Capital One Case Study Essay Example for Free

Capital One Case Study Essay †¢ What is a case interview? The Case Interview †¢ What specific skills does it assess? †¢ How to prepare for a case interview? †¢ An interactive example. What is a â€Å"Case Interview† anyway? The Case Interview Simulation of a business problem. Similar to what our associates encounter every day. Series of open-ended questions. They’re designed to stimulate your conceptual, quantitative, analytical and – most importantly – creative abilities. The Case Interview There are several types of cases. Each is designed to assess different skills. Classic Case The Case Interview †¢ Should an organization add capacity? †¢ How should an organization react to a new competitor? †¢ Should an organization enter/exit a new/old market? Measures †¢ Your broad functional skills †¢ Your big-picture perspective †¢ Your comfort with detail and analysis Special Case The Case Interview †¢ Why are manhole covers round? †¢ What’s the estimated weight of a Boeing 747? †¢ What will interest rates do next? Measures †¢ Your comfort with ambiguous challenges †¢ Your level of creativity The Case Interview What are we looking for? †¢ Logical skills †¢ Analytical/reasoning skills †¢ Conceptual problem-solving abilities †¢ Critical path thinking †¢ Flexibility What do we mean by†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. . The Case Interview Problem-solving ability? Can you identify the key issues of the case while accurately and methodically reaching the solution? Critical path thinking? Can you use the clues that build on each other while staying on track and focusing on what’s relevant? Flexibility? . Can you adapt your answers to a changing situation? The Case Interview What do you need to bring? Your logical business sense The Case Interview †¢ How do decreasing marginal costs affect profitability? †¢ What effect will fixed costs have on the result? Your mathematical aptitude From basic mathematics to†¦. †¢ Algebra †¢ Probability †¢ Weighted averages †¢ Unit conversion Your strategic interpretation skills The Case Interview Can you†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ †¢ Interpret your answer’s impact? †¢ Assess alternatives? †¢ Keep a grasp on the â€Å"big picture† as well as the minor details? Your presentation skills Can you†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. †¢ Clearly state your thoughts and synthesize information? †¢ Explain how your answer changes in the face of changing variables? †¢ Defend your answer? The Case Interview Be prepared! Let’s work through a case together. Background Information The Case Interview †¢ You are a manager at a company that markets various products and services and that is looking to diversify †¢ You receive some information indicating magazine publishing may be interesting †¢ You are considering developing a new magazine but are not sure how profitable it might be What are some of the issues you must consider when evaluating the magazine business? Things to consider The Case Interview †¢ Defining the target market †¢ Competition – # of competitors, fragmentation, brand name †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ Build off of core competencies Barriers to entry Business cycle stage Method of measuring viability Opportunity cost Our next step is to understand the economics of the business. What are the profit drivers in the magazine publishing business? The Case Interview Main profit drivers of the publishing business include †¦ Revenue Sources †¢ Subscriptions †¢ Newsstand sales †¢ Advertising †¢ Customer lists †¢ Internet Costs †¢ Printing †¢ Distribution †¢ Content Development †¢ Marketing/promotions The Case Interview Through some initial research you have been able to determine the following †¦ †¢ You can charge  £25 for an annual subscription of 50 issues †¢ You can generate  £1 in advertising revenue per issue for each subscription †¢ Printing and distribution costs are  £1 per copy per issue †¢ Content development costs run  £1 million per year †¢ Let’s ignore newsstand sales for now †¢ Let’s ignore marketing expenses for now How much profit will you  generate a year from one incremental subscription? Let’s figure it out together†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. The Case Interview Subscription revenue per year =  £25 Advertising revenue per year =  £50  £1/issue x 50 issues Yearly production and distribution costs =  £50 Profit from one incremental subscription =  £25  £25 +  £50  £50 How many subscriptions would we need to sell in order to breakeven on this venture? The Case Interview How many subscriptions do we need to sell to break even? Profit (contribution margin) =  £25 per subscription Magazine content development =  £1 million per year Breakeven =  £1 million/ £25 = 40,000 subscriptions Given you need 40,000 subscriptions to breakeven, do you move forward? What about marketing costs? The Case Interview Your company has expertise in direct mail solicitation so you decide to use that method to market your new magazine. Each piece of mail costs  £0.50. You are able to achieve a 2% response rate. How much does it cost you to sign up a subscriber? Cost per subscriber calculation The Case Interview Cost of mailing/response rate = Cost to sign up one subscriber  £0.50/2% =  £25 per subscriber Another way to calculate cost per subscriber: Assume you mail offer to 100 people Costs =  £50 ( £0.50 x 100 people) Responders = 2 (2% of 100) Cost per responder =  £50/2 or  £25 How will this affect your breakeven calculation? New break even calculation The Case Interview Old contribution margin Marketing costs New contribution margin New contribution margin =  £25  £25 =  £0 Ouch! What can we do to make this venture better? Some possible considerations: The Case Interview †¢ Raise subscription prices †¢ Raise advertising rates †¢ Reduce production costs †¢ Increase response rate †¢ Make each response matter more – Consider renewals and multi-year subscriptions The Case Interview Renewals look like an obvious avenue to explore†¦ †¢ In the best case scenario, zero cost to acquire with no drop in revenues How might you encourage renewels? Some possible options: The Case Interview †¢ Price promotion †¢ Competitions †¢ Marketing †¢ Free gifts The Case Interview Some market testing gives you 2 possible options 1) Do nothing: †¢ 50% of existing subscribers will renew each year 2) Offer a free second year subscription †¢ 75% of existing subscribers will renew each year

