Abuse & Fraud Essay Example for Free

Abuse Fraud Essay In the present health care system, hospital practitioner joint ventures make all the interested parties subject to a complex network of regulations and law and to the scrutiny by many federal agencies including:  ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The United States Department of Health and Human services (HHS)  ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Office of the Inspector General (OIG)  ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the General Accounting Office (GAO)  ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Federal Trade Commission (FTC)  ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The department of Justice (DOJ)  ·Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) In addition to this, many hospital financial managers must thoroughly understand the complex laws and regulations that normally affect their relationship with the physicians or doctors. The Medicaid and Medicare abuse and fraud statute provides that a person who willfully and knowingly pays, offers, receives or solicits any remuneration in exchange of referring a person to the for the furnishing of any service or item, or recommending any facility paid for in whole by Medicare shall be guilty of a felony (Goldsmith, 2010). In most cases, this provision is referred to as the ‘anti kickback statute’. Compensation is defined in this statute as including bribes, rebates, kickbacks whether made indirectly or directly, covertly or overtly, in kind or in cash (McWay, 2003). The penalties for violating the anti-kickback statute are quite severe and include criminal penalties, imprisonment for up to five years and fines of up to twenty five thousand dollars (Morrison, 2009). Additionally, the office of the Inspector General, which is the investigative agent for the HHS, has the authority to enforce money penalties on any violators and to prohibit them from participating in any medical programs (Bauman, 2002). Given the extent of the abuse and fraud statute, there are many details of the law that have been stipulated in the courts that have broadly interpreted the statute (Bauman, 2002). According to the Center for Medicare Medicaid services (2005), the leading cases indicate that if one several objectives of payments is to stimulate referrals, it is a violation of the abuse and fraud statute. Furthermore, when referrals must be the main reason of a transaction in orders to amount to a breach, referrals still need to be the sole purpose. In the year 1991, HHS released the safe harbor regulations that described eleven exemptions from the abuse and fraud statute (Altshuler, Creekpaum Fang, 2008). Furthermore, the arrangements that satisfy the safe harbor provisions are normally protected from the scrutiny. The vast majority of arrangements between different providers, suppliers and practitioners will normally fall outside of the safe harbors because it is somewhat difficult to structure the arrangements that comply with all the conditions of the drawn provisions (Bauman, 2002). For the medial practitioners who are unfamiliar with abuse and fraud law, the practical effect of the rules may hamper the development of some innovative arrangements and practices that can be beneficial to medical programs such as Medicaid and Medicare enrollees. In addition to this, the infinite majority of health providers, suppliers and physicians who serve people with Medicare are committed to providing high quality care to their patients as well as billing the medical program only for the payments that the physicians have earned (Bauman, 2002) Many health practitioners in the health industry are of the view that any kinds of arrangements that fall outside the safe harbor provisions are illegitimate (Altshuler, Creekpaum Fang, 2008). On the other hand, the failure to comply with these safe harbor provisions may signify that: The arrangement is not intended at all to stimulate the referral of business reimbursable under medical programs such as Medicaid or Medicare. The arrangement infringes the statute and does not meet the criteria for safe harbor protection. The arrangement may breach the statute in a less serious way. Discussion based on the applicable statutes, the Feldstein case and other cases The most known safe harbors mainly deal with investments by practitioners and providers. There are two safe harbors for investment interests: one for investments in large businesses and one for small businesses. In the large business safe harbor, the entity possesses over fifty million dollars in undepreciated net tangible assets, which are related to certain medical programs such as Medicaid. In the Feldstein’s case, there is an issue of whether physician or doctor recruitment can be immune from any legal attack because of a possible violation of abuse of laws and federal fraud. Unlike other abuse opinions and federal fraud cases, the facts of this case did not involve any kind of corruption. In addition to this, the facts of the Feldstein case are significant because they are a common occurrence in the medical field. Additionally, in this case, when the defendants acquired the control of the hospital, they had attempted to terminate the doctor’s contract because they were of the view that the doctor’s physician recruitment agreements had violated the federal fraud stipulations as well as abuse law. The doctor had refused to come to a settlement with the defendants and he then sued them for a breach of contract. In the court’s ruling, the court decided to decline all the recruitment arrangements illegal and stated that some arrangements may be permissible at some point. The issue of safe harbors arises in this point.

Human Chip Implants Essay Example for Free

Human Chip Implants Essay It is now possible to track humans wherever they are, thanks to the new technology of human chip implants. While this statement may sound interesting for the developers of the technology, the issue has attracted enormous debate about the ethical implications that surround the application of the technology. Human chip implants are sophisticated silicon microchip devices that are inserted to an individual’s hand or face for identification purposes (Alam, 2010). Prior to human applications, the microchip devices were used to identify and track lost and stolen pets. The first human to accept the device be implanted into his body was Professor Kevin Warwick on August 24th, 1998 (Witt, 1999). Warwick, a director of cybernetics at the University of Reading, U. K became the first person to host the controversial microchip after a procedure which took 20 minutes. Dr (Witt, 1999). George Boulos led a team of doctors who inserted a glass capsule the size of a pearl into Warwick’s left arm just above his elbow. The glass capsule comprised of several microprocessors work to recognize the human and give commands and communicate with other electronic devices (Witt, 1999). The device that was implanted into Warwick’s arm was about (23 X 3) mm and it stayed in his body for only nine days in order to avoid medical complications (Witt, 1999). In addition, the device had been found to have lost some power to function and the removal of it was to ensue. Half of the device was an electric coil while the rest of it was purely an arrangement of silicon microchips that processed and stored the information (Witt, 1999). The device could use only 8 bits of the total 64 bits of information to interact and communicated efficiently with the intelligent building at the University of Reading. The device functions to pass radio signals between the door frames that have rigged up doorways (Witt, 1999). When a human with the device implanted into his body enters or gets through the doorways, the radio signal energizes the coil which then produces an electric current that chips use to communicate signals which the computer recognizes a person as ‘authorized. ’ After this intelligent authentication, the door opens and the person can enter the building. For the nine days after implantation, Warwick was able to make security doors that required only smartcards to swing open through an electronic node system that tracked Warwick’s movement through the entire building (Witt, 1999). The technology of human implants claims several applications such as the identifications of lost children as well as the confused individuals suffering from Alzheimer disease (Mcgee Maquire, 1999). It is also proposed that the technology can have potential uses in the verifications of job applicants to determine whether they are criminals or illegal immigrants (Alam, 2010). The devices can carry criminal and medical history after encoding the device only