Starting a small business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Starting a small business - Essay Example Small businesses are of advantage because they can be started on a very low cost and investment and also on a part time basis. These businesses are mostly popular in all the countries but they exceed in number in developing countries. There are many organizations which offer help while developing and starting a new business in the market. Internet businesses can very well be termed as small businesses and can be established easily because of their nature. When starting a small business, one of the major important decisions one has to take is the selection of the location. This is one of the riskiest decisions an individual takes while starting the business. Usually the trend has been observed that people prefer to install their businesses in the area of their hometown. This place is closer to their family and friends. There are many reasons for this choice. The first or the foremost is the personal reason according to which people usually don't want to leave their hometown and develop a business away from their families when they can happily to do in their own vicinity closer to people they love and care about. While taking such a crucial step in life, one needs their family the most (Perri, 2006).

Swu Balay Alumni Management System Essay Example for Free

Swu Balay Alumni Management System Essay The hospitality industry is one that is primarily focused on customer satisfaction. For the most part, it is built on leisure or is luxury-based, as opposed to meeting basic needs. Hotels and resorts, cruise lines, airlines and other various forms of travel, tourism, special event planning, and restaurants all generally fall under the realm of the hospitality industry. Exceptional service is usually very important for all of these businesses. Customer satisfaction usually leads to consumer loyalty, which helps to ensure the success of a company in the hospitality industry. A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms and air conditioning or climate control. The cost and quality of hotels are usually indicative of the range and type of services available. Front-of-the-House operations are known so because these operations take place in front of the guests. Thus, these operations are related either to direct interaction with the guest or they are being conducted in front of the guest. The front office activities start from the time a guest calls or sends in a request for reservation/ accommodation. Staff of the front office department starts interacting with guest by taking in, guest information and reservation request, leading to confirmation of reservation and finally to the handling of guest on arrival and guest check-in. Check-in activity is a must for both, a guest with reservation or a walk-in-guest, i.e., one is without prior reservation. Due to the enormous increase in tourismworldwide during the last decades of the 20th century, standards, especially those of smaller establishments, have improved considerably. Hotels are independently assessed in traditional systems and these rely heavily on the facilities provided. Today, most of the Hotels provide goods and services using computer system. It helps to perform task in an easy way with less time consumed. Some companies are become fully automated while others strive for the similar setting. Computer programmers develop things like computer system that the rest of us could use. The computer programmers tell the users what to do. They make programs that users can easily used or understand. The advent of new technology gave rise to easy and hassle free interaction between and among humans. Whether it is in business, science or whatever task a person takes on the quality and speed of carrying it out are enhanced with automation at the core of this efficient today, many systems have used an automation process like using computer system, due to the efficient and accuracy. â€Å"Hotel Front Desk System† is a transaction processing and management system. In this system there are more advantages rather than a manual way of doing the task. Interaction and individual stimulation have always been linked to the technological availability of the time and place. With the transition to an information-based society, computers and transactions have evolved from manual transaction. One of the solutions or alternatives to the problems that a hotel is facing, a system was being developed which can edit, delete, filter, monitor and store and secured the records of the customers. Indeed, Information Technology provides Hospitality solutions in delivering sophisticated services that differentiate the company from competitors and create a personalized experience for each guest. This comprehensive suite of solutions helps hotel owners and operators to achieve customer satisfaction. With this, the researchers believe that for a rising business like the SWU BALAY ALUMNI, which will soon provide accommodation business to cater the school’s stakeholders and community needs to have a good front desk system that will help run the operation easier in terms of accommodation process involving its clients and guests. The researchers want to know the reasons of hotel