Toys R Us: Overview and analysis

Toys R Us: Overview and analysis Toys R Us is a chain store specialized in toys, created in 1948 in the United States of America by Charles Lazarus. The company has been bought in 2006 by American and English investment funds (KKR, Bain Capital Partners LLC and Vornado Reality Trust). Today, there are 1566 stores all around the world. We can count 849 stores which are implanted in its origin country that is to say is the USA and 717 stores in 34 others countries. The company is the world leader and owns the biggest store of toys on Times Square in New York with 10 000 m ². ToysRUs has been developed in France in 1989 and we can count today 42 stores which Paris la Dà ©fense store is the biggest ToysRUs of Europe. On the French market, the company is also the leader of the distribution of games/toys and detains 13.2% of the toy market share. ToysRUs leadership is due to its staffs passion, its daily commitment toward its customers and its ability to be sensitive to its employees needs like training and such. Furthermore, there is a strong team spirit and human relationship which is simple and user-friendly. The following part is based on the information you can find on the official website of the brand. (toysrus.com) Key figures ToysR Us France: 42 stores Average area sales store: 2600m ² More than 10 000 references More than 500 suppliers 1524 employees Toys R Us developed its innovative own brand in each universe. For instance, the most popular are Bruin (first age toys and childcare articles), FastLane (boys toys), You Me (Dolls), Just like Home (kitchen), Stats (outdoor toys) and Universe of Imagination (creative play). ToysRUs Missions: Toys RUs has to offer the family a full range of toys, leisure and childcare in a magic universe. Its priorities are about children, customers, staffs, grow and make people grown. ToysRUs its choice: indeed the company propose a variety of articles which correspond to peoples needs ToysRUs its novelty: the company anticipate childrens requests and needs in order to offer them products which follow trends, the news, and the environment. ToysRUs its advice and expertise: with 50 years of experience in the world, and 20 years in France, ToysRUs has developed its expertise on the field by selecting toys up-stream and giving advice with a goal of childrens happiness. ToysRUs its service: the company pays attention to customers satisfaction. ToysRUs tries to offer services adapted to children and parents. For instance service birth list, loan strollerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Toys RUs Values: PASSION Because we love our profession and we work to serve children. TEAM SPIRIT Because complicity exists with our customers but also with our teams. COMMITMENT Because we have the choice of products and the quality service for children is something important. CONFIDENCE Because relationship with our customers is based on a real knowledge of our products. RESPONSIBILITY Because our wish is to share something together: childrens welfare. Those values are the official ones set by the firm. ToysRUs Strategy: The company strategy is focused on service and especially on toys selection. ToysRUs always tries to anticipate on the trend and locks its orders before its competitors. It allows ToysRUs to have a high negotiation power with its suppliers. Another point of its strategy is to practice low prices compared to its competitors in order to make its customers more loyal. Moreover, ToysRUs has a development strategy which consist in opening news stores in new strategic places in order to increase its turnover. Finally, the company has adopted a multichannel strategy by creating a website so as to sell its toys for people who live far from a store. ToysRUs Position: To face up to its competitors, ToysRUs has decided to change its position. In this way, in 2000 the company developed a concept of entertainment more transverse with a large range of products like video games, creative leisureà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦This diversification allows ToysRUs to sell products throughout the year. The company positions itself as the largest toy retailer by offering a larger selection of toys than any other retailer at the lowest prices which allows ToysRUs to increase its customers loyalty. ToysRUs targets: The company targets anyone important for the child like parents, grandparents, godfathers or siblings with any income. Toys Market: French people are the biggest toys buyers of Europe before England and Germany. In 2009, the toy market has increased of 2.7% in France and represents 3 billion euros, more specifically 235 euros a year a child. This market grows up about 10% every years for ten years. ToysRUS Competitors: There is a high competition between specialists and supermarkets. Specialists represent 44.9% of the market share whereas supermarkets own 40.9% of the market share. We notice that the market share of the supermarkets tends to decrease that benefit from specialists. Supermarket competitors: Carrefour E.Leclerc Auchan Specialists competitors: La Grande Rà ©crà © King Jouet Jouet Club Jouet Land We forgot to point out an other important competitor which is Internet! Indeed more and more people buy on the Internet. The mains Internet