturing, dynamic, changing, offering new things and promotions, user friendly, not crowded or overwhelming, efficient and easy for navigation, just in time information for out of stock items, and easy to read text. 9. Market Strategy Office Depot targets consumers and businesses of all sizes. They range from individual customers to the small offices/home offices to the large offices and organizations. The main strategy is to provide maximum possible options combined with special discount offers. The basic market strategy followed by the officedepot.com to keep the customers intact and at the same time providing satisfaction is: Intelligent Search Facilities an amazingly easy way to locate the correct product every time Bulletin Board an effective online communication tool to reach all end users with important information User set-up and Management Office Depot Online is a self service solution putting our customers in the driving seat Controls tailored approval processes and budgeting are available to help you to manage your business Multiple Shopping lists list all your favourite items in one place to create your orders with 10. Conclusion Officedepot.com is one of the finest examples of the business-to-customer e-commerce model. The officedepot.com was introduced by Office Depot in order to meet the increasing requirements with the rapid growth of the Internet. The website officedepot.com is a click and mortar kind with inclusion of brick and mortar catalogue and thus increasing the options available to select from. The revenue generated is simply through the selling of the products. Officedepot.com does face stiff competition but with the kind of infrastructure and service it is being able to attract customers to itself. 11. References http://www.officedepot.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_value_proposition http://www.living2xcess.com/2010/06/office-depot-strategic-analysis_01.html http://www.slideshare.net/socialcoop/ebusiness-models http://www.buzzle.com/articles/b2c-marketing-a-guide-to-business-to-consumer-marketing.html

Good Governance Essay

Good Governance has 8 major characteristics. It is participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and follows the rule of law. It assures that corruption is minimized, the views of minorities are taken into account and that the voices of the most vulnerable in society are heard in decision-making. It is also responsive to the present and future needs of society. But there is one characteristic I like most, it is the Accountability. Accountability is a key requirement of good governance. Not only governmental institutions but also the private sector and civil society organizations must be accountable to the public and to their institutional stakeholders. Who is accountable to who varies depending on whether decisions or actions taken are internal or external to an organization or institution. In general an organization or an institution is accountable to those who will be affected by its decisions or actions. Accountability cannot be enforced without transparency and the rule of law. Maybe some of you will ask why is accountability important to Governance? It is because it evaluates the ongoing effectiveness of public officials or public bodies ensures that they are performing to their full potential, providing value for money in the provision of public services, instilling confidence in the government and being responsive to the community they are meant to be serving. Being accountable is also being liable, responsible for every person that affects your decision. For example, me as a Student leader we are here to serve students, to fight for their rights. Therefore, we must consider first the sake of the students before we make a decision. Because when we took our positions there is a corresponding responsibility that we must face. Reproductive Health Bill informally known as the RH Bill, are proposed laws in the Republic of the Philippines aiming to guarantee universal access to methods of contraception, fertility control, sexual education, and maternal care. For sure you are wondering why this issue is in this essay, well I believe this issue is related on being accountable. Why? Did government even consider that our country is well known to be a religious country? That, in every time they use those contraceptives they are actually killing an innocent life? They always say that this is the only way to surpass, lessen poverty. But it’s actually wrong, do they consider the effect of this or should I say to they consider themselves accountable/liable for this? Corruption is definitely one of the problems seen by the citizen and the government as well. There have been lots of controversies relative to government officials being involved with money issues. The thing is that even though there are hearings and investigations, the truth never seems to come out–whether it’s positive or negative news. Poverty and employment would also be among the problems. There are more people that are going hungry. Government and Us are all accountable to it. Why? We as a citizen we can make a living among ourselves because at the end of the day we are still the driver of our own life. But, as a citizen we voted those who are on the position now because we believe that they will minimize our burdens. At the point that we elect them they are already accountable. But after they got what they want all their promises turn to trash. They do things without even considering us. In the end, nothings happen. Accountability or being accountable can be achieved by putting and doing all our jobs in our hearts. Yes, it’s hard but we chose to be in this place all we need to do is face it effectively and do the best we can for the better. Don’t be scared to commit mistakes because those are our experiences and lesson learned. Remember, think first before you make a decision.

