Impacts of WeChat on Millennials’ Perceptions and Consumption Behaviors in the Hotel Industry

Social media, known as interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications, has deeply changed and reformed interpersonal communication and business operation with the wide spread of Internet and the development of technology. In the past few years, since mobile apps are becoming more and more popular, the access of social media is not limited to tablet computers only, but is also available for almost all kinds of smart phone devices, such as iPhone, Android, Symbian and so on. The function of social media is not confined to real- time message transmission or information sharing any more. It has expanded to a widely range of features, such as online purchase and payment, e-commerce business, and service for different types of social events. Social media plays an increasingly important role in daily personal life as well as in business activities. People are not merely considered as social media users, but also the component of social media itself. As a result, it is very crucial for people to realize the importance and impacts of social media, especially for those business operators. WeChat (Weixin in Chinses, literally “micro message”) is a cross-platform instant text and voice messaging communication service for multiple mobile devices, developed by Tecent in China, first released in the January of 2011. It is claimed to provide “the new way to connect” and create “a way of life”. It is free to download, install and register, and support all kinds of smart phone platforms with multiple language versions, such as Chinese, English, Japanese, French, and Spanish. WeChat provides its users different ways to communicate and interact with friends innovatively through instant text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, group messaging, lively video sharing, location sharing, money transferring, and contact information sharing. Among all the WeChat users, Millennials is the majority. With the growing-up of Millennials, they are becoming more and more powerful and important to the society and will be the next target segmentation for most of the industries in the very near future. Especially for the hotel industry, the industry that urges to attract Millennials patrons for further substantial development, how to attract Millennials is becoming a critical issue for those hotel operators

Designing a food-as-a-service business: MK

Este projeto de mestrado tem como objetivo o desenvolvimento de um plano de negócios inovador que permitirá a criação de uma nova empresa, com o nome MK. A industria da restauração, como muitas outras, tem vindo a beneficiar da transformação digital que está a transformar a forma como as empresas entregam valor e a forma como os consumidores se relacionam com as marcas e os seus produtos. Com exposição profissional à constante transformação tecnológica e digital, decidimos analisar e projetar um plano que transforma a forma como os consumidores tratam a sua rotina diária e consomem as suas refeições. Combinando experiência, qualidade e sentido de oportunidade a MK consegue, de forma inovadora, ir ao encontro das expectativas dos jovens adultos residentes na grande Lisboa, uma geração que se distingue pelas suas exigência, hábitos de consumo e adaptabilidade digital. Com recurso ao conhecimento adquirido ao longo do mestrado em gestão de empresas, procurei aplicar conceitos chave e metodologias de referência de forma a analisar o mercado português e concorrentes existentes, que, combinado com a validação de mercado serviu o desenho de um plano de marketing capaz de suportar a criação deste novo negócio.This master's project aims to develop an innovative business plan that will allow the creation of a new company, named MK. The catering industry, like many others, has been benefiting from the digital transformation that is transforming the way companies deliver value and the way consumers relate to brands and their products. With professional exposure to the constant technological and digital transformation, we decided to analyze and design a plan that transforms the way consumers treat their daily routine and consume their meals. By combining experience, quality and a sense of opportunity, MK is able to innovatively meet the expectations of young adults living in Greater Lisbon, a generation that is distinguished by its demands, consumption habits and digital adaptability. Using the knowledge gained during my Master´s in Business Administration, we sought to apply key concepts and reference methodologies in order to analyze the Portuguese market and existing competitors, which, combined with market validation, served to design a marketing plan capable of to support the creation of this new business

Evaluating whether a change in organisational structure would improve its competitive advantage

The purpose of this research is to study and analyse the internal and external structure of Ultimate Clean ltd, where I do work. We have put concentration on background of the company in the starting. This information is followed by aim and scope of research, which shows that what is the research question and what is scope of our research. After that Literature review is elaborated under five main subheadings. These subheading gives us deep information about the literature of organisation structure, competitive advantage. After that, Organisational context with internal and external analyse of the company is given which highlight the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of the company. Some external factors like political, economic, social and legal, are also discussed in this report. Then some information is given for method of research that why we use it, where and when it is used. Some limitations are also discussed in this report of method. After this, result section comes. In this section, we discussed deeply about the answers of customers, employees and employer. We prepare a discussion of the result and conclude it wisely. In the end, some recommendations are also given to improve organisational structure of Ultimate Clean ltd. We suggest a new structure for the organisation to develop within company to have a good competitive advantage in market place. A big list of references is also given in the end of this report