with one number (Alam, 2010). This shows how the device can be used for tracking among many different uses. The device can be used to gain access to facilities in a secure manner reducing the cases of theft and unauthorized access to buildings, libraries, laboratories or other places where security is of high relevance (Alam, 2010). There are human rights that are infringed when the human microchips are implanted. For example, the human chip implant would impinge the constitutional rights in relation to the Fourth and Fifth Amendments (Alam, 2010). The device is also argued to be violating the Fourteen Amendments which provides for the rights of properties. All persons are protected from unreasonable seizures and searches according to the Fourth Amendment and one of these searches is the electronic surveillance which reveals the privacy of persons without their consent (Macgee Maquire, 1999). Two implications about human rights abuse are made in the use of the human microchip implant; the attachment of the surveillance device on humans and the continued monitoring of the person once the device is in the body. The ability of the microchip implanted into the body to read-write and track predisposes individual personal information to be revealed (Alam, 2010). Even if the read-only devices are used, they can be easily be scanned by the police and unauthorized searches violates the Fourth Amendments. At the same time, the use of microchip implants would violate the Fifth Amendment since the application of the microchip could be one form of self-incrimination where the device presents some tracking capabilities which breach the Fifth Amendment which provides that no citizen shall be forced to witness against himself (Macgee Maquire, 1999). Although the Amendments refer specifically to verbal self-incrimination, it has been argued that the Amendment applies to modern technologies which forcibly take the evidence from someone. Another violation of the implantation of microchips involves the internal property interest (Alam, 2010). The chip installation involves the breaking into the skin and implanting the device just the similar ways a pacemaker or an artificial eye. In the case of eye and pacemaker implants, the procedure is acceptable for medical reasons. Contrary, in the case of human chip implants where the aim of the gadget is for the accounting system as well as to act as a repository for government information. In general, the human chip implants pose a number of ethical and legal issues despite their potential applications in ensuring security and tracking lost and kidnapped individuals. It is important to enact appropriate legislations that will prevent any grievous intrusion into individual privacy as the technology gets a big vote among Americans.

History of Maclaurin Series

History of Maclaurin Series MACLAURIN series is the expansion of Taylor series about 0. So we can say that it is a special case of Taylor Series. Where f (0) is the first derivative evaluated at x = 0, f (0) is the second derivative evaluated at x = 0, and so on. Maclaurin series is named after the Scottish mathematician Maclaurin. In mathematics, the Taylor series is a representation of a function as an infinite sum of terms calculated from the values of its derivatives at a single point. The Taylor series was formally introduced by the English mathematician Brook Taylor in 1715. If the series is centered at zero, the series is also called a Maclaurin series, named after the Scottish mathematician Colin Maclaurin who made extensive use of this special case of Taylors series in the 18th century. It is common practice to use a finite number of terms of the series to approximate a function. The Taylor series may be regarded as the limit of the Taylor polynomials. HISTORY Colin Maclaurin Born: Feb 1698 in Kilmodan (12 km N of Tighnabruaich), Cowal, Argyllshire, Scotland Died: 14 June 1746 in Edinburgh, Scotland Colin Maclaurin was born in Kilmodan where his father, John Maclaurin, was the minister of the parish. The village (population 387 in 1904) is on the river Ruel and the church is at Glendaruel. EXPANSION Suppose that f is a real function, all of whose derived functions f (r)(r=1, 2,†¦) exist in some interval containing 0. It is then possible to write down the power series This is the Maclaurin series (or expansion) for f. For many important functions, it can be proved that the Maclaurin series is convergent, either for all x or for a certain range of values of x, and that for these values the sum of the series is f(x). For these values it is said that the Maclaurin series is a valid expansion of f(x). The function f, defined by f(0)=0 and for all x ≠  0, is notorious in this context. It can be shown that all of its derived functions exist and that f (r)(0)=0 for all r. Consequently, its Maclaurin series is convergent and has sum 0, for all x. This shows, perhaps contrary to expectation, that, even when the Maclaurin series for a function f is convergent, its sum is not necessarily f(x). The Maclaurin series of a function f(x) up to order n may be found using series [f(x,0,n)].The nth term of a Maclaurin series of a function f can be computed in mathematics using series coefficient [f(x,0,n)] and is given by the inverse Z transform. Maclaurin series are the type of series expansion in which all the terms are non negative integer powers of the variable. Other more general types of series include the Laurent series. Calculation of Taylor series Several methods exist for the calculation of Taylor series of a large number of functions. One can attempt to use the Taylor series as-is and generalize the form of the coefficients, or one can use manipulations such as substitution, multiplication or division, addition or subtraction of standard Taylor series to construct the Taylor series of a function, by virtue of Taylor series being power series. In some cases, one can also derive the Taylor series by repeatedly applying integration by parts. Particularly convenient is the use of computer algebra systems to calculate Taylor series. Maclaurin series for common functions: for -1

Normans Interpersonal Communication in the Movie, On Golden Pond Essay

Norman's Interpersonal Communication in the Movie, On Golden Pond EXAMPLE The movie On Golden Pond is a fantastic vehicle with which to consider six facets of interpersonal communication. The main character of the movie, Norman, provides for a multifaceted study in relationships, both with his "self" and with others. I have chosen to focus this paper on several aspects of Norman's interpersonal communication. On Golden Pond is a fascinating study in the discovery of Norman's need to communicate with those he cares about in new ways. Our textbook defines communication being interpersonal "when the people involved are contacting each other as persons" (4). On Golden Pond is rich with excellent examples of interpersonal communication. For example, Norman's relationship with his wife, Ethel, is most certainly interpersonal. As I watched the movie I was struck by how comfortable Ethel and Norman were with one another. Our text explains that "the term interpersonal labels a kind of communication that happens when the people involved talk and listen in ways that maximize the presence of the personal" (16). Ethel and Norman treat one another as unique individuals - each bringing different experiences to the relationship - because each has a differing view of life. Norman is afraid of his own mortality, and therefore he views life as threatening. On the other hand, Ethel dances, sings, and smiles her way through each day. Examples of impersonal communication can also be taken from the movie. Norman treats two teenagers pumping gas into his boat very impersonally, or nonpersonally. The boys could just as easily have been lampposts. Norman does not consider the boys ... ...op" to feel like a worthwhile human being. Our textbook lists Curran's fifteen characteristics of a healthy family (405). While I cannot see that Norman and Ethel's family live out any of these traits, I believe that, one fine day, they might figure out at least a couple of them. They do have "a sense of play and humor," (405) and they may eventually be a family who "affirms and supports one another" (405). In conclusion, Norman and his family are a true-to-life study in communication. On Golden Pond brilliantly portrays an enormous problem common to the family: poor interpersonal communication. It also shows that interpersonal interaction can be addressed at any stage in life - that it is never too late. Works Cited Stewart, John, and Carole Logan. Together: Communicating Interpersonally. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993.

