Organisational management in health care Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Authoritative administration in human services - Essay Example Additionally, ordinary clinical registration help keep up the physical wellness of laborers and assurance that work process won't be crashed because of wellbeing reasons. On their part, laborers in the social insurance calling ought to be sufficiently scrupulous to offer top notch support. To accomplish this, great collaboration must be built up. The bound together vision of what the association needs to accomplish and where it needs to go later on as far as quality, polished methodology, administrations offered and skill is the thing that every one of the group ought strive for. This paper endeavors to break down how laborers in social insurance associations can cooperate to accomplish better than expected hierarchical results. Beside laborers being productive in the exhibition of their assignments, key factors in the excursion to a team’s achievement are, acceptable administration, compelling correspondence and target assessment of the team’s execution and nature of administration. The executives must be predictable in imparting to every laborer its way of thinking of giving the best quality human services and treatment through synergistic endeavors of experts from various orders. Every laborer ought to have the option to feel that he is a piece of an incredible group that defines significant standards and effectively achieves them. â€Å"Creating the conditions that incite information move involves critical basic and social changes by top authority, which will expect pioneers to be persuaded that the advantages of information move exceed the expenses. Without this dedication, it is impossible that endeavors to build information stream will succeed. Pioneers ought to be wary about freely touting the ideals of information sharing without a considerable pledge to change, as this may bring about the disappointment of good natured information move activities, carrying with it brought down representative assurance and the potential for opposition against future inf ormation move initiatives.† (Burgess, 2005) Initiative might be characterized as a â€Å"process in which a

Carrer Path Nursing Free Essays

The wellbeing field is my profession of decision. Turning into an enlisted nurture is my definitive objective. The nursing field is the best fit for me. We will compose a custom article test on Carrer Path Nursing or on the other hand any comparable subject just for you Request Now I invest wholeheartedly in helping other people at whatever point conceivable. There are numerous sorts of various field in the wellbeing business that will fit me best. There are a wide range of viewpoints with respect to why I need to turn into an enrolled nurture. The compensation, duties, abilities and long lasting learning openings are what attract me to the wellbeing field. Turning into an enrolled nurture is one of my principle objectives during my time at Bryant Stratton. At the point when I finish school turning into a medical attendant implies that I am answerable for wellbeing and purpose of others. Individuals will rely upon me to offer the most ideal assistance for them and the ones they love. On normal in the province of Ohio an enlisted nurture in 2010 makes 44,000 to 78, 000 dollars per year (â€Å"Career One Stop,† n. d. , para. 2). The duties that accompany the activity are interminable. I will monitor a patient’s wellbeing, medicate measurement, development of ailment and loaning some assistance to a specialist when required. The aptitude I will require and acquire hands on will permit me to exceed expectations all through an amazing remainder. As per Career One Stop here are a couple of expertise and capacities I will need and addition from the field: â€Å"Skills: Active Listening †Giving complete consideration to what others are stating, setting aside some effort to comprehend the focuses being made, posing inquiries as fitting, and not hindering at wrong occasions. Talking †Talking to others to pass on data adequately. Basic Thinking †Using rationale and thinking to distinguish the qualities and shortcomings of elective arrangements, ends or ways to deal with issues. Judgment and Decision Making †Considering the relative expenses and advantages of potential activities to pick the most suitable one. Administration Orientation †Actively searching for approaches to help individuals. Social Perceptiveness †Being mindful of others’ responses and understanding why they respond as they do. Capacities: Problem Sensitivity †The capacity to tell when something isn't right or is probably going to turn out badly. It doesn't include taking care of the issue, just perceiving there is an issue. Oral Comprehension †The capacity to tune in to and get data and thoughts introduced through expressed words and sentences. Inductive Reasoning †The capacity to consolidate snippets of data to frame general guidelines or determinations (incorporates finding a relationship among apparently irrelevant occasions). Oral Expression †The capacity to convey data and thoughts in talking so others will comprehend. Arm-Hand Steadiness †The capacity to keep your hand and arm consistent while moving your arm or while holding your arm and deliver one position. Data Ordering †The capacity to organize things or activities in a specific request or example as indicated by a particular guideline or set of rules (e. g. examples of numbers, letters, words, pictures, numerical activities). Discourse Recognition to recognize and comprehend the discourse of someone else. †(CareerOneStop,† n. d. , para. 5). †The capacity In this field there will consistently be opportunity to get better. I will every single day hold new data and develop as a person to offer incredible assistance. An enlisted nurture is the principle focal point of my tutoring starting at the present moment. An enrolled nurture is my fundamental objective however anesthesiologist is likewise a field I am keen on. Any activity in the clinical field is required everywhere throughout the world. There is a popularity for individuals to work in the human services field. An anesthesiologist would be my second profession objective. The pay as per vocation one stop in the province of Ohio from 2010 is between 129,000 to 127,000 dollars per year. (â€Å"Career One Stop,† n. d. , para. 2) Anesthesiologists are answerable for putting individuals under for medical procedures. They check people’s blood classifications and decide the perfect measure of liquid to provide for make an individual rest during a medical procedure. This activity is significant not exclusively to the patient yet additionally to the specialist so they can effectively play out a medical procedure. Here are a couple of aptitudes and capacities that are required for this field: â€Å"Skills: Active Listening †Giving complete consideration to what others are stating, setting aside some effort to comprehend the focuses being made, posing inquiries as proper, and not hindering at wrong occasions. Basic Thinking †Using rationale and thinking to recognize the qualities and shortcomings of elective arrangements, ends or ways to deal with issues. Observing †Monitoring/Assessing execution of yourself, others, or associations to make enhancements or make remedial move. Perusing Comprehension †Understanding composed sentences and passages in business related reports. Judgment and Decision Making †Considering the relative expenses and advantages of potential activities to pick the most fitting one. Science †Using logical guidelines and strategies to take care of issues. Talking †Talking to others to pass on data adequately. Capacities: Problem Sensitivity †The capacity to tell when something isn't right or is probably going to turn out badly. It doesn't include tackling the issue, just perceiving there is an issue. Oral Comprehension †The capacity to tune in to and get data and thoughts introduced through verbally expressed words and sentences. Deductive Reasoning †The capacity to apply general guidelines to explicit issues to create answers that bode well. Inductive Reasoning †The capacity to join snippets of data to frame general standards or decisions (incorporates finding a relationship among apparently inconsequential occasions). Close to Vision †The capacity to see subtleties at short proximity (inside a couple of feet of the spectator). †(â€Å"CareerOneStop,†n. d. , para. 3) Like an enrolled nurture there is consistently space to learn new capacities and aptitudes for the activity. There will consistently be long lasting learning openings. Anesthesiologist attracts me in view of the compensation yet a veterinarian would be the following field of intrigue. A veterinarian is a medicinal services calling that manages the wellbeing and prosperity of creatures. You despite everything need a similar judgment in this field. You are liable for the strength of creatures. They can't represent themselves for you must be the voice for them. As indicated by Career One Stop on normal in the province of Ohio in 2010 a veterinarian makes between 53,000 to 120,000 dollars every year. (â€Å"CareerOneStop,† n. d, para. ) Animals are turning out to be an ever increasing number of like youngsters to individuals and their wellbeing is critical to individuals. Aptitudes and capacities are unending in this field. Here are a couple of aptitudes and capacities required for this field: Skills: Science †Using logical standards and strategies to take care of issues. Undivided attention †Giving complete consideration to what others are stating, setting aside effort to comprehend the focuses being made, posing inquiries as fitting, and not hindering at unseemly occasions. Basic Thinking †Using rationale and thinking to distinguish the qualities and shortcomings of elective arrangements, ends or ways to deal with issues. Talking †Talking to others to pass on data successfully. Judgment and Decision Making †Considering the relative expenses and advantages of potential activities to pick the most suitable one. Perusing Comprehension †Understanding composed sentences and sections in business related reports. Capacities: Inductive Reasoning †The capacity to consolidate snippets of data to frame general standards or decisions (incorporates finding a relationship among apparently disconnected occasions). Oral Comprehension †The capacity to tune in to and get data and thoughts introduced through verbally expressed words and sentences. Oral Expression †The capacity to convey data and thoughts in talking so others will comprehend. Issue Sensitivity †The capacity to tell when something isn't right or is probably going to turn out badly. It doesn't include taking care of the issue, just perceiving there is an issue. Deductive Reasoning †The capacity to apply general principles to explicit issues to create answers that bode well. (â€Å"CareerOneStop,†n. d. ,para 4) Learning openings are interminable in this field. New ailment and ailments are being grown every day and there is consistently opportunity to get better. Turning into a veterinarian is the last field that intrigues me. In the wake of inspecting the entirety of my intrigued vocation ways I have reasoned that an enrolled nurture is my objective. Turning into an enrolled medical attendant will take a great deal of difficult work and commitment yet it is the principle profession objective. I am tightening this field in light of the compensation, duties and abilities that accompany the activity. Helping other people will give me a feeling of worth. In spite of the fact that anesthesiologist and a veterinarian do intrigue me I will proceed in the way I am going in. As indicated by Mayo school of Health Sciences, â€Å"Nurses work to advance wellbeing, forestall malady and assist patients with adapting to disease. They are backers and wellbeing instructors for patients, families and communities†. (Mayo Clinic, n. d. , para. 1) I am a supporting individual and a medical attendant will permit me to show these aptitudes. References Occupation Profile †America’s Career InfoNet. (n. d. ). Welcome to America’s Career InfoNet. Recovered April 3, 2012, from http://www. careerinfonet. organization/occ_rep. asp? next=occ_rep;Level=;optstatus=111111111;jobfam=29;id=1;nodeid=2;soccode=291141;stfips=39;x=0;y=0 Registered Nurse Career Overview. (n. d. ). Mayo Clinic. Recovered April 3, 2012, from http://www. mayo. edu/mshs/rn-vocation. html The most effective method to refer to Carrer Path Nursing, Essay models

Is Your Husband a Man-Child

Is Your Husband a Man-Child Relationships Spouses & Partners Print Is Your Husband a Man-Child? By Marni Feuerman Marni Feuerman is a psychotherapist in private practice who has been helping couples with marital issues for more than 27 years. Learn about our editorial policy Marni Feuerman Medically reviewed by Medically reviewed by Carly Snyder, MD on January 26, 2020 facebook twitter linkedin Carly Snyder, MD is a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist who combines traditional psychiatry with integrative medicine-based treatments.   Learn about our Medical Review Board Carly Snyder, MD on January 26, 2020 Willie B. Thomas / Getty Images More in Relationships Spouses & Partners Marital Problems LGBTQ Violence and Abuse Also known as a Peter Pan, a man-child is a man who refuses to grow up.  You are probably wondering why he will not grow up and furthermore, how did you end up  falling in love  with this person. His emotional and mental capacity is that of a teenager. He is immature, irresponsible and unreliable. You are overworked, overly responsible, and overcompensating for his deficits. At first, you were drawn to him thinking he was fun, carefree, and laid back. As alluring as this was at first, you grew up, became an adult, and he did not. You now have to do everything possible to keep from strangling him. Common Man-Child Behaviors He has very poor insight. He actually believes he has no emotional baggage or family dysfunction. You are his longest relationship. Now you know why he has never had a long-term relationship prior to you.He thinks recreational drugs, particularly pot, are just fine to use.  He doesnt give weight to the health effects, lazy mentality, or negative influence that his poor choices will have on your young children. He emails you studies that say pot smoking is not damaging and drinking alcohol can be healthy. He always seems checked out but calls it relaxed. Hes quick to point out how uptight you are, and that you should be using too.He is not employed in a career. He may go from job to job or try to avoid working at all. He always has, and possibly still does, survive off of the financial support of his enabling parents. If he is at work, hes the one passing the blame, complaining about all the rules, taking long smoke breaks or hiding out in the restroom playing with his phone.His main hobbies involve electronics. He may be addicted to video games and/or fantasy games which he plays for hours.?? He is allergic to exercise.He does not share the load at home.??  He doesnt do ANY cooking, cleaning, or laundry. If you ask him to help, he acts like it is a huge deal. You have to help dress him for any nice occasion because sneakers and T-shirts are 95% of his wardrobe.He cant express himself maturely. ??There is no manning up when necessary. No back and forth discussions that lead to problem-solving. He complains, whines and thinks everything is unfair. He is petty and keeps score. He may even throw all-out temper tantrums. You will always be the one to bring up important issues for discussion. He is great at pretending that nothing is wrong.All of his friends behave similarly. You may have met some in the past that seemed mature and responsible, but they no longer come around anymore. When you go out with other couples, you feel embarrassed over his behavior or lack o f accomplishments. You know the story: behind every Peter Pan is a Wendy.?? The man-child at first seemed like a challenge. Your maternal instincts kicked into overdrive. You were quick to take him under your wing and help guide him. You are now beyond frustration at the current state of your marriage. Your sexual desire for him is completely gone. What do you do now? Will this man ever grow up? What Should You  Do? You must stop your own  enabling and dysfunctional behavior to get out of this challenging dynamic. You have to realize that you are part of the reason that your spouse continues to act the way he does. Think back to your childhood. Were you made to grow up too fast or be overly responsible? Maybe you had to take care of an alcoholic or neglectful parent. Were you in charge of your younger siblings? You most likely got stuck in such a role, then brought your care-taking behavior into adulthood, including your current romantic relationships.?? Marriage to a Man-Child It is time to stop picking up the slack for this man. It will be critical for you to create healthy boundaries. Once you do, it is not guaranteed that he will finally grow up. If he doesnt, professional help is imperative. He must understand that the viability of the marriage is dependent upon you both changing the dynamic you two have created. If you are both willing to make the necessary modifications to allow him to grow up, only then may you find the happiness that has been eluding you. The 6 Best Online Marriage Counseling Programs

