WalMart and Target Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

WalMart and Target - Essay Example So when WalMart enters local market it meets little competition. The opposite of cheap WalMart is an "elite" or high rate Target chain. Further I will compare these two retail companies in terms of general companies' achievements, level of services and the last point - prices. Wal-Mart entered retail market in 1962 in Rogers, Ark. Through the next eight years company incorporated and went on public on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1971 Wal-Mart set sales record for retail sales - 1 billion in sales per year. Up to 1991 Wal-Mart continued expansion on the American retail market: Sam's Club philosophy was developed and first mega stores were opened. And in 1991 Wal-Mart shifted to the international retail market, starting with retail center in Mexico City. According to the official press release of Wal-Mart, it is today the largest retail sales chain in the whole world with turnover around $285.2 billion in sales. The company employs 1.6 million associates worldwide through more than 3,600 facilities in the United States and more than 1,570 units in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, China, Korea, Germany and the United Kingdom. More than 138 million customers per week visit Wal-Mart stores worldwide. (http://www.walmartfacts.com/newsdesk/wal-mart-fact-sheets.aspx) As well as Wal-Mart, Target appeared on the re... In 1979 Target gained position of the Company's revenue top producer, in 1982 revenue reached - 5 billion USD. In 2000 Dayton Hudson Corporation changed its name to Target Corporation. According to Target Corporation annual report the Company had 45 billion dollars in sales. The company employs 0, 87 million associates in the United States and has 1308 trading facilities. More than 60 million customers visit Target stores weekly. (http://www.targetcorp.com/targetcorp_group/investor-relations/annual_report.jhtml) Level of Services Level of services is defined by three major factors: purchasing conditions, employees, cleanliness. When purchasing clothing and other products of the same group one has to choose style, quality, price and the like, plus the comfort and ease of shopping. On the psychological level people prefer elegance, a feel of free time and space. The service of Target permits this plus it provides the cleanliness around, which ensure satisfaction of a customer. Your comfort zone is satiated. Thus you make better purchasing decisions without that compelling urge to postponing a purchase. WalMart in-store atmosphere creates feeling of rush, it has no space for inner world of a customer. Of course prices in WaMart are lower but a customer has little time for choice as other customers are rushing trough store looking for a bargain. Even brand new WalMarts often looks dingy and dirty. Very few Target stores give off the "dirty" feel a customer has walking around a Walmart. Employees attitude to the customers are in very close dependence to the conditions created by the companies. In our situation Target employees are more friendly and attentive than in WalMart. Prices. A price comparative

Descriptive Statistics: Raw Data Essay -- Data Analysis, Standard Dev

Several things can be done to the raw data in order to see what they can say about the hypotheses (Neuman, 2003). An inspection of the raw data can be done by using the descriptive statistics to find obvious coding errors. The minimum and maximum values for each variable must fall within the admissible range. Pairwise correlations depict that all relationships must be in the expected direction. Meanwhile, listwise deletion of missing values indicates that the data can be used for analysis. An outlier is an observation that is unusually small or large. Outliers assist researchers in detecting coding errors. According to Bagozzi and Baumgartner (1994), outliers are not recommended to be routinely excluded from further analysis. Data collected were analyzed by using three approaches: 1. Cronbach’s alpha (a) was used to test the reliability. Cronbach’s alpha indicates how well the items in a set are positively correlated to one another. This is to make sure that the scales are free of random or unstable errors and produce consistent results over time (Cooper & Schindler, 1998); 2. Descriptive statistics where the researcher used mean, standard deviation and variance to get an idea on how the respondents reacted to the items in the questionnaire. The major concern of descriptive statistics is to present information in a convenient, usable and understandable form (Runyon & Audry, 1980). Descriptive summary, including frequency and descriptive, was used to screen the data set. Among basic statistics to use were mean, median, mode, sum, variance, range, minimum, maximum, skewness and kurtosis. 3. Inferential statistics concerned with generalizing from a sample to make estimates and inferences about a wider population (Neuman, 2003... ....e. more than 30 (Hair et al., 2006). Sekaran (2003) suggests the approximation to normality of the observed variables could be investigated by inspecting the data through histograms, stem-and leaf displays, probit plots and by computing univariate and multivariate measures of skewness and kurtosis. Histograms, stem-and-leaf and probit plots indicate the symmetric distribution of variables or sets of variables. Tabachnick and Fidell (1996) suggest the value of skewness and kurtosis is equal to zero if the distribution of a variable is normal. Chou and Bentler (1995) emphases the absolute values of univariate skewness indices greater than 3 can be described as extremely skewed. Meanwhile, a threshold value of kurtosis greater than 10 can be considered problematic and value greater than 20 can be considered as having serious problems (Hoyle, 1995; Kline, 1998).

