The evolving nature of masculine and feminine roles in relationships Research Paper

The evolving nature of masculine and feminine roles in relationships - Research Paper Example Thornton, Axinn, and Xie observe that there are emerging cases where couples prefer cohabitation to legalised marriages based on their personal experiences, circumstances attitudes and family history (Thornton, Axinn, and Xie 36). Masculinity and femininity are socially determined components of gender. They define behaviours and characteristics observable in either male or female beings. Many times masculinity is associated with maleness while femininity is associated with femaleness Masculinity and femininity being a component of gender is a complex issue. According to Lippa, the concepts surrounding the subject of masculinity and femininity transform over time. Some of the factors responsible for these changes include family influences, biological influences, social influences, cultural influences, peer influences and individual feelings and influences. There is proving that parental socialization of boys and girls in interaction with biological predispositions defines how boys and girls interact with their peers. These interactions determine the femininity or masculinity characteristics that children adopt during their development (Lippa 187). There has been a transformation in the social perceptions of what it means to be feminine. Traditionally femininity entails being nice, submissive, unengaged and reliance. Masculinity and femininity determine the interaction among peers. Masculinity and femininity has also been associated with personal interest. According to psychologists individuals who exhibit masculine characteristics tend to show interest in mechanical and scientific subjects whereas individuals exhibiting feminine characteristics enjoy cultural and art related subjects (Lippa 44). Lippa argued that there are arguments that femininity is considered good for men and masculinity is considered good for women. This concept stands to explain the evolving nature of masculinity and femininity into instrumental traits and expressive traits. Instrumental tr aits include independence, dominance, assertiveness, and leadership abilities whereas expressive traits include sympathy, warmth, sensitivity and compassion. The instrumental traits define masculinity whereas the expressive traits define femininity. The instrumental traits explain why there are women who take up huge roles like taking care of the family, pursuing competitive such as managerial positions and politics. Individuals with expressive traits are considered feminine (Lippa 45). Men who possess expressive traits tend conform to feminine roles. Men who possess expressive traits taking up careers that are considered feminine such as nursing, teaching, and art related careers. Men with expressive traits have no problem raising taking care of the family while their women work to provide for the family. Roughgarden states that culture and society are responsible for imposing on individuals the appropriate way of expressing their sexual identity. According to Roughgarden masculini ty and femininity defines appearance, and behaviour humans. Roughgarden states that masculinity and femininity determines how an organism carious out a sexual role. Biologically masculinity and femininity differentiates the the characteristics possessed by males and females. However, Roughgarden points out the cross gender manifestation and behaviour is acceptable (Roughgarden 28). Roughgarden

Questions wk5 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Questions wk5 - Essay Example This policy would help companies to utilize local knowledge as much as possible so that the company’s business prospects in the host country can be enhanced. This policy gives more importance to host country norms. It also helps companies to reduce labour cost considerably since in most of the cases the labour cost in the host country would be lesser than that in the home country. Geocentric staffing approach is implemented in global and transnational companies. It helps companies to get the services of best personnel all the time irrespective of the country of origin of the employees. It gives lot of flexibility to the staffing policy. The major disadvantage of the ethnocentric approach is that it may produce anger and cultural conflicts in the business units in the host country. Moreover, this strategy is suitable only for international companies. The major disadvantage of polycentric staffing policy is lack of career growth and opportunities to the employees. It may also is olate the headquarter from subsidiaries. Geocentric staffing policy is highly expensive as far as implementation is concerned. Moreover, immigration policies in the host and home countries may limit the exchange of workforce. This strategy is not at all suitable for domestic firms. Link between an international business's strategy and its human resource management policies, particularly with regard to the use of expatriate employees and their pay scale The utilization of expatriate employee force is necessary for international companies to manage their business activities successfully in overseas countries. For example, it is impossible for Microsoft or Apple Inc to manage its activities in India with the help of Americans alone. Only the Indians know their market well and hence their service is vital for Microsoft or Apple to build their business strategies in India. Moreover, labour cost in India is extremely low compared to that in America. Under such circumstances, I would be su icidal for Microsoft or Apple to bring workforce from America to India to manage their business activities there. It should be noted that all the companies are currently trying to establish business units, especially manufacturing units in cheap labour oriented countries. This strategy would help such companies to stay competitive in international market. It should be noted that prominent Japanese and American companies have manufacturing units in China at present. For example majority of the Sony products are currently manufactured in China even though the origin of Sony is in Japan. While operating cross culturally, HR managers should make sure that the employees on deputation to the host country have adequate exposure to the cultural norms in the target country. HR Management of local work force is extremely different from the HR management of international or cross cultural workforce. Most of the international organizations are keen in keeping a diverse workforce. HR managers sh ould make sure that the interests of the diverse workforce never make any conflicts in the workplace. In what ways can organized labour constrain the strategic choices of an international business? How can an international business limit these constraints? â€Å"Organized labor has attempted to (i) set-up its own international