competitors are Ebay, Priceminister, avenuedesjeux.com, eveiletjeux.com or rueducommerce. SWOT Analysis: Strengths : Own brand which represents 20% of the turnover. Good Location, near the RER A ans near the Bay 1 mall World leader, Large distribution networks, Strong reputation, High visibility thanks to the stores opening all around the world Store layout shaped path A large references Low prices Weeknesses : Few animations, Few creative workshops, few birthday organizations which only exist in the USA. Highest prices than supermarkets and on the Internet. Stock problems Not enough video games Opportunities : Located near a shopping mall so the company can capture the flows of the shopping center. Threats : Commercial sites on the Internet Used sells like flea market ToysRUs Communication ToysRUs has created the  « megapack  » concept during the holiday season and which allows to benefit from a reduction of 30 to 50% of the first article. Ways of communication : Press Displays Partnership Direct mail : to reach our target tat home Radio: to capitalize on the significant time our target spends listening to the radio, most often while driving Television: to capture the attention of our target, who spends an average of 12 hours a week watching TV http://www.toysrus.fr/cms_widgets/20/95/209559_assets/TRU_spacer200.jpg

Critically Evaluate the Contributions of Functionalism to the Study of Society Essay

Critically evaluate the contributions of functionalism to the study of society. Functionalist theory is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology. It can be argued that the functionalist theory has made a significant contribution to the study of society. It originates from the work of Emile Durkheim who suggests that social order is possible and society remains stable due to the functioning of several institutions. Everything has a specific function in society and society will always function in harmony. The main institutions studied by functionalism are the family, the education system, religion and crime and deviance. Murdock argues that the family performs four basic functions in all societies – sexual, reproductive, economic and educational. These four basic functions are essential for social life since without the sexual and reproductive functions there would be no members of society, without the economic function life would cease and without education there would be no socialisation or culture. Without these four basic functions human society could not survive. The family does not perform these functions alone however it makes important contributions to them all. Murdock is often criticised for his picture of the family as he did not consider whether its functions could be performed by other social institutions and he does not examine alternatives to the family. Equally, Murdock illustrates the nuclear family as very harmonious and perfect. There are many ill-functioning families in society which Murdock fails to examine and explain. What is the function of families when the husband and wife fail to have an integrated division of labour and have a healthy sexual relationship? Talcott Parsons offers an alternative view of the functions of the family and suggests it serves two purposes: primary socialisation and the stabilisation of the adult personality. Primary socialisation refers to socialisation during the early years of childhood, which take place mainly within the family. This is important in contributing to society as our parents supposedly bring their offspring up to grow to be well-behaved, obedient individuals with the right values to help society function. The stabilisation of adult personalities emphasises on the marriage relationship and emotional security the couple provides for each other. This acts to counteract the stresses of everyday life and keep the personality stable. Parsons claims that the family therefore provides a context in which husband and wife can express their childish feelings, give and receive emotional support, recharge their batteries and so stabilise their personalities. However, Parsons’ views on the family are criticised for being incomplete and idealising the family with his picture of well-adjusted children and sympathetic spouses caring for each other unconditionally. It is a over-optimistic and modernist and has little relationship to reality, because as mentioned before, not all families function perfectly. Similarly to Murdock, Parsons also fails to examine alternatives to the family which may provide the same functions for the development of society. The overall functionalist theory on the family is criticised by Marxism, feminists and some postmodernists. A Marxist would argue that the function of the family is to serve capitalism. Some feminists would argue that the function of the family is for women to serve men and that families are so diverse it is hard to argue that the family has a purpose. Some postmodernists suggest that the nuclear family is not as common as it seems and that there are now many diversities of families due to cultural and social changes. These views are clearly in conflict with the views of functionalism; therefore it allows us to question their validity. Functionalism also has its set of views on the education system. Emile Durkheim claimed that the main