Final Paper Essay

Target corporation is one of the biggest retailers there is out there, bringing in an estimate of $74 million dollars a year in revenue. Majority of Target revenue is earned during the busiest time of the year, which are Black Friday and holidays. Target has had a huge positive reputation because of the â€Å"Expect More Pay Less† promise and giving 5% back to the community. However, Target has been going through some hard times because of the Target breach that occurred during the holidays of 2013. This research paper will focus first on introducing the Target breach and how it has affected the company and what the company has done to fix the problem. Moving forward, I will focus on internal controls that Target could have applied and summarizing everything towards the end. Target Breach & Internal Controls Target Corporation is a well known and respected retail store out there. Target is a corporation that buys goods from manufactures at a purchase discount price and reselling it to consumers in a higher price to make a profit. Target has brought in revenue of $74 million dollars a year and continues to grow every year. However, Target has gone through some hard times with the Target breach that just occurred during the holidays of 2013. Consumers have had a hard time trusting their card readers and loyalty and sales have been dropping ever since. The question that is now in the air is what internal controls that company had during this breach and what could they have done to avoid this breach that just occurred. To begin with, the company was running perfectly and driving outstanding sales until the company and guest found out that they had a breach, also known to the community as the â€Å"Target Breach. Target corporation confirmed that a major data breach occurred between Black Friday and December 15, 2013, which includes many of the most important shopping days of the year† (Edelson, 2013). Ever since the Target breach, the company’s reputation was hurt, consumers were not confident about shopping, and are afraid of using the card readers at the stores. Later in time, after the breach was announced, the company had given further information on how the breach affected the people. It is believed that the breach affected roughly 40,000 card devices at store registers, which could mean that millions of cardholders could be vulnerable, according to the people familiar with the incident† (Sidel, 2013). On top of the 40,000 card devices being affected, 40 million people’s credit card and debit card information was stolen. The CEO of Target Corporation later released to the press and announced that personal information such as address, names, phone numbers, and e-mail address were also taken from the Target system. After reading about the Target breach, being an assistant manager for Target, and hearing about the tragic that has been caused, I remember feeling upset because of the way the company was going to be affected. However, it also reminded of the internal control concept that was thought in class. There was a lot of fraud involved with the Target breach, which is something that occurs when it comes to intern control. â€Å"Fraud refers to any act by the management or employees of business involving an internal deception for personal gain. Fraud may include, among other acts, embezzlement of business cash, theft of assets, filing false insurance claims, filing false health claims, and financial statement fraud† (Ferris, Wallace, Christensen, 2014, pg. 314). With the Target breach, you are able to see the fraud triangle concepts, which consist of pressure, opportunity, and rationalization. Being employed by Target, that concept came into mine when reading the article because there was an e-mail sent to management about believing that an employee that worked with the POS (point on sale) system had a lot of inside information within the system. The pressure was there to get information from the POS system and rationalization was involved when they knew that they can get credit card information. The opportunity occurred when they knew the busiest time of the year was going to be Black Friday and majority of the sales are driven in that day. From all that has occurred it is not clear what internal controls Target had in order to avoid this situation. Internal controls are important when it comes to businesses in order to avoid situation like the Target breach. There are two parts that I believe