The Crimes of Brandy Holmes

During the early evening hours of January 1, 2003, the Brandy Holmes and her boyfriend, Robert Coleman, forced their way into the rural home of Julian Brandon, a retired minister who was 70 years of age, and his wife Alice, who was 68 years of age. Reverend Brandon was shot at near contact range in the underside of his jaw with a .380 caliber handgun. The bullet separated into two pieces: one fragment entered his brain and the other exited the top of his head. Julian Brandon immediately collapsed. Holmes and Coleman then took Mrs. Brandon to the rear bedroom and demanded her valuables, cash, and credit cards as she begged for her life. Ignoring her pleas, they placed a pillow over the womans face and shot her in the head, and left her for dead.    Over-Kill After shooting Mrs. Brandon, Holmes and Coleman heard Reverend Brandon struggling with his wounds and returned and stabbed and slashed him to death. Concerned Friends Discover the Bodies On January 5, 2003, four days after the attack, Calvin Barrett Hudson, a family friend of the Brandons, became concerned when the couple did not attend church on Sunday and decided to check on them. When he and his wife went to their friends residence, they found Reverend Brandon lying in a pool of his blood on the carpet. Hudson immediately went to a neighbors house and called the sheriffs office. When the police responded to the call, they found Reverend Brandons body. It was not until the authorities checked the house that they discovered Mrs. Brandon was barely alive. Even though Mrs. Brandon received a gunshot wound to the head, she survived the attack, although she was permanently disabled and requires around-the-clock care. Tips Lead Investigators to the Killers Door After the television news reported the crime, the Caddo Parish Sheriffs Office received a tip from persons at an apartment complex near the crime scene. The callers indicated the Holmes had been bragging about killing an elderly couple down the road near a church and that she was trying to sell their jewelry. Detectives then went to the trailer of Brenda Bruce, Holmes mother, which was located near the homicide scene. There they located Holmes, Coleman, her mother, and her 15-year-old brother, Sean George. All four agreed to accompany the officers to the sheriffs office for interviews. Over the next two days Holmes made six recorded and unrecorded statements, implicating herself and others to varying degrees in the homicide and robbery. She also said that two days after murders, she and two of her young nephews bicycled to the Brandons home. The youngest nephew, nine years of age, entered the home with her and she walked to the back of house and heard Mrs. Brandons heavy breathing and turned around and left.   The nine-year-old nephew entered the home with his aunt, where he saw Reverend Brandon lying in a pool of blood and heard Mrs. Brandon screaming from another room in the home. A neighbor witnessed both nephews fleeing from the residence, leaving the Holmes inside the home. Evidence Police recovered considerable circumstantial evidence that proved Holmes involvement in the crime. Although the gun used in the shootings was not recovered, ballistics evidence demonstrated that the weapon used in the Brandon homicide was the same weapon that had belonged to Holmess father and had been stolen from his residence in Tylertown, Mississippi. Holmes admitted she had stolen her fathers gun in one of her statements to the police. In addition, a surveillance video from Hibernia Bank depicted the Holmes and Coleman attempting to use the Brandons credit card at an ATM. A search of the Bruce trailer where the Holmes and Coleman were staying led to the discovery of several items that belonged to Mrs. Brandon. Three fired .380 cartridge casings were found in the rain gutter of the trailer where she lived.   Laboratory analysis revealed that Reverend Brandons DNA was found on one of these casings.   Ã‚   Additionally, forensic analysis matched the .380 projectile recovered from Reverend Brandons brain and the dining room ceiling to a projectile recovered from a tree at the home of Holmes father in Mississippi. Brandy Holmes was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death.

Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Analysis - 781 Words

In the world of psychology, there is a theory, the tabula rusa(â€Å"blank slate†), which states man’s personality grows from experiences, but there are many examples that show mankind is created to exemplify goodness, although many easily stray from the path. The novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson focuses on the duality of man’s inner nature, demonstrating the development of a doctor’s evil as it slowly consumes him. Throughout the work, Stevenson merges his philosophy of human nature with the good-natured Dr. Jekyll and the mysterious evil, Mr. Hyde. As the plot thickens, Stevenson uses illustrious diction to clarify the positives of Jekyll, the negative aura of Hyde, and he displays his belief that man†¦show more content†¦The reader gets quite a bad first impression of Mr. Hyde as he â€Å"trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming to the ground† (Stevenson 4), already fore shadowing more horrific events to be caused with his little remorse. The choice of his reaction of trampling calmly over a little girl demonstrates Mr. Hyde’s inhumane feeling as well as a possible joy of hurting others. After the first encounter with the unnerving Mr. Hyde, the protagonist of the story, Mr. Utterson, goes out of his way to cross paths with the man once more. As a result of the endless questioning, Utterson faces an animal that â€Å"snarled aloud into a savage laugh† (Stevenson 17) in a hurried craze. By having Hyde snarl, it connotes a more abhorring nature of the man, and describing his laugh as savage sends out warning signs of more incidents of pain to be caused by him. While Jekyll struggles to choose good or evil, Hyde does not struggle at all as he does not face any difficult choices, so he tries to take advantage of what he believes is his weaker side. Through Dr. Jekyll’s detailed statement, Stevenson unleashes a torrent of his philoso phy upon mankind’s nature. After indulging in his evil side for a while, Jekyll finally decides to choose â€Å"the elderly and discontented doctor, surrounded by friends and cherishing honest hopes† (Stevenson 91), an example of one’s choice of who they truly are as a person. Through the loss of his dreams, the doctorShow MoreRelatedAn Analysis Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde1729 Words   |  7 PagesTaking a Closer Look into the Story and Author of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Nothing Mr. Stevenson has written as yet has so strongly impressed us with the versatility of his very original genius. An anonymous review in â€Å"The Times† noted Robert Louis Stevenson for his intelligence in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The review continued with saying that the story, be read as a finished study in the art of fantastic literature. Whoever was the anonymous person to state these things aboutRead MoreAnalysis of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Essay557 Words   |  3 PagesAnalysis of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Everyone has heard of Jekyll and Hyde. The two infamous characters that portray the main roles in The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde. Yet, even with this phenomenal status of the book, surprisingly, not many people know what is really represented inside its pages. Firstly, to understand what made The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde a classical story known by young and old alike, we must look at where it began. AsRead MoreDr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Analysis703 Words   |  3 Pages The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde is an interesting story taking place in the 1800’s in europe. The story is told from a third person perspective. Telling this story in the third person is very useful because it narrates the life of a man that is some what investigating and you get to see the story from his perspective as he finds out more and more clues. Also when a story is narrated it gives the author the opportunity to explain some things to the audience that might not normally get pickedRead More Analysis of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson2888 Words   |  12 PagesAnalysis of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson In an attempt to consider the duality tale, one narrative inevitably finds its way to the top of the heap as the supreme archetype: Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Immense disagreement permeates the pages of literary criticism relevant to the meaning of the story. Yet, for all of the wrangling focused on the psychology, morality, spirituality, and sociality of the story, itRead MoreAnalysis Of The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, By Robert Louis Stevenson1323 Words   |  6 PagesStrange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, which gives a direct image of what Victorian era was like with his writing style as well as the story itself. Specifically, Stevenson portrays exactly how Victorian social life commenced as well as displays the main points of social standards of the time. Robert Louis Stevenson uses individual characters in the novella to accurately depict how people protected their social standing an d reputation during the Victorian era. Mr. UttersonRead MoreLiterary Analysis of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde† by Robert Louis Stevenson1530 Words   |  7 Pagesin the 1800’s during the Victorian era in this novel. As the story unfolds in the classic literature novel, â€Å"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde† written by Robert Louis Stevenson, the magnificent city of London becomes a darker and mysterious location. The powerful city of London embodied the freedom and solitude required for the antagonist of the story, Mr. Hyde to hide his wicked behavior from the society as a whole. According to the history of the Victorian age, â€Å"Traditional ways of lifeRead MoreDr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Analysis1467 Words   |  6 Pages â€Å"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde† by Robert Louis Stevenson and â€Å"Goblin Market† by Christina Rossetti are two interesting stories that would show how authors are able to outline good and evil in stories. The first story I consider a mystery as Stevenson leaves his reader in suspense of who really is Mr. Hyde, and what relationship does he have with Dr. Jekyll. And to help the reader solve this mystery was an interesting character by the name Mr. Utterson, who is a Lawyer by profession. Thus, in his questRead MoreDr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Analysis1709 Words   |  7 Pagesnovella, the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson is able to explore his interests concerning the dark, hidden desires that all human beings are guilty of possessing. In his story, a well-respected professional by the name of Dr. Jekyll experiments with the idea of contrasting personalities and successfully undergoes a physical separation of such identities—one which would soon wreak havoc upon his very existence. As a result of his success, Edward Hyde is born. Hyde, characterized as a minisculeRead MoreDr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Analysis914 Words   |  4 Pagesnovel Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson contains frequent situa tions where conflicts among the characters arise. This literary classic also has a prominent and iconic villain depicted in one of the title characters, Mr. Hyde. The general plot of the novel is as follows; Utterson, a respected lawyer, and Enfield, Utterson’s cousin, are on their weekly walk when Enfield tells Utterson about his first encounter with Hyde. During his retelling, Enfield explains how he witnesses Hyde trampleRead MoreDr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Analysis1320 Words   |  6 PagesIn The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it is clear that the biggest theme of the story is the concept of good against evil. In the case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the conflict exists within the same person. It is generally believed that this internal struggle exists in everyone, and that â€Å"man is not truly one, but truly two.