function of education was to transmit society’s norms and values through generations. Social solidarity is essential for the welding of mass individuals into a united whole. Functionalists such as Durkheim argue that education builds a sense of commitment and belonging to a society and a belief that the whole of society is more important than a single individual. Durkheim argued, ‘to become attached to society, they will come to see that they are part of something larger themselves; they will develop a sense of commitment to the social group’. Durkheim also claimed that the school serves a function which cannot be provided by the family the peer group. Individuals must learn to cooperate with those who are neither their family nor their friends. In this way, children learn to respect authority figures, such as teachers, and get along with other members of society they would be forced to interact with in later life such as bosses and colleagues. These social interactions are essential for keeping society harmoniously balanced and functioning. Durkheim claimed that along with teaching us to interact with different social groups, education serves to strictly reinforce school rules and ensure that children realise that these should be followed. Punishments should reflect the seriousness of the damage done to the social group by the offence and teach individuals that it is wrong to act against the interests of the social group as a whole. In Durkheim’s words: ‘it is by respecting the school rules that the child learns to respect rules in general, that he develops the habit of self-control and restraint simply because he should control and restrain himself. It is the first initiation into the austerity of duty. Serious life has now begun’. Durkheim finally argues that education teaches individuals specific skills necessary for their future occupations. Schools transmit both general values which provide the necessary skills for social survival. Industrial society is united by value consensus and a specialised division of labour whereby specialists combine to produce goods and services. Education is essential for this because it trains individuals to develop the skills which will be useful for their future occupations. In the current education system children are given the opportunity to learn technical and practical skills as well as academic skills which all come together to help society function. However, Durkheim is criticised for several reasons. Firstly, he assumes that societies have a shared culture which can be transmitted through the education system. Britain for example is now multi-cultural and it is therefore debatable whether there is a single culture on which schools could base their curriculum. If a school bases their curriculum on a single culture they are often accused of ethnocentrism, which is a difficult issue to overcome when schools bring together children of many different cultural backgrounds and ethnicities. Secondly, his views on the education system are in conflict with those of Marxism, which argues that education serves to transmit a dominant culture and serve the interests of the ruling class rather than the members of society as a whole. Finally, functionalism has its views on the way crime and deviance applies to society. Functionalism looks at society as a whole and looks for the source of deviance in the nature of society rather than in the individual. Social control mechanisms such as the police and courts are argued to be necessary to keep order in society. Durkheim argues that crime is inevitable because not every member of society can be equally committed to the collective sentiments of society. Durkheim also claims that crime can be functional because all social change begins with some form of deviance and a certain amount of social change is healthy for society. Merton, 1968, argued that deviance results from the culture and structure of society itself. Since members in society are placed in different positions in the social structure, for example different social classes, they do not all have equal opportunities. This situation can generate deviance – for example, members of the lower classes, such as the working or under class may resort to crime due to their position in the social structure because they are deprived of things essential for survival. Merton also outlined the five responses to cultural goals: conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion. The first way in which society can respond to cultural goals is through conformity. Members of society conform both to success goals and to the normative means of reaching them. They strive for success by accepted means. The second response is innovation in which individuals reject normative means of reaching success and turn to deviant means such as crime. Merton argues that members of the lower social strata are more likely to select this route to success. Merton claims that they have little access to conventional and legitimate means of becoming successful. Low qualifications mean little opportunity for jobs and advancement since their route to success is blocked. Therefore they turn to crime, which promises greater rewards than legitimate means. Membership of the lower social strata is not alone enough to produce deviance however – pressures