population :: essays research papers

The Immigration Debate   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Migration is a natural condition of humankind. People have traditionally moved voluntarily hope of freedom and economical, cultural and educational opportunities. As of recent there has been a conflict of interest in terms of immigration. Mr. John Isbister shows both sides in his book, The Immigration Debate. Although Mr. Isbister shows both sides on immigration, he is clearly proimmigration. He says, â€Å"immigrantscontribute positively to the quality of American life and that immigration is consistent with the moral values that Americans hold closest†isbister 4). He says immigratswill continue to add to America’s melting pot theory.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  He starts his book talking abouhistory ofnited States policy. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 wereenacted as part to deny asylum toEuropean supporters of Democracy. The Immigration Act of 1924 was the first permanet limitation on immigration, established the â€Å" national origins quota system†(). This act set a quota of immigrants to the United States at two percent of the number of persons of a given nationality residing in the United States. Since quotas were based on the proportions of the U.S. population, the system greatly favored northern Europeans and discriminate against Asians. The quota system was finally abolished in The Migration Refugee Assistance Act of 1962. The act opened opportunities for families to reunify. Many refugees came from Cuba and Latin America. This actr surprisingly increased the number of non white immigrants. Now crowds of Hispanic and Asains can be found throughout the entire nation. Mr. Isbister says that the new infl ux of Hispanics and Asains is cyclical and that the population will control itself. The first cycle happened from 1820 to 1967, nearly 90 percent of all immigrants were from Canada or Europe. From the Migration Refugee Assistane Act of 1962, Mexico and other Central American countries were the maority of immigrants. Only thirteen percent of immigrants were from Europe.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Now there happens to be a huge influx of illegal immigrants. To control the illegal aliens Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986. This act punished employers who hired undocumented immigrants. It also granted citizenship to illegal aliens who had been residing in the United States for several years. No one really knows how many illegal immigrants there are living in the United States, but estimates say there are about four to five million illegals leaving here, almost all of them are non-white.

Service Marketing Management

TITLE PAGE Subject:   Ã‚  Ã‚  MKT8003 Service Marketing Management Assignment 1 (Individual assignment) Title of Assignment:   Ã‚  Ã‚   Marketing Audit Report – Camp Five Sdn Bhd Total Word Count   Ã‚  :  Ã‚  Ã‚   2000 words Date of Submission:  Ã‚  Ã‚   31 August 2012 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This marketing audit report is prepared for Camp Five to indicate how the organization is currently performing in their service level. The report is prepared based on secondary data gathered from reliable sources which is available online.In this report the background of Camp Five climbing gym is explained to understand the current internal resources and capabilities in its preparedness for servicing their target customer in Malaysia local market. The finding of issue status as, overall and major issues of the company as below, Overall Camp Five are current in high-end customer focus and in fact the majority of regular climbers are not in the high-end categories. Although the facility and technology is excellent advance compare to others competitors, the price of service has clearly show it is unaffordable to the middle class, therefore that is lack of daily head counts.The major problem is lacking of promotion, Camp Five current uses the strategy of word-of-mouth, as per research 100% of interviewee get the know Camp Five as from friends-to-friends referral only, many other promotions shall be implemented as to improve on the performance will be shown in TOW analysis in this assignment. TITLE PAGE Contents TITLE PAGE1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY2 1. 0 PURPOSE OF REPORT4 2. 0 THE INTRODUCTION4 3. 0 TARGET CUSTOMER7 4. 0 EXTERNAL ANALYSIS8 5. 0 INTERNAL ANALYSIS12 6. 0Service Quality Analysis13 7. 0 SWOT ANALYSIS16 8. 0 TOW17 9. 0 CONCLUSION19 10. 0 LIST OF REFERANCE19 1 APENDIX –SURVEY FORM21 How Do You Rate Your Climbing? 22 1. 0 PURPOSE OF REPORT (222words) This is a continuous of audit report of Camp Five Sdn Bhd, The purpose of this report is to present the ser vice quality from organization perspective and customer perspective point of view in delivering and receiving the service in service marketing aspect. The elements covers include the internal & external analysis of organization, gap between the customer's perception and expectation. Those factors will influence on to the organization and its services from the gym toward the end consumer directly or indirectly.It is to help the organization to understand more about their customer and positive of new customer. Same time the current marketing promotion plan must be implementing in an effective way on it services quality ; reach the company targeted headcount for the gym. Scope of report, this report will cover the analysis in phase one, the sources of the report is based on some level of internet resources, but mostly is from interview with customers and my friends as the employee which is working in the company as manger positions.The recommendation of this service marketing audit wil l be done in phase two of the following of this report. The monitoring of service will be from time to time based and this marketing service audit report accuracy credibility will remain valid for the next six month period. 2. 0 THE INTRODUCTION – OVERVIEW OF THE SERVICE ORGANIZATION (335words) 2. 1 Brief Background Camp Five is a place provides training and a place for training, working out and meets new friends. It is facilitated with climbing wall, cafe, Pro shop, high technology shower, kid place area and inspectorial training programs.Training program is designed for children, beginners, leisure and advance climber or people can come for Yoga classes too. The climbing gym is operating under Switzerland management. The wall was built by climbing wall BLOCX Sdn Bhd, which is the partnership company with Camp Five, Blocx's current major project are building and developing rock climbing wall around Asia region, they head quarter is located in Oberwil Switzerland, the other o ffice is located New Mexico America, Colombia South America and Shah Alam Malaysia.Camp Five Sdn Bhd started its operation since 2005 in Malaysia, located inside famous landmark shopping center of Kuala Lumpur – The One Utama Shopping Complex. The internal gym's environment is housed in 10m high air-conditioned glass tower, a-state-of-the-art climbing facility inside a shopping center, next to major business suite like TV3 and IBM office, Hotel, colleges and international schools like KDU and KBU, hotel and the high end household area.For first time customer, it is a must to join the climbing class they need to pass on climber safety examination and If you are first time in this gym customer need to pass personal climbing skill testing section is needed before customer are able to check-in and use for the service. 