English Society in the Nineteenth Century in Conan Doyles Works :: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Silver Band Essays

English Society in the Nineteenth Century in Conan Doyle's Works For my essay I have decided to study Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Speckled Band", "Silver Blaze" and "Final Problem". Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were first published in the London magazine "The Strand" in 1892. All the stories were kept relatively short because they had to be published in the magazine. When the Sherlock Holmes story "The Final Problem" there was a large public out cry of shock and horror to the death of the character they had got very attached to over the last 5 - 7 years. His stories were of a detective genre. The Victorian period was mainly built on a class system almost pyramid like. At the very bottom there was the people who could not support themselves, e.g. Beggars etc. Further up there was the lower class that worked in the factories and could just about support them. On the same level of the lower class were the servants. The next level up was the Labourers who worked for/with the working class and upper classes. The Working class were the next ones up they were the Doctors etc, e.g. Dr Watson. The next class up was the middle class; they lived off inheritance and owned factories. Upper class owned a lot of land and factories they lived in the country. Next up were the Aristocrats, lords, ladies etc these people did not need to work, they were the ones one step down from the King or queen. Women and children of higher classes did not have to work, the children received a good education and the women stayed at home. But the lower classed women and children had to work in factories to support their families. Industrial revolution gave the lower classes a source of money in the cities, most people left the country life to live in the cities and make more money. They lived in poor housing conditions called slums and made little money, some even resorted to crime. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote Sherlock Holmes a lot of people had lost faith in the London police, as there was a lot of corruption, Sherlock shows this by showing that he is a lot cleverer than the police force. He really does show the police up to no extent. The stories are written in first person by Dr.Watson who uses his notes and memory to write them. All the stories are based on detective genre with a very big twist in the end and clues that only Sherlock picks up on. Sherlock Holmes' character fits perfectly in his class as