from society contribute to an individuals need to deviate. The third response is known as ritualism. Those who select this as an alternative are deviant because they have largely abandoned the commonly held success goals. Members of the lower middle class who have less opportunity than other members of the middle class are likely to take the path of ritualism. However, they have been strongly socialised to conform to social norms so they do not turn to crime. They scale down or abandon their success goals. Ritualists are deviant because they have rejected the success goals held by most members of society. The fourth and least common response is retreatism which applies to ‘psychotics, chronic alcoholics and drug addicts’. They have strongly internalised both the cultural goals and institutionalised means, however they are unable to achieve success. They resolve their situation by abandoning both the goals and the means of reaching them. They ‘drop out’ of society defeated and resigned by their failure. They are deviant in two ways: they have rejected both the cultural goals and the institutionalised means. The fifth and final response is rebellion. This involves both rejection of both success goals and institutionalised means and replaces them with their own different goals and means. They wish to create a new society. Merton says ‘it is typically members of a rising class rather than the most depressed strata who organise the resentful and the rebellious into a revolutionary group’. Hannon and Defronzo, 1998, carried out a study which gives empirical support for Merton’s five stages. In a study of 406 metropolitan counties in the USA, they found that those with higher levels of welfare provision had lower levels of crime. They argued that the welfare provision opened up opportunities for people to achieve the goal of material success. They argued that the welfare provision opened up opportunities for people to achieve the goal of material success through legitimate means and therefore reduced anomie and the crime which could result from it. However, critics have argued that Merton’s five stages neglect the power relationships in society as a whole within which deviance and conformity occur. Taylor, 1971, criticised Merton for not carrying out his analysis far enough and failing to consider who makes the laws and who benefits from them. The whole game may have been rigged by the powerful with rules that guarantee their success. These rules may be the laws of society. Merton is also criticised for being deterministic because it fails to explain why some people who experience effects of anomie do not become criminals or deviant. It over-exaggerates working-class crime and underestimates middle-class and white collar crime. Furthermore, Taylor, Walton and Young, 1973, criticise that Merton’s theory cannot account for politically motivated criminals such as freedom fighters who break the law because of commitment to their cause rather than the effects of anomie. In conclusion, functionalism has made great contribution to the study of society as it offers explanations for the functions of the major institutions in society. However, the whole functionalist theory is based around the idea that these institutions serve to keep society functioning and harmonious. Almost all their ideas are criticised by Marxism, which suggests the complete opposite – that all institutions serve the interests of the ruling class and capitalism rather than serving the needs of the general members of society as a whole. As shown above, we can compare perspectives such as Marxism, feminism and postmodernism with functionalism to assess its advantages and disadvantages. The functionalist theory is an important perspective widely covering most aspects of society, however it falls flat where it is criticised for being too deterministic and failing to consider the chaos and disorganisation in society.

Heart and Conscience in Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” Essay

Mark Twain considered his novel â€Å"Adventures of Huckleberry Finn† as â€Å"a book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience come into collision and conscience suffers defeat.†Ã‚   This claim is valid, as the story showed the title character in several situations wherein he was bothered by his conscience yet he chose to act according to his emotions.   Indeed, the book â€Å"Adventures of Huckleberry Finn† exhibits the triumph of the heart over a conscience. In the book, there are three major instances wherein there was conflict between the heart and the conscience.   In these situations, the conflict was caused by the issue of slavery as Huck was often forced to choose between his heart and conscience when it came to matters concerning the black slave Jim. The first instance is found in Chapter XVI, when Huck was disturbed by his conscience about assisting Jim in his escape.   Huck was deeply bothered by the fact that while he was not responsible for the escape itself, he did not do anything to prevent it.   He was most concerned about Miss Watson, who was Jim’s owner.   Huck is guilty because he let her slave run away from her when she was nothing but nice to him.   In the beginning, it seemed like his conscience has won because he finally resolved to disclose Jim’s whereabouts. However, he changed his mind at the last minute.   