that important when it comes to internal controls, which are prevention control and detection control. A â€Å"prevention control is intended to deter a problem or fraud before it can arise† (Ferris, Wallace, Christensen, 2014, pg. 316). Target should have followed the prevention control with the POS system in order to avoid the Target breach. A â€Å"detection control, on the other hand, is designed to discover any problems or fraud shortly it arises† (Ferris, Wallace, Christensen, 2014, pg. 316). Target followed the detection control after the problem of the breach was brought and took justice in their own hands in order to fix the problem. The first thing Target did was post a prominent message on its Web site, â€Å"Important notice: unauthorized access to payment card data in the U. S. stores. † The message linked to a letter alerting customers that a breach occurred and outlining steps Target is taking to a voice a recurrence† (Edelson, 2013). Another step that Target has taken is bringing justice for the information was that was stolen out of their systems. Target had invested $5 million dollars into a multi-year campaign in order to stop phishing scams (Target, 2013). â€Å"Target has longstanding history of commitment to our communities, and cyber security is one of the most pressing issues facing consumers today,† said Steinhafel. â€Å"We are proud to be working with three trusted organizations-the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA), National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and Better Business Bureau (BBB)- to advance public education around cyber security† (Target, 2013). Target has gone to long measures to protect the information of the guest and reinsure loyalty by offering ProtectMyID, which keeps track of credit reports, monitoring, and identity theft (Target, 2013). As an apology to the guest, Target offered a 10% off discount to all guests which were a huge success for the company but numbers of transactions was cash paid. Being an employee for Target, we are still determine to follow our core roles, continue delivering the â€Å"Expect More Pay Less† promise, and delivering an excellent shopping experience for our guest in order to continue driving profitable sales and guest loyalty. In order to avoid this situation and detect the problem ahead of time, Target should have incorporated the following elements that are designed for prevention and detection controls. The first element is establish clear lines of authority and responsibility, which is giving authority to a supervisor or manager but also evaluation their consequently to companies policies and rules. Implement segregation of duties, â€Å"requires that when allocating various duties within the accounting system, management should make sure that no employee is assigned too many different responsibilities† (Ferris, Wallace, Christensen, 2014, pg.317). Hire competent personnel, which the company sees if that person has the education and qualified skills to perform that job. Use control number on all business documents, which is having all important documents with control numbers. Develop plans and budgets, which is having a plan and budget in order to bring the company forward. For example, the $5 m illion dollars that were invested in the anti fraud software in order to bring guest loyalty back. Maintain adequate accounting records, which is making sure that the company has the most recent accounting records. For example, the number of fraud claims that were reported under guest bank statements in order to reinvers their money back. Provide physical and electronic controls, is locking their doors or important files to prevent theft, which should have happened with the POS system. Conduct internal audit, â€Å"is a company function that provided independent appraisals of the company’s financial statement, its internal control, and its operations† (Ferris, Wallace, Christensen, 2014, pg. 319). In conclusion, we are able to see how the company was impacted from the breach that had occurred and the actions that the company has taken in order to fix the problem. People information had been stolen and finances have been tampered through it. We are able to see how internal controls play an important part when it comes to finances, accounting, and to businesses such as Target. If the proper elements and procedures had been applied with internal control I am sure that all of this could have been avoided or reduced.