Vague and Ambiguous

One main task of critical thinking is to identify these linguistic pitfalls. Let us start with the first major pitfall – obscurity. â€Å"Obscurity† here refers to unclear meaning. A concept or a linguistic expression can be unclear for various reasons. One reason is that it might be  ambiguous, i. e. having more than one meaning. The other reason is that it might be  vague. A term is said to be vague if there are borderline cases where it is indeterminate as to whether it applies or not.Finally, a term might also have an unclear meaning in that its meaning is  incomplete. Let us look at these cases one by one.  § M08. 1 Ambiguity There are actually different kinds of ambiguity: Lexical ambiguity This is a single word or term having more than one meaning in the language. For example, the word â€Å"deep† can mean profoundity (â€Å"What you have said is very deep. â€Å"), or it can be used to describe physical depth (â€Å"This hole is very deep†). Similarly for words like â€Å"young† (inexperienced or young of age), â€Å"bank† (river bank or financial institution), etc. Referential ambiguity It is not clear which thing or group is being referred to.This often arises when the context does not make it clear what a pronoun or quantifier is referring to. â€Å"Ally hit Georgia and then she started bleeding. † Who is hurt? Ally or Georgia? â€Å"Everybody is coming to the party. † Certainly â€Å"everybody† does not refer to every human being in the whole world. But then which group of people are we talking about? Of course in normal situations the speaker usually has some specific group of people in mind. Many people like to make very general statements, such as â€Å"All politicians are corrupt†. Literally, this statement implies that there is no politician who is not corrupted.But of course we can think of many counterexamples to such a claim. So the person who makes the statement might say â€Å"I don't really mean each and every politician. † But then who exactly are the people referred to? Syntactic ambiguity This means having more than one meaning because there is more than one way to interpret the grammatical structure. This can happen even when it is clear what the meanings of the individual words are. â€Å"We shall be discussing violence on TV. † – It might mean the discussion will be conducted during a television programme, or it might mean  violence on TV  is the topic to be discussed.When dealing with ambiguous language the thing to do is of course to clarify the meaning of the expression, for example by listing out all the different possible interpretations. This process of removing ambiguity is call â€Å"disambiguation†.  § M08. 2 Vagueness An term is  vague  if it has an imprecise boundary. This means that there are cases where it is indeterminate whether the term applies or not. For example, a small but c losed room with no windows or doors and no light inside is certain dark. If we switch on a 100W lightbulbs inside it will become bright.But we turn on the dimmer for the light and dim the light slowly until it goes out, then the room will gradually change from a bright room to a dark one. But there is no precise point at which the room suddenly ceases to be bright. Similarly, there is no precise point at which the room suddenly becomes dark. The terms â€Å"dark† and â€Å"bright† do not have clear boundaries of applications in this situation, and we say that these terms are vague. The term â€Å"a tall person† is also vague in that there are certain cases where it is hard to say whether a person is tall or not, but this indecision is not due to lack of knowledge about that person's height.You might know exactly how tall that person is, but still you don't know whether he is tall or not. This is because the meaning of the term is not precise enough. Other exampl es of vague terms : â€Å"heavy†, â€Å"dark†, â€Å"mountain†, â€Å"clever†, â€Å"cheap†. Notice that  we should make a distinction between vagueness and ambiguity. A word can be vague even though it is not ambiguous, and an ambiguous term having more than one meaning would not be said to be vague if the different meanings it has are very precise. Vague terms can be useful in everyday life  because often we do not have to be too precise.How precise we should be depends of course on the context. A form of (bad) argument about vagueness which we often encounter : â€Å"There is really no difference between X and Y because it is often quite unclear whether something is X or Y. † Example : â€Å"There is really no such thing as objective truth or falsity. Whether something is true or false is often hard to say. † This is a bad argument because even though a distinction might have borderline cases, it does not follow that the distin ction is not real. For example, it might sometimes be unclear whether a room is dark or bright.But (a) there is still a real distinction between dark and bright rooms, and (b) there can be clear cases where we have one but not the other. Vagueness should be avoided when we want to speak precisely, as vagueness decreases the informational content of a claim. For example, compare these sentences : â€Å"He is quite old, actually exactly eighty years old. † â€Å"He is quite old, actually about eighty years old. † â€Å"He is quite old. † Many students often like to ask questions such as : â€Å"Is there going to be a lot of homework for this course? † â€Å"Is the final exam going to be difficult? â€Å"But of course words like â€Å"difficult† and â€Å"a lot† are vague. Vague terms can make a claim vague and impossible to confirm or disprove. Horoscope predictions for example : â€Å"Be prepared for a change of direction this week as some thing crops up. † – SCMP Sunday Post Magazine. â€Å"This piece of news is going to affect the market somewhat. † But of course one might try to use vagueness to one's advantage in order to be non-committal or imprecise. â€Å"As a minister I agree that to some extent I am responsible. † â€Å"The government will deal with this problem in an appropriate manner when the right time comes. †  § M08. Incomplete Meaning A term has an  incomplete meaning  if the property or relation it expresses depends on some further parameter to be specified by the context, either explicitly or implicitly. This includes terms such as â€Å"useful†, â€Å"important†, â€Å"similar† and â€Å"better†. Practically all objects are useful and important only in some respects but not others. For example, is love more important than money? Well, it depends. If you are starving to death, then money is more important. But if you are trying to de termine which of the two contributes more to a happy and fulfilling life, then the answer might be different.So just saying that something is useful or important is empty unless it is made clear in what way it is so. This is also necessary if we want to evaluate whether what is said is true or not. â€Å"The education director shall visit Scotland to study their educational system because it is similar to the one in Hong Kong. † â€Å"Will this year's final exam be similar to the one last year? † â€Å"It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But . . . it is better to be good than to be ugly. † –   Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900) â€Å"Art never improves, but . . . the material of art is never quite the same. † –   T. S. Eliot (1888 – 1965)