† It suggests that everyone has a dual personality , and a good and evil side exists in everyone. The struggle supposedly is usually a close fought battle that is close

Role of Marketing Staff Free Essays

The Role of the Marketing Staff DONALD R. LONGMAN Business management [S increasingly dependent upon marketing to gain enduring competitive advantage. This article describes the rich opportunities for success presented by a change rn the approach to marketing stafF work and acquisition of professional personnel for it. We will write a custom essay sample on Role of Marketing Staff or any similar topic only for you Order Now GREAT DEAL has been written in recent years about the marketing concept. We may expect to see much more; for competition in American industry is increasingly centered in marketing-. This is a substantial change from the situation only a few decades ago. Success then hung on creative skill in evolving substantially new types of products, new production processes, new efficiency systems. Each step forward in these areas produced relatively strong and enduring competitive advantages. This is much less true today. Mass training of skilled research and development men and of production engineers, increased mobility of manpower, and mass communication at the professional level have all served to spread technological know-how with amazing speed. Competitors employ research men and engineers of parallel training, professional contact, and skill. If one company’s team seems relatively inept in the competitive battle, it is still possible to call upon a superior group of consulting engineers for help while a new team is being built. Under these conditions, competitors quickly identify and match successful innovations made by any company in their field. They may even improve on the original innovator’s ideas. It would be vain to suppose that even such corporate giants as Esso, U. S. Steel, or^ General Motors could gain and hold for long a major competitive advantage in product or manufacturing process. Indeed, it has become common practice to grant licenses to competitors on a royalty basis, thus removing technical innovations as a basis of competitive advantage in the market. Competitive Opportunities It^ is this comparative equality in production skills that is forcing a shift in the weight of competition to marketing. Marketing is still a relatively unexplored area. Our customers are so many, so scattered, and so nonhomogeneous in nature and in demands that they are difficult to understand. We are not even sure how we can best serve them economically and efficiently. Changes are still commonplace among big, well-established companies in such basic elements as channels of distribution, discount systems, warehousing arrangements, and service policies. Such changes grow as much out of uncertainty and insecurity m marketing decision as out of changes in the market itself or m marketing institutions. Marketing offers a rich area of opportunity for competitive advantage, richer today than that offered by any other phase of business. But if a company is to seize this opportunity, a lot has to be done. 29 30 Journal of Marketing, July, 1962 Requirements for Efficient Marketing 1. A Sound Understanding of the Market First, it is essential to acquire a comprehensive understanding of the market itself. This is a matter of getting the facts, completely and accurately. One has to know the exact size of the market and its geographical distribution. One must know who make up the market, the numbers and kinds of people. Where do they buy, in what quantities, how often, why? What products are available for them to choose among? What are their characteristics, their prices, tbeir patterns of distribution? What are the products used for, what satisfactions do they provide? Why is one brand chosen over nother; and why do people change in their choices? There is so much that needs to be known, and known well. How else can we think constructively of the marketing process until we have a solid grasp of the facts, a sure sense of perspective? The truth is that little effort to think constructively about marketing was made during the decades when competitive success was estab lished by production efforts. Systematic collection and analysis of marketing facts have been undertaken, even by the largest and most progressive companies, only during the last fifteen or twenty years. Indeed, the evolution of marketing, research may serve as n index of the shift in competitive pressure toward marketing. We possess today the tools and techniques for acquiring quickly and efficiently almost all the basic data necessary to provide executives with a sound perspective in marketing. Yet marketing research is still inadequately utilized; there is ample room even now for a company to gain major marketing advantages over competitors simply by superior knowledge of the facts of the business. The 10,000 professional marketing research men today are probably not a third of the number we may expect when marketing has been developed to a peak of fficiency comparable to production. 2. Innovation The second requisite to superior marketing lies in innovation. There is no progress in acceptance of routine, in copying competitive practices, in turgid operation. Indeed, in the fiuid environment of marketing, with changes in policies, practices, and procedures borne no more of creative thought than of uncertainty, the well thought out, tested innovations may prove extremely rewarding. We must be prepared to consider alterations, often radical changes, in methods and policies. We must become creative, cultivating a flexibility of mind that seeks and considers ew approaches. We must be prepared to reexamine the basic premises upon which our policies rest. We must begin to ask the fundamental questions and to fix them in our mind, looking, looking always for new answers. There exists a unit expected to devise and explore new ideas in the production area. It is supposed to suggest innovations, to challenge current practices. It is staffed with men of imagination, men of specialized education, men whose minds are constantly stirred and challenged by contacts with ba sic research scientists in our universities, foundations, and government units. They are in continuous ontact with other professionals throughout the country, often in other countries, and are constantly stimulated by the ideas and