2. 2 The Service Blue Print The steps of servicing process of Camp Five has provided as per below (Regular Customer) Regular Customer Steps of Blueprint – Ca mp Five |Step 1| Customer Arrived to gym | Step 8| Interact with friends ; start to climb| Step 2| Registration | Step 9| Trainer provide training| Step 3| Check in, payment and rental of gears | Step 10| Customer received training| Step 4| Collect entrance fee and drop the member card | Step 11| Take beg from lock, shower and change attire| Step 5| Updates system with payment | Step 12| Return the member card ; collect rented gears| Step 6| Change attire and keep beg at locker| Step 13| Collect member card and process check out| Step 7| Put on climbing gears| Step 14| Customer leaving the gym|The servicing blueprint of Camp Five has provided as per below (Regular ; New customers) It is content with 14 steps of service blueprint for regular and new customers with the service supports, support process, back stage, on stage and customer action show. 2. 3 The Marketing Mix 7’Ps According to Kotabe and Helsen (2011, p332) companies can pursue three global strategies to penetrate foreign market, which is product extension, product adaptation and product invention.THE MARKETING MIX FOR CAMP FIVE SERVICES | Product | Climbing gym, Yoga class, Climbing training, Corporate team building, Sales of climbing gear, Rental of gear| Place | Outlet location- Gym center| Promotion | Membership fees discount, Training course discount, Selected item discount via Internet, Face-to-face, Facebook. | Pricing | High price for per entry; Average price for membership 3 month-1 year. People | Student, Professional climber, Leisure climber, Working Adult, House wife, Children, Trainer| Physical Evidence | Innovative design, Well maintain of climbing equipment, Tidy uniform, Membership cards, Clean and advance washroom. | Processes| From they enter the gym to exiting the gym. Fast payment process, Paid before entered, Simple check in process, High customer involvement, Well of training flows. | 3. 0 TARGET CUSTOMER (116words) The type of target customer is sports oriented they may be experience climber, leisure climber and explorer.This is Malaysian or non-Malaysia, working, living and studying within 15km from Bandar Utama area, male 50% and female 50% with the minimum earning of salary RM4000 to RM20,000 with some western culture background. Camp Five's targeted customer can be separated into the following groups, 1. Student 2. Foreign Resident 1. Working Adult 1. Corporate & School Group| Description| 1| Student| Majority are from 15-25 years old, young male and female. Foreign students who follow their family came and living in Malaysia or coming in alone with the purpose of further educations.As financial supported by their parents with background mostly associated with high-end society, therefore cultural is more open to adventure sports with more buying power for entertainment good. | 2| Foreign Resident| Work migration under the foreign resident, coming in and working here as temporary for certain project for 1-5 years, with very high income on averag e at lease RM 20,000 or more per month. Seeking for high quality lifestyle with high purchasing power, Caucasian or Asia came from high-technology's country. 3| Working Adult | Locate Malaysian customer, working, living or studying around Petaling Jaya or KL area. In average a working person with personal income of minimum RM4000, male or female with high education level, outgoing personality and like sport. | 4| Corporate ; School| Group customer is those will like to come for as a company or schools event targeted for corporate team building function is not a routine activity. | Table 3a In the hierarchy of effect model, customer was visit to this gym are experiential influence on behavior. Affect – Behavior – Cognitive.First come from their feeling want to try this climbing experience, and then they took action to climb lastly learning process. 4. 0 EXTERNAL ANALYSIS 4. 1 PESTAL ANALYSIS OF CAMP FIVE (290words) A PESTEL Analysis of Camp Five Sdn Bhd, this model is d esigned measure on the macro-environment could effect on the organization. Includes with Political, Economic, Social, Technical Environmental and Legal issue, on average social issue carries the most weight in the climbing gym industrial, due to it is an experiential goods and services. Factor| Includes:|Political| Change trading rules, tax, change in government. | Economic| Interest rates, exchange rates, national income, inflation| Social| Ageing population, attitudes to work, income distribution, customer taste, education levels, migration flow and working hours of customer| Technological| Innovation, new product development, rate of technological obsolescence, safety drinking water system, online advertising| Environmental| Reduce use of paper, encourage cotton towel, global warming, environmental issues| Legal| e. g. competition law, health and safety, employment law, business law| Table 4aDETAIL OF PESTEL ANALYSIS IN CHART | Political Factors| Change in trading rules, Camp Fiv e it is owe by a Sweden Company may influence the business trading terms. Tax, the rate will change in rock climbing product and equipment, all climbing equipment is imported good. If government is not stable company may re-locate in the investment in other part of SE Asia. | Economy Factors| Exchange rates will influence of company income, because company HQ is in Europe. National incomes and unemployment rate, determinate customer willingness to spend on leisure product like gym servicing.Inflation rate will influence on the wages of staff and operation expense, exchange rate of equipment, due to the product are all imported, when Euro and Dollar price down. | Social Factors| Customer change in taste in switching of interest in this gym, aging of society, if this city gets older than the target group (aged of 14-45) will the target customer group will get smaller. Education and income level increases, people tent to concern more with health issue and increase in working-out in gym . If working hours increase the number member able to visit at week days will decrease.Migration flows increases; our customer will increase, and due to climbing sport is more popular in foreign