Strategic Analysis of Manchester United

Strategic Analysis of Manchester United The Football Industry The Barclays Premier League The aim of this report is to undertake a detailed strategic analysis of the Manchester United F.C. with regard to its resource capability and competitive positioning, the organisations strategic fit with its environment and its management style with an emphasis on the cultural context of its strategy together (stakeholder expectations). To this end the mission, vision, goals and strategies of the Club will be taken into consideration while strategically evaluating and interpreting its management at business (competitive advantage) and functional (customer value) level. A variety of strategic analysis tools are going to be used in order to wholly evaluate both internal and external implications on the environment the Club operates within. These will primarily include SWOT and PEST analysis, Porters four corners analysis, and Value chain analysis. Market Environment Analysis Brief analysis of the market English football, and the FA Premier League (FAPL) in particular, is today a bigger business than it has ever been, generating record revenues both within its stadia and through the rising value of its broadcast rights. The game is on TV in more countries than ever before and watched by an increasing number of passionate fans all around the world. Despite the rising cost of attendance, football grounds are as full as they have ever been and FAPL matchday revenues have doubled in just eight years. But broadcast rights fees are expected soon to account for a majority share of income and younger consumers appear not to be inheriting the club ties that older fans were born into. Mintels research shows that footballs appeal to brands lies in its continued ability to reach mass mainstream audiences rather than in the value of its core audience, which is largely apathetic towards sponsors and their products (over half of fans claim not to pay attention to who sponsors what, while just 16% say the brand that sponsors their club matters to them). Football is well insulated against recession by the multi-year nature of its media and commercial agreements and by the fact that up to half of all seats are paid for before a ball is kicked through season ticket sales. However, the experience of the 1980s recession (where between 1978 and 1984 average attendances in the top flight collapsed from over 28,000 to under 19,000) shows that attendance is vulnerable in a downturn, so that matchday revenues in the 2009/10 season could be at risk. Barclays Premier League Roles and Objectives The mission of the Premier League is to effectively Manage, continually improve and be regarded as the worlds best league football competition and in this way Generate increased commercial value, using the resulting revenues to further enhance competitions and strengthen the long-term future of the Premier League and its clubs. Other objectives include: Increasing interest in the Leagues competitions, promote accessibility to live games and ensure that media exposure is used to optimum effect. Useing the Leagues power and influence responsibly to improve the game in the UK and abroad through partnership with the FA, UEFA and other bodies. Createing a quality of competition that provides a platform from which our member clubs can achieve unparalleled success in European or World competitions (source: Barclays Premier League official website). Relationship with the clubs The Premier League is owned by 20 Shareholders the member clubs, whose membership in the league is dependent on the performance of their football team in the Barclays Premier League. Another co-owner of The Premier League is the Football Association. While they have the right of veto in special occasions as the appointment of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, they are not involved in the decision making process regarding any other area of the Premier League work. The statutory company responsibilities are managed by the Board of Directors who are also running the day to day business. Relationship with other football bodies The Barclays Premier League is widely regarded as the most elite club competition in world football. The Premier League comes under the jurisdiction of the Football Association (the FA) and must submit its rules on yearly basis for approval. Along with its British partners in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the FA comes under the control of the European governing body the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). Formed in 1954 and based in Geneva, UEFA works and acts on behalf of the member associations to promote football and ensure its well-being on the continent. The organisation is responsible for many high-profile competitions, some involving national teams such as the prestigious European Championships. UEFAs premier club competitions are the European Champions League and the UEFA Cup, in which Premier League clubs aspire to compete and succeed on a yearly basis. The FA and the 50 other associations of UEFA are all affiliated with the worlds governing body the Federation of International Football Associations, or FIFA. It was formed in 1904 and is now one of the biggest sports organisations worldwide striving to safeguard the good image of the game internationally and it is responsible