Obesity in the United States - 1115 Words

In the United States today, obesity has become an enormous burden on both the health and healthcare of those affected. In the last 3 decades, the number of people overweight has increased dramatically. According to the Centers of Disease Control, as of 2013, 34.9% of our population is considered overweight or obese. America is the richest yet the fattest nation in the world, and our obese backsides are the butt of jokes in every other country (Klein, 1994). Obesity is defined as having excess body fat. To be considered obese, you must have a BMI of 30 or higher. Your BMI, Body Mass Index, is a measure of body fat based on height and weight. While obesity can affect all ages, sexes and ethnic groups, compared with whites, African-Americans have 51% higher and Hispanics have 21% higher obesity rates (CDC, 2010). Along with that, it has been found that women with higher education are less likely to be obese compared to those with less education (Rodrigo, 2013). Also, obesity is affecting younger ages each year; childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years. It is said that one-in-three children are affected by excess body weight, which then carries into adulthood. According to the AACAP (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry), if one parent is obese, there is a 50% chance their child will be obese and if both parents are obese their child has an 80% chance of being obes e. While obesity can affect virtuallyShow MoreRelatedObesity On The United States981 Words   |  4 Pagesis made home doesn’t mean is healthy. According to article â€Å"The state of obesity† by better policies of America more than one third of adults (34.9) are obese in the United States. But why is there so much obesity on the United States and who is there to blame? We can go ahead and blame the fast food restaurants or we can blame the people itself. In my opinion the individuals are the ones to blame for the obesity in the United States because they rather have fast and easy food even though it’s notRead MoreObesity And The United States1430 Words   |  6 PagesAccording to an article, â€Å"Obesity in Children†, published through the medicine health website, the issue on childhood obesity in the United States has increased within recent years. â€Å"Today, nearly a third of youths are overweight or obese. That’s more than 23 million children and teenagers,† (Childhood Obesity in the United States). Obesity can eventually lead to different and more serious health issues. Fast food restaurants attract the attention of our younger generation and are some of the mainRead MoreObesity : The United States1268 Words   |  6 PagesOctober, 2015 Obesity in America Over the past few decades, obesity rate has grown drastically in the United States. â€Å"A third of U.S. adults are obese† (Brady 519), placing them at a higher risk for diseases, and increased healthcare spending. It a preventable nutritional problem that affects people of all ages, gender and race, with minority groups and people of low socioeconomic status disproportionately affected. It is a multifaceted problem with many issues at its root. Obesity is the resultRead MoreObesity And The United States1265 Words   |  6 Pages Obesity in the United States has been a serious problem affecting Americans and has been continually growing higher in numbers each year. American obesity has nearly doubled within the last 40 years and is now considered to be an epidemic that is affecting millions of people around the nation. According to the National institute of Diabetes and digestive and kidney Diseases, 31% of men and 35% of women are considered seriously overweight, along with 15% of children between the ages of six and nineteenRead MoreObesity And The United States1317 Words   |  6 PagesObesity in the United States In today’s world, obesity rate has been increased significantly. Among 196 countries of the world, the Unites States is ranked 19th, and one third of the population in the U.S. have obesity. Reason that people care about how much population is obsessed is that it is â€Å"linked to many of the major causes of death in the United States, including heart disease, some types of cancer, strokes, diabetes, and atherosclerosis† (Himes 73). 19th of the world may not seem very highRead MoreObesity And The United States951 Words   |  4 PagesObesity in the United States Obesity is raging in the United States. America is the fattest country on this earth. It has become a major health concern. It is not only increasing at an alarming rate in adults, but also in children. The risk of obesity is serious; it can cause many problems in the body. In order to cut down on obesity, Americans need to be more aware of what they eat every day, make healthier choices, and get the proper amount of exercise and nutrition. In many cases obesity canRead MoreObesity And The United States973 Words   |  4 Pagesbecause is made home doesn’t mean is healthy. According to the article â€Å"The state of obesity† by better policies of America more than one third of adults (34.9) are obese in the United States. But why is there so much obesity in the United States and who is there to blame? We can go ahead and blame the fast food restaurants or we can blame the people itself. Individuals are the ones to blame for the obesity in the United States because they have this idea of eating fast and easy, but just cause is fastRead MoreObesity And The United States975 Words   |  4 PagesObesity is an issue that has been growing constantly in the United States. Due to the growing number of fast food restaurants and everything becoming more and more convenient to the human race, the population has been gaining an abundance of weight over the last several decades. The United States has the highest obes ity rate among all of the countries in the world. The rates of obesity for each individual state in the United States all exceed 20 percent (Adult Obesity). Gary Stocklaufer, was a marriedRead MoreObesity And The United States1334 Words   |  6 PagesObesity is an ongoing epidemic in our county and our world. Carrying around excess weight isn’t just uncomfortable, it also poses a variety of very serious health threats, such as heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, some cancers, osteoarthritis, and gout. Also some breathing problems, such as sleep apnea and asthma. My peers talked about the difference of being obese and overweight. The difference of the two is how your BMI ranges. BMI stands for body mass index meaning that yourRead MoreObesity And The United States1960 Words   |  8 PagesIn the United States, more than one third of adults are obese. One in five American deaths are now associated with obesity. The prevalence of obesity has increased at an alarming rate in the USA: in 1960 only 13% of Americans were obese. Obesity has become an epidemic and the number of preventable deaths from obesity-related diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease continues to rise. Despite the well-documented association between obesity and significant morbidity and mortality

Top Advice on Topics for English Essay

Top Advice on Topics for English Essay Get the Scoop on Topics for English Essay Before You're Too Late Instead of just immediately writing about your argumentative essay topic, you should first think about what it is you're likely to put back on your paper through a procedure of brainstorming and pre-writing. When prior brainstorming is finished, you can begin drafting your essay. Such sample essays can be very helpful, as they can give a complete picture of what a wonderful essay is. A renowned book you don't appreciate in any way. Then take a look at a list of argumentative essay suggestions to help you begin. To do so, you will need to get a guide to compose the very best essay on the selected topic. In this kind of situation, it's more convenient to locate ready-made essays and use them as an example. It might be really boring to look for worthy English essay topics on your own, thus we think that it's time to provide you with a hand of assistance. Perhaps, you believe that now you must sit and produce the ideal essay topics all on your own, which could take a great deal of time and energy. It's important to select debatable argumentative essay topics since you need opposing points that you are able to counter to your own points. Categories, essay topics could possibly be divided into. Essay's essential element is the topic, that's the subject y ou're going to describe. Writing a superb persuasive essay is not a simple task, however, it's achievable. The conventional five-paragraph essay is not uncommon in writing argumentative essays, but it's only one approach to write one. The 30-Second Trick for Topics for English Essay For instance, in college, you might be requested to compose a paper from the opposing perspective. It is crucial to pick a great topic so as to compose a good paper. There are certain kinds of essays we've given as samples to help students acquaint themselves and learn to write various samples. You may continue to keep your argumentative essays for your upcoming job portfolio in case they're highly graded. The 30-Second Trick for Topics for English Essay On our site you will discover a whole lot more useful one of a kind information that is certain to be helpful for junior and higher school kids from, like common home task essay about Hamlet, together with, for instance, application essays for c ollege for future students. You have to have skills to compose a very good essay. A college essay topic may or might not be freely dependent on the student based on the course and the professor. Students Assignment Help is not just offering English essay topic help for free but at the very same time assignments help in various subjects is also offered. There are invariably a broad range of opinions on the field of technology, and here are our favourite things to consider on this issue. An important point to bear in mind is to be certain you don't have a thing in the essay that isn't related to your topic. In choosing your topic, it's frequently a good concept to start out with a subject which you already have some familiarity with. When it has to do with writing an argumentative essay, the most essential matter to do is to select a topic and an argument you could really get behind. The key thing is to pick a topic that you can definitely dig into. Select a distinctive topic that others may not think of, and whatever you select, make sure that you know a lot about it! You're able to pick whatever topic you prefer, something you really care about. If you order the very same topic from other writing agencies, you will certainly get unique outcomes. Thanks to the correct option of presentation style and a thorough understanding of the goals you need to accomplish in your essay, there are plenty of categories essay themes may be broken into. You can receive the very best custom essay help from us in numerous topics. You don't need to acquire super technical with legal argumentative essays, but make sure to do your homework on what the recent laws about your preferred topic actually say. Why Almost Everything You've Learned About Topics for English Essay Is Wrong It is possible to restate your argument, which is a rather common practice amongst essayists. You may discover that a lot of the topics can be adapted to suit almost any type of writing assignment. The actual custom of essay writing is a slow iterative approach. The purpose isn't just to inform but to present personal reflection and philosophies throughout the story-telling also. English language classes usually want a lot of writing. Loads of adjectives and adverbs will result in interesting writing, and you'll be able to help your kid to earn stock lists of appropriate words for various settings. English is one particular language that you are unable to exhaust. English is really the most demandable language on earth from past many decades. Life After Topics for English Essay Understanding how to compose a strong argumentative paper can help you advance your very own argumentative thinking. Perhaps the main conside ration to remember in writing essay exams is you have a limited quantity of time and space to get upon the knowledge you've acquired and your capacity to utilize it. One of the greatest strategies to change anybody's mind is with an emotional investment. When you're picking your topic, remember that it's much simpler to write about something which you currently have interest ineven in case you don't know a great deal about it.