country. | Technology Factors| The uses and for sales climbing devices and equipment is important product in our Pro-Shop, and the technology being use to with in the gym, free Wi-Fi connection, fully air-conditions, high technology shower systems, water filler give customer with a confinable gym environment as well as the auto- belaying device, customer can still climb while waiting for their buddies arrived. | Legal Factors| Climbing environment is designed with anti-fire and safety pat material and cushions.It is always monitored by instruction eying around. Safety training and handbook ensure all customers understand the safety rules in the climbing gym and rules of use climbing equipment. Employment rules follow as per Malaysia government guideline in employment handbook. Camp Five appl y Malaysia Law system where the mother company from Sweden applies EU law. | Environmental Factors| Encourage customer and staff reduces on use of plastic water bottom and encouraging drinking in refilled directly from pipe, recycle bin services is provided. Encourage customer to use cotton towel in the gym and cafe instant of paper.Weather change, determines people likeness to climbing indoor or outdoor the day and the location, easy access to gym. | Table 4b 4. 2 Porter Five Forces of Macro Environmental Analysis The use for porter five forces analysis is the measure the threat within the competitor and business. The key rating system have been applied as per following, Key Rating System (1. Very Poor, 2. Poor, 3. Neutral, 4. Good, 5. Very Good) The Rating System Porter 5 Forces of Camp Five| 5 Forces| Camp Five| Cyberjaya Adventure | Mad Monkey| 1. Existing rivalry | 3| 3| 2| 2. New entering | 3| 2| 1| . B. P of Buyer| 5| 3| 3| 4. Threat Substitute| 5| 3| 2| 5. B. P of Suppliers | 3| 4| 2| Total| 19| 15| 10| | | | | | Rating System: very poor-1 ; very good- 5 | Table 4b The detail of Porter Five Forces will be explained as per below chart (4c) Porter's Five Forces of Competitive Position | | | | | | | 2. New entering | | | Medium there is the only gym within 20km from the resident, technology is in way advance than other, due to the built cost is high, but competitor can built in cheaper gym with lower cost. | | 5. Bargaining Power of Supplier | | | | 3.Bargaining Power of Buyer | | | 1. Existing Rivalry | | | Medium, the product has substitutes and minimal switching costs, which result in low competitive pressures in the supply side. | | | at the medium stage, although the quality and service is very good but there is still many customer prefer to go for low price choice lead to high degree of differentiation, therefore can be competitive. | | Buyer low stage the high end customer will preferred to purchase with receiving the best quality of service than s witching to look for other alternative. | | | | | | | 4.Threat Substitute | | | Low level, as the product is similar but the quality of facility and lifestyle is unlikely to be change by it taste. | | Table 4c 4. 3 Industry Analysis Due to this is a experiential goods in terms of economy and political will influence on change in it price, the long run of bargaining power with buyer and supplier are at every low risk, only seeing the possibility of new gym within this area can be compete with Camp Five but the possibility is still low, high chance of customer may lost interest and less visiting, due to friends, time of work and other reason. . 4 Customer Analysis The collection of data from customer analysis is conducted in face-to-face interview and survey format, it is target to understand the customer needs and current marketing trends towards satisfaction measuring in the climbing gym environment by service provided located with Klang Valley area. 4. 5 Competitor Analysis Major c ompetitor rock climbing gym within Malaysia, provided climbing service to rock climber, will be cyberjaya adventure center in Cyber Jaya, MadMonkey indoor bouldering center in Wangsa Maju, Shah Alam outdoor adventure in Shah Alam and The factory climbing gym in Subang Jaya. They provide service like top-rope climbing, bouldering wall, travels walls and lead wall climbing, however only Camp Five and Cyber Jaya Adventure was able to provide all the service in one center. The price as quality show as below, 5. 0 INTERNAL ANALYSIS 5. 1 Resource Competency Analysis The uniqueness of Camp Five has believed in providing the best environment and the best service in Asia, with high quality level of modern lifestyle and beauty of sports.And all employees in any position and time are responsible to customer safety first, staff must take action to help and remain ensuring the individual safeness in climbing environment. 5. 2 Share Holders Analysis The matrix below shown in table below is applie d to show the internal and external stakeholders that have direct or indirect impact on the growth of the business. | Importance of stakeholder | | High | Low | Influence of stakeholder | High | Key group | Silent group | | | Partners | Government – Ministry of Environment | | | Management, | | | Shareholders |   | | | New investor |   | | Low | Vocal Group | Irrelevant group | | | Employees | Individual customers | | | Marketing teams | Contractor | | | Agents, | Cleaner | | | Distributors |   | Table 5a– Stakeholder Analysis | The key groups are partners, management, other shareholders and new investor. The customer groups are the key to the survival of the business. The faster the target market will turn into royal customer, gym can sustain and growth in its business operation and provides in positive growth. 5. Performance Analysis Current the sales of the organization is the low head count especially in low season like long public holiday times, although we have a big number of members but however they are non-actives, the targeted market share of customer group has not been achieved, overall survive on the long term membership customer which sign up for 6month-1 years membership. That could count on average of 40% of total business. The others revenue are selling on climbing equipment, team building outdoor projects for groups and climb pays per entrance. . 0Service Quality Analysis (298words) To measure the service quality of Camp Five I have provided the analysis based on face-to-face survey with interviewee with purchasing experience in Camp Five Climbing Gym, the analysis result show as below. (The full version of service survey form is reference in the appendix) The SERQUAL Model analysis will based on question 3-15 only, show as per below, SERQUAL Model of Service Survey Q| Survey Questions | 1| 2| 3| 4| 5| Q being answers| Total score| No. f Interviewee| Means| 1| First time to this gym|   | 60|   |   |   | 600| n/a| 60 | n/a| 2| How do you know this Gym|   | 60|   |   |   | 600| n/a| 60| n/a| Rate you overall experience (Scoring System data are serve for the GAP analysis)| 3| Were you server – Courteous? (If No-1, Yes- 5)| |   |   |   | 60| 60| 300| 60| 5| 4| Were you server -Informative? (If No-1, Yes -5)| 20|   |   |   | 40| 60| 260| 60| 3. 