for the Laws of the Game. FIFA can also boast the World Cup as its prized asset the ultimate stage on which a professional footballer can perform and a tournament which captures the imagination of the entire planet (source: Barclays Premier League official website). Manchester United Club Profile Manchester United plc operates as a professional football club in the United Kingdom. Its subsidiaries are Manchester United Football Club, Manchester United Catering (Agency Company), and Manchester United Interactive. In addition, the company through a joint venture with Manchester United PLC, Granada, and British Sky Broadcasting, operates MUTV, the companys official channel. The company owns 33.3 per cent in MUTV. Since the late 1990s, the club has been one of the richest in the world with the highest revenue of any football club, and is currently ranked as the richest and most valuable club in any sport, with an estimated value of around  £1.136billion as of April 2009. Manchester United was a founding member of the now defunct G-14 group of Europes leading football clubs, and its replacement, the European Club Association. (Source:Forbes.com) Manchester United are the most successfulPremier League club having won the title10 times With a start in 1993 when manager Sir Alex Ferguson ended a 26-year wait to lift thePremier League crown. Manchester United Strategic Analysis For the purposes of this report is will be assumed that Strategic Analysis fits within the descriptions below: the process of conducting research on the business environment within which an organisation operates and on the organisation itself, in order to formulate strategy. BNET Business Dictionary a theoretically informed understanding of the environment in which an organisation is operating, together with an understanding of the organisations interaction with its environment in order to improve organisational efficiency and effectiveness by increasing the organisations capacity to deploy and redeploy its resources intelligently. Professor Les Worrall, Wolverhampton Business School The market environment comprises a combination of the Barclays Premier League industry itself and the wider macro environment in which Manchester United F.C. operates. In addition, it highlights the market environments and critic success factors. The unique resources of Manchester United and the core competences of the Club are outlined in the analysis described below. SWOT Analysis In order to conduct a comprehensive market environment analysis and evaluate the conditions in the market environment that Manchester United F.C. occupies, a brief introduction of the Barclays Premier League and Manchester United F.C., summarizing the key aspects in a SWOT analysis Which will be the first step towards implementing a range of analytical tools (fig.1) The SWOT Analysis is the most popular instrument utilized in strategic planning and organizational problem solving. PEST analysis The purpose of the PEST analysis below is to briefly outline the political and legal, economic, sociocultural and technological issues together with their implications on the performance of The Club, hence describing the external environment within Manchester United operates (fig 2) Porters four corners analysis The four corners analysis is a useful tool for analysing competitors as it emphasises that the objective of competitive analysis should always be on generating insights into the future. In this case the model is used to develop a profile of the likely strategy changes a competitor might make and how successful it might be and determine competitors probable reaction to the range of industry shifts and environmental changes that may occur (Fig. 3) Quite straightforward, the competitors future strategy stems from the competitors motivation to exceed or overperform another Club and sets a variety of objectives pr actions to be completed with the implementation of their prospective strategy. However, these objectives should reflect on the Clubs capabilities as well as the skills of the individual players and staff at senior management level. Here it is essential to develop a clear assumption on what creates value for a specific team as well as what are the relationships and networks the respective business has developed. For instance, Manchester United is one of the most successful teams in the history of football resulting in average attendance higher than any other team in the UK and extremely high brand consciousness (fig. 4). This means that together with the Clubs financial stability, strength of the senior management team and proven ability to serve a variety of channels Manchester United PLC is well on the way of creating and implementing in a sustainable way a winning strategy. Value chain analysis Further to the description above, value chain analysis is based on the principle that organisations exist to create value for their customers. Furtermore it is a comprehensive technique for analysing an organisations source of competitive advantage. In the analysis, the organisations activities are divided into separate sets of activities that add value. The organisation can more effectively evaluate its internal capabilities by identifying and examining each of these activities. Each value adding activity is considered to be a source of competitive advantage. For Manchester United these include