Online Video Rental Management System Information Technology Essay

Online Video Rental Management System Information Technology Essay For web-based video rental management system, the asp.net is use to develop this project as a front-end system and vb.net 2008 as a back-end system. This system is linking with MySQL 2005 as database resource. Comparing between Online Video Rental Management System with another existing system in the current market is needed to identify the weakness and strength of the systems and the specialization of this project. This chapter will begin with definition of Online Video Rental Management System which proved by several journals or articles and follow by description of advantages and disadvantages of Online Video Rental Management System, workflow architecture for Online Video Rental Management System, and lastly is comparison this project with similar system in current market that included VidRent Online DVD Rental Software, Video Rental Software, DRS Pro Start, W3Rentà ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢ Rental System, and Online Video Rental Management System. Definition of Online Video Rental Management System Table 2.1: Definition of Online Video Rental Management System(no italic) Author Definition (Bertino.E, Trombetta.A, Montesi.D, 2002) Each particular system is build from what types of the data it handles and the functionalities that performs. An indexing and querying of video data can be supported by the system which is database for billing purposes or video store system which just store the video data that lacking the typical features of database. (Bertino.E, Trombetta.A, Montesi.D, 2002) A particular system is introduced in the architecture because quality of service is an important requirement for whole management system. Architecture result consists of several systems that integrated all their functionalities while preserve autonomy, extensibility and data integrity where necessary (R.Walker, P. Foster, and S. Banthorpe, 1997). An powerful interactive video systems must not only store the videos, but it also provide full functionalities included queries support, insertions and deletions for managing the videos as well as for users subscription and billing according to some policy and it must ensure adequate quality of service. Author Definition (Basile. P, Tinelli. E, Degemmis. M, Noia, T. D., Semeraro. G, Sciascio, E. D, 2007). Through online catalogues, videos are recommended to customer normally are described in both of useful features which are textual features and non-textual features. Online catalogues are the motivation that often behind the research of the developer on the recommendation features. (Dr. Oliver Hinz, Dipl.-Kfm. Jochen Eckert, 2010). Search videos and videos recommendation tools play a crucial role in e-commerce. There are only beneficial for consumers if successful to search for appropriate products supported by system which help them to identify products that fit to their preferences. So, customers can use actively for their search and recommendation systems that independently recommend products on the basis of certain algorithms and data. (Dr. Oliver Hinz, Dipl.-Kfm. Jochen Eckert, 2010). There had two different consequences of the search and recommendation systems for the rental and sales included decreasing search costs can increase the sales based on additional consumption and there can also be a shift in demand from blockbusters to niche products and vice versa, so that substitution effects can be observed. Author Definition (Yanjiang. Y Beng Chin. O, 2005). Current rental records containing two purposes to identifying information serve primarily that are users who holding overdue rental items can be trade by the service provider but only in case the user does not return the items in time. Second is the service provider can enforce rental limit such that a user cannot simultaneously keep more than a limited rental items. To be effective, an anonymous rental system has to afford these two functions as in a regular rental service. (J. J. Jozefowicz, J. M. Kelley, S. M. Brewer, 2008) A serious lack of success films exist in the video rental market from analysing even the obvious popularity of this form of entertainment and the fact that the majority of film studios domestic revenues are generated by home video viewing. (Zhan Wang, Harrison Stein, Chin Yeung Siu, Ruiqi Rachel Wang, 2005) Customers can easily rent the movies through online or at rental stores to enjoy watching the movies whenever at a much cheaper cost rather than watching movies in theatres. Movies rental is more flexibility to support the customers and enabling them to enjoy the movies in comfort of their own homes. State Simplify: By increasing media technology in movies recorder, especially movies which are stored in DVD rather than VCD are become most popular in rental business nowadays. There are about quadruple of storage in DVD larger than VCD with lower price. Customers more prefer watching movies in home in cheaper price rather than go cinema. In additional, the location of the company that support in this project is no cinema. So, movies rental is a very popular business in Cameron Highlands and it is play an important role in entertainment for resident. This project had allocated to two applications that are front-end application and back-end application. The front-end application which is interface that designs to interact with the users through online customer services. Several functions such as movies previews, videos rating, voting, and some recommendation are provide to help in sales increases by hearing from the customer. Information that collects from the customers at the front-end application needs to processes from back-end application that control by administrator but not customers such as transaction record, customer information, order management, payment detail and movies stock. By fulfilling the company requirement, a customization system is need to design based on company need and condition. In this case, system design is more focus on the customer services rather than administration functions. So, this project is needs to add more additional functions to improve the customer services and fulfil their need at the same time benefit to the company in two ways. Targeting to expand the company, a flexible system is mainly consideration by the company to adding a communication space to collect the information from customer and understand what the customer needs. Customers are freely allows to remove, add, or cancel reservation of the videos within certain period. By cooperation several functionalities, an integration management system is create and it is fully customise to the company and help the company improve the business daily transaction. Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Video Rental Management System Online video rental management system is design with several advantages that benefit to organizational, customers and business processes. According to PlanMagic(2010), advantages included legendary ease of use, advanced functionality, low cost of ownership, customer approved and competitor Approved. Same as proved from PlanMagic, 2010, this project had advance functionalities to achieve competitive advantages that are more focus on customer services by adding the automation email sending, attraction interface, and given movies recommendation to let customer unlimited browse and watch movies preview through online and leave some commends on the movies after they watched. Movies recommendation specially provides to customer who are in hesitate of choosing movies. Lower prices of the movies rental are suitable for local students and residents because the owner is obtain the low cost of the movies resources by suppliers. From such advantages, its user-friendly format can be easily controlled by anyone and at the same time, it able requires and maintains to only one person with reducing overheads to a great extent. This video rental system can be understood and installed