Fate and Destiny in the Aeneid and the Odyssey Free Essays

From the dawning of modern human thought, humans have questioned the nature of life and its passing. One of the most fundamental questions to arise from this train of thought is the ideas of fate and duty. We humans desire to know whether the path of our lives is preordained and unalterable or if it is just a series of consequences from our past actions. We will write a custom essay sample on Fate and Destiny in the Aeneid and the Odyssey or any similar topic only for you Order Now If we live by fate and believe our path is already set in stone, then is it our obligation to fulfill that destiny to the best of our abilities or can we resist and hope to forge our own story? It is quite obvious in the epics of both Aeneus and Odysseus that the idea of fate and duty plays a huge role. The difference we see between the two is which is more important and how each epic allows these two ideas to unfold. In Virgil’s Aeneid, Aeneus is driven by the prophecy that he will leave a legacy that will go on to found the greatest and most powerful empire the world will ever know. Aeneus’s journey is filled with trials and tribulations; some are purposefully placed in front of him with the intention of undoing his fate while others are pure happenstance. What drives Aeneus to press on is his sense of duty. One of Aeneus’s most significant obstacles is the princess of Carthage, Dido. The patron goddess of Carthage is Juno and she knows that Aeneus’s prophecy tells of his kingdom destroying Carthage in the future. So Juno sends Cupid to make Dido fall madly in love with Aeneus so that he will do the same and consequently will settle in Carthage never founding the foretold empire that will destroy Juno’s city. Once learning of this plan, Jupiter dispatches Mercury to remind Aeneus of his destiny. And are you at a time like this laying the foundations of stately Carthage, and building, like a fond husband, your wife’s goodly city, forgetting alas! your own kingdom and the cares that should be yours? † (Virgil, Book 4, line 279-282) Aeneus is awe-struck, but he immediately goes to repair his fleet and sail for Italy’s shores. To Aeneus, his sense of duty is so great that he, without question, leaves his wife Dido and the safety of Carthage. Aeneus does not leave Carthage without regard for Dido though. Aeneus attempts to leave before anyone will know they are gone, but he is caught and explains to Dido, â€Å"My quest to Italy is not of my own motion. † (Virgil, Book 4, line 391-392) With this Aeneus leaves Carthage driven by duty and obligation. In Homer’s Odyssey, the idea of fate is more significant than the idea and sense of duty. Odysseus’s journey begins when Poseidon learns that Odysseus blinded his Cyclops son, Polyphemous while trying to escape from his capture. This enrages the already hot-tempered sea god, damning Odysseus, his men, and his voyage. Poseidon attempts to delay and keep Odysseus from his home, Ithaca. His anger towards Odysseus is so great that Zeus has to step in to save him from the sea-god. Zeus, after Poseidon complains to him about the Phaenecians aiding Odysseus, states â€Å"Since for Odysseus now I vowed that he his home should win through many a misery yet utterly bereft not his return; for such your purpose was and decree. † (Homer, Book 13, st. 45) Zeus, in the Odyssey, acts as the hand of fate by preventing Poseidon from further stalling Odysseus’s return home. This is unlike Jupiter in the Aeneid, who dispatches Mercury to remind Aeneus of his purpose. Aeneas is then left with the duty of leaving Carthage and Dido behind, whereas Odysseus is more subject to each gods will. The idea of an inevitable and unchangeable fate is in both the Aeneid and Odyssey, what drives each character is the difference. Aeneus is driven by his sense of duty to start the lineage that will go onto to found Rome, whereas Odysseus is driven by his desire to return to Ithaca. This resembles the cultural and philosophical natures of the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks placed much emphasis on the individual, life, and pleasure which would naturally honor a hero who struggles tremendously to return safely home. The Romans placed large amounts of emphasis on Rome, what it stood for and their duty, undoubtedly Aeneus’s epic was bred from this culture. Although the cultural differences are evident, these two works both share an inevitable fate which drives the journey. Also, the god’s interference in the hero’s journey for either personal gain or to assure the fulfillment of their fate is evident in both works. Fate and duty have been human concepts for thousands of years; they both entail some form of obligation and are main themes in the Aeneid and the Odyssey. Aeneus’s obligation to his duty compels him to realize his fate. Odysseus, on the other hand simply desires to return home, but is subjected to the will of the gods which only stall his fate. Both works resemble their respective culture’s beliefs and ideals, but regardless of the differences, these two works are classic epics. How to cite Fate and Destiny in the Aeneid and the Odyssey, Essay examples

The Pelagian Heresy and the Refutation of St. Augustine free essay sample

It was disseminated by his disciples Caelestius and Julian of Eclanum. Augustine played a decisive role in the pelagian controversy, whose historical course need not be pursed here in detail. Pelagius was scandalized at St. Augustine’s teaching on the need for grace to remain chaste, arguing that this imperiled man’s use of his own free will. Like the stoics, Pelagius thought that one could obtain every good by every except virtue. Once having received the gift of free will, it is man’s responsibiliy to make good moral use of it. He is responsible for his actions and, if only he has courage to will it, there is no height of sanctity he may not attain. This affirmation of the freedom of man as a created but fully autonomous power of self-determination, who can observe the law of God by his own powers, was a denial of the necessity of grace for natural and salutary observance of the moral law and hence disregarded the doctrine of original sin of the consequences of sin. We will write a custom essay sample on The Pelagian Heresy and the Refutation of St. Augustine or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page More so, Pelagianism is a cluster doctrinal error, some of which have plagued the Church ever. Its principal tenets are: (1) Adam would have died even if he had not sinned; (2) Adam’s fall injured only himself and at worst affect his posterity by giving them a bad example; (3) new born children are in the same condition as Adam before he fell; (4) mankind will not die because of Adam’s sin or rise on the Last Day because of Christ redemption; (5) the law of ancient Israel no less than the Gospel offers equal opportunity to reach heaven. As Pelagianism later developed, it totally denied the supernatural order and necessity of grace for salvation. . 0ST. AUGUSTIONE REFUTATION OF PELAGIANISM According to Pelagius, God gave me existence and it is my resposibility to sanctify myself. Hence Augustine referred hm to the words of our Lord, â€Å"Without me you can do nothing. † (Jn 15:5. ) And he comments, â€Å"Christ did not say: Without me it will be hard but: Without me you can do nothing. † To support this thesis, Augustine appealed to several texts of Scripture: â€Å"The King’s heart†¦ is in the hand of the Lord. † (Prov 21; 1); â€Å"God is at work in you, both to will and to work for good pleasure. (Phil 2:13); â€Å"Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to claim from; our sufficiency is from God† (2Cor 3; 5). He argued that perseverance in good is still more obviously a gift of grace. Furthermore, Augustine maintained that â€Å"the God, who made us without us, will not save us without us. † But he went on to add that he saves us by communication of his power to us. St. thomas Aquinas in his Summa maintained thatâ€Å"Nothing can exist which is not at very instant dependent upon the first cause. For the creation is a relationship of dependence which keeps it in being after existence has being given to it. The Council of Orange said with St. Augustine, â€Å"No one has anything of his own save sin and the lie. † Also, that â€Å"Man can do no good without God. God does great good i n man withouut any action on man’s part, but man does not enable him to do. † (D. 193,193). Hence, no one is good of one self unless he who alone is good makes him share in himself. â€Å"Can we henceforth expect anything good from people who think they can attribute to themselves the fact that they are good without considering him whose grace they receive every day, and who trust that without him they are able to achieve so much? (Epistola in Requirendis, n. 7) 4. 0EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION Pelagius held that one could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God’s grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam’s fault to bad example. It is a pelagian error to say that free will is capable of avoidng any sin. However, Human free is not bad in tiself. Thus, since, it is a positive, vital reality; the good use of free will supposes a new relationship with God. When I say â€Å"my action is my merit,†, I must always imply that, without my ceasing to be a responsible being, this free act is a gift given me by God, except in the case of sin of which I am the principal cause and which in moral terms is non-entity. The metaphysical reality must be expressed in terms of a vital relationship between man and God. The problem with Pelagius is that he failed to consider the doctrine of the mystical body of Christ body of Christ, the social nature or solidarity of man in sin and in salvation. The inward grace which he refuses to admit is in reality the grace of Christ. Christ merited salvation for us through his sacrifice of reconciliaton, but he is also the head of a living body, vivified by the Holy Spirit. The pelagian controversey made it possible for the Church to formulate the necessity of inward grace. But the doctrine of absolute necessity could only be formulated in the context of its supernatural character and goal. UDEKE, CHARLES NDUBUISI [emailprotected] com

Death in the open Essay Example

Death in the open Essay Example Death in the open Essay Death in the open Essay Death in the open In the essay Death in the Open Lewis Thomas talks about the dead animals he finds on the side of the road and how he feels about such death. Life is about leaving an Impression in one way or another. Death is a reflection on what a person has done in the world. Thomas feelings towards death Is sadness and anger because of the way he reacts towards dead animals on the side of the road, how he feels about life as a whole Is a positive feeling, and how he thinks animals deal with death. When the author sees death in the open, he feels as though It a reminder of death. This Is proven when he reacts by seeing a dead animal on the side of the road. Thomas says, [t]he outrage Is more than Just the location; It Is the Impropriety of such voluble death, anywhere (Thomas 534). This shows that Just by witnessing death of another living animal the author feels anger because this dead animal Is a reminder that one day he will die. When the author talks about elite he has a slightly different tone Thomas says, [Of it were not for the constant renewal and replacement going on before your eyes, the whole place would turn to stone and sand under your et (Thomas 534). This shows that even though he views the world as a place where living creatures die on a constant basis but to the author life is able to defeat death by reproducing and never giving up. He gives this example when he talks about single cells. Thomas says, [t]here are some creatures that do seem to die at all; they simply vanish totally into their own progeny. Single cells do this (Thomas 535). He goes on to explain how the cell first starts as Just one but then multiplies itself into two then four and so on. This demonstrate the authors amazement of life, the cell doesnt die but just reproduces with itself to make more life. Thomas also wrote about how death is also well hidden in most cases. At the begging of the essay he talks about dead animals on the road and how it makes him upset, although he admits that many animals die and there remains are hardly seen in plain view. He says [a]animals seem to have an instinct for performing death alone, hidden. Even the largest, most conspicuous ones find ways to conceal themselves in time (Thomas 34). He goes on to say how some animals deal with death, for example Thomas said If an elephant missteps and dies the herd will not leave him there; the others will pick him up and carry the body from place to place, finally putting it down In some Inexplicably suitable location (Thomas 534). This shows that even though we may think dealing with death is a human attribute It Is also possible for other species to feel the same way. The author also wrote another essay about life called The Worlds Biggest Membrane. In this essay Thomas also feels as though life was given to us by luck. He states we are lucky to have oxygen In the alarm to breathe, he even talks about how Important it was when life first began to form. He says, there were two such explosion of new life, like vast embryological transformation, both dependent on the threshold levels of oxygen (Thomas 537). This shows that he not only appreciates life but also understands Its value, which Is why he even talks about how the luck we have oxygen. He says, [l]t Is another Illustration of our fantastic luck that oxygen filter UT the very bands of ultraviolet light that are most devastating for nucleic acids and photosynthesis (Thomas 537). He demonstrates his perception on how rare and complex life is. When the Thomas talks about not only the oxygen in the air but how it protects us from dangerous lights while letting in safe visible light to help plants with their photosynthesis. So as one can see the author feelings towards death is sadness and anger because of the way he reacts towards dead animals on the side of the road because it reminds him of his imminent death.

Visiting the Johnson Houston Space Center

Visiting the Johnson Houston Space Center Every NASA mission is controlled from the Johnson Space Center (JSC)   in Houston, Texas. Thats why you often hear astronauts on orbit call out Houston. when theyre communicating to Earth.   JSC is more than just mission control; it also houses training facilities for the astronauts and mockups for future missions.   As you can imagine, JSC is a popular place to visit. To help visitors get the most out of their trip to JSC, NASA worked with the Manned Space Flight Education Foundation to create a unique visitor experience called Space Center Houston.  Its open most days of the year and offers a lot in the way of space education, exhibits, and experiences. Here are a few of the highlights, and you can learn more at the centers website.  Heres what to do at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.   Space Center Theater People of all ages are fascinated with what it takes to be an astronaut. This attraction shows the excitement, the commitment and the risks taken by the people who fly in space. Here we can see the evolution of the equipment and the training of the men and women who dreamed to be astronauts. We want guests to experience first hand what it takes to be an astronaut. The film, shown on a 5-story tall screen, takes the viewer by the heart to bring them into the life of an astronaut from the time they receive notification of their acceptance into the training program to their first mission. Blast Off Theater The only place in the world where you can personally experience the thrill of launching into space like a real astronaut. Not just a movie; its the thrill of personally feeling the launch into space - from the rocket boosters to the billowing exhaust. After docking at the International Space Station, guests enter the Blastoff Theater for an update on current shuttle missions, as well as details on the exploration of Mars. NASA Tram Tour With this behind-the-scenes journey through NASAs Johnson Space Center, you may visit the Historic Mission Control Center, the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility or the current Mission Control Center. Before returning to Space Center Houston, you can visit the all new Saturn V Complex at Rocket Park. Occasionally, the tour may visit other facilities, such as the Sonny Carter Training Facility or Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. You may even get to see astronauts training for upcoming missions. Keep in mind that the buildings visited on the tram tour are real working areas of Johnson Space Center and are subject to closure without notice. Astronaut Gallery The Astronaut Gallery is an unparalleled exhibit featuring the worlds best collection of spacesuits. Astronaut John Youngs ejection suit and Judy Resniks T-38 flightsuit are two of the many spacesuits on display. The walls of the Astronaut Gallery also contain portraits and crew photos of every U.S. astronaut who has flown in space. The Feel of Space The Living in Space module simulates what life could be like for astronauts aboard the space station. A Mission Briefing Officer gives a live presentation on how astronauts live in a space environment. It uses humor to show how the smallest tasks like showering and eating are complicated by a microgravity environment. A volunteer from the audience helps to prove the point. Beyond the Living in Space Module are 24 part task trainers that use sophisticated computer technology to provide visitors with the experience of landing the orbiter, retrieving a satellite or exploring the shuttle systems. Starship Gallery The journey into space begins with the film On Human Destiny at the Destiny Theater. Artifacts and hardware on display in the Starship Gallery trace the progression of Americas Manned Space Flight. This incredible collection includes: an original model of the Goddard Rocket; the actual Mercury Atlas 9 Faith 7 capsule flown by Gordon Cooper; the Gemini V Spacecraft piloted by Pete Conrad and Gordon Cooper; a Lunar Roving Vehicle Trainer, the Apollo 17 Command Module, the giant Skylab Trainer, and the Apollo-Soyuz Trainer. Kids Space Place Kids Space Place was created for children of all ages who have always dreamed of experiencing the same things astronauts do in space. Interactive exhibits and themed area make exploring the different aspects of space and the manned space flight program loads of fun. Inside Kids Space Place, guests can explore and experiment commanding the space shuttle or living on the space station. (Age and/or height restrictions may apply on some activities.) Level 9 Tour The Level Nine Tour takes you behind the scenes to see the real world of NASA up close and personal. On this four-hour tour you will see things that only the astronauts see and eat what and where they eat. All your questions will be answered by a very knowledgeable Tour Guide as you discover the secrets that have been kept behind closed doors for years. The Level Nine Tour is Monday-Friday and includes a FREE HOT LUNCH in the astronauts cafeteria which makes it a Big Bang for your buck! The only security clearance is that you must be 14 years of age or older. The Space Center Houston is one of the most worthwhile trips any space fan can make. It combines history and real-time exploration in one fascinating day!   Edited and updated by Carolyn Collins Petersen.