Manchester United Football Club, Manchester United Catering (Agency Company), and Manchester United Interactive, the joint venture with Manchester United PLC, Granada, and British Sky Broadcasting, that operates MUTV. These are run on the basis of primary and support activities, as Primary activities are those that physically create a product, as well as market the product, deliver the produc t to the customer and provide after-sales support and Support activities are those that facilitate the primary activities. Crucial for the organisation is the process of identifying the activities that are critical to customers satisfaction and market success, such as creating competitiove advantage in competitions, hence the ticket sales and merchandising activity regarded to the process. Strategic fit Analysis The foremost field of research that is required to be taken into account is the whole new product development and research concerning Manchester Uniteds existing product selection. This is required to be examined principally as if Manchester United requires guaranteeing that they are doing well in their present market prior to going into a new market. At first, Manchester United will require investigating into their existing product selection, however, with such broad variety of products, it is vital for Manchester United to assess which of their products are perforating well in the market. Conclusion Manchester United is in a very competitive spot at present Currently ranked as the richest and most valuable club in any sport, with an estimated value of around  £1.136billion. It has the highest average attendance than any other team in English football and receives a large amount of funds through sponsorships and agreements (merchandising). Nonetheless the Club requires to be cautious that they are not getting self-satisfied and that they are focusing on the market, and the requirements of their clients and followers. By implementing the research into their markets, it will allow them to build up products for the clients, which will bring about sustained support from the fans and success. References Dess G Miller A. (1998) Strategic Management, 3rd edition, McGraw Hill Johnson G Lynch R. (2003) Corporate Strategy, 3rd edition, FT/Prentice Hall Pettinger R (2004) Contemporary Strategic Management, Palgrave McMillan, Basingstoke Scholes K Whittington R. (2005,) Exploring Corporate Strategy: Text and Cases, 7th edition, FT/Prentice Hall Weeks, P. (2006), Managing People, Finance and Marketing, Pearson Education Limited, Essex http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2004/05/22/manchesterunited040522.html http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn/attneng.htm. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/34/soccer-values-09_Soccer-Team-Valuations_Rank.html. http://www.manutd.com http:// www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4463534.stm http://www.premierleague.com http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11667_2972778,00.html Mintel reports Anglia Ruskin University Digital Library

Farewell To Arms Paper :: essays research papers

Hemmingway has a unique style of writing. It works on multiple levels. A person could read Farewell to Arms and enjoy it as a tragic love story. Hemmingway’s concise writing style allows a literal interpretation. At the same time a reader could get involved with the various symbols that he has placed in the novel. In a way everything he has can be used as a symbol depending on a person’s biases. This is what makes Hemmingway’s writing even more unique. He can have what seems to be a straightforward sentence have multiple meanings. The transcendentalist and romantic writing styles leave ideas vague so the reader can reflect on his/her own thoughts. Hemmingway is pragmatic in the sense that his writing can be read literally, but also romantic if you read his work more in depth. One symbol that Hemmingway seems to use constantly is night and the fear of darkness. Fredrick is afraid of the dark. What this seems to mean is that Fredrick is afraid to be in the unknown. This is the idea that males want to know what is around them. Fredrick is afraid of what he does not understand. This symbol is also seen in â€Å"A Way You’ll Never Be† where Hemmingway’s character Nick will not sleep without a light. When a person sleeps they are resting and it seems that Fredrick does not want to rest without â€Å"knowing†. If Nick were to have the light he would be able to see what was going on. This would allow Nick to â€Å"know† what is happening. Thus it could be seen that the symbol of the unknown and how the male characters want to â€Å"know† what is happening. Another analysis of this could be that Fredrick is afraid of the malicious things around him. This is the superficiality of the male. Basically in this sense the male w ants to live in his perfect little world and not worry about the complexities of life. This is the opposite of the fear of the â€Å"unknown† because in this sense the males do not want to know. Fredrick would then be scared of the evil around him. War is part of the â€Å"evil† around him because with war comes with real sadness. Frederick’s fear of darkness is really fear of those evil elements and the sadness around him. Fredrick is afraid of the sad reality. He wants to live in the simple superficial world he is in.

