Economic Forecasting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Economic Forecasting - Essay Example The annual inflation rates in the US in the decade starting 2004 can be seen in Fig. 1. In this graph, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published Current Consumer Price Index has been used to calculate the rates of inflation. Fig. 1 shows that in the last decade, the maximum inflation rate in the US has been recorded at 4.1% in 2007 whereas the lowest inflation rate was recorded at 0.1% in 2008. Coincidentally, the highest and the lowest values of inflation rate in the US have been recorded in one year from the start to the end of 2007. This may be attributed to the fact that the global financial recession had started in 2008, which is also why, the maximum variation in the inflation rate in one year was recorded from 2008 to 2009 when it soared up from the lowest 0.1% straight to 2.7%. The second largest variation was recorded from 2006 to 2007 when the inflation rate at increased from 2.5% to 4.1%. The year from 2010 to 2011 showed the third largest increase in inflation rate in the US from 1.5% to 3%. There has been very little variation in the rate of inflation in the US in the years from 2012 to 2014 compared to the preceding years when the rate of inflation unpredictably jumped up or down from one year to the next from 2005 to 2012. The annual inflation rate in the US was recorded at 1.7% in October 2014 for the third consecutive month because the decline in prices of energy sufficiently offset the increased costs of food and shelter. Energy prices year-on-year reduced 1.6% with a drop in the cost of fuel oil and gasoline by 6.5% and 5% respectively whereas the cost of food saw an increase by 3.1% (Trading Economics, 2014). Following an increase of 1.7% in the previous month, the index for all items less energy and food increased by 1.8%. There was seen an increase in the cost of services less energy by 2.5% with the index of transportation and shelter increasing by 1.8%

BRL Hardy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

BRL Hardy - Essay Example Further, there is discussion of the strategy developed by Christopher Carson, the marketing manager for the European segment to build and sustain BRL Hardy’s competitive advantage in the European wine market in 1995-1998. It also analyses the outsourcing challenges and strategic options available for meeting the challenges. Evaluation of Steve Miller’s approach Steve Millar’s approach of making BRL Hardy one of the world’s first truly global wine companies was based on the is based on the focus on three most important aspects of the company i.e. the world class production facilities of the companies, global brands of the company and its international distribution. Millar has the approach of making BRL hardy a true international company through the capability of global branding (Voelpel et al 2005). As the focus of Steve Millar is to establish the brand as truly international and global, integrated wine production is the approach followed that includes global branding strategy with strong marketing capability and distribution system. Strategic alliance is the model applied for executing global strategy of the company. The dynamic nee organizational capabilities are built through targeted strategic alliance building with companies situated in various parts of the world, such as Italy, USA and Spain (Bartlett and Beamish 2011). C ritically evaluating the approach of strategic alliance for following the globalization, there are several advantages of this approach. Firstly, the company gets the access to supplementary services. It is important as well as quite critical for the success of the business that the business focuses on the core competencies (Stonehouse et al 2004). A strategic alliance enables the company to offer its clients a range of new services without making the client lose its focus on the capabilities and the specialized services. Secondly, the company gets the opportunity to reach new markets. When a company enters the strategic alliance, it automatically increases the brand awareness in an entirely new market venture which the company could not reach before because of the availability of the limited resources. It allows the business to expand the business and increase the market share (Frynas and Mellahi 2011). Thirdly, there is an increase in the brand awareness. When there is an opportuni ty to grow the size of the market with the alliance, it also presents an additional opportunity of increasing the brand awareness. One of the most important elements of the success of the business is constant as well as growing brand awareness (Campbell et al 2011). If there is no growth in brand awareness, then there is no growth in the business as well. Without putting extra cost and time, the brand awareness is grown among the wider audience. Fourthly, there is an increase in the number of customers and the clientele as strategic alliance exposes the company to new customer base in the target market (Dewit and Meyer 2010). As in the BRL hardy case, the company experiences huge success as strategic alliances with companies situated in Spain, USA and Italy, etc. has added essential infrastructure, expertise and finance including technological infrastructure. The main objective of the company i.e. global branding with strong distribution and marketing is attained through this approa ch of strategic alliances followed by Steve Millar (Voelpel et al 2005). Although, there are several