Network operating systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Network operating systems - Essay Example Novell was licensing Novell Directory Services to all comers, the idea being to seed the market and make NDS a de facto standard that will increase demand for Novell's directory-enabled applications. While these licensing deals didn't expected to produce much revenue at this point, that might change down the road if third parties start including NDS in products instead of building their own directories. As Robert Harbison says, "That's where Microsoft is really great. Microsoft shipped NT 4.0 with a sampler CD full of third-party applications from its ISVs. Novell has to do a lot more to help promote NDS applications." Distinguishing feature of Novell's approach to network operating systems is understanding of importance of middleware technologies, for example NDS' unparalleled cross-platform support is particularly appealing to Tivoli. "Microsoft has traditionally misunderstood the importance of certain middleware technologies and how important it is for them to be cross-platform in nature," says Tom Bishop. "Active Directory is fine for pure NT shops, but Novell's NDS strategy has some real appeal in the more heterogeneous environments that we target." It is mentioned by Breidenbach that NDS is now available on Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX, IBM's AIX, Caldera's Linux and The Santa Cruz Operation's Unix, Sun Solaris and IBM's S/390. NT is already supported by NDS, but only in environments with at least one NetWare server. A version of NDS that runs directly on NT without NetWare was due out in summer of 1999; it would enable users to build pure NT networks but still employ NDS. This approach of Novell differs a lot from Microsoft's Active Directory Technology that is available only for Windows platform. As a result, Novell's NDS can be implemented on various operating systems but do not help to promote Novell's operating system Novell Netware, while software products of Microsoft run only in Microsoft Windows environment. Another distinguishing feature of Novell's approach to network operating systems is collaboration with switch vendors. As Breidenbach writes, part of Novell's strategy for boosting NDS' role in enterprise nets is getting switch vendors on board. The company has been scoring big with the likes of Lucent, Nortel Networks and Cisco announcing varying degrees of support for NDS. At the same time Microsoft do not work with switch vendors so close. 2 Given all this good technical stuff, why is Novell close to bankruptcy and Microsoft Networks are taking over the planet I think that the main reason of Novell's difficult financial situation is thoughtless marketing strategy. It was a mistake trying to enter desktop operating systems market. Failure in this attempt had caused loss of trust of many potential customers. Breidenbach writes about this in the article. "Novell was on top and got dethroned," says high-tech marketing guru Geoffrey Moore. "When that happens, the market is extremely reluctant to reenfranchise such a company, even if it has the best product." "And the number of ISVs is meaningless," Moore adds. "The issue is what the power players are doing. Cisco and Microsoft have the strongest positions, so a solution that doesn't have their endorsement isn't likely to get very

Wonderland Hotel Quality Management Case Study Essay Example for Free

Wonderland Hotel Quality Management Case Study Essay John Chan, Wonderland Hotel’s general manager, has a major public relations problem related to a banquet for TC International that was a complete disaster. The Vice President of TC International is extremely disappointed and upset about the entire banquet. The Vice President felt that every aspect of the banquet from the cocktail reception, to the table setup and flowers, to the food and drinks, to the sound system and photographer were filled with problems and that the Wonderland Hotel had let TC International down badly. After speaking with internal and external players, John Chan discovered that a comedy of errors and miscommunications occurred to render the banquet a failure. First, the technical manager of the PA system was not given enough time to wire the tables because he had to wait for the hotel staff to clear the tables for them. The hotel services manager claimed that he was never told about the type of flowers TC International requested and that the technical group moved the flowers near a heat outlet, virtually destroying the flowers. The conference manager claimed a conference checklist was not supplied to him; therefore he was unaware of the need for video equipment. The head chef and waiter felt the entire evening schedule ran late and that they were both unable to produce adequate food and service due to delays caused by other vendors such as the electricians. Finally, the photographer claimed the conference manager had only booked him for half an hour at 10pm and that he had another booking shortly after. When the photographer arrived, TC International was still in the middle of the meal and the photographer had to leave to attend the other engagement. Had the photographer been aware of the situation, he could have arranged for a partner to stay later. The TC International banquet was a disaster due to lack of leadership, organization, and communication. Also contributing to the failure was a lack of accepting responsibility by the customers and suppliers involved. The external customer is TC International, who is paying a large fee to have a superior banquet executed by Wonderland Hotel. The external supplier is the photographer, who need to be kept informed about time changes in the event scheduling and who should have let the conference manager know of his time limitations due to other engagements. The internal suppliers are the technical manager, hotel services manager, conference manager, and the head chef and waiter. Each of the internal suppliers needs to have time scheduled appropriately to manage each individual responsibility. The internal suppliers each claimed to have been restricted by another internal supplier who infringed on the time each supplier needed to provide superior service. Due to lack of communication and leadership, each internal and external supplier was unaware of the overall affect of time delays and therefore no action was taken to correct the long line of mistakes that contributed to the banquet failure. To prevent similar disasters from occurring in the future, Wonderland Hotel should formulate a Total Quality Management (TQM) strategy. TQM is a management strategy in which an awareness of quality is known in all organizational processes that will lead to increased customer satisfaction (wikipedia, 2007). A key component of TQM is that there is an accountability standard in which every player in the organization holds and understands responsibility to do their part in attaining superior customer satisfaction. In Wonderland Hotel’s case, internal suppliers would understand the need to step up and efficiently organize large events. Each supplier would understand the need for timely delivery of services and quality that would ensure event success. Through increased communication, external suppliers and customers would be educated in their own responsibilities to make the event run smoothly. For example, TC International would be help accountable for communicating all their needs and desires for the event and the photographer would be expected to be available even in the event of a delay in the schedule. All event customers and suppliers would feel a sense of inward responsibility to make the event a success instead of focusing external blame for any problems that occur. Reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Quality_Management