Disease in Bram Stoker’s Dracula

As science continues to illuminate the darkened corners of our world, another mythic tale–the drinking of blood by the ubiquitous Dracula–may have a basis in fact according to Wayne Tikkanen, a professor of chemistry at California State University, Los Angeles. â€Å"I am a trained scientist. I don't believe in vampires and werewolves,† Tikkanen told Anthony Breznican for an AP release on Halloween, 1998.Tikkanen speculates that some European monster myths were the product of a blood disease known as porphyria that causes the skin to weaken and be negatively affected by ultraviolet rays that change heme, a component of blood that carries oxygen to the brain, into a toxin. As the disease progresses, the skin blackens and ruptures in the sun, followed by hair growing in the scars. Lips are burned, causing them to peel back, thus making the teeth more prominent.In some cases the nose erodes and the fingers disintegrate, making the hands resemble paws. The disease af fects one in 100,000 people and is treatable with medication. Tikkanen thinks it is possible that those afflicted with the disease centuries ago may have drunk animal blood to relieve their pain as a folk remedy, and that they would have preferred to go out at night in order to avoid the sun, and that perhaps this behavior was co-opted into myths.â€Å"You may do this all the time, but people will only see you when the night is at its brightest–or in other words, a full moon,† Tikkanen said. Unfortunately, the result of such myth-making was that as many as 600 victims of this disease were considered to be monsters by the 16th-century European judge H. Bouget, who subsequently had them burned at the stake. â€Å"Just think: you're horribly disfigured but you're perfectly lucid,† Tikkanen said. â€Å"You don't know what's happening to you, and the doctor doesn't want to treat you even if he knew how.Your priest wants you to confess your sins or the judge will bur n you at the stake. But you don't know what you've done wrong. † Other elements of the Dracula myth often include garlic, which Tikkanen says causes victims of porphyria to suffer violent illness because of the creation of toxins in their blood. Fear of the cross also makes sense in this theory, because the cross represents the Church and thus the Inquisition, which would have instituted the torture and murder of the sufferers of porphyria.In the same vein, the superstitious Romanian society projected its fear of disease and deviancy onto Dracula, thus rising the well-liked folklore hypothesis that â€Å"a man or woman who has led a predominantly wicked existence will almost certainly become a vampire; it is his curse for the wicked deeds committed during the usual term of his life, as well as an entrance that a influential sin can not easily be put to rest† (Douglas, 39). This resembles the idea propagated by the religious right that AIDS is a visitation of heavenly pu nishment for sexual deviancy, i. e. , homosexuality.David Prindle in his book Risky Business â€Å"of all the diseases, the ones that are sexually transmitted seem to carry the heaviest burden of symbolic weight. Such diseases seem to bring our peoples anxieties about spiritual and physical pollution, their dread of being exposed as hypocritical sinners, their yearning to condemn those less righteous than themselves† (Prindle, 73). In Coppola's Dracula, Lucy, who is teasing, inquisitive, and immoral is punished for her â€Å"evil† behavior, her sexuality, by being seduced into the warren of Dracula and thus flattering a vampire herself.Once a vampire, Lucy takes a young child as her injured party, intimidating the guiltless child much in the same way that infants with AIDS often are fatalities of their mother's performance. Susan Sontag notes that these metaphors â€Å"are hardly in contradiction. Such is the extraordinary potency and efficacy of the plague metaphor: it allows a disease to be regarded both as something incurred by susceptible others and as potentially everyone's disease† (Sontag, 152). Bela Lugosi first gave Dracula filmic complexity in the 1931 Dracula. His moves were smooth and contemporary, steeped in gender and glamour.His affluent inflection gave the count the religion that awoke the sexuality of female audience members. Christopher Lee (1958) followed in Lugosi's steps and moved Dracula from sexual innuendoes to blatant sexuality. At one point in The Horror of Dracula, he bites a youthful woman's throat-not simply feasting, but apparently experiencing orgasm. Dracula had thus developed into a seduction fantasy, vitally disturbed with the circumstances and penalty of premarital or extramarital luxury in forbidden corporal relations, in this occurrence with the opposite sex.Gary