in using manual reservation and conduct a study towards the topic because they notice some of the hotel still use manual reservation. The study will emphasize the effects of using manual reservation and how a computerized reservation will be substituted, which can be later on applied to that of the proposed SWU BALAY ALUMNI. Therefore, the researchers purported to find out how to increase the number of customer using computerized reservation. Front Desk system is a transaction processing system that solves the problem encountered during the manual Hotel Reservations and transactions. The computerized Front Desk System aims to simplify the manual Hotel Reservation fastest and accurate. The system match staff schedules to optimal service levels, control costs, and rapidly adapt to changing conditions. Accuracy and efficiency can never be a question, since in both the operators and customers, time is important, with this integration fast and reliable service is optimized. It also allows your managers to spend less time on administrative tasks and more time taking care of guests and solving other issues on the property. Other than that, these solutions can ensure your staff and operations are running at peak performance. Youll be able to identify sales trends, product and inventory costs, compare similar locations, and evaluate performance against established budgets and targets thus, ensuring organization within the company operations. Furthermore, added feature that promotes great customer experience like seasonal discounts and privileges offered to loyal or lucky patrons. The system once implemented it will solve the most common problems that the Hotel Reservation encounter. In the hospitality industry, labor is one of the largest expense items. This kind of management system that is fast, efficient, and user-friendly, cuts of the burden of too much labor and expense of manual work. With the skills and knowledge of the Researchers the possibility of establishing this system is vivid. Definitely, SWU BALAY ALUMNI needs this system in order for the business to grow and to be successful. Purpose and Description of the Study The purpose of the study is to be able to have efficient control and maintain organization in the flow and process of the following aspects of operations: * Reservation Hotel reservations are made in real time and immediately after booking. It will help to manage a collection of data in the hotel. Moreover, you can add, change, and cancel bookings. * Booking * Booking is the actual confirmation of payment one by a customer upon check in or accommodation of the room * Profiles Upon reservation and booking, must have a guest profile to attach it. Guest Profile contains main information about a Guest. Guest Profile has type of Individual, Company, Corporate, Travel Agent, or other Source of a Hotel Reservation and Booking. You can search, view, update or cancel a created reservation. If a reservation has been cancelled, then you can re-activate it if the Guest comes back. Reservation can be in Pending status such as putting in Waiting List if Room is not yet available. It can be taken off the Waiting List and accepted when Room becoming available. Many options can be applied to Reservation to tailor your needs. Profile in Hotel Management System listing the multiple addresses and phone number capability for each profile. It means that if any error happens during the transaction or key in data the system can read and detect with very fast. It’s to avoid the duplication while doing the transaction and the customer profile can be saving for long lasting. Other than that, with the profile, the management can see and sort out the special customer who has the membership or club number and tracking them. With this way, customer might be have the special rates and can get the privilege. For the unlimited credit card numbers, guest can use many types of credit card in the hotel to make a payment which this system giving various types to pay. This system also can give more advantage where they can see the outstanding history statistics for past and future stays. It’s to avoiding the fraud in falsifying data and loss. Customer have many advantage when they come to the hotel who has implemented the hotel reservation software because they no need to make a registration each time come to the hotel because the profile customer are save and have a protection and privacy. * Rate and Discounts Control Every hotel has their own rates to attract the customer to come to their hotel. This is the strategies to ensure the hotel always get the customer and to maintain their profit. In the Hotel Management System, the inventory control very useful because it can show to us the unlimited room classes and rooms types that the hotel has. This inventory can helps the management hotel to see their marketing also the performance in daily, weekly, monthly even yearly. These modules also can helps to arrange the rate plans by see the market price and see the rates in the multiple currencies. So that every customer or foreigner can search the hotel booking by see the currencies price. These modules also can keep change and negotiated rates by following the versatile tax calculations and chain cross sell capability with schedule. In