ANALYZING CORE DRIVERS OF SOCIETAL CHANGES IN READY TO WEAR GARMENT INDUSTRY OF INDIA

Markets is a social system supplying society’s material needs. In today’s scenario in India, because of fast socio-cultural changes, audiences have high exposures, information and knowledge about trends, availabilities, options and uniqueness of products available and entering the market. Hence businesses need a very careful and cautious handling of the aforesaid fact in strategic planning. Manifestation of dominating societal aspects viz. social media, societal & cultural changes, rise of newer market segments, vulnerable yet aspirational youth and growing consciousness in producers & marketers are propelling the wheel of change in marketing strategies, in Indian garment market in the light of aspects like change in mindset & attitude, changing life styles, quick changing buying & usage behaviors, changing social exposures etc. In this context, companies require to analyze change drivers of the sector to consider changing societal elements and their impact on the target segments in order to frame sustainable marketing strategies. The significance of such “change drivers” has increased in recent years in India, especially after entry and success of “affordable Chinese product” in all the segments , making it essential to understand issues like changing mindsets and societal status of customers. Now such changes require in-depth study, analysis and inclusion in strategic planning to cater and engage the target better. This need of incorporation of changes drivers in strategic planning is studied in context to ready to wear garments sector of India as this sector it is not only about selling the product but it is all about selling a life style under changing customer perception. This study will help in understanding and incorporating changing societal influences to include them in strategic planning, product development and marketing with holistic approach

Factors affecting customer loyalty of different strategic groups in the Vietnamese supermarket sector

The main objective of this research is to investigate factors affecting customer loyalty of different supermarket strategic groups, as the term of strategic groups in the grocery sector appears to have been ignored by most researchers and the topic of comprehensive factors affecting customer loyalty are is under-researched. There were two main phases of emperical research, including expert and supermarket-consumer interviews (Phase One) and questionnaire survey (Phase Two). In particular, there were 3055 questionnaires collected from 17 March 2018 to 27 July 2018 in the Vietnamese supermarkets through many channels, including email, postal and face-to-face contact. After data screening, 2913 questionnaires remained in the dataset. The three main quantitative techniques used were exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM). The research used both SPSS and AMOS 24. The results revealed there are seven main direct indicators for customer loyalty: retail brand experience, service quality related to in-store employees’ knowledge and attitudes toward consumers, customer satisfaction, promotion effects, switching costs, e-service quality related to a core e-service quality scale, and alternative attractiveness. In that, customer satisfaction can explain only 17.8 percent variation in customer loyalty. In addition, price, habit and income also have a slight positive impact on customer loyalty. This research also revealed seven main factors directly and positively affecting customer satisfaction: customer perceived value, in-store logistics, service quality related to service employees’ knowledge and attitudes toward consumers, store image, customer experience, product quality, and alternative attractiveness negatively relating to customer satisfaction. Besides that, switching costs and price also have a slight direct impact on customer satisfaction. Furthermore, this research also found factors directly and positively affecting customer perceived value, including price, in-store logistics, trust, promotion effects, e-service quality related to a core e-service quality scale, service quality and customer service, and that switching costs are negatively associated with customer perceived value. The research also investigated differences across groups, including strategic groups, age ranges, location, gender, income, education level and occupation. The results showed that there were differences between groups regarding factors affecting customer loyalty, customer satisfaction and customer perceived value. It is believed that the research will prove meaningful for both academia and practitioners in understanding issues relating to factors affecting customer loyalty, especially since multigroup analysis was conducted to examine different relationships between constructs in the researched model; the research also revealed that the term ‘strategic groups’ in the grocery sector should not be ignored. The revised research framework generated in this research can be applied in any industry or market. There are some limitations to this research which are presented in section 8.3 and recommendations for future research

The Role of Habit in Post-Adoption Switching of Personal Information Technologies: An Empirical Investigation