7| 5| Rate of total expectation |   |   |   | 60|   | 60| 240| 60| 4| 6| Staff helpfulness |   |   | 10| 40| 10| 60| 240| 60| 4| 7| The price of entrance fees| 20| 10| 20| 10|   | 60| 140| 60| 2. | 8| The attribute of the gym |   |   | 10| 40| 10| 60| 240| 60| 4| 9| Varieties of climb|   |   | 10| 40| 10| 60| 240| 60| 4| 10| Convenience of this location|   |   |   | 40| 20| 60| 260| 60| 4. 3| 11| Clean |   |   | 10| 20| 30| 60| 260| 60| 4. 3| 12| Environment safety|   |   |   | 40| 20| 60| 260| 60| 4. 3| 13| Training experience |   | 10|   | 10|   | 20| 60| 60| 3| 14| Quality gear for rent |   | 10| 20| 10|   | 40| 120| 60| 4| 15| Rate over climb experience|   |   |   | 50| 10| 60| 250| 60| 4. 2| Personal particulars | 16| Gender| 20| 40|   | 60| The details of this survey are provided in survey form on appendix at last page of this report. 17| Age|   |   | 20| 30| 10| 60| | 18| Monthly Income group |   |   |   | 50| 10| 60| | 19| Frequency of visiting| 40|   | 10| 10|   | 60| | 20| Plan to join membership | 30| 10|   |   |   | 40| | 21| Already member? | 30| 30|   |   |   | 60| | 21A| Which member plan? | 10|   |   | 10| 10| 30| | Table 6a As per the rating system and survey 100% of customer gets to know about this gym by friends’ referral, as per survey the promotion is not strange enough in its attraction to new walk in customer. QUOTA SAMPLING QUOTA SAMPLING | Race | No. Survey | % | Chinese | Male | 8| 13%| Female | 12| 20%| Malay | Male | 5| 8%| | Female | 5| 8%| Indian | Male | 2| 3%| | Female | 2| 3%| Forigner | Male | 13| 22%| | Female | 13| 22%| Total | 60| 100%| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Table 6b| | | | As per quota sampling analysis shows that the 34%Chinese, 16% Malay, 6% Indian and 44% Foreigner participant in the survey analysis. Overall customer were being serve courteous in scoring at the highest at 5, and the price of entrance fees score at the lowest at 2. only. Interpreted the staff has a good relationship and treated customer as very important, but however the price is disappointing from customer's point of view. GAP ANALYSIS CUSTOMER PERCEPTION ; EXPECTATION ANALYSIS | Provider Gap | Customer Expectation | Customer Perception | GAP | Listening Gap | 4 | 3 | (1)| Service Design and Standards Gap | 4 | 4 | 0 | Service Performance Gap | 4 | 1 | (3)| Communication Gap | 5 | 5 | 0 | Total| 17| 13| -4| | | | | | Dis-confirmation GAP: Low-1, High-5 | Table 6c – Disconfirmat ion GapAs Disconfirmation model, as in the GAP model table shows in total of -4 dis confirmation Gap between customer perception and expectations. Overall they score the highest gap -3 of performance gap, operation staff need to improves on its service performance skills in term of the cleanness of toilet, change in water filler, repairing of rental climbing equipment, quality of training and redesign the current price package. The communication and listening wish is very good scored at 0 gap means the customer is very satisfied with the current communication service of employee. . 0 SWOT ANALYSIS (242words) As per chart, show CAMP FIVE has more advantage in strengths and opportunity as compare to the weakness and treats; it has shown a positive growth in the future. The further explanation will be shown as below. Strengths | Weakness | High in technology | To pricy | Strong employee capital | High operation expensive | Largest climbing gym in Asia | Limit to a small customer group from interests | Convenience of location |   | Good environment |   | Opportunity | Treats    | Expend to new customer via more promotion | Product substitution |Give FOC test climb section and tight-up promote | Change of customer taste | Tight up with government | Low season | International and locate competition |   | Table 7a SWOT ANALYSIS IN DETAILS | Strengths| The strengths of Camp five they provides high technologies in wall climbing technologies following the latest and most up-dated as Europe standard, they’re the largest gym also the best climbing in Malaysia, further Malaysia Climbing Campion is working under Camp Five, all others is also professional certified training by UIAA. They are 10,000 square feet with located inside a shopping hall, gives customer all connivances, right in the middle of city. | Weakness| Price is too high for medium end climber or either some student which have time to come as compare to the others gym is about 25-40% higher than other like PutraJaya adventure and Mad Monkey gym, although they does not have the same location advantage. High operation cost, due to the rental, hiring of employee with design maintain and operating, they also have small customer group with attracted to this sports. Opportunity| Customer group can be increase into varies of group including, student, working, employee and government, open new market, increase in brand royalty and awareness. Increase in open competition number of event for member’s link with international, tight up with UIAA| Treats| Customer may change in interest of climbing, low season people prefer going for holiday, change location to climb. | Table 7b 8. 0 TOW TOWS (50words)A TOW Analysis to the advance of SWOT to specific the elements of service marketing address Intangibility, perishability, co-production, customer contact people, physical evidence using â€Å"Strength and Opportunity†, â€Å"Weaknesses and Opportunity†, â€Å"Strengt h and Threat†, lastly â€Å"Weaknesses and Threat (WT)† exhibiting as per followings. | INTERNAL STRENGTHS | INTERNAL WEAKNESS | | 1. High in technology 2. Strong employee capital 3. Largest climbing gym in Asia 4. Convenience of location 5. Good environment | 1. To pricy 2. High operation expensive 3.Limit to a small customer group from interests | EXTERNAL OPPRTUNITIES | SO: STRATEGIES | WO: STRATEGIES | 1. Give FOC test climb section and tight-up promote 2. Tight up with government 3. International and locate competition | 1. Increase on marketing tight up with government project. 2. Tight up with more international competition host in Camp 5 3. Create more events and create awareness through press and news. 4. Get free climb section with event tight up with mall. 5. Advertise in Asia Climbing magazine. | 1. Re-structure the price 2.Increase the sales volume after to co-operate rate, eg. IBM, One World Hotel staff and tourist discount rate, increase customer group. 3 . Promote in tourism Malaysia. 4. Reduces on the use on electricity saving operation cost. 5. Attract external customer to try rock climbing | EXTERNAL THREAT | ST: STRATEGIES | WT: STRATEGIES | 1. Product substitution 2. Change of customer taste 3. Low season | 1. Increase in brand royalty 2. Arrange more activity to get member together again 3. Give special promotion at low season/ week days . Target more office people and encourage them to come after office hours. | 1. Avoid too much promotion rules in joining the membership 2. Promote friends-friends or buy one get one member free to crease interest of new members. 