exploratory efforts they encounter in a wide variety of industries. They are Research and Development men. There is no comparable unit in marketing, even in companies whose marketing costs far exceed manufacturing costs. The nearest marketing pai’- allel’is to be found in advertising agencies. These owe their independent existence to the very fact that creative imagination and innovation are obviously essential to advertising; and even the largest advertisers do not provide in their marketing rganizations a climate conductive to high quality creative work. But the advertising agency is concerned fundamentally with only one of many marketing activities. It is not well equipped to serve as the creative arm for the entire marketing function. It is not paid enough to do the job; nor is the company advertising manager who works with the agency so positioned in his own company that he could spark the creative effort for the entire Marketing Department. This means that a new and different unit is needed to function within the company itself. It must be staffed with men of creative minds, trained n seeing and exploring possibilities not clear to others. They need to be observers of marketing in all of industry, stirred and challenged by professional association with creative men in universities, consulting firms, everywhere that pioneering thought g-oes on. They must imagine, synthesize ideas, experiment systematically. They may be engineers exploring the application of operations research to warehousing. They may be psychologists studying the foundations of sales- †¢ ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Donald Longman is Vice President and Director of Research for the J. Walter Thompson Company, New York. He is President f the American Mar lteting Association and Chairman of the International Marketing Federation. In earlier years Dr. Longman was a university professor and a government executive. He has held senior positions in business in both line and staff capacities. He is the author of a number of books and articles. The Role of the Marketing Staff 31 men’s or dealers’ morale and motivation. They may be marketing researchers probing ways to break old consumer buying habits and build new ones. They may be systematically testing consumer responses to a range of product styles, flavors, or scents. They must be the Marketing R and D. . Scientific Approach to Decision Making The third major requisite to superior marketing lies in hard-headed, scientific decision making. This requires a solid grasp of the facts of a business through research and through experience. More important, it requires imagination, perceptiveness, thoroughness, objectivity, analytical skill, and emotional stability. Few people acqu ire all these traits in the normal course of their lives; our marketing executives today introduce large portions of emotion, hunch, habit, and haste in their judgments. But needed qualities can be developed as a matter of explicit training. In increasing measure they are being developed in the best of our Schools of Business. Decision making is extraordinarily complex in the marketing field. When decision is required between alternative policies or procedures, it is necessary first to grasp fully and completely the exact nature of the alternatives and all their implications. It may seem simple, for example, to select a brand name for a new product; but this is only true for one who does not know both the values and dangers in a name. A name can convey a sense of quality, lend itself to easy recall, facilitate effective advertising, express values to be received in use; n sum, it can secure a privileged competitive position to its owner. Or it can be easily ridiculed or played upon, fail of copyright, be subject to confusion with other names, and so on. In truth, there are scores of facts to consider in selecting names, a wide variety of criteria to employ in judgment. There is a lot at stake. If this is true of names, i magine how much more true this is of issues concerning pricing, packaging, discount systems, employment and motivation of salesmen, advertising themes, and so on and on. Each issue must be studied objectively, its implications uncovered. All the facts relevant to ecision must be marshalled. The possible effects of alternative courses must be weighed. Experimentation or testing may be considered. This is the slow, arduous, but hard-headed and scientific approach to decision making. This is the way to confident action, desirable any time but mandatory when significantly new, creative innovations are put into effect. Those of us privileged to have close contact with marketing management over the past twenty years have seen a slow but steady progress toward this kind of decision making. Arbitrary, hasty, â€Å"seatof- the-pants† decisions based on hunch, enthusiasm, nd personal preferment for the individual advocates of one course are becoming less common. Yet there remains much room for improvement in decision making today. 4. Efficient Administration The fourth requisite to marketing success lies in efficient administration—the daily execution of policy and practice, the employment of facilities and men, the operating job. This is the field of marketing performance, so obviously necessary that it could not be overlooked. Here the need is for inspiring leadership of men, operating drive, astute supervision of performance in every detail, the building and aintenance of a morale that instills a motivation in the doers of the marketing job. Broadly speaking, marketing can claim credit for superior performance in this area; it has been given thought and attention at a senior business management level. By the same token, it is the marketing requisite least rich in opportunities for improvement and, therefore, least likely to yield a competitive advantage in marketing. The very obviousness of the need for sound administration has tended to obscure the nee d for the other three basic requisites in marketing—a full understanding of the market itself; the development f creative, new ideas or innovations; the making of decisions on a hard-headed, scientific basis. Administration is a big job, involving, the employment and supervision of hundreds, even thousands, of people, as well as the purchase, maintenance, and operation of equipment and facilities of countless kinds. And the huge expenditures for marketing lie under the administrator’s control. Small wonder, then, that marketing administration was equated with all of marketing, until increasing competitive equality in other areas forced people to study more seriously the nature of the marketing function. Sound administration is a fundamental component of marketing, but is far from all of it. It is the operation of a gigantic â€Å"machine. † This marketing machine works on the materials provided it, and under the policies and procedures set for it. The machine operator, skilled as he may be in his function, is rarely qualified alone to conceive, test, and decide upon new ideas, on new policies and procedures. He is not an innovator. He is not a researcher. He is not a trained and objective decision maker. These are different problems, requiring skills and training different from his, perhaps even a different temperament. A New Organization of the Marketing Function The slowly growing recognition that marketing