The risk of being a diabetic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The risk of being a diabetic - Essay Example enal functioning, the working of the liver as well as visual problems and vascular changes which may predispose a person to fatal conditions like atherosclerosis. This paper aims to achieve the following three objectives of briefly explaining: There are two types of Diabetes i.e. type on and type two. Diabetes mellitus type one presents with weight loss and the patient complains of increased thirst, hunger and urination. The patient develops low blood glucose levels often and ketosis is also seen in them. As the patient is not able to produce insulin within the body, the only treatment option for them is the intravenous administration of insulin to control the levels of blood glucose. Insulin pumps can also be used for the delivery of insulin within the body. In diabetes type 2 the disease progresses with the loss of responsiveness of the tissues of the body to insulin. That is they become resistant to the effect of this hormone and hence the metabolism of glucose is altered. The increased levels of insulin and high blood glucose levels alter the functioning of the beta cells which initially respond by increased secretion of the hormone. When this affect does not show a significant result there is loss of function of the beta cells. Diabetes becomes an even more dangerous disease in its latter stages when it is not being controlled. If early treatment of diabetes is not done in some cases it is seen that amputation is required. By amputation here it is meant that an organ has to be cut off from the body. If the person does not control diabetes it can also lead to heart failure or a heart attack. At times it is seen that diabetes leads to the blockage of vessels in the body. Diabetes can also effect sensitive organs of the body such as eye. It can form a cataract in the eye because of which the vision of an individual is impaired. Diabetes is a slow poison as it slowly affects the person’s metabolic processes. It is necessary that an individual controls it and

Censorship Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Censorship - Essay Example ce, a book is introduced to the learning curriculum of a school system, then such a book must have passed the set limits of acceptability (Anderson, 19). This paper will thus address in details the reasons as to why some communities, libraries and schools opt to ban materials. This is to say that the paper will give principles as to why there are merits and demerits of banning materials for the said schools, public libraries and communities. To begin with, there is a school of thought and proponent of the line of thought that stipulates that some materials such as books that are banned are done so rightly. This stems from the reasoning and the line of thought that such materials could be laced with overtone racial issues such as the book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Angelou Maya. In most cases and instances, it could be due to the encouragement of one racial group over and above the others. In a situation where the book or material is intended for the pupils in formative years, then such a material either in the form of language ought to be censored. For instance, if a primary school book is laced with racial language that aims at discriminating against another, then the material would skew the mind and reasoning acumen of the young children towards such direction. It is important to note and mention that the children would have been misguided into believing such stereotype which would be prejudicial in their subsequent years. This is to say that such pupils would have been misled by being exposed to reading such material while on the hand, it would have been banned and the damage controlled even before it takes effect. Secondly, materials and languages by extension which seem to encourage socially immoral and derogatory lifestyles are ought to be banned from public libraries and schools. People read and gain insights on the real life from the materials that they read from books. It does not help any much if such materials and languages seem to covey

Impact of EU Fixed Term Work Directive: Scientific Research

Impact of EU Fixed Term Work Directive: Scientific Research Employment/Policies for Scientific Researchers: Is the EU Fixed Term Work Directive of any Assistance to Scientific Researchers in the UK? Introduction This dissertation proposal proposes to examine the impact of the new EU Fixed Term Directive on contract researchers throughout the UK. Its scope and potential for impact is quite wide, yet its workability and prospective effectiveness remains to be seen. Its aim is to increase levels of stability, consistency and equality among employees within Europe, which are employment conditions, from which scientific researchers on short term contracts in the UK have arguably been distanced from due to the nature of their employment. Also, the legislation is aimed at making research work between member states easier to access for EU citizens. The legislation also aims to make the EU a more attractive work destination, for, for example Chinese scientists who have a lot to contribute to European academia. The legislation applies to both private and public sector actors, and will also impact firms and universities employing researchers. The wider socio-political environment, the continued concentration of power with the European Commission and the growing influence of European Institutions upon actors operating at member state level will be examined in the writer’s proposed research, as this will ultimately contextualise both the final recommendations of the research and the processes of the proposed research as it unfolds. The proposed research will examine the research question from a primary data collection angle, and accordingly data will be collected in relation to how many individuals in the UK work as scientific researchers, and these individuals will be asked to contribute to the research by articulating their views on the potential workability and usefulness of the Directive. Also, employers, such as universities, public laboratories and firms will be approached in an effort to gather information from a wide variety of actors who will experience the impact of the new legislation. Data will be collected from other actors with expertise on the issues which relate to the employment of scientific researchers within the EU. The Research Question The research question will address the potential workability and usefulness of the new EU Fixed Term Directive; how it may be critiqued and how it may be improved. The research question will be addressed using primary and secondary research. The research question will be assessed qualitatively, and quantitatively, in an approach known as methodological pluralism. The next section will examine the background and aims of the EU Fixed Term Work Directive in a more in depth way, and it will give details on what literatures will be used and why. Review Literatures which give detailed background on the new Directive and literatures which provide background on the wider role of the EU will be used to create a point of reference for the study, and as they will help the guide the writer in identifying where gaps in the literature exist, and where research will best be concentrated. The literature which has been relied upon by the EU to gather background information in relation to the situation of scientific researchers on short term contracts is not an exhaustive body of research, and it is anticipated that this proposed research will add to this literature. The European Commission has become a deeply influential body[1]. Accordingly, its proposals in terms of legislation and social policy within the sphere of employment law have become fundamentally important for both employees and employers operating within Europe[2]. Therefore, the European Commission’s recent indications that it wished to address what it termed the ‘abuse’ of fixed term contracts, ‘through their continued use’ had many legislative and political consequences for employers and employees operating within the European Union[3]. In terms of operationalising their concerns, the Commission has recently called for all European Union member states to desist from what the Commission regarded as ‘short-term’ contract misuse through engaging in collective bargaining or through the implementation of domestic legislation. Many of the UK’s estimated 40000 researchers[4] will be impacted by the new EU Fixed Term Directive which proposes to ensure that fixed term contracts, under which many of these employees work, are made permanent after a period of four years. Also, the Directive requires that employers offer contract researchers equal terms of employment, compared with those enjoyed by permanent staff, in relation to departmental committees and maternity leave provisions[5]. However, the Directive allows employers to extricate themselves from having to implement the Directive, in circumstances where they can show specific and objective reasons for doing this[6]. Other criticisms of the new legislation are that it does not go far enough to prevent or discourage the ‘misuse’ of short term contracts, since contractual periods of any length are still legally enforceable under the legislation. Also, as the chairman of the Association of Researchers in Medicine and Science, Stephen Hopkins has commented, contracts may be terminated before the expiration of the four year period[7]. Also, it is unclear how much of an impact the legislation would have upon scientific researcher’s whose contracts are tied to external sources of funding and are therefore terminable upon the expiration of funds. However, the functions and circumstances of scientific researchers within the UK remain understudied and obscure. For example, there is little data which tells us what the exact number of researchers who are working on short term contracts, in the academic community is, and accordingly the extent of the impact of the new legislation is unclear. It would therefore be sensible to attempt to gauge these figures, and accordingly the proposed research will address this gap in the literature on this subject. Also, since the legislation is relatively new, little literature is available on the viewpoints of individual scientific researchers, and due to this, in particular the relevance of the proposed research can be seen to be even more sharply defined. These perspectives will allow the new legislation to be evaluated with reference to the views of those who are constrained and impacted by it. Ogbonna and Noon (2001) gives us further insight into the concept of ‘equality’ and equal opportunities with the context of the European Union: ‘There are two separate aspects to evaluating the effectiveness of equal opportunities policies†¦The liberal approach aims to provide equality of opportunity, and relies on fair procedures, bureaucratic processes, and a sense of justice being seen to be done. The emphasis is on the principle of recognising individual merit, rather than on any notion of providing social justice in relation to under-represented or disadvantaged groups. The radical approach is interested in equalising outcomes, and thus emphasises the fair and equal distribution of rewards, and positive discrimination†¦[8]’. As we have seen explained in previous sections, the new Directive is predicated upon a desire to offer contract researchers working within universities greater job security and more equal rights compared with other categories of professionals, like veterinary surgeons and doctors whose rights have been embodied prescriptively through EU legislation, particularly within the last five years. The research will therefore, also address literature on how the new legislation will impact upon the concepts of equality and equal opportunities within the EU. Research Design As has been explained, the focus of the research will be methodologically pluralistic in nature. This means that both qualitative and quantitative methods[9] will be relied upon to implement the proposed research. Qualitative research regards reality as a subjectively evolving social construct, whereas quantitative research is more specific and confirmatory. The meaning and application of both disciplines can be illustrated with reference to these two quotations: ‘Historians have always analysed documentary evidence, much of it non-quantitative data such as correspondence, as their primary source material, and through oral history methods have added in-depth interviewing to their repertoire†¦Organisational theory has been based largely on case studies created from an amalgam of observation, documentary material and interviews†¦[10]’. ‘Quantitative research is frequently referred to as hypothesis-testing research (Kerlinger, 1964)†¦Characteristically, studies begin with statements of theory from which research hypotheses are derived†¦[11]’. Therefore, the research design of this project will draw from both of these disciplines to construct the research framework, and gather primary information. Qualitative data will be primarily relied upon to gather the primary data needed for the operationalisation of the research. Semi-Structured interviews (this involves information exchange usually on a one to one basis) and focus groups[12] (these are groups interviews, usually led by the researcher) will be used to gather the qualitative data from research scientists working within the UK and surveys will be used to gather data in respect of the numbers of individuals the new legislation is likely to affect. Experts such as representatives of the European Industrial Research Managers Association, and the Association of Researcher in Medicine and Science will be interviewed. Within the qualitative arm of the study, semi-structured interviews will be mainly relied upon for practical reasons, since logistically, conducting focus group interviews, when dealing with a niche community like scientific researchers, and representatives from those actors who employ them like universities might be difficult to organise. The research design is pluralistic in nature, since this will provide a holistic context from which to examine the topic of employment law and policy in the context of scientific researchers. GANNT Chart/Discussion of Implementation The project will be implemented over approximately a three month period. The writer anticipates that they will implement the project alone. Various resources will be needed, such as access to libraries, equipment and respondents. The implementation of the research, and the time-scales which certain aspects of the research design must accord with may be represented diagrammatically in the following way: Chapter Headings Introduction: Background to the Study Literature Review: The EU Fixed Term Directive and the Role of the EU Commission Methodology Results and Discussion: New Models for Evaluating the Employment Circumstances of Scientific Researchers Conclusion Evaluation of Possible Problems and Barriers to Completion. The research project will be limited and constrained in many ways, as is the case with every research initiative. Resources with which to implement this project are finite and there is a very limited time scale to work within. Accordingly, the project design must be cogent and well-organised if the implementation of the research is to run smoothly. The writer does anticipate that the problem of representation may be a barrier to the implementation of the research design. Any research which claims to survey a group of individuals, and then seeks to comment upon the situation of a group of individuals in similar circumstances, imputes that the research is representative of those individuals and of that group, yet, there can be problems with the concept of representation. Therefore, the writer must ensure that representation bias is not introduced within the research design by over-reliance on the views of any particular age, gender or ethnic group. Also, a relatively large sample must be taken to ensure that trends which are discerned are not just random occurrences or anomalies[13]. Observance of ethical research methods will help to facilitate the research, since respondents are more likely to be willing to participate if they know that the information they impart will be used ethically. Therefore, matters such as confidentiality and informed consent will need to researched in detail and absorbed within the research design. However, these barriers to completion and potential problems will only thwart the prospective research if they are not addressed and recognised before the research is conducted. Also, they will need to be made reference to in the writing up of the research since to ignore potential barriers to completion in the write-up of one’s research is to, by default, suggest that they have been eliminated or are not relevant. This could therefore lead to the research indirectly being biased. Therefore, the writer will give an honest account of how problems have been identified and addressed throughout the research. Also, if the writer needs to travel to conduct research, journeys will be planned in advance and cost will therefore be minimised. Overall, therefore this proposed research will evaluate the usefulness and prospective workability of the EU Fixed Term Work Directive, by gauging the opinions of those most likely to be affected by it. Bibliography Books Benz, C. and Newman, I. (1998) Qualitative-Quantitative Research Methodology: Exploring the Interactive Continuum. Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press. Place of Publication: Carbondale, IL. Darlington, Y. and Scott, D. (2002) Qualitative Research in Practice: Stories from the Field. Publisher: Allen Unwin. Place of Publication: Crows Nest, N.S.W.. Frankfort-Nachmias, C. and Nachmias, D. (1996) Research Methods in the Social Sciences. Publisher: Arnold Publishers. Place of Publication; London. Noon, M. and Ogbonna, E. (2001) Equality, Diversity and Disadvantage in Employment. Publisher: Palgrave. Place of Publication: Basingstoke, England. Roberts, I. and Springer, B. (2001) Social Policy in the European Union: Between Harmonization and National Autonomy. Publisher: Lynne Rienner. Place of Publication: Boulder, CO. Article Payne, D. (2002) New Job Security for UK Researchers on Short Term Contracts? The ELSO Gazette. Issue 12. 1 Footnotes [1] P151. Roberts, I. and Springer, B. (2001) Social Policy in the European Union: Between Harmonization and National Autonomy. Publisher: Lynne Rienner. Place of Publication: Boulder, CO. [2] P16. Noon, M. and Ogbonna, E. (2001) Equality, Diversity and Disadvantage in Employment. Publisher: Palgrave. Place of Publication: Basingstoke, England. [3] P1. Payne, D. (2002) New Job Security for UK Researchers on Short Term Contracts? The ELSO Gazette. Issue 12. [4] P1. Payne, D. (2002) New Job Security for UK Researchers on Short Term Contracts? The ELSO Gazette. Issue 12. [5] P1. Payne, D. (2002) New Job Security for UK Researchers on Short Term Contracts? The ELSO Gazette. Issue 12. [6] P1. Payne, D. (2002) New Job Security for UK Researchers on Short Term Contracts? The ELSO Gazette. Issue 12. [7] P1. Payne, D. (2002) New Job Security for UK Researchers on Short Term Contracts? The ELSO Gazette. Issue 12. [8] P16. Noon, M. and Ogbonna, E. (2001) Equality, Diversity and Disadvantage in Employment. Publisher: Palgrave. Place of Publication: Basingstoke, England. [9] See Chapters One and Two of: Frankfort-Nachmias, C. and Nachmias, D. (1996) Research Methods in the Social Sciences. Publisher: Arnold Publishers. Place of Publication; London. [10] P2. Darlington, Y. and Scott, D. (2002) Qualitative Research in Practice: Stories from the Field. Publisher: Allen Unwin. Place of Publication: Crows Nest, N.S.W.. [11] P19. Benz, C. and Newman, I. (1998) Qualitative-Quantitative Research Methodology: Exploring the Interactive Continuum. Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press. Place of Publication: Carbondale, IL. [12] P19. Benz, C. and Newman, I. (1998) Qualitative-Quantitative Research Methodology: Exploring the Interactive Continuum. Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press. Place of Publication: Carbondale, IL. [13] P19. Benz, C. and Newman, I. (1998) Qualitative-Quantitative Research Methodology: Exploring the Interactive Continuum. Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press. Place of Publication: Carbondale, IL.