Language Creativity in Everyday Conversation

Language Creativity in Everyday Conversation Transcribe the extract from CD-ROM1, Band 6: Kitchen Floor. Using this data and relevant concepts and theories from E301, discuss the extent to which language creativity can be identified in everyday conversation in English. Undid the paper ((laughter)) and (like) (.) put a little bit of salt on and I handed them to him you know and he looked at me and he didnt DARE say anything so he had to SIT and eat it with his fingers ((laughter)) which he HATES (.) But I was going to make a point of the fact that I was not going to put it on a plate and do the whole BIT and make a (his tea) [and that [like Charles when I was doing the kitchen floor you seeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ [he totally // was the one who started it // said that I was mad to take on the job (.) I wouldnt do it (.) (Yeah) and he wasnt gonna help (.) LEANING on the door while he said that ((laughter)) (speech inaudible) (.) He said (1.0) Im not gonna help you with this (.) If youre gonna do it youre doing it on your own // yeah // (.) I said yeah okay (.) Theres nothing I like more than a challenge (.) [did he actually SAY it like that (.) And he actually DID do that (.) He actually stood and LEANED // yeah // against the door (.) (*inaudible*) on the other side of the kitchen telling me (.) he was depressed (.) ((laughter)) Im sweating away ((laughter)) he was off his sleeping tablets he was going to take ((laughter)) (speech inaudible) he was gonna do it on the floor ((laughter)) and meanwhile ((xxxxxxxxxxx)) ((laughter)) Its awful isnt it (.) Im laughing too much ((xxxxxxxxxxx)) Transcription conventions: (( )) = background noises (.) = brief pause [ = interruption // = speech overlap (1.0) = pause longer than half a second CAPS = emphasis Xxxxxxxxxxx = inaudible speech In this assignment, I will try to discuss relevant ideas that have come up in the course materials so far, particularly in Carters book, analyse features of this language data and in conclusion summarise my own views on creativity that are found in everyday language with reference to the data sample. First I shall attempt to analyse the transcript from the E301 audio material and later explain how this fits in with the ideas of Carter. From what I can tell, the transcript is basically a chit-chat between three women, who seem to be more than colleagues, so actually three friends. What they are talking about was rather hard to understand because firstly, they all sound the same and secondly as it is informal talk the facilitating of turn-taking is not put very clearly and instances of interruption and laughter add to the confusion. Spoken creativity may be more prevalent in certain types of social context and within certain types of interpersonal relationship. (Carter p. 147) I will also research Carters idea on the CANCODE corpus that he has linked to creativity in verbal repetition and a wide range of figures of speech like idiom, proverbs and hyperbole. According to Carter, it is not possible to define creativity an a wholly formalist way because in spoken interaction, what counts as creative use can vary according to the dynamic established as part of the dialogue. But Sacks argues that ordinary talk has to be achieved and is a human, social and creative accomplishment which is far from being ordinary. Some speech figures pass unnoticed as normal, routine and even pre-formulated units and in some cases, the same figures are drawn to the attention of the speakers. The purpose of creative language in everyday common speech is highly varied and may include: offering a new way of seeing the content of a message; making humorous remarks; underlining what is communicated; expressing a particular attitude; including negative and adversarial attitudes; making the speakers identity more manifest; playing with language form to entertain others; ending one bit of talk and starting another or simply oiling the wheels of the conversation. (Carter, p.148) Creativity almost always depends on interpretation of intentions and inferences of the participants. It is perhaps best to start by explaining how Carters model of literariness is used for the analysis because the results reveal that speech is dependant on itself and includes examples of stylistic and lexical features, words of contrast at text and sound level, parallelism, evocative descriptive language and cross-sentential repetition. The Greece Tourist Guide for example is dependant on medium and carries examples of archaic and syntactic features, emotive action words, evocative descriptive language, polysemy and displaced interaction. To put it bluntly, it is very hard, not to say difficult to measure which text is more literary except if the two texts have an identical genre. At this point I am now going to give a definition of literary language or literariness. Literary language refers to a particular language or language variety used in literature and also refers to a type of language a style or mode of expression associated with literary genres such as poetry, narrative fiction or drama, whilst literariness refers to the quality of literature or literary language. If used to refer to language in more everyday context, these terms will tend to focus on continuity with literature, such as Carters argument about a cline of literariness. (Carter, 2004) There is something in literariness known as clines. This term has a similar meaning to continuum and refers to relations along a particular dimension that are a matter of degree rather than having discrete cut-off points. Therefore this would suggest then that literariness is a matter of degree. However there is a problem suggesting that these are gradations or degrees of literariness in texts and how to measure it. As far as linguistic forms, it would seem unreasonable just to total the number of creative features used in a particular text. Whether the text is considered to be literary will not derive from the presence of more or fewer literary features and the concept of a cline or sets of clines may suggest a level of precision in the identification of literariness that is not able to be attained in practice. I now turn to Carters models of literariness. Discussing the relationship between everyday linguistic creativity and literary language brings forward the question what literary language actually is. Carter (1999) has identified three models: two established models to which he refers to as an inherency model and a socio-cultural model and more recently, a cognitive model. The inherency model sees literariness as embedding in certain properties of language: so literary language is distinct from more practical uses of language where language itself is highlighted. Jakobson (1960:356) has perceived this as the poetic function of language which focuses on the message for its