management requires much more than administra32 Journal of Marketing, July, 1962 tive skill has led our largest and most progressive companies to bring a new kind of man to the Marketing Vice Presidency. He tends to be more thoughtful, sometimes skilled more in handling ideas than in handling men. He is more objective, analytical, less emotionally involved in his assignment. He has begun demanding research—searching for ideas, thinking of both â€Å"strategy and tactics. † The basic administrative management of arketing, the line operating responsibility, is being delegated to a subordinate General Sales Manager or Director of Field Sales Activities. Concurrently, staff departments in marketing have grown in number and influence. New units have appeared. We now have Product Managers, Marketing Operations Managers, Research Managers, along with the older Advertising and Credit Mana gers. Even Marketing Accounting and Marketing Personnel Managers may serve as members of the Marketing Stafif. Functions and Operation of the Marketing Staff The functions of these several staff groups have not been clearly crystallized as yet. Broadly speaking. , most of them are supposed to study all phases of the company’s marketing operations in the area of their specialization; keep the Marketing Vice President closely posted on trends and developments in their areas; check performance efficiency; and recommend policy or procedure changes when they seem needed. Thus, the Product Manager for a particular product keeps closely informed on all competitive conditions affecting his product, observes regional and district sales performance on the product, notes obstacles to sales success, and proposes means of overcoming them. The Operations Manager concerns imself with the supply, maintenance, and efficient performance of all physical facilities, stores, warehouses, delivery systems, etc. As a superior specialist in this area, he advises the Marketing Vice President on ways to improve efficiency and service, and to cut operating costs. The same kind of work is done by the Credit Manager, the Marketing Accounting and Personnel Managers, and the Advertising and Sales Promotion Manager. Collectively, the staff managers cover all the difiierent functions in marketing. When these Departments were set up, it was natural, of course, to staff them with young men ho had proved themselves successful in the company’s marketing activities. So, they were drawn from the ranks of the administrators. Generally this is still true, for this is the logical source of men and these jobs are still not clearly enough defined to suggest the need to look elsewhere. But this will change, indeed is in the process of change. It is not enough for the Product Manager or Operations Manager to serve as an observer of operations, to be an administrative second-guesser in a particular area of specialty. This would be a most routine approach to a job, unworthy of senior personnel. Rather, the staff Manager and his assistants must use their advantageous positions to acquire all relevant information affecting their functions. They must assimilate, analyze, and evaluate these data constructively. They must add to this, the stimulus of wide-ranging contact and observation of their industry and of many others. They must cultivate a flexibility of mind inviting new ideas. They must become creative—considering all manner of policies, procedures, activities which can add to marketing opportunities or improve service and increase efficiency. They must develop and explore their creative deas, testing mentally or in the market place those which seem most promising. In handling such tasks, they develop habits of thoroughness and objectivity, making scores of decisions on the basis of a scientific approach. They are truly staff experts— observing, creating, testing, recommending ways of doing their part of the marketing job better than it has been done before . This is the basic job of the Product Manager. Concentrating all energies on the one product or product line for which he bears responsibility, it is his job to conceive new and better ways to market it. His work may lead to recommended product odifications, package changes, price or distribution revisions. He may study advertising, promotion, guarantees, and service, and come up with new recommendations. He is the innovator, the preliminary decision maker, working from intimate knowledge of all relevant facts. The same is true of the Marketing Operations Manager. He is studying the nature and design of his retail outlets, the number and location of warehouses, the packing and order-filling system, the volume and distribution of inventories. He has scores of subjects to study, each offering opportunities for significant improvement. If he can nly conceive a better type of retailing equipment for his stores, a better system of truck scheduling, a finer system of production-distribut ion coordination, he can strengthen his company’s competitive position and add to its profits, just as can the Research and Development Manager or the Production Manager. What is true of Product and Operations Managers is just as true of the Advertising, Sales Promotion, and Public Relations Managers. It is just as true of the Marketing Personnel Manager. By use of cost analysis, the Marketing Accounting Manager can make significant contributions to policy on reas of operation, channels of distribution, a quantity discount system, and a hundred other things. We need an explicit, articulated understanding that this is the job of the Staff Manager. We need The Role of the Marketing Staff 33 to recognize formally, and afiirmatively that innovation and scientific decision making is the particular province of these men . . . that collectively they represent a kind of R and D for Marketing. The Staff as Professionals When this is done, we will have a very different set of specifica tions for men to fill these jobs. They must possess keenly analytical but highly fiexible minds. They must be imaginative, creative. They must be objective, thorough, trained in the scientific approach to problems. They must know the rudiments of collection, assimilation, and evaluation of data. They must be well informed, with wide contacts in industry and education. In a word, they must be professionals. Broadly speaking, this is the kind of background and training we find most often today in marketingresearch men and consultants. This implies that in time most senior staff positions in marketing will be research positions. After all, research, viewed broadly, is nothing more than the systematic, horough, objective examination of a problem; the orderly acquisition of all relevant data bearing upon it; and the meaningful, creative evaluation of the data in terms of conclusions and recommendations. This is, indeed, what is expected of Marketing Staff Managers. With further passage of time, however, the specific functions of marketing research will be narrowed. Today anyone engag ed in simple fact gathering may be called a research man. Ten years from now, however, the term prohably will be reserved largely for those who by long, and specialized training have mastered the more complex and intricate echniques of research. They will be the specialists in sampling, in operations research, in projective techniques. The Marketing Research Department will