the rooms and rate management and restrictions, the Hotel Management System can helps where they can manage the room with following the rate. If there have any restriction, that means the rooms was ordered or already reserved by the individual, group or others. So that, they cannot enter or reserve that rooms until the cancellation done. For more looks forward, this system giving the ability to open or close room types by rate, property, room class, etc. For those was booking the hotel, they no need to worried because this system has unlimited number of guarantee. To those had give the deposit before enter the rooms, they can get it back when they check out because the system save who pay for the deposit and if any cancellation, they must follow the policies to ensure the safety between hotel and customer. Besides that, the reservation system lets you set up rate structures for individual properties, groups of properties, or for chains. Multi-level rate and inventory controls make inventory management easier and increase profitability. Rates and room types can be automatically restricted based on percentage occupancy, minimum stay through, arrival date, and more. Agents can use the hotel reservation system to easily determine best available rates for any length of stay. To maximize property revenues, these hotel reservation computer systems also support interfacing to major yield management systems. * Administration The Hotel administrator is responsible for the reception of guest as well as internal communications of the hotel services. The post of administrator is related to the guest reception service or, as it has been recently called, front office service. * Reporting The reporting system provides a number of standard reports. System reports may be generated automatically and may be run daily, weekly, monthly, yearly or manually upon request. Reports include expected arrivals, reservation, property forecast, total booking activity, stay activity, monthly and daily booking activity summary. property detail, agent activity, automatic allotment release and delivery queue purge. * PMS Interface CRS offer Two-Way Interface that allows the CRS to communicate with and exchange information between the CRS central database and the Front Office PMS (Property Management System) at each property. The Two-Way Interface includes features that are allowed the CRS and PMS to work with the same information despite differing data structures and values. What interface to a web-based PMS offers: Control all reservations coming from different sources in a single control panel/extranet Property Management System helps you distribute your rooms optimally to different online channels you work with since with PMS you can easily check the resource of your reservations. You can easily analyze how much each sales channel contributes to your revenues and identify the most efficient channels. With Property Management System, hoteliers receive instant alerts containing information of your reservations: length of stay with check-in and check-out dates, number of guests, room type, price and rates, personal information of customers, billing and etc. Main advantage of a web-based PMS is its communication ability to CRS as well as to hotel website booking engine and other online sales channels. Objectives of the Study The study aims to create a Hotel Front Desk System for SWU BALAY ALUMNI. General Objective This study aims to solve the problems encountered and to change the manual reservation and hotel processes and transactions. Specific Objectives Specifically the proposed system will guide to do the following objectives: a) To create a computerized system that will manage the records of the following entities: * Guests * Staff * Rooms * Reports b) To create a computerized system that will manage tasks for Housekeeping. c) To create a computerized system that will provide substantial Sales Reports and Inventories. d) To create a computerized system that will manage and control on Room rates Scope and Limitations of the Study This study mainly focused on providing retailing business application using computerized system that enables businesses to track services and aims to provide accurate and reliable process on every transaction especially in a hotel front desk management. This study looked into a better impact of using technology today on how it affects our daily lives especially for being the customer. With this study, it can help our beneficiaries to know the differences of using manual system to a computerized generation today, prioritize is to prove and to give them the right information. Furthermore the proposed Front Desk Hotel Management System for SWU BALAY ALUMNI limits itself in the following aspects: Room Reservation, Room Bookings, Room Maintenance and Housekeeping, Staff and Customer Profiling, Administrative Control, Reporting, and Billing. However, this project is limited only in giving discounted rates for Southwestern Alumni and stakeholders. Furthermore, reservations can only be conducted in two ways either walk-in or via phone call. Thus, online reservation is not possible. The system is not capable of managing both payroll, laundry, restaurant, bar, gym and other facilities and amenities offered of the hotel..