own sake. This will be termed self-referential language and is language that will be referring partly to itself and not simply to entities in the external world that are the object of discussion. Even though the poetic function is quite evident in many of the examples, the researcher from whom I got this information from is of the opinion that it is the dominant, determining function of verbal art. A socio-cultural model sees literariness as socially and culturally determined; meaning it would be drawing attention to the fact that conceptions of literature vary historically and culturally. According to Eagelton, (1996) there is nothing distinctive about literary language and any text can be seen as literature if it declared by institutions or if people read it as such. Anthropological studies of literary performances in various cultural contexts also tend to take a socio-cultural view on literariness. Many studies focus on the performance in its traditional literary or theatrical sense in order to include public displays to artistic activity that are responded to aesthetically by an audience, like story-telling, song, dance or drama. However the notion is not uncommonly extended to more everyday activity in recognition of the fact that there are certain parallels between everyday and literary performance: that this notion of performance can also describe what often is found in the most ordinary of encounters, like when social actors exhibit particular attention in the delivery of a message. Cognitive models relate literary language to mental processes and according to Tannens suggestion (1989) that linguistic repetition derives from a basic human drive to repeat as a kind of cognitive argument. Cook (1994) claims that literary texts have an effect on the mind and help us to think in new ways and refresh and change our mental representations of the world: But such benefits are not confined to established literature and Cook has similar thing to say about everyday creativity or language play. In addition, Gibbs (1994) claims that human language and human understanding often are metaphorical, concluding that literary metaphor carries on and extends everyday metaphorical notions. For Carter (1999) there was some value in both inherency and socio-cultural models, and in the case of his own examples is identifies formally and in this sense is close to an inherency model. However, there is one way to find examples of verbal art in his corpus, and that is to search for instances of laughter. What people respond to as artful is consistent with a socio-cultural model and in Carters view; a cognitive model is beneficial by helping explain the prevalence of creativity in everyday language. The argument is that literariness should be seen as a cline or a series of clines and is appropriate to see texts as more or less literary rather than in terms of an opposition between literary and non-literary language. There are two main levels of creative interactions. The first is the pattern re-forming feature which is more overt, has presentational uses of figures of speech, open displays of metaphoric invention, punning, uses of idioms and departures from expected idiomatic formulations. The second pattern-forming feature is less overt, may have subconscious and subliminal repetition; parallelisms, echoes and related matchings which often result in expressions of affective convergence in implicit signals of intimacy and symmetries of feelings. Linguistic creativity is less likely to occur in contexts which involve a one-way process of information provision or professional interaction in which the main purpose is transactional and where relations between participants in a particular context might be more asymmetrical. Mapping out probabilistic in creativity onto social context is not easy to capture diagrammatically and it does not seem to allow exceptions. So it is likely that creativity will occur in informal situations. Like when colleagues working together in a department store while decorating a window together or when one discovers that the intimacy of the relationship lighten the task until the discourse becomes more populated with wordplay and creative uses of language. So, what does this tell us about creative language? It tells us four main points. Firstly, creative language use cant be captured or described or evaluated wholly by formalistic definitions. Creative functions will vary according to speakers evolving relationships, the nature of the external task demands and the changing character of social context and speech genres. Secondly, creativity is probabilistic. Creative language is more likely to occur in some contexts and in some kinds of interpersonal contact rather than in others. It would be defined with reference to an account of forms and functions but its purposes and uptake depend on a dynamic of locally negotiated processes and specific instances. These can be seen as from the outside but their meaning can only be speculated upon. This means that paradoxically, creativity is a definitely emergent, instantial category of language. Thirdly, we recognize that creativity in context is valuable but there are also many factors which constitute a context and different contextual frames which are able to work within a single context. For example humour can be a significant strategic figure which crosses over into other categorial boundaries. And fourthly, this would mean that creativity is best captured and discussed with the mind fixed on clines and continua with many points of overlap. Like in the example of the CANCODE corpus: generally speaking it is lacking in examples of language used in a working environment and in the context of business organisations. Humour is used to challenge particular practices and the role of people who have a higher position in a company. The way it works is by allowing a potentially literal statement to be made by non-literal means. But in a preliminary observation, CANCODE and pattern forming is a more female characteristic. Compared to men, women are more spontaneously creative in talk but this need to be researched more as women are not seen as to be openly contestive, adversarial or pattern-reforming in language use or to strategically use humour. As we can see, there are many ways we can identify creativity in spoken language, whether it is chit-chat between friends or in literature or even in literary contexts, creativity had many faces. Creativity can also be seen as a method on how we learn something new, for example in order to remember a progression of numbers you simply recall it by turning it into a song like Mary Had A Little Lamb. That way for example, a child from primary school would be able to remember the number progression of the number 4 by singing the tune of Mary Had A Little Lamb in his head. This method of creativity was made up for me by my mom who tried to help me in my math studies in primary school as it was my worst subject in my entire school career. Needless to say, I passed the math test with that method in primary school and even find myself using similar methods for my Open University study even today, even though it has changed a bit, but the effect has remained the same.