Unlike technology users in business organizations, users of personal information technologies are usually not bound to specific products and have the freedom to switch from one product to a substitute. As a unique and widespread product level post-adoption behavior, IT user switching has not garnered sufficient attention in the current literature. Prior research has suggested that a consumer’s decision to switch follows careful reasoning on three distinct groups of factors: push, pull, and mooring. Given the highly routinized nature of post-adoption IT use, we draw from research on habit in social psychology and post-adoption user behavior literatures, and argue that users’ habit plays a critical role in post-adoption IT switching. Specifically, we posit that the habit of using the incumbent product both contributes to the mooring effects during the formation of intention to switch, and moderates the relationship between intention and switching. We tested our hypotheses on a sample of 414 users presented with a choice of switching their Web browsers. Our findings confirm the direct influence of potential switchers’ habit on switching intention, and the interaction between habit and switching intention on switching. Our overall model explains 55 percent of total variance in users’ intention to switch and 23 percent of total variance in user switching. This study advances the theoretical and empirical understanding of post-adoption technology switching, valuable to both researchers and practitioners

Analysis and optimization of distribution logistics for Just Water Company

This report details the various factors that affect the operational efficiency of distribution logistics. The research aimed at studying the existing components involved in the distribution logistics of Just Water. Distribution logistics begins at the end of the production line where the finished product is emerged until it reaches the customers. The literature review explains the key components of distribution logistics in an organisation. This research analyses the existing components of the distribution logistics of Just Water and discusses possible improvements that can be adapted to increase the overall efficiency of the distribution logistics operation. The background of the research is that Just Water faces difficulty with delivering its products on time during peak seasons. The research tries to unveil the reason for this delay and finds that the demands for extra water-out deliveries are interfering with the normal runs of the trucks, therein delaying their regular schedule. One another cause was found to be the shortage of supplies due to slow or less return logistics. The research suggests a change in the existing drop shipping distribution model and recommends the adaptation of intermediary or multi-stage distribution networks, possibly the ‘Last Mile Delivery’ configuration in order to reduce delivery lead-time, reduce transportation costs and improve customer satisfaction

Expanding the education role to narrow the audit expectation gap: exploring the expectation gap’s existence among accounting students

Society perceives and expects more from auditor’s than what auditors can actually achieve. Society has been found to misperceive the role of an auditor, in particular, in regards to fraud, internal controls and going concern issues. Society’s differing perceptions and expectations of the auditing profession is known as the audit expectation gap. This study aims to explore the audit expectation gap’s existence among Wintec accounting students and the effect that education has on the audit expectation gap. This research intends to answer two research questions. First, does an audit expectation gap exist among Wintec accounting students? Second, what is the effect of education on the audit expectation gap? To answer these research questions, 20 Wintec accounting students have been interviewed. Ten students who have received an audit education, and ten students who have not received audit education. Qualitative data was collected from these interviews and analysed using a mixed methods approach. This study found that an audit education exists among Wintec accounting students. This study also found that education reduced the audit expectation gap, in particular, the deficient performance gap and the communication gap. However, while education did reduce the audit expectations gap, it was not eliminated. This study recommends that Wintec provides a more basic auditing education during introductory accounting papers, educating students on the role of an auditor. This study also recommends that education focuses on the practical use of an audit report, to increase student’s understandings of the information in the audit report, and how this information is communicated. Thus, the researcher believes that these recommendations will help to further reduce the audit expectation

Research in multi-cultural relationship building

This study aims to explore the ‘missing gap' between the values of an Accounting firm and the preference shown by Maaori on how they would like to be approached when wanting to build a trusted relationship within a business sense. This study makes use of qualitative approaches in which data is collected primarily through interviews and analysed to produce results and recommendations. The study found that Maaori would like to be approached in a way that makes sense to them and also identifies with their cultural proceedings. It also provides insight into how important trust is when establishing a relationship with Maaori. The study recommends that further studies conducted should interview a wider variety of focus groups to add different elements to this research and that FIRM A's small business department's offerings do not align with what Maaori want so need to be rethought to adapt to Maaor expectations

Making the Case for Leveraging the Patient-Centered E-Health (PCEH) Context to Expand Information Systems Theory

Patient-centered e-health (PCEH) represents a fascinating area of digitized stakeholder interactions characterized by complex information flows, shared decision making, co-created value, and mutual interest in improving health outcomes. Such a context lies in contrast to often contentious firm-consumer relationships characterized by self-interest, surplus maximization (from both producer and consumer sides), and consumer segmentation. This article suggests that PCEH is an ideal context in which to study the emerging class of information systems that include consumers as empowered influencers, stakeholders, and decision makers, rather than only “purchasers” on the other side of the exchange relationship or “mandated” users in the enterprise context. The PCEH context is proposed as an enormous research opportunity that may significantly contribute to expanding information systems research and theory