Analysis of Toni Morrisons Beloved Essay -- Beloved Toni Morrison Lit

Analysis of Toni Morrison's Beloved Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize winning book Beloved, is a historical novel that serves as a memorial for those who died during the perils of slavery. The novel serves as a voice that speaks for the silenced reality of slavery for both men and women. Morrison in this novel gives a voice to those who were denied one, in particular African American women. It is a novel that rediscovers the African American experience. The novel undermines the conventional idea of a story’s time scheme. Instead, Morrison combines the past and the present together. The book is set up as a circling of memories of the past, which continuously reoccur in the book. The past is embedded in the present, and the present has no foundation without the past. Morrison breaks up the time sequence using the visions of the past that arouse forgotten experiences and emotions. The visions of the various occurrences of slavery survive time and continue to haunt not only the characters directly involved, but also their loved ones. In Beloved, Morrison makes the past visible in the present by making it into a tangible place that can be revisited, where people can be seen and touched, and where images and pictures survive and are projected outward from the mind. Morrison transforms these projected images into events for the reader to experience. The reader becomes part of the tradition of passing on the memories of the past. Yet, in the last two pages of the novel, Morrison instructs her readers that Beloved is not a story to be passed on. (275) It is not a story about happiness or healing or the success of one woman’s escape from slavery. Rather, Morrison communicates these images through a maze of emotions to accentuate the pain and suffering left by the remains of slavery. It is the story and the experience that Morrison wishes for the reader to reme mber, and not the characters. The novel is based on real events, that have past and been forgotten. Yet Morrison is not telling a story about happiness or healing or the success of women escaped from slavery. Rather Morrison delivers the past experiences of enslaved African American women, a past which is often forgotten. In the novel, Morrison brings to life the events and the stories that become permanently imprinted on the reader’s conscious. Morrison communicates these images through a maze of emotions ... ...past that is not even theirs. Morrison brings forth a novel that opens the experience of slavery to the reader. She makes the reader see the hopelessness, horrors, and realities of slavery. The reader is forced to contemplate and only try to understand. Beloved stands not as a story, but as a memorial to the â€Å"sixty million or more† people that were victims of the bonds of slavery. This is a book that is not to be read, but instead experienced. It is through this novel itself, that the past lives on, and it is this power that makes Beloved stand out and succeed as being a memorial to those who suffered and died; those who would have been forgotten in the past. In essence, Beloved is not a story about slavery and its affect on the people involved, instead it is the experience. For Morrison, history is something to be reflected on, and she does this by reenacting the horrors of slavery and the impacts it had on the people involved. The reader is left to come to their own conclusions, and their own interpretations. What Morrison is essentially saying at the end is that Beloved is not just about individuals and individual experiences but about the experience of a race and a community. Analysis of Toni Morrison's Beloved Essay -- Beloved Toni Morrison Lit Analysis of Toni Morrison's Beloved Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize winning book Beloved, is a historical novel that serves as a memorial for those who died during the perils of slavery. The novel serves as a voice that speaks for the silenced reality of slavery for both men and women. Morrison in this novel gives a voice to those who were denied one, in particular African American women. It is a novel that rediscovers the African American experience. The novel undermines the conventional idea of a story’s time scheme. Instead, Morrison combines the past and the present together. The book is set up as a circling of memories of the past, which continuously reoccur in the book. The past is embedded in the present, and the present has no foundation without the past. Morrison breaks up the time sequence using the visions of the past that arouse forgotten experiences and emotions. The visions of the various occurrences of slavery survive time and continue to haunt not only the characters directly involved, but also their loved ones. In Beloved, Morrison makes the past visible in the present by making it into a tangible place that can be revisited, where people can be seen and touched, and where images and pictures survive and are projected outward from the mind. Morrison transforms these projected images into events for the reader to experience. The reader becomes part of the tradition of passing on the memories of the past. Yet, in the last two pages of the novel, Morrison instructs her readers that Beloved is not a story to be passed on. (275) It is not a story about happiness or healing or the success of one woman’s escape from slavery. Rather, Morrison communicates these images through a maze of emotions to accentuate the pain and suffering left by the remains of slavery. It is the story and the experience that Morrison wishes for the reader to reme mber, and not the characters. The novel is based on real events, that have past and been forgotten. Yet Morrison is not telling a story about happiness or healing or the success of women escaped from slavery. Rather Morrison delivers the past experiences of enslaved African American women, a past which is often forgotten. In the novel, Morrison brings to life the events and the stories that become permanently imprinted on the reader’s conscious. Morrison communicates these images through a maze of emotions ... ...past that is not even theirs. Morrison brings forth a novel that opens the experience of slavery to the reader. She makes the reader see the hopelessness, horrors, and realities of slavery. The reader is forced to contemplate and only try to understand. Beloved stands not as a story, but as a memorial to the â€Å"sixty million or more† people that were victims of the bonds of slavery. This is a book that is not to be read, but instead experienced. It is through this novel itself, that the past lives on, and it is this power that makes Beloved stand out and succeed as being a memorial to those who suffered and died; those who would have been forgotten in the past. In essence, Beloved is not a story about slavery and its affect on the people involved, instead it is the experience. For Morrison, history is something to be reflected on, and she does this by reenacting the horrors of slavery and the impacts it had on the people involved. The reader is left to come to their own conclusions, and their own interpretations. What Morrison is essentially saying at the end is that Beloved is not just about individuals and individual experiences but about the experience of a race and a community.