The Dismal Washington Square, by Henry James :: Washington Square Henry James

The Dismal Washington Square, by Henry James Curiosity about how Washington Square was received at the time it was written lead me to search for a review done at the time the book was published. Expecting that the late nineteenth century reader would have a different view of the work than a late twentieth century reader, it came as a surprise to find that an anonymous review in the February 1881 issue of Spectator related views similar to my own. The reviewer described the book as "dismal," filled with a "leaden-coloured group of emotions," while still conveying a "genius" for "painting character, and genius for conceiving unalloyed dismalness of effect, without tragedy and without comedy" (Gard 88-90). While I agree that the book was dismal and lacked a certain depth of emotion, I did not think it was without tragedy in the character of Catherine, or comedy courtesy of Aunt Penniman. The anonymous reviewer asks the question: "why is the whole painted against that blank, leaden sky, not merely of absolute hopelessness, but absolute indifference to hope?" (Gard 89) To me, this clearly referred to Catherine for whom hope is an alien concept. Her everlasting endeavors to please her father who perceived her as inferior because of her gender and her singular lack of distinction, eliminated hope from her reservoir of emotions. The tug-of-war between Townsend and her father over Catherine, not for her own sake, but for money, robbed "her of her admiration for her father" (Gard 89), and a fickle fiancà ©e. These loses she suffered behind "her ancient facility for silence" (James 216). Catherine lived her life trying to please others in a bid for love and approval, and ended up without love from anyone or the hope of acquiring it, which made her a tragic figure. Others might consider having to live with Aunt Penniman ad infinitum to be a tragedy. Aunt Penniman did, however, offer some moments of comic relief with her "silly love of intrigue" (Gard 89) and her romantic flights of fancy. Who could not be amused by Aunt Penniman describing Morris Townsend as an "imperious" man "of great force of character," and saying to herself , "That's the sort of husband I should have had!" (James 38) The anonymous reviewer indicts James as showing genius in creating his characters, but showing no caring for their fate, which leads to his final comment on the book, "If you desire a consummately clever study of perfect dreariness, you have it in

Synopsis on Customer Relationship Management

G. PULLAIAH COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY, KURNOOL MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION 2012-2013 SYNOPSIS REPORT On A STUDY ON CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT WITH REFERENCE TO M. S. A. MOTORS, KURNOOL Submitted by C. VENKATA NAGA SINDOOR Roll no: 11AT1E0052 Under the guidance of K. NAGAIAH, MBA Assistant Professor. INDEX| 1. | Introduction| | 2. | Objectives of the Study| | 3. | Need for the Study| | 4. | Scope of the Study| | 5. | Research * Source of data * Procedure of sample size| | 6. | Limitation of the Study| | 7. Company details| | Synopsis Approval Letter This is to certify that Mr. C. Venkata Naga Sindoor, Reg. No 11AT1E0052 submitted the synopsis report entitled â€Å"A Study on Customer Relationship Management with reference to M. S. A. Motors, Kurnool in fulfillment for the award of Master of Business Administration to G. Pullaiah College of Engineering and Technology is a record of bonafide work carried out by him under my guidance and supervision. Signature of t he Guide Signature of the HOD IntroductionRelationship building with customers is now accepted as over-riding goal of marketing and of the business as a whole. In service industries, the goal is especially emphasized since a repeat customer is believed to cost merely a fraction of what needs to be spent in servicing a new customer is service transaction. It is believed that relationships flourish when marketers play the book, meet customers. core expectations and exceed in respect of other features of their total offering. Service firms have been the pioneers in adopting the practice of Customer Relationship Management practices.Indian banking industry has witnessed rapid development in recent past with the initiation of financial sector reforms. The thrust of financial sector reforms was to improve efficiency, competitiveness and productivity of the financial system. The entry of new generation private sector banks which provided technology aided services like Internet banking, Mob ile banking, Inter Branch network, etc. , has electrified the banking environment in India and has added a new dimensions to automation in Indian banking. Customer Relationship Management is a vital factor to improve the performance of the banks.Most of the banks in India are now turning to CRM as they are increasingly realizing that the cost of acquiring new customers is for higher than the cost of retaining existing customers. This quest has led to the implementation of CRM in banks. The concept of CRM is in the initial stage of implementation in banks, as getting the CRM philosophy work in a bank is quite complex as well as a challenging task for, its implementation is based on certain key principles, namely, ?The banks must realize that all customers are not equal; Customer profitability varies from person to person; ?Not all customers are evenly desirable for the banks; ?The banks must differentiate their customers based on the „Value Criteria; ?Value is the profit that t he customer adds to the bank account; and ?A more profitable customer is a „High Value customer and a less profitable customer is a „Low Value customer. Changing perception of customer The perception of a customer has drastically changed. Peter Drucker said twenty-five years ago, that the purpose of a business wads to attract and retain a customer.There has been a phenomenal change and paradigm shift towards customer focus during the past five decades in the Indian context, ?1961-1970 Servicing the Customer, ?1971-1980 Satisfying the Customer, ?1981-1990 Pleasing the Customer, ?1991-2000 Delighting the Customer, ?2001 and beyond Relating the Customer. Today, the customer relationship between the banker and customer has come under the sharp focus both the customers? ends. 2. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY * To identify various services offered by MSA motors to consolidate their CRM strategies. To study the customer perception on factors influencing Customer Relationship Manageme nt in MSA motors * To classify the customers opinion on initial strategies, maintenance strategies, technology, service satisfaction and impact of CRM. * To ascertain the perception of show room executives on various aspects of CRM. 3. Need for the study As lifestyles change people begin to have more experiences in banking. There are two consequences of this 1) Customers have different feelings about services provided for them by Show rooms 2)Customers develop higher expectations for their Buying experience. . Scope of the study Scope of this study is it will assist MSA motors to get its own customer relationship management system mirror well and it will get all the important things before eyes to apply all the possible ways to provide a superb service to the customers and accordingly make them loyal and retain them long lasting and also to get new customers to be served. Scopes can be stated in few points as follows * Maintain current/ existing customers. * Achieve new potential cu stomers. * Retain all the customers * Profitability increment Reputation and credibility increment, etc. , 5. Research Methodology Source of the Data: Primary Data 1. Primary data are always original as it is collected by the investigator. 2. Suitability of the primary data will be positive because it has been systematically collected. 3. Primary data are expensive and time consuming. 4. Extra precautions are not required. 5. Primary data are in the shape of raw material. 6. Possibility of personal prejudice. Primary data is collected from interview and questionnaire in this study. Secondary dataSecondary  data, is data collected by someone other than the user. Common sources of secondary data for  social science  include  censuses, organizational records and data collected through qualitative methodologies or  qualitative research. Primary data, by contrast, are collected by the investigator conducting the research. Secondary data analysis saves time that would otherwise be spent collecting data and, particularly in the case of  quantitative data, provides larger and higher-quality  databases  that would be unfeasible for any individual researcher to collect on their own.In addition, analysts of social and economic change consider secondary data essential, since it is impossible to conduct a new survey that can adequately capture past change and or developments. Secondary data is collected from company, newspapers, journals, websites, and from library books. 6. Limitations of the Study * The response from the customer may be biased * Since the sample size is limited, it may lead to the partial true factor about the research. * The information obtained or the collection of data is limited. Due to time constraint the study is restrict to Kurnool onlyCOMPANY DETAILS Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL, formerly known as Maruti Udyog Limited) is a subsidiary of Suzuki Motor Corporation, Japan. MSIL has been producing cars in India since 1983. Maruti ’s revenues totaled approximately 73. 3 billion rupees in 2009-2010. It’s operating profit as of 2009-2010 is 75 billion rupees while its net profit comes to 6. 8 billion rupees. The company has two manufacturing facilities located at Gurgaon and Manesar, south of New Delhi, India, which have an annual combined capability to produce over a 12 lakh (12, 00,000) passenger car units.The company is planning to invest 17 billion rupees in the Manesar plant. Maruti is known for its hatchback cars, especially the Maruti 800. Other popular hatchback models include the Maruti Zen and the Alto. It offers fourteen brands and over one hundred and fifty variants – Maruti 800, Omni, Eeco, Alto, Alto-K10, A-star, WagonR, Swift, Ritz and Estilo, Gypsy, SUV Grand Vitara, sedans SX4 and Swift DZire. Maruti Suzuki introduced factory fitted CNG option on 5 models across vehicle segments. These include Eeco, Alto, Estilo, Wagon R and Sx4.Maruti Suzuki has an employee strength over 7 ,600 (as at end March 2010). In 2009-10, the company sold a record 10,18,365 units including 1,47,575 units which we exported primarily to Europe, the remaining 870,790 sold in India. In the third quarter of 2009-2010, the company sold 258, 026 units. Thus, in March 2010, Maruti Suzuki had a India market share of 53. 3 per cent of the Indian passenger car market of 16,33,752 passenger car units. Maruti Suzuki will be investing around Rs. 1,250 crore (Rs 12. 5 billion) on capacity expansion of the K-series engines between 2010 and 2012.The expanded annual capacity will be over 7 lakh units from the present 5 lakh units of K-series engine cars. This will be a progressive investment to be completed by 2012. It has a sales network is 802 centers in 555 towns and cities across India. The customer service support network comprises of 2,740 workshops in over 1,335 towns and cities. In 2008, Maruti Suzuki India Limited, unveiled a National Road Safety Mission under which it would train 500, 000 people in safe driving in 3 years at 61 Maruti Driving Schools and 4 Institutes of Driving Training and Research (IDTR) in Delhi, Dehradun and Vadodara. HISTORYIn 1981, Maruti was launched. The company was started by the Government of India and was initially called Maruti Technical Services Private Limited. The first Managing Director of the company was Sanjay Gandhi, late-Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s son. During the period of 1985 to 1996, a few other significant developments took place including Suzuki taking up 50% stake in Maruti, leading to a 50-50 joint venture between Maruti and the Government of India and over 60 per cent of its parts being produced in India leading to lower costs of production as the parts didn’t have to be imported from abroad.When asked why Suzuki was chosen as the partner of this established corporation, the chairman of Maruti, Mr. R. C Bhargava said that the company went to Japan and none of the companies out of Nissan, Mitsub ishi and Daihatsu were ready