not be large, and it will carry out its work on a service basis for all the Marketing Staff Managers. The changes ahead are already very much in the process of being made. Product Managers, Advertising Managers, staff men of every kind are addressing themselves ever more seriously to their Jobs, going farther and farther beyond routine, specialized, administrative observation and suggestion. They are getting into their jobs more deeply han ever, and so they feel impelled to creative and decision making roles. And more and more such jobs are going to research men and to men whose training and temperament commend t hem for a research approach to business. The trend will quicken as there is more widespread specific recognition and articulation of the ultimate character of staff work. MARKETING MEMO We Are Already Living in the Future . . . ^ Are you enjoying your life in 1985? Through no time machine, via no crystal ball, we are, today, living lives accurately predicted by early science forecasters and science fictioneers—but predicted for about 1985. Our age is a good quarter of a century ahead of its time, thanks to developments that would have waited many more years—except for urgent military necessity. Many of us resent defense spending. We begrudge its existence as a necessary waste that helps insure freedom, but yields no tangible return. How wrong we are! Our defense research dollars, aimed at strengthening our military muscle, are pushing civilians toward richer, healthier, safer, more convenient living. It was military money that led to the development of the safety door lock and the low-profile anti-skid tires now on many new automobiles. Military necessity mothered rainwear that remains indefinitely repellent to water, oil. and grease despite repeated laundering and dry cleaning. ^John G. Hubbell, â€Å"Life in 11)85 Today,† reprinted by permission of Quest . . . for tomorrow Magazine, Vol. 2 (Summer, 1961), p. 14. Copyright of Journal of Marketing is the property of American Marketing Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. How to cite Role of Marketing Staff, Papers

Accounting Information System Data Mining System

Question: Describe about the Accounting Information System for Data Mining System. Answer: Introduction With the due passage, there has been a strong reliance on the availability of data and this has become possible with the advent of various softwares. Technology has improved the performances of the organization. This has led to the emergence of Business Intelligence that is composed of various activities like reporting, processing, data mining, etc. The enterprise system is vastly benefited by it and in this report; the main stress will be on the Business intelligence, data mining, and how these are put to implementation (Peter et. al, 2013). Business Intelligence BI or Business Intelligence is basically an umbrella term which implies a variety of different software applications that are used to evaluate raw data of an organization. As a discipline, Business Intelligence is made up of various associated activities that include reporting, querying, online analytical processing, complex event processing, benchmarking, and data mining etc. BI is a technology-driven process that is primarily used by various companies, business managers and corporate executives so that they can enhance their decision-making, minimize expenditures and recognize new and effective opportunities for business (Peter et. al, 2013). It is more than just corporate reporting and a set of tools that is used to persuade data out of the enterprise systems. The CIO (Chief Information Officer) of companies to recognize several business processes that are ineffective and have become ready for re-engineering processes also uses it. The main objective of BI is to permit simple and easy interpretation of high volumes of data so that an effective strategy can be implemented based on insights that can provide companies with a long-term stability and competitive market advantage (Rodriguez et. al, 2010). In the current scenario where developed BI tools prevails, business management can jump in and start evaluating data themselves instead of waiting for IT to process several complex reports. This transformation to a more democratic political regime of easy accessible information can assist users to back up various business decisions that would otherwise be based only on anecdotes and gut feelings (Golfarelli Golfarelli, 2009). Even though Business Intelligence holds huge promises, implementations can be unshakeable by cultural and technical challenges. Management of companies are bound to ensure that the data feeding applications of BI is not hampered, that means it is consistent and clean enough to be trusted and relied upon by users (MacIntyre, 2004). Business intelligence provide a competitive advantage Industries and businesses from all around the world have observed various innovative or technological variations provided by the forces of globalization. One of such relevant variations is the prevalence of advanced IT (Information Technology) in the contemporary organizations. Regular enhancement of such globalization and IT proves to be the biggest factors that provides global aspect to competition. The business managers or corporate executives of contemporary organizations have been encouraged by such factors to introduce the Business Intelligence concept in their business environment (Watson et.al, 2007). They constantly concentrate on attaining an enhanced stage of competitive advantage in the international business markets. There are several ways by which BI can used to attain competitive advantage. Firstly, BI facilitates in the measurement of marketing efficiency. One of the key drivers for departure of advertising expenditure to the internet has been the potential to measure results. This can be attained through direct ways like impressions and click-through or indirect ways like evaluation of consumer emotions on blogs, social networks etc. BI can be used here as a major component in managing the huge volume of data involved in such work (Chugh Grandghi, 2013). The outcomes of this evaluation can assist contemporary organizations in targeting marketing budgets and understanding how to segment their markets. Secondly, contemporary organizations in fact, are weaker in enhancement of Human Resources. Therefore, they must focus on such improvement and BI can be adopted to develop and transform the relevance of their human capital. Markets that are highly competitive require HR strategies and examining of its performance. BI can support such processes by permitting organizations to gain better perceptions into the realization of their HRM strategies (Blumberg Atre, 2003). Thirdly, managers and executives of contemporary organizations can adopt BI to tran sform collected information into precious knowledge within their business architectures so that they can make better economic decisions in the global environment (Rud, 2009). This will provide them a competitive advantage in modern businesses. It has been observed that contemporary organizations that have adopted BI as a strategy in decision-making have attained competitive advantage over other competitors as BI could encompass business applications, technologies, and peoples skills into such decisions. Loyalty card process