The American Express Card

9-509-027 REV: APRIL 22, 2011 JOHN A. QUELCH JACQUIE LABATT The American Express Card Marketing is fully integrated into our overall strategy. Our largest investor, Warren Buffett, is very focused on brand health and customer metrics. — Kenneth I. Chenault In April 2008, Jud Linville, president and chief executive officer of U. S. Consumer Services at American Express Company, was preparing for a meeting with Ken Chenault, American Express’s chairman and chief executive officer since 2001, and Al Kelly, president of American Express Company.The purpose of the meeting was to discuss further growth prospects in the United States for the American Express consumer card business while maintaining the brand’s premium positioning. The performance of the American Express card, launched 50 years earlier in 1958, had been remarkable. By 2008, there were 52 million American Express cards in circulation in the U. S. , held by 41 million â€Å"cardmembers† (see Exhibit 1). American Express commanded nearly a 24% share of U. S. credit card payments. 1As Linville prepared for the meeting, he wondered whether he could continue to rely on the same business growth drivers that had served American Express well in the past. With the U. S. economy slipping into recession, the proliferation of cards in the market required American Express to deepen its consumer understanding to provide innovative, value-added products that would attract and retain cardmembers. Company Background The American Express Company was a leading global payments and travel company with revenue net of interest expense of $27. 7 billion in 2007, up 10% from 2006. American Express’s principal products and services included charge and credit card payment products and travel-related services offered to consumers and businesses around the world. American Express was the world’s largest issuer of charge and credit cards as measured by the annual value of purchases charged o n these cards. 3 Yet American Express maintained a â€Å"best-in-class† credit quality, reflecting in part the company’s traditional focus on the affluent segment, its expertise in evaluating the credit risk of individual consumers, and its ongoing commitment to investing in risk capabilities. In 2007, around 70% of American Express’s revenue net of interest expense and 85% of its pretax income from continuing operations5 was generated in the United States. The global diversity of the business included 86 million cards in force worldwide, more than 115 card-issuing or merchant-acquiring ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Professor John A. Quelch and Research Associate Jacquie Labatt prepared this case. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion.Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective ma nagement. Copyright  © 2008, 2011 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-5457685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to www. hbsp. harvard. edu/educators. This publication may not be digitized, photocopied, or otherwise reproduced, posted, or transmitted, without the permission of Harvard Business School..This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN 509-027 The American Express Card arrangements with banks and other institutions, and over 650 American Express network branded products. 6 Fortune magazine ranked American Express the â€Å"Most Admired† megabank/credit card company in its 2008 annual survey. 7 American Express’s roots date back to 1850, when Henry Wells, William Fargo, and John Butterfield founded an express deli very company.The very nature of handling and transporting customers’ assets depended on security and trust, core attributes that had remained at the heart of the company and brand. In the late 1800s, American Express introduced financial products such as money orders and Travelers Cheques. The company later expanded into the travel business to further support its Travelers Cheques customers who were increasingly going abroad. The First Card The first American Express card targeting the business traveler was launched in 1958. The decision to enter this new business â€Å"faced strong opposition within the company with senior leaders evenly divided on the issue. 8 The debate began when the Diners Club card was introduced in 1950. American Express recognized the card as a potential threat to the company as consumers began using this card as a substitute for Travelers Cheques. 9 Some argued that a charge card would cannibalize the Travelers Cheque business, while others believed competing cards would hurt those sales regardless. There was further concern that launching a card would upset the American Automobile Association (AAA), one of American Express’s largest distributors of Travelers Cheques. At the same time, AAA was known to be considering launching a card of its own.Finally, with the economy in recession, many executives argued that it was a risky time to be launching a charge card. Nevertheless, in December 1957, American Express president Ralph Reed decided to launch such a card without further delay, stating at the time: â€Å"All we have to sell is service. † When word of the card’s imminent launch leaked, the company was inundated with calls from potential applicants. Further, the American Hotel Association approached American Express regarding forming an alliance, which gave the company an immediate customer base of 150,000 cardmembers and 4,500 participating merchants. 0 By the official launch date of October 1, 1958, Am erican Express had already issued 250,000 cards at an annual fee of $6 each, $1 higher than the fee for a Diners Club card. The first American Express card11 was targeted at businessmen on expense accounts, offering them a convenient method of payment rather than a means of financing purchases. This American Express card was a charge card that required the user to pay off the balance monthly. It was not a credit card that offered the user the option of paying interest on the balance as if it were a cash loan.The Gold (1966), Corporate (1966), and Platinum (1984) cards followed despite concerns over cannibalizing the original American Express card. This hierarchy of cards with progressively higher annual fees and services offered business travelers the aspirational prospect of being invited to move up from Green to Gold to Platinum. (In 1999, American Express added an unadvertised, byinvitation-only product, the black Centurion card. Equipped with VIP benefits such as a personal conc ierge, the Centurion card was offered by invitation only to a small, elite group of Platinum card customers.Celebrities and the very rich clamored for the right to carry this new card. ) American Express launched its first credit card, Optima, in 1987. The Optima card was the first American Express card to allow customers to carry a balance and pay interest. It was marketed only as a â€Å"companion† card to existing American Express cardmembers. A downturn in the economy in 1991 resulted in unexpected losses as some Optima customers failed to make their payments.As a result, American Express deferred plans to expand its credit card business and tightened its existing 2 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN The American Express Card 509-027 credit modeling programs and controls. In addition, American Express â€Å"card suppression,à ¢â‚¬  whereby merchants tried to dissuade consumers from using their American Express card, began with the 1991 â€Å"Boston Fee Party. † Boston estaurateurs were upset with what they viewed as American Express’s excessive discount rate, the percentage fee American Express charged merchants on consumer purchases made with American Express cards. This practice of not honoring the American Express card gained momentum and discouraged some consumers from using their American Express cards. Scale was viewed as a key competitive success factor in the payments industry; American Express considered its 16%—and falling—market share of the U. S. payments market in the early 1990s too low.With too few cards in circulation and too few merchants accepting the American Express card, American Express management faced a â€Å"chicken and egg† dilemma in trying to determine which aspect of the problem to address first. Turnaround Harvey Golub’s appointment as chairman and chief executive officer in 1993 set the stage for restoring health to the American Express business and brand. Golub became the â€Å"vocal guardian† of the American Express brand as he outlined his vision for the company: â€Å"To become the world’s most respected service brand. 12 American Express’s purpose was to manage, market, and promote the core attributes of the American Express brand, â€Å"trust, security, integrity, quality and customer service,† through educating employees, incorporating these attributes into card products and services, and reflecting them in all marketing communications. Future chief executive officer Ken Chenault, who was then running the card business, laid down three guiding principles: to provide superior value to customers, to achieve best-in-class economics, and to direct all activities to support the American Express brand.In addition, Golub established long-term goals as the guiding metrics for the b usiness: earnings per share growth of 12%–15% per year, revenue growth of at least 8% per year, and return on equity of 18%–20% on average over time. With a business strategy built on the company’s brand, Golub refocused American Express on the card business. Starting in 1981, American Express had purchased brokerage and financial advisory firms in an effort to become a â€Å"financial supermarket. † This strategy proved to be a distraction.By 1993, Golub had divested American Express of most of its non-core businesses. Concurrently, the U. S. card business underwent a significant review under the leadership of Chenault. He identified three issues: Costs were too high compared to American Express’s most efficient competitors; the division was too slow to change and adapt, particularly in introducing new products; and the organization was not sufficiently flexible to meet the needs of specific, more targeted consumer segments. 13 By 1995, signs of a turnaround were evident in the American Express card business.New card products began to appear with increased frequency, including proprietary and co-branded cards. A co-branding strategy was initially opposed by branding purists who argued that the American Express brand was too precious to be shared with a partner. This had led American Express to turn down an opportunity to co-brand air-miles-earning AAdvantage credit cards with American Airlines in the mid-1980s. The company came to regret this decision as American Airlines and, later, United Airlines both launched co-branded cards with Visa and MasterCard.The launches of the co-branded Hilton Optima card (1995) and the Delta SkyMiles American Express card (1996) marked the company’s new willingness to partner with other strong brands. In future years, agreements were also struck with Costco, Starwood, and JetBlue. In 1996, Golub decided to open the American Express network and invited other banks and institutions to is sue cards on its network. Doing business with other card issuers that were often competitors was a significant shift for the company. But, by carefully choosing the right partners who 3This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN 509-027 The American Express Card would tailor American Express products for their high-spending customers, the company could efficiently supplement its own efforts to grow the number of cards-in-force, cardmember spending, and merchant acceptance. The Global Network Services (GNS) division was formed in 1997 to build these relationships.By 2007, there were more than 750 different American Express cards (including cards co-branded with merchants and banks) available around the world. Exhibit 2 lists the principal American Express card offerings and features in the United States as of 2008. In evaluating prospective produc t offerings, Linville asked whether the company was, first, â€Å"removing friction† from the system— making everyday life easier in some way for consumers such as with a â€Å"contactless† card—and, second, â€Å"providing special recognition,† or badge value, to cardmembers.Linville sought to make the American Express brand available more broadly while ensuring that it retained its premium status. Organization As of 2007, the company was organized into two major customer groups: Global Consumer Services and Global Business-to-Business Services. The Global Consumer group contributed 67% of the company’s revenues net of interest expense and 52% of its income from continuing operations. 14 Its range of products and services included charge and credit card products for consumers and small businesses worldwide, consumer travel services, and prepaid, stored value products such as Travelers Cheques and Gift Cards.Business-to-Business Services con tributed 29% and 38%, respectively, to the company’s revenue and income, and offered business travel, corporate cards, expense management products and services, network services, and merchant acquisition and processing for the company’s network partners and proprietary payments businesses. (See Exhibit 3 for a breakdown of company revenues by operating group and division, and see Exhibit 4 for income statement data on the company’s U. S. card business. ) U. S. Payments Industry Payment SystemsAmerican Express competed against all forms of payments for consumer purchases, a market that exceeded $7 trillion in the U. S. in 2008. 15 Payments could be divided into three broad categories: paper-based payments (checks, cash, money orders, official checks, Travelers Cheques); card-based payments (credit, debit, prepaid, electronic benefits transfer); and electronic-based payments (preauthorized and remote). Consumers were shifting from paper-based payments toward cards and electronic methods (see Table A).Converting even a small portion of the paper market to American Express payments represented a big opportunity. Many of these transactions were cash/check-based because either they were low-value transactions (at mom-and-pop stores) or high-value captive transactions where there was little incentive for the merchant (for example, a utility company or apartment landlord) to accept charge/credit cards and absorb the discount fees charged for the service. American Express estimated that around 25% of the cash/check segment represented high-value transactions such as car purchases, tuition fees, and rent/mortgage payments. This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN The American Express Card 509-027 Credit and Debit Credit cards held a leadership 26% share of the payments market and had grown 45% in dollar terms since the year 2001. Debit cards, which were issued by banks and allowed a purchase payment to be deducted immediately from the cardholder’s bank account, held a 14% share of the payments market and had grown 162% over this same period.Since American Express was not a bank, it did not offer debit cards. The average purchase per debit card in the U. S. was $39 compared to $87 per credit card purchase. 