to bring 40 per cent equity in India. Suzuki was the only company which agreed to bring 26 per cent equity in India and raise it to 40 per cent thereafter. The first car that the company produced was a four-door Maruti 800 and the second car that the company produced was a Multi-Utility Vehicle called the Omni. Between 1994 and 1996 Maruti released the Esteem, the Gypsy, the Omni, the Gypsy King, Zen and Esteem.It also opened a second plant in Manesar whose capacity at the time of opening was 2,00,000 units. In 2000 Maruti launched a call center. This was the first time a car company had ever launched a call center in India. In this year, Maruti setup a website for its Wagon-R car, introduced a new model of the Zen, got the IRTE National Award for its safety initiative, traffic management and environment protection, launched the Baleno and the Wagon R with electric power steering, joined hands with Sumitomo for providing after-sales service and introduce d the Suzuki Alto. The Gurgaon plant had stopped production due to a strike by the employees.Maruti introduced its first CNG car in 2001. In the same year Maruti invested 550 crore rupees in manufacturing cars. In 2002, Maruti launched Maruti Finance to offer financial services like extended warranty and finance for car insurance. It also hiked its car prices and launched the Versa. This was a good year for Maruti in exports as it produced 16,000 cars for an order to Europe. In the next few years Maruti got into collaboration with various companies to launch car-selling schemes. They partnered with State Bank of India to launch a scheme where each branch of the bank would sell a Maruti car.The company also tied-up with Reliance Industries Limited for lease and fleet management. This was the same year Kumar Mangalam Birla joined Maruti as an independent director. From 2005 – 2007 Maruti became the market leader of Indian cars and in 2006 unveiled the new Wagon-R in Punjab. In 2007, Maruti launched the SX4 sedan. TECHNOLOGY Maruti Suzuki uses an innovative Compressed Natural Gas technology – the Intelligent Gas Port Injection (iGPI) on five of its models – the SX4, Eeco, WagonR, Estilo and Alto. The iGPI technology delivers more power and runs like a petrol-filled engine while achieving fuel-efficiency.The iGPI technology uses injectors for each cylinder and a particular amount of CNG is injection in the engine through gas ports. The Engine Control Unit controls the amount of CNG needed for each ride. Two components used by Maruti in cars such as the Maruti Omni to help increase fuel economy are the crankshaft sensor and knock sensor. They control the ignition timing and fuel injection. The crank shaft is a part of the car’s engine that translates its linear motion into rotation. The sensor is part of the internal combustion engine which monitors the position and rotational speed of the crankshaft.The knock sensor is a part thatâ€⠄¢s linked to the car’s engine-when the car’s engine is not working it knocks on it and usually you hear the knocking sound. The knock sensor will send a signal to the Powercontrol Car Module (PCM). The Maruti Swift has a Direct Diesel Injection System engine. This engine has efficient combustion, higher torque and cleaner emissions. It is an extremely light engine and has a 75 bhp, 190 Nm of torque capacity. It has a five-step multi-injection technology that makes the car run more smoothly than other cars.It also has a Double Over Head Camshaft that gives the engine a quick run. It also has a Chain Drive Timing System. This engine is way better than the Maruti 800 engine which has a Single Over Head Camshaft and only two valves per cylinder while the Swift has sixteen-valve cylinder. The Maruti Suzuki SX4 has a Variable Valve Timing engine. According to the company, they will use K-Series engines in all car models. India’s largest car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki decided to implement the K-series petrol engine in all the models for at least five years according to a company report.The K-Series engine is a straight four cylinder engine that comes in Single Overhead Camshaft and Double Overhead Camshaft variants. This engine will be made in the Maruti Manesar plant in Haryana for the A-Star car which is produced in India and sold in Europe. The K-Series engine is Euro 4 and Euro 5 compliant and is the most advanced of engines. The engine has a CO2 emission of 109 gm/km and plans to reduce it further. The engine is extremely fuel efficient. ————————————————- Awards & RecognitionAs one of the top Indian brands of cars, Maruti Suzuki has won many national and international awards since it began production. Some of the major accomplishments of Maruti are listed below: 1. Maruti Suzuki Alto received the TNS Voice of Customer Award in 200 8. TNS Global is a market research firm. In the same year Maruti received the CNBC-Autocar India Award in the category Best Value for Money Car for the SX4. It also received the CNBC-Autocar India Best Mid Size Car Award and the CNBC-Autocar India Car of the Viewers’ Choice Award for the SX4.Maruti Suzuki India Limited received The Car Manufacturer of the Year Award in 2008. 2. In 2009, Maruti won the JD Power Asia Pacific Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) Survey award, the JD Power Asia Pacific Sales Satisfaction Index (SSI) Survey award, the Most Preferred Car Brand Award at CNBC AWAAZ Consumer Award, the Golden Peacock Eco-Innovation Award, and the Gold-Award by India Manufacturing Excellence Awards (IMEA). 3. In 2010, Maruti won the CNBC-TV18 Overdrive Manufacturer of the Year Award and the Autocar Manufacturer of the Year Award. 4.Alto’s â€Å"Boondon Mein† campaign won the Silver medal of the prestigious â€Å"Effie Award† in 2006 and 2007. 5. Alto won the â€Å"Car of the Year† and â€Å"Most Exciting New Car of the Year† by India’s automobile magazine in 2000. Some of the international awards that Maruti has won include the following: 1. Japan – It won the Car of the Year award by the Automotive Researchers' ; Journalists' Conference, the 2005-2006 Car of the Year, the Goof Design Award by Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization and the 2005-2006 Carview of the Year Award. 