Data is the vital requirement of every sector, provides great functioning in the global economy, and is considered as an important factor of production like human capital, hard assets, etc. It is difficult to perform the economic activity without it (McKnight, 2003). In the retail, industry data mining helps in making crucial decisions and the apt example is the utilization of a tier system to enhance purchases. It is a big challenge to the companies to strike a balance between attainment and desirable rewards using a loyalty program. The main way through which it can be implemented is to utilize data mining. Rewards are used as a base for offering so that people draw towards the scheme. To get an upper hand, loyalty programs are being used and the consumers are engaged (Kimball, 2008). Data that i gathered through a loyalty program can provide great insight into the segment of customer and help to provide strategic dollar to every group. Sainsbury loyalty reward card is an apt examp le that was launched in the year 1996. It considered the monetary model that helps segmenting the customer that is based on certain data. Now the identification of the customer can be done based on the data that is collected. This leads to identification based on recency, frequency, as well as monetary. Using the above-mentioned technique it can be ascertained that which customers are most valuable and scoring can be done considering this. Such a customized approach has helped Sainsbury in filtering and tracing the customers based on various parameters. This has helped the company is implementation of various strategies. Hence, loyalty card program has not only won and retained the customers but has also helped in knowing the trend (Clark, 2006). Thereby, it can be said that the process of loyalty card program is not only to reward the customers but the information gathered from it is used to protect, grow, and acquire new customers. Reactivating the customers is an important consid eration and this is possible when sufficient data is available in this regard. It helps in proper analysis and leads to a better scope of activity (Clark, 2006). Overall, the system is based on providing strong support to the system and the same can be witnessed in the case of Sainsbury. This has provided a strong support to the functioning and hence, data mining and analytic can affect the performance of the organization in a strong fashion. Conclusion BI can contribute towards talent management in contemporary organizations to provide competitive advantage. It can evaluate the qualifications and skills of employees, analyze the efficiency of recruitment methods, measure efficiency of various learning programs and oversee the achievements of combining the objectives of employees with the corporate objectives. The use of data mining can help to provide a strong back up because huge pool of data can be assembled and evaluated to discern the pattern and lead to better decision making. This becomes the way for competition and growth for firms that are individual in nature that enhances the productivity and creates value by reduction of the waste (Coker, 2014). Data mining helps in sorting relationship and trace patterns that are useful in making chief decisions. Therefore, the application of BI in contemporary organizations has been very effective in promoting competitive advantage. Queensland Health systems implementation Introduction Systems Development Life Cycle refers to the series of steps that are to be employed in the development of any application that might be either hardware or software or a combination of both. It is used in information systems, software engineering and systems engineering. The steps included planning, coding, testing, and deploying as a part of implementation of any new application. The aim here is to complete the transition to new application and discard the old system. Old systems are obsolete and needs a change. Change needs to be done when there is a dearth of it. Therefore, a change can produce desired result and it has to be completed within a proper period to achieve the desired results. Factors contributing to failed Payroll System The Healthcare industry involves people, processes, and services provided by hospitals, pharmacies, diagnosis agencies, etc. For this reason, it is fundamentally different from the other industries irrespective of the fact whether it is public sector or private sector. This difference is in not only the nature but also the focus and size of the industry. Healthcare industry involves a lot of procedures and different acts. Therefore, it can be easily differentiated from the other industry. The Queensland Health Implementation project failure was estimated to be the most costly one in the southern hemisphere involving $1.25 billion AUD. The factors that contributed to this failure are not one but many. The three primary stakeholder teams were identified as Queensland Health, CorpTech, and IBM. The first and foremost issue was with IBMs selection as the prime contractor. While the protocol was that all the bidders for the project should be given the same information, for some unknown reasons, the Project Director was believed to have passed on some extra knowledge to IBM thus helping it gain a competitive advantage over the others and getting the project allotted. Since, the extra knowledge and information was provided it proved to be unethical. This proves that this was unethical in nature and providing extra knowledge goes against the policies framed by the government (Alwan, 2016). As in the implementation of any project the roles and responsibilities of each team has to be made clear for effective functioning, it was believed that as the implementation commenced, throughout the project the responsibilities were not clear. The Healthcare industry has its special requirements in the way that the focus is on the safety, well-being of the patients, person-to-person interaction is primary, and the number of clients catered to usually runs into millions when compared to other industries where it could be just thousands. The main aim is to provide hospitality and look after the people. These requirements have not been adhered to by the system development implementation. There are many complexities involved in the project that can be classified as complexity of the industry, complexity of the system itself and the complexity of the client consultant relationships. The complexities arise because there are different systems and each has its own peculiarity. Having diffe rent system leads to a variety of acts. The configuration used by the Department of Justice for SAP HR was adopted by Queensland and the milestones were decided keeping this as the basis. When IBM took up, additional planning was done in October 2008 that revealed an underestimation of the complexities and resulted in cost overruns and substantial increase in time. From the initial stage, the business requirements were poorly defined which had a negative impact. The risk when the Payroll Software was implemented in Queensland was massive as it was not first tried and tested in smaller government agencies where the complexities were less. Since, it was tested on a very small basis it led to problem. It needs to be noted that the pilot program needs to be done on a grand scale so that the effectiveness