16 While debit card transactions were projected to exceed credit card transactions by 2011, the average purchase per credit card transaction was expected to remain higher. 17 Table A U. S. Consumer Purchases by Payment Type—2006 Method of Payment Paper Checks Cash Other $3,365 1807 1439 119 Cards Credit Cards Debit Cards Other Source: % Change Versus Previous Five Years Market Share -4 % -19 +23 -3 47% 25 20 2 3,048 1,871 ,010 167 +77 +45 +162 +209 43 26 14 3 751 443 307 +177 +136 +270 10 6 4 7,165 Electronic Preauthorized Remote Total Consumer Purchases (billions) +30 100 Adapted from The Nilson Report, Issue 890, October 2007. The average American adult carried 4. 4 payment cards in his/her wallet, be they debit, credit, and/or charge cards. 18 Competitors in the card payments business were either card networks that processed transactions (Visa, MasterCard), card issuers (primarily banks), or organizations that both issued cards and processed transactions (American Express, Discover Financial Services).Charge cards for specific retail chains were declining in importance. American Express aimed to increase its â€Å"share of wallet† by making American Express the payment card of choice for all transactions. This was especially important, as recent evidence showed the average number of cards per wallet falling rather than increasing; 20% of consumers shed payment products in 2007 versus 16% in 2004. 19 Further, only 31% of consumers were adding new payment products to their wallets, a drop from 56% three years earlier. 0 Many American consumer s â€Å"compartmentalized† their spending, using different cards for different types of payments. For example, some long-standing American Express members still used the American Express card just for travel and entertainment, and used a Visa or MasterCard credit card for other purchases. 5 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN 509-027 The American Express Card Competitive Card NetworksPayment networks operated under two business models. â€Å"Open-loop† payment networks, as employed by Visa and MasterCard, were multiparty. Processing a payment typically involved connecting two financial institutions: one that issued the card (issuer) and one that serviced the merchant (acquirer). The open-loop network managed the information and transfer of value between the two banks. In a â€Å"closed-loop† network, as used by Americ an Express and Discover, the network â€Å"owned† the relationship with both the cardholder and the merchant.Leading payment networks are listed in Table B. Credit Card Networks—U. S. Market Share 2007 Table B Share of Credit Card Purchases Visa MasterCard American Express Discover Source: Share of Credit Card Transactions 42. 2% 28. 7 23. 8 5. 3 43. 8% 30. 5 18. 3 7. 4 Adapted from The Nilson Report, Issue 889, 2007. Visa, Inc. Visa operated the world’s largest retail electronics open-loop payment network. Visa provided financial institutions, their primary customers, with product platforms, including consumer credit, debit, prepaid, and commercial payments (see Table C).Visa operated a data-processing network that transferred transaction data and managed payment flow between issuers and acquirers. Visa generated revenue primarily from financial institutions based on fees calculated on the dollar volume of payment activity on Visa-branded cards (service fees) a nd from fees charged for providing transaction processing (data-processing fees). In 2007, Visa USA generated 82% of its gross operating revenue from service and processing fees combined. 21 U. S. Results for Visa, Inc. , Annual Product Performance (June 30, 2007) Table C Payment TypeConsumer Credit Consumer Debit Commercial and Other Total Payments Volume Cash Volumea Total Volume Total Transactions (in millions) Source: Payment Volume (billions) Share of Payment Volume by Payment Type $ 624 637 188 34% 35 10 1,449 79 382 1,831 21 100% 25,942 Adapted from Visa, Inc. , Form 10-K, December 2007. a Cash volume includes cash access transactions, balance transfers, and convenience check transactions associated with Visa. 6 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012.For the exclusive use of Y. SUN The American Express Card 509-027 Visa went public on March 18, 2008, raising $19 bill ion in the world’s second-largest initial public offering (IPO). 22 The IPO created a cultural and business challenge: Visa had to shift its focus from delivering benefits to its partner banks toward maximizing profits for long-term shareholder value. 23 As stated in Visa’s 10-K report, â€Å"Many of our employees have limited experience operating in a profit-maximizing business environment. †24 Further, the proceeds of the IPO bought out the interests of the partner banks.As a result, the banks were no longer Visa’s partners and co-owners but were now Visa’s customers. MasterCard MasterCard (MC), which successfully went public in 2006, was a global payment solutions company that was similar to Visa’s open-loop network. MC’s primary sources of revenue were transaction service fees, data-processing fees, and assessments on gross dollar use (purchases, cash disbursements, balance transfers) of MC-based cards. In 2007, transaction fees a nd assessments represented approximately 74% and 26%, respectively, of the company’s net revenues. 5 Discover Financial Services Discover Financial Services (DFS) was the consumer credit and financial services division of Morgan Stanley until it was spun off to shareholders as an independent closed-loop payments network company in July 2007. Founded in 1986, DFS was the only issuer whose wholly-owned network operations included both debit and credit card capability. 26 DFS also offered a range of banking products, such as personal and student loans, certificates of deposit, and money market accounts. DFS’s primary source of revenue in its U. S. ard business was interest income earned on revolving cardmember balances. Other sources of revenue included late-payment, over-the-limit, and merchant discount fees. Like American Express, the company offered a rewards program to cardholders; under the Discover program, card users earned a cash-back discount on the value of thei r transactions. Competitive Card Issuers Competitive card issuers (largely banks) issued credit and debit cards, predominantly under the Visa and MasterCard brands, and were responsible for the pricing, positioning, and marketing of their co-branded cards.The top three banks accounted for more than 60% of outstanding bank-issued credit card purchases, as indicated in Table D. Card issuers competed on the basis of card features and quality of service, including rewards, number of cards issued and quality of users’ credit and spending, number of establishments accepting the card, success of target marketing and promotional campaigns, and the ability of the issuer to manage credit and interest rate risks through economic cycles. The primary revenue source for bank issuers was interest income earned on outstanding credit card balances.They acquired new cardholders by cross-selling cards to the customers of their retail branch networks and, increasingly, targeted high-spending con sumers, offering premium cards with enhanced services such as larger lines of credit, cash rebates, lower interest rates, and co-brand benefits with airline frequent-flyer programs. 7 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN 509-027 The American Express Card Table D U. S. Credit Card Volumes by Card Issuer in 2007 Volume of Purchases billions) American Expressa JP Morgan Chase Bank of America Citigroup Capital One Discovera U. S. Bank HSBC Wells Fargo GE Money Other Sources: $459 317 263 222 106 90 65 41 37 27 87 Adapted from The Nilson Report, Issue 896, February 2008, except for American Express (American Express Annual Report 2007). a Do not include third-party business. Emerging Payment Networks New entrants offering nontraditional, convenient, technology-based payment methods were growing in number and importance. It was estimated that cr edit and debit cards generated approximately $200 billion in purchase volume from online bill payments in 2006. 7 New payment methods included online â€Å"aggregator† networks, such as PayPal and Google Checkout, and telecom providers that leveraged new technologies and customers’ existing charge and credit card relationships to create mobile payment solutions where the plastic card would not need to be presented to the merchant. PayPal used encryption software to allow consumers to make financial transfers between computers. 28 Similarly, Google Checkout, which accepted and processed existing payment methods such as American Express, Visa, and MasterCard, aimed to offer buyers a fast, safe, and convenient purchase experience.American Express Card Business Model The American Express â€Å"spend-centric† business model (see Exhibit 4) depended on increased cardmember spending. American Express’s primary source of income was â€Å"discount revenue,† revenue earned from fees charged to merchants for processing purchases made using an American Express card. The fee charged represented a percentage of the dollar value of these transactions. In 2007, discount revenue and card fees accounted for more than 70% of U. S. Card Services’ revenue net of interest expense (see Exhibit 5).The average American Express cardmember charged more each year than the average Visa or MasterCard credit card user. In 2007, the annual average purchase volume per American Express card of $8,360 in the U. S. was substantially higher than that for Visa ($2,470/card) or MasterCard ($1,960/card). 29 By accepting American Express cards, merchants benefited from attracting as patrons the higher-spending American Express consumer. As a result, American Express could justify a premium discount rate from merchants over its competitors.American Express invested this price premium in information systems that studied the purchase habits and inclinations of c ardmembers. These insights led to the development of targeted 8 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN The American Express Card 509-027 promotions, connecting merchants with interested American Express cardmembers who were in turn motivated to spend even more on their American Express cards.In this way, the spend-centric model became a virtuous cycle, benefiting cardmember, merchant, and company alike. From the outset, American Express targeted the affluent, high-spending consumer. â€Å"High-wallet† consumers were defined by American Express in 2007 as those who spent more than $30,000 annually using cards. Affluent consumers represented roughly 10% of card users but accounted for half of U. S. charge/credit card consumer spending. 30 American Express’s target consumer typically liked to travel, liked to be different, and lik ed special access to exclusive experiences.For many years the American Express consumer skewed slightly toward affluent, older men, a reflection of the company’s early targeting of the male business traveler. The company had successfully increased American Express brand penetration of affluent younger and female consumers. Unlike its transaction-oriented competitors, Visa and MasterCard, the American Express card always emphasized an aspirational lifestyle. An early example was the 1985 launch of Departures magazine for Platinum cardmembers who were active, affluent consumers.The Departures editor defined luxury not as status and privilege but in terms of quality and authenticity. Membership in a Lifestyle From the outset, American Express executives emphasized that the company sold not just a card but a relationship. The relationship involved a â€Å"membership† in which the company committed to providing the member with the following: Access (premium and exclusive ac cess and enhanced experiences for cardmembers), Advocacy (in merchant disputes, for example), Accountability (privacy of information, fairness in billing), and Affiliation (a sense of belonging to a community).Every American Express charge card included the â€Å"Member Since† designation on the front followed by the year the consumer became an American Express cardmember. To underscore the membership status of American Express consumers, the company in 1991 launched the Membership Miles program to motivate customer sign-ups, customer retention, and more frequent card usage. At launch, the Membership Miles program gave cardmembers one point for every dollar charged on the card and the ability to redeem points with seven airlines. The program was renamed Membership Rewards (MR) in 1995.Spending on American Express cards linked to MR averaged four times higher than that on cards without rewards activity. 31 Seventy percent of cardmembers used the MR program. Cardmembers enrolle d in the program were found to be lower credit risks as well as more profitable. 32 The company’s â€Å"data-mining† capabilities helped shape the MR program into an industry-leading loyalty program. For these reasons, American Express’s marketing spending on MR had grown at a compound annual growth rate of 24% since 2001, compared to an average 12% increase in marketing and promotion spending. 33 The MR program in the U.S. had more than 160 redemption partners34 and featured 29 airlines among its 250 merchandise brands. Analytics not only helped to determine whom to reach and with what offer, but also how rewards influenced loyalty. In 2005, the MR analytics team analyzed which members were more likely to redeem, in which categories, how many points they would redeem, and at what cost to the company. This research enabled American Express to craft a more appealing mix of reward offers, to predict more accurately the volume of demand for particular offers, and t o negotiate better deals with suppliers.Innovations such as â€Å"First Collection,† a luxury tier exclusively for U. S. Platinum and Centurion cardmembers that included redemption partners such as Tiffany and Lamborghini, and â€Å"Bonus Points Mall,† an online gateway to more than 100 retailers, were 9 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN 509-027 The American Express Card examples of how American Express increasingly tried to match the nature and the level of rewards to what its members sought and expected.Data-Based Marketing As a card issuer and network provider, American Express had direct relationships with both its cardmembers and its merchants. â€Å"Data-based marketing† became a competitive advantage at American Express. Analyses of cardmember purchases enabled American Express to develop offers that boosted spending with particular groups of merchants. Open-loop competitors Visa and MasterCard could not match American Express’s data-driven capabilities because they controlled access to either the cardholder or the merchant data, not both.The purpose of data-based marketing was to develop insights and offers that would match members’ interests, drive charge volume, and increase loyalty to American Express. 