3. Let people enjoy this place more than other gym 4. Promote gym member switching discount or give 3 hours free personal training. | Table 8a Strength and Opportunity (SO) – By increase project from different dimension, attract more opportunity and take advantage of the good location.Increase events example: in 2006 the World Cup Europe climber from UIAA atten ds to climbing during preparation for competition includes with national climbing team from Italy, France, Austria, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, and Germany etc. Weaknesses and Opportunity (WO) – Make adjustment to the price and open up new market group like one world hotel tourist discount or business discount, VISA card member promotions, one-card member test climb section, promote the selling hardness in Point-to point exchange gift credit card promotion.Strength and Threat (ST) – Use event to increase the brand royalty to passed , current and future customers. Target more people from the office around the gym to come, make road show to promote the gym and facilities. Weaknesses and Threat (WT) – Try to make the promotion easy for customer to purchase try to avoid many Purchase to Purchase rules, try to give customer benefit able and interesting, when the headcount reaches the target (set a target) than cut of the special promotion and keep the regular promo tion just to keep the royalty customers. 9. 0 CONCLUSION (215words)This report concludes that Camp Five is good place to youth people to work-out and meet new friends, Camp Five has the great quality and it is very suitable for the Malaysian marketing in it expansion. However in total they are lack of awareness, as rock climbing is still a very new sport for Malaysia as compare to the west, therefore promotion is an essential. Overall customer has a good rating with the service provided by Camp Five but however due to the other competitor in the marketing has some influence on customer perspective therefore the building the brand and royalty customer with in the climbing network is important.Customer overall has a high interest in rock climbing and I can see they are quite royal to the interest, but due to the most majority of climbing is in the low-middle end, rating of customer the price over is too high and not expectable by most long term climber, they will prefer to seek for ot her alternative to climb although the location may not be as convenience. Camp Five should take customer in as lower price and get more royalty customer, focus on headcount is not important, however the suggestion for Camp Five will be presented in phase 2 of the assignment. 0. 0 LIST OF REFERANCE Company Research 1. Camp Five Sdn Bhd 2012, viewed 31 July 2012, ;http://camp5. com/; 2. BLOCX Sdn Bhd 2012, viewed 30 July 2012, ;http://www. blocx. com/projects/camp5. html ; 3. Alpine 2012, viewed 2 Aug 2012, ;http://amga. com/programs/alpine_AGE. php; 4. UIAA 2012, viewed 21Aug2012, ;www. theuiaa. org/; PESTEL Analysis 5. PESTEL analysis of the macro-environment by Oxford University Press. 2007, viewed 31 Jul 2012, ;http://www. oup. com/uk/orc/bin/9780199296378/01student/additional/page_12. htm; 6.PESTLE analysis history and application by CIPD. Retrieved Nov 2010, viewed 30 Jul 2012, ; http://rapidbi. com/the-pestle-analysis-tool/; Blue Print 7. Kotler,P,Brown, L, Adams,S ; Armstrong, G2004, Marketing, 6th edn, Pearson Education, Australia 8. Shostack, GL 1992, ‘Understanding services through blueprinting’, in T Swartz, D Brown ; S Brown(eds), Advances in services marketing and management, vol. 1,JAI Press, 9. Greenwich, CT, pp. 75-90. 10. Dr C. Thomas Oliva(2012), Basic blueprint reading and sketching 50 th edn, Thomas Delmar. 11.Newell Frederich(1926), customer relationship management in the new era of internal marketing, New York, London: McGraw-Hill, 2000 12. Valarie A. Zeithaml, Mary Jo Bitner and Dawayne Gremler (2008), Service Marketing Integrating customer focus across the firm 5th ed. Service Marketing 13. Christopher Lovelock and Jochen Wirtz (2011), Services Marketing – People, Technology, Strategy. 7th ed. , Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Porter’s Model 14. Chapman, A 2004-2009, Porter’s Five Forces Model, BusinessBalls. com, Leicester, England, viewed 19 August 2011, ;http://www. usinessballs. com/por tersfiveforcesofcompetition. htm; Others 15. CIA 2012, The worldfact book, viewed 10 Aug 2012, ;https://www. cia. gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook; 16. Konopka, G. (1973) â€Å"Requirements for Healthy Development of Adolescent Youth†, Adolescence. VIII(31), p. 24. 17. Thomas, A. (2003) â€Å"Psychology of Adolescents†, Self-Concept, Weight Issues and Body Image in Children and Adolescents, p. 88 11 APENDIX –SURVEY FORM A survey forms has attach as the result outcome of interview with Camp Five’s customer. CAMP 5 THE LARGEST IN ASIA How Do You Rate Your Climbing?We are committed to providing you with the best climbing experience possible, so we welcome your comments. Please fill out this questionnaire and place it in the box in our check-out reception counter. Thank you! Are you a first time coming to this climbing gym? YesNo How do you know about this climbing gym? AdsReferralOnline/LearnOthers Website from Vision Please specify: _____________ _____ * * How do rate the total expectation with us, please rate as per below†¦. The reliability of the staff 12345 DisappointingExceptional The willingness the staff – Helpfulness or friendliness 12345DisappointingExceptional Was you serve†¦ Courteous? Informative? YesNoYesNo The price of entrance fees. 12345 DisappointingExceptional The attribute of the gym – Does the climbing level fits you? 12345 DisappointingExceptional Your favorite climbing level is ________________ (FRANCH or USA) Is there enough variety of climb. 12345 DisappointingExceptional Please rate the connivance of this location? 12345 DisappointingExceptional CAMP 5 THE LARGEST IN ASIA How Do You Rate Your Climbing? We are committed to providing you with the best climbing experience possible, so we welcome your comments.Please fill out this questionnaire and place it in the box in our check-out reception counter. Thank you! Are you a first time coming to this climbing gym? YesNo How do you k now about this climbing gym? AdsReferralOnline/LearnOthers Website from Vision Please specify: __________________ * * How do rate the total expectation with us, please rate as per below†¦. The reliability of the staff 12345 DisappointingExceptional The willingness the staff – Helpfulness or friendliness 12345 DisappointingExceptional Was you serve†¦ Courteous? Informative? YesNoYesNo The price of entrance fees. 12345DisappointingExceptional The attribute of the gym – Does the climbing level fits you? 12345 DisappointingExceptional Your favorite climbing level is ________________ (FRANCH or USA) Is there enough variety of climb. 