Oldman takes Lee's erotic Dracula one step hither in Coppola's Brain Stoker’s Dracula. When Oldman attempts to nibble the neck of the i noffensive Mina at the Nickelodeon, the camera comes in on a taut attempt of his face as his eyes change color, his fangs are exposed and his corpse tremors with expectation. The transformation of Dracula to his present- day classification makes him the most sexual of all the creatures of the night.Dracula's sexual insinuation and blatant hunger for human blood make him the wonderful mythic vehicle to express American society's fear of the modern day plague of AIDS, since the HIV virus is transmitted through blood and semen. Coppola's Dracula visits his victims in the dead of night or in a dark milieu. He takes Lucy from her bed to connect her with both intercourse and feeding. These visits from the attractive creature who first exhausts the sleeper with fervent embraces and then withdraws her blood symbolically parallels the night-time emissions that convoy erotic dreams.Frank Jones points out in his book â€Å"On the Nightmare of Bloodsucking† : â€Å"In the unconscious mi nd blood is commonly an equivalent for semen† (Gottsman, 59). However, the sentence for these sexual interludes with the leech is the permanent alteration into vampirism; an illness that separates the afflicted from the rest of the society, one that insists on sucking the life out of other people. In this admiration the vampire enters the victim's blood stream, as does the HIV virus, to eventually exhaust the host of his/her life.Coppola cinematically reflects this correlation throughout the course of the film. Initially, Dracula renounces the church, and in doing so plunges his sword into the cross at the alter. Blood then flows from the cross, and Coppola cuts from a stone angel icon releasing tears of blood to a shot of Dracula satisfying a cup and consumption the blood. In this pre- recognition succession, the back illumination creates a striking similarity between Christ and Dracula (the shoulder length hair, smooth skin and ethereal glow).On his return home from war, Dra cula learns of the death of his wife. His stabbing of the cross is a phallic metaphor for intercourse with a virgin, whose loss of virginity is often marked by a loss of blood. The cathedral, infected and raped by war, denies the interment of Dracula's suicided bride. Dracula renounces the church by drinking the blood out of the chalice, declaring that: â€Å"Blood is the life and the life is mine. † Here he metaphorically takes on the position of the bug, gratifying the judge of life and death.David Prindle reinforces the vampire as a metaphor for the virus: â€Å"As a deadly threat, the disease was made to order for melodrama; as a potential sexual assassin, the HIV carrier could easily be portrayed as a demon. † (76). Coppola establishes a departure from innocence to evil by using peacock feathers, representative of innocence and vanity, as a transition between the â€Å"enlightened† world and the dark road to Transylvania as the young Jonathan Harker is sent to Transylvania to work for Dracula.Both virtue and pride are lost when Jonathan encounters a group of female vampires who seduce him throughout his first night in the castle. Coppola reinforces the anonymity of the participants by showing incorporeal footsteps appearing by the bed while the women appear from within his sheets and start to embrace and murmur to Jonathan. He does not resist and follows through in what could be termed a one night stand. The camera shows a head shot of one of the â€Å"vamps† whose hair is made out of snakes, referring to Medusa or the serpent From Genesis that caused the eviction of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.References Babuscio, Jack. â€Å"Camp and the Gay Sensibility. † Gays and Film. Ed. Richard Dyer. New York: Zoetrope, Inc. , 1984. Broeske, Pat. â€Å"Hollywood Goes Batty for Vampires,† New York Times, April 26, 1993. Canby, Vincent, â€Å"Coppola's Dizzying Vision on Dracula,† New York Times, Nov 13, 1993. Douglas, Drake. Horrors! The awful truth about monsters; vampires, werewolves, zombies, phantoms. mummies and ghouls of literature and how tiny went Hollywood. New York: The Overlook Press, 1989.Gottesman, Ronald. Focus on the Horror Film. Trenton, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1972. Hogan, David. Dark Romance-Sexuality in the Horror Film. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. , 1986. Prindle. David. Risky Business. the Political Economy of HollywoodBoulder: Westview Press, 1993. Russo, Vito. The celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies. New York: Harper arid Row Publishers, 1990. Sontag, Susan. Illness as a Metaphor/AIDS and its Metaphors. New York: Doubleday, 1989.