Jim called Huck his only friend and the only white man who kept his promise.   Huck said, â€Å"I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me† (Twain).   Jim’s words appealed to Huck’s emotions, and the latter’s feelings prevented him from doing what his conscience told him to do.   Hence, the heart succeeds over the conscience for the first time. The second instance again finds Huck struggling between telling others about Jim and keeping his escape a secret.   The conflict between the heart and conscience continues in Chapter XVI as Huck encounters a boat with two men in search of escaped slaves.   The men asked Huck if the man he was with was white or black. Huck clearly wanted to expose Jim as his conscience intended him to do, but he ended up lying to hide the slave.   After the men left, Huck mused: â€Å"s’pose you’d a done right and give Jim up, would you feel better than what you do now? No, says I, I’d feel bad† (Twain).   In the end, it became obvious that Huck’s decision was a result of his feelings.   He did not choose to do the right thing because he would feel bad about it.   Again, the heart prevails over the conscience. The third and last instance in Chapter XXXI proved to be the most significant, as Huck finally gave up listening to his conscience and resolved to follow his heart.   Because he had been bothered by conscience for awhile, Huck decided to do what he thought was right and write a letter telling Miss Watson of Jim’s whereabouts. After he wrote the letter, Huck thought of Jim’s kindness towards him.   As he held the paper, Huck said: â€Å"I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it† (Twain).   In the end, Huck tore up the letter and even considered liberating Jim from slavery in the future.   Huck said, â€Å"All right, then, I’ll GO to hell!† (Twain).   The conscience dictates that it was a sin to keep a slave away from its owner.   However, Huck preferred to sin and go to hell rather than betray his friend.   Thus, the heart finally wins over the conscience. In Mark Twain’s â€Å"Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,† there exists the conflict between the heart and the conscience.   In three instances in the story, the title character disregards his conscience by letting his emotions influence his decisions.   In the end, the heart is victorious over the conscience as Huck chose the former to dictate his actions. Work Cited Twain, Mark. â€Å"Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.† The Literature Network Web Site. 1885. Jalic, Inc. 6 April 2009

The Importance of Family Dinners - 1454 Words

Family Dinners: The effect is has on our children Midterm Project Kaplan University Research Methods in Criminal Justice CJ490 Abstract _There are countless studies of teens in our society who commit violent crimes. This study will show having family meals opens the lines of communication between teens and their parents. Through this communication parents will increase the chances of their teen doing well in school and preventcrime and teen pregnancies. _ Family Dinners: The effect is has on our children Introduction One of many things that is lacking in today’s society is the quality time we are able to spend with our children. With children left to their own devices and with limited communication between parents and their†¦show more content†¦In families that have dinners together it has been found that parents are also more engaged in their children’s lives. This forms a closer bond between teens and their parents. Many studies show the benefits of family dinners also effect teens in the classroom. â€Å"Grades are significantly higher for teens that eat dinner with a parent or are close to a parent.† (Udry, 2000) This benefit is one that greatly impacts the adolescent’s future. This study also shows that three quarters of children who are close to their parents, plan on attending college in the future. This study has transcended through all age groups. Elementary and preschool students who eat dinner with their families showed better communication skills than their peers. This opens many doors for a more successful future. Finally, this study will show that a family meal improves the health of teens and is good for their wellbeing. Many times the alternative to a family meal is eating on the run. Fast food dinners offer little, if any nutritional value and are high in fat. Teresa McEntire states that families that eat together â€Å"consume more vegetables, fruit and juice, and less soda.† (Why Families Should Eat Dinner Together, 2006) This also leads to meals â€Å"high in fiber, minerals, and vitamins essential toShow MoreRelatedImportance of Family Dinners1367 Words   |  6 PagesThe Importance of Family Dinners Do you remember watching television sitcoms such as The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family or even The Wonder Years? In those television shows families would gather together around the dinner table every night and talk about the adventures of their day. This dinner ritual is about more than providing your body with required sustenance. It gives families a time to reconnect with the people closest to them and opens the doors of communication. 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