35 The company did not use individual consumer data for marketing purposes but rather clustered cardholders into segments based on personal, financial, and lifestyle characteristics evident in the patterns of their transactions. Cardmember clusters might have greater than average spending in, for example, entertainment, dining, home, fashion, electronics, or automobiles.Cardmembers whose spending showed them to be more â€Å"passionate† about their homes might then receive offers from local homeimprovement retailers. The company also researched correlations across spending categories to identify potential partnerships. For example, research indicated that affluent consumers who owned at least one luxury automobile brand had a strong affinity not only to other luxury brands but also to consumer electronics brands, an above-average tendency to engage in skiing and antiquing, and a strong likelihood of owning a second, more practical vehicle.Data mining also enabled American Express executives to predict how spending behavior evolved through various â€Å"life stages† and increasing levels of affluence. For example, the company’s predictive model indicated that non-affluent cardmembers who made a single luxury purchase, such as a first-class airline ticket, were three times as likely to become affluent. Card upgrade offers distributed following a cardmember’s first luxury charge purchase resulted in response rates over 50% above normal. 36 Emerging ChallengesBy 2005, competitors had begun to imitate American Express’ s lifestyle platform with premium product offerings (e. g. , Visa Signature, MasterCard World Elite), exclusive experiential rewards (e. g. , MasterCard’s Unique Experiences program), and lifestyle advertising. Visa’s â€Å"Life Takes Visa† advertising campaign emphasized the â€Å"brand’s promise to deliver innovative products and services that empower cardholders to experience life and business their way and on their terms. †37 The quality of a card’s rewards program was increasingly important to higher-spending consumers.No longer did they evaluate rewards programs just on ease of earning and redeeming points. The variety and frequency of unique rewards (such as backstage access at a concert) were more and more critical. American Express had an edge over Visa and MasterCard owing to its cumulative expertise in arranging special events, but bidding wars for such opportunities were increasingly common. While continuing to emphasize relation ship and lifestyle over transaction, American Express had to broaden its merchant network to maintain its share of consumer spending.In 1990, 64% of 10 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN The American Express Card 509-027 American Express U. S. billings came from the travel and entertainment (T&E) sectors and 36% came from retail and other sectors. 38 This reflected the company’s belief that spending could be segmented into â€Å"business† and â€Å"personal. † American Express’s focus on T&E concerned Chenault and Kelly.They believed that, in the interests of scale, American Express had to expand its presence in the â€Å"everyday† retail market. This change in strategy was opposed initially, partly because it would necessitate launching more new products and, in the eyes of some traditionalists, weaken the brand. However, by 2007 the sources of cardmember spending had more than reversed, with everyday retail spending representing more than 69% of U. S. American Express card billings. 39 Marketing Communications Advertising CampaignsAmerican Express had a long history of successful, distinctive advertising that consistently stressed prestige, inviting consumers to join an exclusive club of cardmembers. One of the first TV campaigns, â€Å"For People Who Travel† (1969–1974), demonstrated how the American Express card is â€Å"All You Need† for your travel and entertainment needs. This was replaced by the â€Å"Do You Know Me? † campaign, which that ran for more than a decade, produced 125 commercials, and marked the beginning of the company’s strategy of using famous American Express â€Å"members† to sell cards to consumers. Do You Know Me? † used a variety of celebrities to highlight the special treatment and recognition cardmembers enjoy, the premise being that people with famous names don’t always have equally famous faces; anyone who carried an American Express card would be immediately identified as someone of note. In 1987, American Express premiered the â€Å"Membership Has Its Privileges† campaign, which highlighted the company’s superior service and showed how the card â€Å"not only facilitated the variety and enjoyment of a cardmember’s lifestyle, but that membership is also invaluable when emergencies arise. 40 To complement this television campaign, the â€Å"Portraits† print campaign was launched. Portraits underscored the message that â€Å"superior customer service, security, and convenience† were important American Express qualities that cardmembers relied on. Shot by celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz, â€Å"Portraits† focused on a unique group of high-profile cardmembers. The company’s first global advertising campaign, â€Å"Do Mo re,† was launched in 1996 and emphasized brand attributes such as trust, customer focus, travel relevance, and financial insight.A variety of â€Å"product† commercials highlighted individual card benefits such as no preset spending, purchase protection, and global assist, while talent-driven â€Å"stories,† such as Tiger Woods’s â€Å"Manhattan† commercial in which he plays the world’s toughest â€Å"island† course—Manhattan—were intended to drive emotional relevance. In an effort to encourage everyday usage of the card, the â€Å"Do More† campaign introduced a series of ads showing comedian Jerry Seinfeld using the American Express Card in supermarkets and drugstores. In 2004, a new global campaign with the tagline â€Å"My Life. My Card. featured snapshots of the lives of celebrities, including Robert DeNiro, Tiger Woods, and Ellen DeGeneres. The campaign portrayed American Express cardmembers as exceptional pe ople no matter where they lived or what they did. The campaign was also the first to support both American Express’s proprietary and network businesses. John Hayes, American Express’s chief marketing officer, believed that the company’s history of tastefully portraying the rich and famous had provided it with an edge in attracting A-list talent. DeGeneres purportedly pointed to Seinfeld’s ads before signing on to do her own. 1 11 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN 509-027 The American Express Card American Express launched its most recent campaign, â€Å"Are You A Cardmember? ,† in 2007. Hayes explained: â€Å"The new campaign continues the tradition of defining the value of belonging to the American Express community by showcasing some of our most exceptional cardmembers and the ways in which membersh ip works for them.But our latest campaign not only reaffirms for existing members why they belong, it also calls on nonmembers to consider becoming a cardmember. †42 See Exhibit 6 for a summary of American Express’s U. S. card advertising campaigns. Expenditures The company’s mix of marketing spending had changed to reflect the growing importance of targeted communication over mass mailings and the emergence of the digital world. Over time, spending on direct mail, while still large, had decreased along with spending on television advertising.Event/experiential marketing and Internet spending had both grown. American Express used direct marketing both to acquire new customers and to motivate existing members to upgrade. Traditionally, American Express sought new customer applications from outbound telemarketing, â€Å"Take Ones† (applications placed in restaurants and other retail establishments), and direct-mail efforts. By 2008, only 40% of successful ne w applicants still came from direct-mail solicitations and response rates had slipped well below 1%.By contrast, a significant portion of applications came from new channels such as the Internet, co-branded partner channels, and consumer-initiated phone calls to American Express customer service. The American Express website had become one of the company’s largest sources of new member applications. It allowed the company to leverage its datamining expertise to provide real-time consumer rewards and offers. The Web simplified the card selection/application process by guiding the applicant through card choices.Based on the applicant’s stated card feature priorities (fees, rewards, payment terms), the American Express website provided card product comparisons and recommended the most appropriate card options from American Express’s portfolio. The growing importance of the digital world was reflected in the company’s shift in media spending, as shown in Tabl e E. American Express Company—U. S. Card Media Spending Table E Share of Media Spend 2003 Media Type Online Share of Media Spend 2007 7% Television 19% 48 57 14 10 Print 23 13 Radio 2 Non Traditional Source: Mediaa Company records. a Non Traditional Media includes billboards, transit, cinema, and other out-of-home media Investing in the website reduced American Express’s costs and built brand presence and prestige. By 2008, 38% of American Express applications, payments, and reward redemptions had migrated to the Web at cost rates 53%, 84%, and 86% lower, respectively, than offline. 43 The Internet allowed the company to attract new customers faster (one application every eight seconds) and more 12This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN The American Express Card 509-027 economically. The website, serving as a virtual service cen ter around the clock, increased the frequency with which the company was in contact with its customers, making it a powerful marketing channel. Claiming the americanexpress. com site â€Å"gets more traffic than the Wall Street Journal online,† the company noted that its members used the Web primarily for checking statements and cashing in rewards.With more than 50% of American Express payments left to migrate online, upside opportunity existed for further cost savings and deeper relationships with customers. Bank and Merchant Partners As of 2008, American Express obtained customers in two ways: through direct company solicitations and communications that resulted in consumers being issued proprietary American Express cards; and through third-party financial institutions that solicited their customers to sign up for American Express cards through them, a business managed by the company’s Global Network Services (GNS) division.Bank Partners American Express’s GNS business was set up in 1997 to build partnerships with banks and other institutions to issue American Express–branded products. GNS products were designed to help issuers develop products for their highest-spending, most affluent customers and to support the value of American Express card acceptance with merchants. GNS enabled American Express to broaden its cardmember base internationally at relatively low cost. By 2008, GNS had over 120 partners in more than 125 markets and accounted for nearly 25% of American Express’s overall cardsin-force.American Express particularly wanted to help each bank design card products for their highspending, affluent private banking clientele, and to benefit from new distribution channels that included each bank’s website, direct-mail capabilities, and retail branch network. For their part, the banks were interested in partnering with American Express because of its superior marketing expertise as a card issuer and the higher-s pending profile of American Express cardmembers. Merchants stood to benefit from more American Express cards in circulation.For American Express, expanding the GNS business required little capital; the banks owned the receivables and therefore absorbed the consumer credit risk. While consumers could choose between American Express proprietary cards and those issued under GNS partnerships, cannibalization of direct sales appeared to be minimal. While GNS began building a healthy international business, it was effectively barred from doing business in the U. S. by Visa and MasterCard’s policies preventing their U. S. member banks from issuing other card brands. In 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against Visa, MasterCard, and eight of their member banks, charging anticompetitive practices. The suit charged that Visa and MasterCard prohibited their U. S. partner banks from issuing American Express–branded cards on the American Express network. Discover card s were affected similarly. The legal battle was resolved in 2004 when the U. S. Supreme Court let stand a court ruling that Visa and MasterCard had violated antitrust laws. Visa settled for $2. 25 billion. MasterCard later settled for $1. 5 billion.American Express soon signed Network Card License Arrangements (NCLs) to issue American Express–branded cards with seven leading U. S. banks. MBNA was the first, followed by Citibank, Barclaycard U. S. , USAA, GE Money, HSBC, and Bank of America. Though the banks were licensed to issue American Express–branded cards, American Express owned the relationships with merchants. 