Overview of Hawk Bells

A hawk bell (also called hawking or hawks bell) is a small round object made of sheet brass or copper, originally used as part of falconry equipment in medieval Europe. Hawk bells were also brought to the American continents by early European explorers and colonizers in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries as potential trade goods. When they are found in Mississippian contexts in the southern United States, hawk bells are considered evidence for direct or indirect Mississippian contact with early European expeditions such as those by Hernando de Soto, Pà ¡nfilo de Navà ¡ez, or others. Bells and Medieval Falconry The original use of hawk bells was, of course, in falconry. Hawking, the use of trained raptors to capture wild game, is an elite sport that was established throughout Europe no later than AD 500. The primary raptor used in hawking was peregrine and gyrfalcon, but they were only owned by the highest ranked individuals. The lower nobility and wealthier commoners practiced falconry with the goshawk and sparrow hawk. Hawking bells were part of the equipment of the medieval falconer, and they were attached in pairs to one of the birds legs by a short leather leash, called a bewit. Other hawking paraphernalia included leather leads called jesses, lures, hoods and gloves. The bells are necessarily made of light material, weighing no more than seven grams (1/4 ounce). Hawk bells found on archaeological sites are larger, although no more than 3.2 centimeters (1.3 inches) in diameter. Historical Evidence Spanish historical records dated to the 16th century describe the use of hawking bells (in Spanish: cascabeles grandes de bronce or large brass hawking bells) as trade items, along with iron knives and scissors, mirrors, and glass beads as well as clothing, maize and cassava. Although bells are not specifically mentioned in the de Soto chronicles, they were distributed as trade goods by several different Spanish explorers, including Pà ¡nfilo de Navà ¡ez, who gave bells to Dulchanchellin, a Mississippian chief in Florida, in 1528; and Pedro Menà ©ndez de Aviles, who in 1566 presented Calusa headmen with bells among other objects. Because of this, in the southern half of what is today the United States, hawk bells are often cited as evidence of the Pà ¡nfilo de Navà ¡ez and Hernando de Soto expeditions of the mid-16th century. Types of Bells Two types of hawk bells have been identified within the American continents: the Clarksdale bell (generally dated to the 16th century) and the Flushloop bell (generally dated to the 17th-19th centuries), both named by American archaeologists, rather than the original manufacturer. The Clarksdale bell (named after the Clarksdale Mound in Mississippi where the type bell was found) is made up of two undecorated copper or brass hemispheres crimped together and secured by a square flange around the midsection. At the base of the bell are two holes connected by a narrow slit. The wide loop (often 5 cm [~2 in] or better) at the top is secured by pushing the ends through a hole in the upper hemisphere and soldering the separate ends to the interior of the bell. The Flushloop bell has a thin strip of brass for an attachment loop, which was secured by pushing the ends of the of the loop through a hole in the bell and separating them. The two hemispheres were soldered rather than crimped together, leaving little or no surficial flange. Many specimens of the Flushloop bell have two decorative grooves encircling each hemisphere. Dating the Hawk Bell In general, Clarksdale type bells are the rarer form  and tend to be discovered in earlier contexts. Most date to the 16th century, although there are exceptions. Flushloop bells are generally dated in the 17th century or later, with the majority dated 18th and 19th century. Ian Brown has argued that Flushloop bells are of English and French manufacture, while the Spanish are the source of the Clarksdale. Clarksdale bells have been found in many historic Mississippian sites throughout the southern United States, such as Seven Springs (Alabama), Little Egypt and Poarch Farm (Georgia), Dunns Creek (Florida), Clarksdale (Mississippi), Toqua (Tennessee); as well as at Nueva Cadiz in Venezuela.   Sources Boyd CC, Jr., and Schroedl GF. 1987. In Search of Coosa. American Antiquity 52(4):840-844. Brown IW. 1979. Bells. In: Brain JP, editor. Tunica Treasure. Cambridge: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard Univesity. p 197-205. Mitchem JM, and McEwan BG. 1988. New data on early bells from Florida. Southeastern Archaeology 7(1):39-49. Prummel W. 1997. Evidence of hawking (falconry) from bird and mammal bones. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 7(4):333-338. Sears WH. 1955. Creek and Cherokee Culture in the 18th Century. American Antiquity 21(2):143-149. Thibodeau AM, Chesley JT, and Ruiz J. 2012. Lead isotope analysis as a new method for identifying material culture belonging to the Và ¡zquez de Coronado expedition. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(1):58-66.