Decimal Degrees Versus Minutes, Seconds

When you hear about metric measurements, usually you are bombarded with terms denoting length, height or volume, depending on your industry. Outside of formal schooling, you almost never hear about the geographical side of measurement — specifically, those ever-present invisible lines of latitude and longitude. This article will explore how some metrics are shown in geographical terms, who uses traditional Degrees/Minutes/Seconds, and what the future may hold.   A Brief History of U.S. Metrics Originating in France in the 1790s, the metric system (officially known as SI, short for Le Systeme International dUnites) grew in popularity due to increasing global commerce. Through trade with Europe, the U.S. awareness of metrics trickled into existence, eventually prompting Congress to permit its use in 1866. It was legal but voluntary. The first official legislation concerning metric conversion was passed by Congress in 1974, adding metrics to our elementary and secondary education curriculum. One year later (in 1975), Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act, declaring that the U.S. federal government should use metrics as its preferred measurement system, as evidenced by a box sitting in my cubicle whose labeling instructions tell of letters that must be 3.81cm (1.5 inches) high. The nutritional information on any package of food is also a good example, showing grams (instead of ounces) of fat, carbs, vitamins, etc. Ever since its beginnings, the U.S. government has striven to promote and stabilize metrication, with limited results: mostly those in the sciences, military, engineering, manufacturing and other technical fields use the metric system. The general public, however, continues to show comparatively overwhelming disinterest in adopting grams, litres, and meters over the traditional ounces, quarts, and feet. The United States is the only remaining industrialized country whose general population does not use metrics as its primary measurement system. Metrics and Geography Despite the average American laypersons apathy for metrics, those of us who use geographic coordinates on a daily basis see plenty of evidence that decimals are out in full force. On any given day Ill see a few handfuls of engineering site surveys (and sometimes other data) come across my desk, 98% of which have a decimal somewhere in the latitude or longitude. As technology has developed over the years, allowing more accurate measurements, the number of ways that we geography people get to read those coordinates has increased. The three most popular types of Lat/Lon displays are: Traditional degrees/minutes/seconds (D/M/S), usually with decimal secondsDegrees with decimal minutes, no secondsDecimal degrees, no minutes, no seconds Doing the Math No matter how you choose to display them, any converted coordinates will get you to the same point, basically — its simply a matter of preference. If you are one of those people who grew up learning only D/M/S like me, you might break into a cold sweat the first time you see the second or third decimal variations (bulleted above), if only from the memory of your high school algebra classes. But fear not, for there are a boatload of conversion programs and websites that will do the math for you. A majority of these sites convert between D/M/S and decimal degrees, leaving out the less popular but still available decimal minutes. There are other sites for those who dont mind/enjoy algebra, or who are naturally intrepid souls and simply wish to brave the longhand algebraic equations. If you are ready to break out the Texas Instruments calculator and go for it, you might try the Montana Natural Resource Information System, which shows conversion equation examples, but also has an automatic converter.   Finally Rubbing Off? Within the past few years, more and more Americans seem to be warming up to the concept and have begun using decimals in their everyday lives. Certainly, the growing number of metric labels on many foods, drinks, health care, cleaners and other various products are clear indicators that the average American consumer should probably start learning to accept decimal numbers. This goes for geography as well. GPS unit sales to the nonmilitary population are on the rise and most (if not all) GPS units display a location using decimals. One can expect hiking, boating, driving, or any other type of navigational information to be in this same format, no matter the scale, map projection, or elevation. As the rest of the world moves forward with metric standards, the United States government will most likely feel more pressure (especially from Europe) to go totally metric for global trading purposes. Once the population finally accepts that change is coming, decimal numbers will be even more abundant and it will filter down through every aspect of American industry. Dont Panic For those hikers, boaters, drivers, orienteering students, land surveyors and others who may be used to using only D/M/S, dont worry. The conversions are out there, and its easier than you think to get results from them. Latitude and longitude lines certainly arent going anywhere — well always have those to rely on - so for now, get ready and warm up that calculator! Len Morse earned a B.S. in Geography from Towson State University and has been with the FAA for approximately 14.61 years.