Bad Medicine

The continuing rate of unemployment not only continues to cripple the economic standing of the nation but it also poses hard-hitting and greater effects to the people, most especially in their psychological and bodily wellness. This fact is evident on the rate of deaths unemployment has caused to a great number of people over the past years. Most victims of unemployment died due to heart attacks. Unemployment also pushes people to go over the edge and commit crimes, putting people to state prisons.Others lack the psychological capacity to handle the stresses and pains of unemployment leading to insanity and other mental illnesses. The result is the influx of people admitted to mental hospitals and the rising number of mortality caused by suicide. On the economic level, unemployment lowers tax revenue but at the same time heightens the nation’s expenditure due to the need to spend on social welfare programs for unemployed citizens. 2. What are the costs of inflation?The negativ e effects of inflation are less detrimental than the costs of unemployment. This scheme is due to the fact that the effects of inflation can be stabilized through the implementation of fitting policies or programs. Doing so would alleviate the consequences of inflation. To achieve this objective, there is a continuous monitoring for the ratio between the rate of fixed income and the rate of inflation. The government has already implemented a program called the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) to realize this end.Moreover, the cost of inflation has moved on to another level where it also takes great effects on housing. Banks do avoid the possible effects of inflation in the future by requiring people in the present to pay for an increased rate in mortgage. This leads to a decline in the number of people who buy lands and houses. Other costs of unemployment have proven to be insignificant and less damaging to the economy and the people. For instance, the shoe leather cost. 3. Who bear s the burden for each of these macroeconomic scourges?In any case, ongoing unemployment or inflation, the people of the nation suffer the most. The citizens, most especially feel and experience the demands of these macroeconomic scourges. For instance, in the relationship of inflation and unemployment, it was stated in the article that a flourishing economy tends to lower the rate of unemployment, as the business sector would look to employ a number of people due to the demands of the growing economy. When this happens, employees would look forward to salary increases and added benefits.If firms and business establishments do so, they would reclaim the finances they lost to the salary increases and added benefits by increasing the prices of commodities and services. In this scenario, it is evident that the people would bear this burden as they are forced to pay for their needs and for services alike on a higher cost and value. If, on the other hand, the economy slows down, there wou ld be a high unemployment rate. The prices of commodities and services would be on the parallel, but as mentioned above, unemployment would lead to higher crime rates, mental illnesses, and deaths.4. Which one do you fear the most? It is evident that both unemployment and inflation pushes down the standing of the people in society. They endure the effects of these macroeconomic circumstances that plague the nation. However, since the facts of the costs of inflation and unemployment are stated above, the one that I fear most is unemployment. Unemployment harms the people as opposed to inflation where it can still be stabilized by the government.