13 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y.SUN 509-027 The American Express Card This meant that GNS earned discount revenue from both the bank issuer and the merchant acquirer, a sum that represented roughly one-third o f total GNS revenues. This design feature underscored the importance of the continued focus on the high-spend segment. American Express developed strong account-management teams to manage the relationships with these major banks. Two major banks that had not yet signed on to issue American Express cards were JP Morgan Chase and Capital One. Merchant Partners In addition to U. S. anks, American Express depended on relationships with merchant partners, seeking always to expand its merchant coverage. These relationships were managed by the Merchant Services Group. Despite American Express’s premium discount rate, American Express believed that merchant coverage was not a function of price alone; if it were, Kmart and Walmart, for example, would not have chosen to accept American Express. Further, the Discover card discount rate was less than American Express’s yet Discover had a much lower merchant penetration. (See Table F for fees paid in 2005 by U. S. erchants to accep t card payments. ) American Express account managers and third-party sales organizations aimed to convince merchants of two benefits to offset American Express’s higher discount rate: that American Express cardmembers would spend more with them than with competitive cardholders and that American Express data mining could target promotional offers that would drive business their way. To persuade reluctant merchants to sign up, the Merchant Services Group might target members who were likely shoppers at a new merchant with double points promotions for an inaugural period.Since 2000, American Express increased merchant acceptance of its cards in many categories, especially quick-serve restaurants, mass transit, and health care. American Express card acceptance also increased in industries where cash, checks, or bank transfers were the predominant forms of payment, including apartment rentals, private jet travel, and destination clubs. By 2008, the American Express card was accep ted at millions of merchants in the U. S.. Management estimated that U. S. ocations where the American Express card was accepted covered more than 90% of American Express cardmembers’ general-purpose charge and credit card spending. 44 Table F Fees Paid by U. S. Merchants to Accept Card Payments—2005 Payment Card Brand Visa/MasterCard Credit Cards Visa/MasterCard Debit Cards American Express Discover Source: Fees Paid (billions) Weighted Averagea $25. 13 9. 76 8. 51 1. 46 2. 19% 1. 75 2. 41 1. 76 Adapted from The Nilson Report, Number 862, August 2006. a Fees vary according to merchant category, volume, and type of card. ConclusionBy the spring of 2008, American Express was strategically focused on the payments and travel businesses, having sold off the last of its banking interests. Michael O’Neill, senior vice president of corporate affairs and communications, explained this transformation: â€Å"We narrowed the business and broadened the brand. † Warre n Buffett, who was the company’s largest shareholder, described 14 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN The American Express Card 509-027American Express’s â€Å"powerful world-wide brand† as â€Å"an enduring moat that protects excellent returns on invested capital†45 and Chenault as one of the â€Å"giant-company managers whom I greatly admire. †46 In March 2008, Barron’s named Chenault as one of â€Å"The World’s Best CEOs† for having â€Å"positioned American Express well to withstand turbulence. He hasn’t compromised credit standards to gain new cardholders, nor has he cut back on marketing spending to prop up earnings. His loss rates on cards remain among the industry’s best. †47 In the second half of 2007, a U. S. housing downturn and credit crunch slowed U . S. economic growth.American Express issued a profit warning in early 2008. Chenault explained that the slowdown in cardmember spending that had come on suddenly in December 2007 was broad-based and was expected to continue into 2008. â€Å"Now we’ve been through slowing economies before, but none of us can recall such a dramatic drop over such a short time frame, except for the event-driven decline of 9/11. †48 Past-due loans and write-offs also rose, especially in parts of the U. S. that had experienced a housing price bubble. However, superior risk management and credit controls at American Express meant that it was less affected than competitors. 9 It was in this context that Jud Linville prepared for his meeting with Ken Chenault and Al Kelly. How could the American Express consumer card business continue its growth while maintaining the company’s premium positioning? Were there opportunities for his organization to serve U. S. consumers and merchants in n ew ways while continuing to turn in the profits that shareholders had come to expect? 15 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN 509-027 The American Express CardExhibit 1 American Express Card Business Statistics: 2006–2007 Years Ended December 31 (billions, except percentages and where indicated) 2007 2006 Card billed businessa United States Outside the United States $459. 3 188. 0 $406. 8 154. 7 $647. 3 $561. 5 52. 3 34. 1 48. 1 29. 9 86. 4 78. 0 40. 9 29. 2 37. 1 25. 4 70. 1 62. 5 Total b Total cards-in-force (millions) United States Outside the United States Total Basic cards-in-force (millions) b United States Outside the United States Total Average discount ratec Average basic cardmember spending (dollars)d Average fee per card (dollars) d Source: 2. 56% $12,106 32 2. 57% $11,201 $32 Company documents. a Card billed business inc ludes activities (including cash advances) related to proprietary cards, cards issued under network partnership agreements, and certain insurance fees charged on proprietary cards. Card billed business is reflected in the United States or outside the United States based on where the cardmember is domiciled. b The number of cards that are issued and outstanding. Proprietary basic consumer cards-in-force includes basic cards issued to the primary account owner (â€Å"cardmember†) and does not include additional supplemental cards issued on that account.Proprietary basic small business and corporate cards-in-force include basic and supplemental cards issued to employee cardmembers. Non-proprietary basic cards-inforce includes all cards that are issued and outstanding under network partnership agreements. c Designed to approximate merchant pricing, the percentage of billed business (both proprietary and Global Network Services) retained by the Company from merchants it acquires, prior to payments to third parties unrelated to merchant acceptance. d Average basic cardmember spending and average fee per card are computed from proprietary card ctivities only. 16 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN The American Express Card Exhibit 2 509-027 Selected American Express U. S. Charge and Credit Card Products: 2008 CARD TYPE SELECTED FEATURES AND BENEFITS CHARGE CARDS Green (1958) Gold(1966) —Preferred Rewards Gold (2002) —Rewards Plus Gold (1994) Platinum (1984) Centurion (1999) One from American Express (2005) 1% of purchases deposited to high yield savings account CREDIT CARDSBlue (1999) —Blue (1999) —Blue Cash (2003) —Blue Sky (2005) —Blue for Students (2001) Optima (1987) —Optima Platinum (1997) City Rewards —In New York City (2004) —In Los Angeles (2005) —In Chicago (2005) Clear (2005) No annual fee, flexibility to pay over time, free additional cards No annual fee, earn up to 5% cash back, unlimited cash rewards No annual fee, earn points redeemable on airline, hotel or cruise services. No annual fee, flexibility to pay over time, Membership Rewards No annual fee, transfer balances for free, Membership Rewards No annual fee, earn Inside points to at, drink and play in New York No annual fee, earn Inside points to eat, drink and play in L. A. No annual fee, earn Inside points to eat, drink and play in Chicago. No fees of any kind, automatic rewards, flexibility to pay over time PARTNER CARDS Airlines —Gold Delta Sky Miles (1996) —Platinum Delta Sky Miles (2002) —JetBlue Card (2005) Hotels —Starwood Preferred (2001) —Hilton HHonors (1995) Costco—True Earnings Card (2004) Lifestyle Cards —The Knot (2005) —The Nest (2005) Earn Sky Miles on every dollar spent, earn double m iles on some purchases Earn Sky Miles, earn 1 companion ticket each yearEarn points towards JetBlue flights Earn points towards free hotel stays, upgrades, even flights Earn HHonors points on every purchase Earn cash back on purchases Membership Rewards, no annual fee, get special offers from The Knot Membership Rewards, no annual fee, get special offers from The Nest FOR CORPORATE CLIENTS American Express Corporate Cards (1966) Business ExtrAA Corporate Card (2003) Comprehensive reporting to track spending and increase compliance Savings through airfare rebates, free travel awards FOR SMALL BUSINESS Business Gold Rewards (2005) Business Platinum Card (1995) Plum (2006)Starwood Preferred Guest Business Credit Card (2001) Business Cash Rebate Credit Card (2003) Source: Membership Rewards, no limit, year-end summary Membership Rewards, access to special events Membership Rewards, access to special events, 5 free additional cards Airport Club access, 24 hour concierge service, by Invit ation Only events Save 3-25% on business expenses at selected partners (e. g. : FedEx, Delta) Access to airport lounges, professional office space, personal concierge Trade terms, pay within 10 days, get 2% off or defer payment Free awards nights at Starwood Hotels, awards flights on over 30 airlines Earn 2. % on all purchases and up to 5% for certain business purchases. Company documents. 17 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN 509-027 The American Express Card Exhibit 3 Source: American Express Company Overview: 2007 Company records. 18 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN The American Express Card Exhibit 4 509-027American Express: Spend-Centric Model The American Express spend-centric busines s model focused primarily on generating revenues by driving spending on its cards, and secondarily finance charges and fees, allowing the company to grow market share in the payments industry. Source: Company documents. 19 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN 509-027 The American Express Card Exhibit 5 American Express U. S. Card Services—Selected Income Statement Data Year Ended December 31 (millions)Revenues Discount revenue, net card fees and othera Cardmember lending revenueb Securitization income Excess spread, net Servicing fees Gains on sales from securitizations Securitization income, net:c 2007 2006 $10,435 4,762 $9,421 3,434 1,025 425 57 1,055 407 27 $ 1,507 $ 1,489 Total revenues Interest expense Cardmember lending Charge card and other $16,704 $14,344 1,518 964 957 767 Revenue, Net of Interest Expense $14,222 $12,620 Exp enses Marketing, promotion, rewards and cardmember services Human resources and other operating expenses Total Provisions for lossesd Pretax segment income Income provision 5,140 3,354 $ 8,494 $ 2,998 $ 2,730 $ 907 $ 4,445 3,227 $ 7,672 $ 1,625 3,323 $ 1,171 Segment Income $ 1,823 $ 2,152 Source: American Express Company Annual Report 2007, p. 53. a Discount Revenue represents revenue earned from fees charged to merchants with whom the company has entered into a card acceptance agreement for processing cardmember transactions. b Cardmember Lending Revenue represents the outstanding amount due from cardmembers for charges made on their American Express credit cards, any interest charges and card-related fees and balances with extended payment terms on certain charge products. Securitization Income, Net includes non-credit provision components of the net gains from securitization activities; excess spread related to securitized cardmember loans; and servicing income net of related dis counts or fees. d Provisions for Losses include credit-related expenses. 20 This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN The American Express Card Exhibit 6 509-027 Major American Express Advertising Campaigns in the United States 1958–early 1960s Good As Gold.The World Around! Establish prestige image for AmEx card and provide application instructions. 1969–1974 For People Who Travel Show how the American Express card is â€Å"all you need† for your travel and entertainment needs. 1975–1987 Do You Know Me? Show celebrities receiving the special treatment and recognition cardmembers enjoy around the world. Tagline, which continued through 1995, is â€Å"Don’t Leave Home Without It. † 1987–1992 Membership Has Its Privileges Introduce notion of â€Å"membership† and showcase the benefits of res pect, recognition, unsurpassed service as well as Global Assist, Buyers Assurance. 996–2000 Do More/Seinfeld Highlight individual card product benefits such as no pre-set spending, purchase protection, global assist. Talent-driven â€Å"stories† drive emotional relevance and recognition benefit. Use Jerry Seinfeld in a larger than life manner to increase awareness and use of the American Express card at everyday spend locations. Sub-campaign uses everyday moments to highlight individual product benefits such as retail protection and roadside assistance. Make Life Rewarding 2002 Relaunch American Express brand post 9/11 using charge card as the face of propriety.Sub-campaign introduced â€Å"revitalized† charge card with membership reward programs built in. 2004–2007 My Life. My Card. Demonstrate the company’s belief that American Express cardmembers are exceptional people no matter where they live or what they do. Featured extraordinary individuals including Robert DeNiro, Tiger Woods, Ellen DeGeneres, and Laird Hamilton, revealing snapshots of their lives. Acclaimed director Martin Scorsese and celebrated photographer Annie Leibovitz were commissioned to lend their vision to elements of the campaign creative.While the creative direction varied from ad to ad, the campaign theme was consistent: achievers of all types choose American Express. 2007–2008 Are You A Cardmember? Entice prospective cardmembers to apply and join the American Express community and reinforce the membership benefits to current cardmembers via showcasing the advantages American Express offers versus competition. Celebrities such as Beyonce Knowles, Ellen DeGeneres, Tina Fey, and Diane Von Furstenberg are featured within a lifestyle and access theme. Source: Company documents. 21This document is authorized for use only by YUJIE SUN in Intensive in American Business taught by Robert Calamai from September 2012 to December 2012. For the exclusive use of Y. SUN 509-027 The American Express Card Endnotes 1 Adapted from The Nilson Report, Issue 902, 2008. 2 American Express Annual Report, 2007, inside front cover. 3American Express Fixed Income Presentation, March 12, 2008, http://media. corporate-ir. net/media_files/ irol/64/64467/DebtInvestorPres. pdf, accessed June 12, 2008. 4 American Express Financial Community Meeting 2/16/2008 K.Chenault speech, texthttp://media. corporateir. net/media_files/irol/64/64467/KCSTalkingPoints020608. pdf, accessed June 12, 2008. 5 American Express Annual Report, p. 110. 6 American Express Fixed Income Presentation, March 12, 2008, ir. net/media_files/irol/64/64467/DebtInvestorPres. pdf, accessed June 12, 2008. 7 American Express Fixed Income Presentation, March 12, 2008, ir. net/media_files/irol/64/64467/DebtInvestorPres. pdf, accessed June 12, 2008. http://media. corporatehttp://media. corporate- 8 Americ