Identifying Community Resources for Mental Health Essay

Firstly regarding my client that has agreed to substance abuse treatment for 30 days I discovered through research that the following programs would be recommended: The Orchard Recovery and Addiction Treatment Center located at 811 Grafton Road, Bowen Island, BC V0N 1G2 and available at http://www.orchardrecovery.com/. Provides â€Å"Detox, Primary Care (10-, 28- and 42-day residential treatment), Sober Living (three to 12 months of second-stage residential treatment) and ongoing Alumni Services and Aftercare programs† for men and women suffering from addicition. Also another available treatment option is LDR Holistic Addiction Wellness Centre located at 5724 Glover Rd, Langley, BC V3A 4H8and available at http://www.holisticdrugrehab.org/provides drug rehab for men only centers and rehab treatment for women only. After treatment the recommendation would be follow u support groups such as AA. This resource is funded by Alcoholics Anonymous by The Greater Vancouver Intergroup Society located at 3457 Kingsway Vancouver, B.C., V5R 5L5 and meeting times are located at on the internet at http://www.vancouveraa.ca/index.php?option=com_meetings&Itemid=37&task=show. Either treatment facility and aftercare with AA would be a good treatment option because it address’s the clients need for substance abuse treatment and is paid for by Canadian health insurance, so there is minimal out of pocket cost to the client. It is essential to have aftercare to be successful which is why AA is appropriate. Regarding my client’s mother that was recently diagnosed with terminal cancer. The following hospice programs would be recommended: Victoria Hospice Society located at 1952 Bay Street, Victoria, BC V8R 1J8 and reachable at http://www.victoriahospice.org/welcome-victoria-hospice. Care is offered in patients’ homes, within their 17-bed in-patient unit, and as specific medic al consultation to patients in other health care facilities. Clientele includes people that are living with a progressive, life-threatening illness. They must live in an area of Greater Victoria served by Victoria Hospice. They must have a family physician and the physician agrees with registration. Their goal of care is palliative and comfort-oriented, rather than curative treatments. They reside in their own home or in an Assisted Living facility once accepted into the program. Another hospice program is at Laurel Place located at 9688 137A St, Surrey, BC V3T 4H9 http://www.surreyhospice.com/counselling/hospice-palliative-care. They offer Hospice palliative care for anyone facing a life-threatening illness and they provide physical, emotional, and spiritual care and support for individuals and their loved ones at home, in hospitals, in nursing homes or in special hospice facilities. Regarding my client who disclosed in counseling that she was a victim of childhood sexual abuse. I would recommend Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse located at 2420 Mary Hill Road, Port Coquitlam, B.C., and V3C. They provide support and therapy with trained facilitators for women who have experienced sexual abuse as children. This is appropriate for my client to be involved in group therapy to begin her process of recovery while feeling connected and supported by a group of other survivors. | Resources: Surrey Hospice Resource Center. (2012). Hospice and Palliative Care. Retrieved from http://www.surreyhospice.com/counselling/hospice-palliative-care Victoria Hospice. (2012). Patients and Families. Retrieved from http://www.victoriahospice.org/welcome-victoria-hospice The Greater Vancouver Intergroup Society. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.vancouveraa.ca/index.php?option=com_meetings&Itemid=37&task=show LDR Holistic Addiction Wellness Centre. (2012). Drug Rehabilitation Canada. Retrieved from http://www.holisticdrugrehab.org/

The Life Of Sarah And Hagar, Or Jezebel And Rahab Today

How does one read the story of Sarah and Hagar, or Jezebel and Rahab today, if one is a woman reader situated in a postcolonial society? This question animates Judith E. McKinlay’s Reframing Her: Biblical Women in Postcolonial Focus. In this text, McKinlay takes different biblical women’s narrative and gives them agency. McKinaly opens this text from both with a feminist hermeneutic and a postcolonial criticism that helps to shape the context and location for the women she will explore and also her own personal context. One of the things I most appreciated about the opening us this book is the location in which she situates herself. She is a New Zealander, a Pakeha, which is described by the people of Maori, for people who are not Maori. Her narrative becomes critical in how she shapes these biblical women who are considered outsiders from those within. Location and identity politics becomes a critical theme within this text. I can remember Historian Vincent Harding who would open his class asking everyone to identify who they were and where they were from. At the time, I never understood why that was necessarily, but as a historian, I understand to know who we are and where we are from shapes our context. This text was helpful in helping me to understand how to relate to different people with different biblical understandings. In this text, McKinlay critically reflects within her culture (New Zealand) and how they come to understand Christianity and their interpretation