Leadership and Management Essay

Education is a very important institution due to the role it plays in transmitting social skills and knowledge required of any member of the society (Hofman, Gray & Daly, 2004). It is worth noting that the levels of development of a country’s education systems bears close correlation to the economic and social conditions that the said country will afford. It is therefore upon members of the society and the education system to ensure that members of the society achieve as much as possible from this system. High attainment in eduction is far much beneficial than low level education in the modern society due to the high level of educational attainment. A doctorate degree is currently what an undergraduate degree was in the 1990’s (Hofman, Gray & Daly, 2004). The level of educational attainment requires an individual to posses at least a masters degree to stand out among others. The need to stand above others and gain some advantage over them in the competitive job market is the main reason for my pursuance of a doctoral degree. In choosing educational leadership and management of higher institutions in Singapore the key consideration was my vocation. I have personally worked in the educational field in different capacity. Having served as an assistant head of international programs at Crestar institute, human resource management with a Christian association, lectured English at Kaplan city campus and being a full time consultant trainer at NTUC, my life has centred around management and higher institution of learning. Understanding the nature of higher education leadership and management in Singapore is therefore relevant to my career. Relevance of USQ Doctorate studies is about mastery and application of principles and theories studied in class. A doctorate graduate should be able to analyse and relate issues related to their area of specialisation by giving varied dimension. Doctorate graduates are expected to be above other levels not just in their approach to thinking but they must also display high levels of norms and values expected of the society (Mok, 2006). Mastery of principles that are relevant to the needs of the society, and the development of norms and values that are expected of the society are just but a few of the benefits expected of a USQ professional doctorate; it is thus clear that the program not only makes better specialists but also better members of the society by integrating the values of determination, team spirit and courage into the students. The role played by the education system just like any other social systems cannot be done by any other system. Propagation of social norms and development of skills that are relevant to the needs of the society are some of the objectives of the education system. Though the education systems is one of the oldest institution, the development of the higher educations sector in Singapore is a recent event. Singapore’s education system though quite organised as compared to its neighbours’ is faced with a number of challenges (Lee & Fredriksen, 2008). Most challenges in the education system can be traced to the management and leadership of the education system. Despite the education system being a social systems it still falls prey to the effects of partisan politic. The involvement of the central government on educational matter cannot be avoided since the education system is under the government’s care, however, the education system should be shielded from the negative effects of poor politics. Corruption lack of professional knowledge and nepotisms are some of the issue that affect the education systems at the low level. Researching on education management and leadership in higher education sector not only develops my research skills but also ensure awareness on issues that affect management and leadership of higher education sector and is therefore relevant to efficient delivery in future. Personal Capabilities Doctorate studies require good academic background and interest in the area of study. Determination defines me; level of education attainment and the nature of jobs that I have been involved in give me the experience and skills required to undertake a doctorate course. I am well versed in the management of the education system and problems faced by low level personnel like tutors and professors. My position places me in a situation where I can look at the issues from both the management and implementation level which is a capability that few have. My academic qualification is beyond question for I am a holder of a masters degree in education. I therefore possess the skills and qualification required of doctorate degree and there is no cause for worry on my abilities. Literature Review The education system thought critical to the development of the society is no stranger to controversy. Implementation of the education system goals has especially been under fire with some coming up with the view that the education system, just like any other social system is responsible for social reproduction (Kassem, Mufti & Robinson, 2006). The education systems is seen by such critics as a tool used by those in power to ensure they maintain their position while disregarding the needs of the less empowered. It is quite true that commercialisation of education has led to increase in levels of educational attainment. Increase in levels of educational attainment is characterised by increase in the cost of acquiring higher education. The costs of education at a level that is relevant to the development of technical skills required by the job market is high and borders exploitation (Kassem, Mufti & Robinson, 2006). Projection shows that the cost of education is likely to go up with increase in demand for education. This is blamed on commercialisation of education which has made it business like and therefore probe to the market forces of supply and demand the only differences being that the demand is always on a high. On the other hand, the commercialisation of education and strategies developed by the government and other stakeholders who are blamed for the problems facing education by social reproduction theorists is cited as the first step towards the development of the high education sector (Mok, 2006). Take China as an example, the reforms which included allowing privatisation of the higher education sector and formulation and implementation of cost sharing mechanism are cited as the key driving factors to the levels of development achieved (Mok, 2006).