is high. However, it was not seen in the case of Queensland and it proved to be of bigger risk. The first test resulted in a discrepancy of $1.2 million AUD and the second test led to a discrepancy of $30,000 AUD. Despite these discrepancies, Queensland opted to Go Live without completing the testing of a few modules. Upon Go Live, a significant proportion of employees were either not paid or paid incorrectly. As the number of employees and types of wage structures were varied, the use of WorkBrain could have simplified the interface between SAP and the new Payroll System, but the same was not used or adopted. This was just the part of technical deficiencies. However, the series of difficulties did not ended here and apart from this, the industrial strike resulted in the resignation of a number of employees that was the accelerated human impact of all the chaos that had occurred. The layoff of a huge number of employees led to issue and the industrial strike led to difficulties that further aggravated the situation. The total cost of implementation, stabilization and maintenance resulted was estimated to be $1.25 Billion AUD. Classification of factors As there are very many problems from the inception stage itself, the classification is also done as below: The issue over IBMs selection would fall into the Preliminary analysis phase where the requirements of the organization are defined and the proposed alternative solutions are analyzed and classified by doing a cost benefit analysis. The bias in the tendering process is also a major hit back. The Requirements definition should be in such a way that details of the functional areas, problems and opportunities of the adopting organization are essential not only to ensure that the system performs but also to detail the scope of implementation. There has to be a proper documentation of the requirements that was also not done by Queensland. Proper documentation leads to greater compliance however, the absence proved to be a big failure for the organization (Siraj et. al, 2011). Every project is unique and has to be studied from specific perspectives. Each perspective has own pros and cons. Moreover, it needs to have proper logical functioning. Using the configuration of one project over another is a lapse in phase two that is Systems Analysis and Requirements Definition. The series of logical steps to be followed in this phase are collection of facts, scrutiny of the existing systems and analysis of the proposed system. The project over budget and over schedule is also an example of the gross failure of proper planning. The approach followed by Department of Public Housing is less complex since the pay structures are simpler when compared to those of Queensland. Thus, there is no proper definition of the requirements. A Queensland, there are 24,000 types of combinations of pay awards. This underestimation of the complexities in the wages structure has led to disastrous results. The presence of innumerable awards led to many complexities and hence it is diff icult to ascertain. The Integration and Testing Phase is not completed as the Casuals and overtime claims had not been tested due to lack of proper definition of the requirements. The possibility for existence of errors, bugs, and interoperability cannot be ruled out (Sheilds, 2005). WorkBrain was a major configuration that led to IBM being allotted this project at Queensland but this was not actually implemented during the project that was a major failure. WorkBrain was used to transfer and process the timesheets from SAP into the format accepted by the financial institutions. As WorkBrain was not used the difficulties with system testing, maintenance, up gradation, conservation of data quality increased. The unavailability of the system led to innumerable problem and hence there were many difficulties were observed. Even after the mistakes in the payments upon Go Live, the systems were not completely abandoned. The issues were attempted to be resolved by the prolonged attention of all the three stakeholder groups. This shows that the acceptance, installation and deployment stage was also a total failure and in a very messy situation. The pressure to Go Live ruled out the possibility of a parallel testing mechanism. Though the defects were initially categorized into four, there was a reclassification of the same due to the changing requirements and not all these defects were fixed before the Go Live decision that created all the havoc. In short it can be said that from the commencement there was poor management, poor handling and lack of proper understanding of the complexities in the IS environment. Recommendations Though time and cost overruns are typical in healthcare type of industry and framework, processing complexities and orientation, still the failure of Queensland Payroll System is arguably the worst example for the same. A specific project methodology is required to be followed. Adequate Governance Structures were not established until June 2009 that led to the vague description of the roles and responsibilities. The proper following of the systems development life cycle will lead practical and fruitful results. The organization needs to clearly articulate its requirements, utilize an appropriate implementation strategy, perform a substantial amount of testing before the decision to Go Live is reached, utilize an appropriate project management methodology and effectively communicate with all the stakeholder groups involved. Communication is a vital area in such cases as the communication between the client, consultant, and vendor is required for project governance (Mehdi, 2006). Lack of proper documentation led to user acceptance issues and functionality issues during the testing phase. The configuration of WorkBrain was not performed at Queensland that led to further complexities (Olsen, 2012). In healthcare industry every patient is unique and unpredictable and for this reason almost 50% of the healthcare organizations have found the installation of IS systems a failure but a majority of such failures can be attributed o the lack of proper management support, poor project management, inefficient communication among the stakeholder groups and technical issues which are poor system testing and lack of proper definition of business requirements (Weistroffer et. al, 2010). At Queensland, not surprisingly all of these factors are found to co-exist. WorkBrain should have been used in Queensland as IBM used it in other agencies and clients. Conclusion Many lessons can be learnt not just with respect to the implementation, testing and Go Live phase of the project but also the importance of communication, planning and parallel testing requirements. A succession planning of the legacy system needs to be in place and the perspective project methodologies have to be followed. Due to the requirements of multiple hierarchy and multiple subprojects, Queensland has had a disastrous payroll implementation project failure (Sheilds, 2005). The key reform areas have been identified and multiple layers to the governance process have been added. Thus apart from the technical and financial defects, this project failure has also has industry and nationwide implications. References Alwan, M. (2016). What is System Development Life Cycle? 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