Descriptive Essay About Beach - 838 Words

The Beach You have been in the car for a very long three days. You have sat in a line of cars 10 miles long. You have endured your annoying siblings, stressed out parents and the cramped space of the car. You have eaten junk food and soda for days. Your legs are screaming to move, you think you will never arrive. You have heard rumors about the beach. Sand so white it sparkles, water crystal clear, ships the size of buildings, and hotel rooms the sizes of houses. You finally start to see the first signs of the ocean first the tall tan coconut trees, then the smell of the salt water, and then the roar of the waves. Then you finally see it the ocean, so big and so blue. Full of life, adventure, and discovery. After unpacking and†¦show more content†¦The food at the beach is amazing and one of kind. You decide to get crab legs at the buffet, but you don t know how to eat them so you ask your dad. Your dad looks at you and says â€Å"Son, seafood is the best thing ever created†. You tell your dad †We’ll see†. After taking your first bite of crab you finally realize what all the praise is about. You tell your dad â€Å"You were right seafood is the best†. After you and your family are done eating you continue on the boardwalk walk. As you are walking you can t help but look into all the stores and surf shop windows. You want everything in there but you know your parents will say no. Your parents do however let you go into one surf shop that has little turtles. You beg your parents to let you get one, you almost break them, but they said they would decide towards the end of the week. After you are done walking, your family decides to get some some ice cream. You find this ice cream shop with 50 different flavors you don t know what you re going to choose, but you eventually decide on mint chocolate chip. The mint chocolate chip is really good and maybe even better than the locale ice cream shop back at home. After you re done with ice cream you head back to the hotel after letting your stomach settle. Your family decides to go crabbing, you have never been crabbing before and don’t know what to expect. The first shock comes when you realize you have to touch the crabs to get them out of the net. The crabsShow MoreRelatedDescriptive Essay About Beach1158 Words   |  5 Pagesthe house looked over the enclosed porch, over the sea wall, and onto the beach. Entranced by the lull of crashing waves, I would become memorized at the immensity of it all. I was never afraid of the ocean. As a child, my sister and I would long spend hours out on the beach in front of our house. We would build gigantic sand castles, collect seashells, and gleefully run into the water with all our clothes on. The the beach, and by extension, the ocean was always a safe haven for me. It providedRead MoreDescriptive Essay About Beach1223 Words   |  5 PagesIt was a cool breezy day at Waikiki Beach on a Saturday afternoon. 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Most of these shorts journals are looking at nature for not only for what it is, but what it offers, for example in the short â€Å"The Marginal World written by Rachel Carson she portrays â€Å"The Shore is an ancient world, forRead MoreA Very Old Man With Enormous Wings By Gabriel Gracia Marquez1270 Words   |  6 Pagesdifferently and comparing the personas and characters within the context. In the short stories, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings and â€Å"Death Constant Beyond Love† by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the authors have used a number of literal elements. This essay displays a description of two short stories, with an aim of analyzing metaphors as a literary element. A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Gracia Marquez The short story outlined by Gabriel displays different styles of literature collaborations