2.Iceland & Ireland – Maruti Suzuki won the Car of the Year 2006 given out by the BIBD Association of Automotive Journalists, the Samperit Irish Car of the Year 2006 given out by the Irish Motoring Writer’s Association. 3. New Zealand and Australia – Maruti won the Fairfax AMI Small Car of the Year Award by Autocar, the National Business Review Small Car of the Year Award by The National Business Review and the 2005 Carsguide Car of the Year. 4. Malaysia – Maruti Swift was the winner in the NST Mastercard Car of the Year 2005 â€Å"Small Car† category. 5.China – Maruti Swift won the 2005 CTV COTY â€Å"Economical Car† by CCTV. ————————————————- International Operations Maruti Suzuki is a global company with over 8,500 employees engaged in sales, customer service, manufacturing, and distribution in many countries across the world. It is partly owned by the government of India and partly owned by the Japanese company, Suzuki Motor Corporation. Suzuki Motor Corporation, the parent company owns 54% of Maruti’s shares. Maruti’s cars are of European style but custom-made to cater to the local markets.Maruti Suzuki has launched the Grand Vitara, SX4 and the Swift as part of the worldwide strategy. Maruti Suzuki not only provides hatchbacks, mid and small level cars but also luxury cars. Maruti Suzuki has also launched another concept car called Kizashi which was showcased in the Frankfurt Motor Show and is now available in India. The Grand Vitara, which is an SUV and Kizashi, which is a sports sedan are imported from Japan as completely built units(CBU). Maruti Suzuki is sold in China by Jiangnan Auto. The company has launched the car at Rs. 1. 24 lakhs.Four companies that produced the Maruti 800 in China are: Chang’an Auto, Jiang Nan, Xi’an Tai and Sichuan Auto Maruti Suzuki also has office in Japan. Indian engineers sometimes travel to Japan to work on Maruti cars and Japanese engineers sometimes travel to India to provide their expertise for Maruti Suzuki. ————————————————- Exports Maruti Suzuki exports entry-level models across the globe to over 100 countries and the focus has been on identifying new markets. The company exports to the United Kingdom, Italy, Hungary, Netherlands, Germ any, Latin America, Africa, Philippines and Indonesia.Along with these countries, Maruti also sells its cars to Algeria, Chile, Sri Lanka and Nepal. The company exported 38,000 passenger cars in 2006-2007, around 6. 4 per cent of its total sales. The car that contributes most to Maruti’s export income is the A-Star model. In 2007, Maruti got an export order of 11,000 units of the Zen Estilo to Indonesia and 1,500 units of the Maruti Alto to the Philippines, become the initial car manufacturer to export to South East Asia. Maruti crossed the cumulative half-a-million export mark in February 2008, becoming the first Indian car company to export half-a-million units.Maruti has tied up with the Mundra post for development of port facilities for export shipments through Pune Car Carriers. Maruti started exporting cars from this post in January 2009. Moving to international markets, Maruti has large export volumes to Latin America and the lesser-developed region of Africa. Marutiâ €™s exports have increased by 60% over the years at these two locations. In 2008, in a joint venture between Maruti Suzuki, Mundra Port and the Special Economic Zone, the company exported 1,00,000 units of the A-Star from the Mundra Port.Even though the company exports to all five continents, Europe makes up 56 per cent of Maruti’s cumulative exports as of February 2011, making it the single largest source of export income for the company. The sales figures for the continent of Europe as of February 2011, by country are given below: – Netherlands – 67,700 units – Italy – 41,000 units – United Kingdom – 34,000 units – Germany – 20,000 units – Hungary – 20,000 units ————————————————- Future Plans On May 11, 2011, Maruti announced its plans to design new car models at its Rohtak Plant in India.Th e new car models will be crafted for the next four years for the Indian and International Market. Maruti is experimenting with new car models in an effort to stay ahead of its competition and will be responsible for 25 per cent of Suzuki, its parent company’s, revenues. In the financial year 2010-2011 Maruti Suzuki reported a net sales figure of 37,522 crore rupees. Maruti will invest in a new plant in Gujarat which will produce 6 million units a year which is being done in an effort to make the company the leader in the car market. The company is having a look at different plants as shown by the Government of India.In another effort, Maruti will introduce four new cars in the Indian market: The mass-market hatchback, a utility vehicle, a new and improved Swift, and a unique SX4. The company plans to release the design of the YE3, the hatchback by June-July 2011 while the car will actually be shown in the Auto Expo 2012. The company plans to design the YE3 without any involve ment of Suzuki which is a major feat since most of its cars have been designed in collaboration with Suzuki in the past. The YE3 will be a four-door, four seat hatchback and will be available in a 600-800cc engine and a five speed manual transmission.The company also plans to launch the Maruti R3 under a different name. The Maruti R3 is a Multi-Utility Vehicle that will come in a Rs. 7 lakhs – Rs. 9 lakhs ex-showroom price and is a six-seater compact van strapped with three rows of seats and rear-hinged rear doors. The car will come in both 1. 2 litre K-Series engines and a 1. 6 litre Variable Valve Timing engine, each of which have been present in the popular models of Swift and SX4. The R3 will compare to an Innova. The company plans to sell it in emerging markets. It will be showcased in the Auto Expo 2012.The company plans to get a diesel engine for the car from Volkswagen. The third new model of Maruti, the new Swift will be launched by July 2011 will a 1. 3 litre multi- jet diesel engine and a 1. 2 litre K-Series engine. The new Swift fall in the Rs. 3. 5 – 5. 5 lakhs bracket depending on the model and approximately 17,000 units will be produced each year. Along with coming up with new cars and new plants, Maruti is also expanding its transportation capacity. The company has forged partnerships for this with the Adani group to set up a mega car terminal at the Mundra port.