12345 DisappointingExceptional Please rate the connivance of this location? 12345 DisappointingExceptional Was our gym clean? 12345 DisappointingExceptional Safety of environment and climbing area? * * 12345 * Disappointing Exceptional Please rate your overall training experience. (If any) 12345 DisappointingExceptional Name of course ______________________ Please rate the quality of gears. If any) 12345 DisappointingExceptional Please rate your overall climbing experience. 12345 DisappointingExceptional Personal particulars Please be assure as this particular will only be analysis on a positive bases as for the profiling and not for individual use, be assure those details will not be use for another purpose. Gender Male Female Age 15 and 15-20 21-3031-4040 and Below More Monthly Income Student 20002000- 4001- 6000 or No Income or lower 4000 6000 higher How frequently do you visit our gym? -5 times per month 1-2 times per month Once every 2 months Other Do you plan to join to our gym’s membership? Yes No You already have the membership? Yes No ? 10pass 3mths6mths12mths 12mths (Prepaid) (Installment) Was our gym clean? 12345 DisappointingExceptional Safety of environment and climbing area? * * 12345 * Disappointing Exceptional Please rate your overall training experience. (If any) 12345 DisappointingExce ptional Name of course ______________________ Please rate the quality of gears. (If any) 12345DisappointingExceptional Please rate your overall climbing experience. 12345 DisappointingExceptional Personal particulars Please be assure as this particular will only be analysis on a positive bases as for the profiling and not for individual use, be assure those details will not be use for another purpose. Gender Male Female Age 15 and 15-20 21-3031-4040 and Below More Monthly Income Student 20002000- 4001- 6000 or No Income or lower 4000 6000 higher How frequently do you visit our gym? -5 times per month 1-2 times per month Once every 2 months Other Do you plan to join to our gym’s membership? Yes No You already have the membership? Yes No ? 10pass 3mths6mths12mths 12mths (Prepaid) (Installment) * Would you recommend our climbing gym to a friend? Why, or why not? * How might we have made it more memorable to you? What training course did you taken? How is your experience? ( if any) * Please share any additional comments or suggestions. Camp 5 Climbing Gym Camp Five Sdn bhd EZ501, 5th Floor, 1 Utama Shopping CentreBandar Utama, 47800, Selangor, Malaysia Phone (603) 77260420/410 Fax (603) 77260210 http://www. camp5. com [email  protected] com * Would you recommend our climbing gym to a friend? Why, or why not? * How might we have made it more memorable to you? What training course did you taken? How is your experience? ( if any) * Please share any additional comments or suggestions. Camp 5 Climbing Gym Camp Five Sdn bhd EZ501, 5th Floor, 1 Utama Shopping Centre Bandar Utama, 47800, Selangor, Malaysia Phone (603) 77260420/410 Fax (603) 77260210 http://www. camp5. com [email  protected] com

Anthropology or Sociology Essay

In the social sciences of sociology and cultural anthropology, researchers have developed their own unique style or research and investigational techniques. While between these fields some techniques are similar, there are some differences. Some differences occur with the philosophical reasons certain techniques are used. In the field of sociology researchers strive to understand social situations and to discover repeating patterns in society (Tischler, p.4, 2007). Two methods that sociologists use are direct observation and survey research. Direct observation involves first hand observations and obtaining information from knowledgeable informants of the group that is being studied. Survey research involves the collection and analysis of information gathered through interviews and questionnaires. While there are different reasons and circumstances to use different research methods in the data collection process, in the field of sociology survey research does have some benefits. In earlier years the construction and administration of surveys, and statistical methods for tabulating and interpreting their results, were widely regarded as the major sociological research technique (MSN Encarta, 2009). This allows researchers to study populations on a broader scope than using direct observation. It also enables the researcher to gather information on a population in a more efficient manner than some other methods. The results from surveys give a look into a groups perspective as a whole rather than individualized thoughts and opinions that can differ greatly even in small populations. Although sociology is similar to cultural anthropology in that they both study human behavior, researchers of cultural anthropology study such topics as how people make their living, how people interact with each other, what beliefs people hold, and what institutions organize people in a society (MSN Encarta, 2009). They also use a more direct method to gather data. Traditionally, much anthropological research involves long-term, direct observation of and participation in the life of another culture which is known as participant observation (MSN Encarta, 2009). This usually involves the researcher immersing themselves in the culture and living with the  people they are studying. Another method employed by cultural anthropologists is human ecology, which is the study of how cultures interact with their natural environment. Anthropologists may collect large amounts of data about features of a cultures environment, such as types of plants and animals, the chemical and nutritional properties of medicines and foods, and climate patterns (MSN Encarta, 2009). This information can help researcher understand certain characteristics of a peoples culture. While both of these fields of study involve studying people the methods used are different. They have different purposes in the collection of data. Sociologists mainly study social situations and use less of a direct approach in their research. Cultural anthologists study the culture as a whole and any influencing factors. Their use of cultural immersion and the study of the natural environment surrounding a particular culture are different from a sociologists approach. Despite these differences the goals to better understand cultures and societies is still the common thread that is shared between both. References â€Å"Anthropology,† Microsoft ® Encarta ® Online Encyclopedia 2009. Retrieved from May 25, 2009 fromhttp://encarta.msn.com  © 1997-2009 Microsoft Corporation. â€Å"Sociology,† Microsoft ® Encarta ® Online Encyclopedia 2009. Retrieved May 25, 2009 fromhttp://encarta.msn.com  © 1997-2009 Microsoft Corporation. Tischler, Henry. 2007. Introduction to Sociology. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.