within a few minutes. In this project, it can benefit to the owner by reducing the human resource and fully utilize system performance to easily keep track the rentals and sales history, storing customer information, auto calculate late payment and generate payment that customer need to pay. All these features are totally customizable and make for unique Online Video Rental Management System to meet the expectation of the Stop and Stick Company. Online reservation is one of the advantages from this project to let the customer making order anytime and anywhere. They no need arrive to the shop to checking whether the movies in stock or not. By applying this project, owner can get the business easily through customer online reservation and increase the orders from suppliers to expand their business quickly. According to Web Experts, 2008, Our online reservations system for videos, DVDs, equipment, or whatever else you want to rent handles everything included east stocking and management. By applying online video rental management system, customers are freely to browse the website, view the movies preview, given recommendation, or making reservation of the movies in whole day 24 hours whether the shop is close or not. Reservation list will be auto arrange in order and handle by owner for second day. Besides of advantages, this project had some disadvantage that cannot be avoided. Compare to the current online video rental system, local DVD movie rental from this project have to treat with late fees, due dates and traffic but through online videos rental system, there are no need to worry about it by ship the videos to the customer after make order from online. Due to the small business company, the company had not suitable yet to running the business by delivery the DVDs to customer through online reservation. By consideration of limited resources of movies and human resources, it is difficult for company to append this service with higher cost. Customer needs to arrives the shop and rent the movies which are reserved. Due dates and late fees are needed charges from customer to maintains and manage the limited stock of movies. In additional, by the reason of the good company location which is stay at middle of the city, so that students must pass by the shop after school for everyday. It is bringing a larger market for the students who are rent the movies or return with easily and convenience. So, it is hard to provide the online payment feature from this small company, customer cannot enjoy any payment through online. Transaction process is done by cash exchanges between the owner and customer at the shop after reservation on the portal. Besides that, one of the disadvantages of this project is the problem of DVDs damage or broken after return by customer and gets negation by customer. The lost of physical cost lost is one of the disadvantages of this project which cannot be avoided and only can control it by manageable the videos under the rule and procedure before rent to the customer. Workflow Architecture for Online Video Rental Management System Figure 2.2: Workflow Architecture from source (Riderck, 2009, March 28).(no date, no italic) (Riderck, 2009) In this section, the overall structure of the online video rental management system is referring by Ridercks video rental system which is similar with this project. Same as Riderck workflow, all customer need to register as a member before utilize the web-based video rental management system at the shop to obtain the id number and membership card by owner. Customer information will be store into the database for rental use. According to the Riderck workflow, it is an offline video rental system and transaction will be keep track after customer rent the movies in the shop. Payment will be calculate by admin part that is inside the video rental system and generate the receipt to customer. By compare with this project, using web-based video rental management system is bringing tremendous benefit to the customer and company for manage the company and effect in increasing sales. After registered as a member, customer can freely leave their comment, rating, voting and making reservation on what the movies they need through online. Besides that, latest release movies and promotion had automatic received by customer at the first time by email sending. Movies which are coming up to date had reminded by email sending from company to prevent movies fine. Reservation or direct orders by customers are process sequence by admin part who are first come first serve. Payment automatically calculates by system that included late payment and total of videos rent let the company easily and speed up the transaction processes. Simple report will be generate for every month to clearly define the total of sales, total movies that are rent and help in decision making by ordering the movies from supplier based on the popular rate of movies. A concept of workflow architecture at the below is draw by developer for this project to let readers more understand about the system process of Online Video Rental Management System as a big picture. Figure 2.3: Workflow Architecture of Online Video Rental Management System Comparing Online Video Rental Management System 2.4.1 Comparison between Online Video Rental Management System with existing current system Table 2.4: Comparing Online Video Rental Management Systems with existing system- Administrator Part (Back-end Application)(no itallic, pls retructure table become smaller) Feature/Functionality VidRent Online DVD Rental Software Video Rental Software (quote) DRS PRO START 5.1 (quote) W3Rentà ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢ rental system (article) Online Video Rental Management System Administrator Function: (Back-end Application) User login à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Profile management à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Inventory management à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Transaction record à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Time and date management à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Auto late calculation payment à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Report à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Transaction calculation à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Billing à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Email automation sending à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Damaged/Missing Item à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Table 2.5: Comparing Online Video Rental Management Systems with existing system Customer Services Part (Front-end Application) Feature/Functionality VidRent Online DVD Rental Software Video Rental Software (quote) DRS PRO START 5.1 (quote) W3Rentà ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢ rental system (article) Online Video Rental Management System Customer Services: (Front-end Application) Powerful search engine à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Movies Categories à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ limited à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Movies previews à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Prompt out related movies preview à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Auto count numbers of visitor à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Movie rating, voting and recommendation à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ System auto give suggestion à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ Movies reservation/order à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã… ¡ 2.4.2 VidRent Online DVD Rental Software VidRent is web-based or online video rental software that promotes to the customer in rental business area. According to Spectrum Research, Inc., 2010, VidRent system was first releasing by Gold Entertainment Group, Inc., and they had almost 5000 distributors and customers for a year before they fall into the recent video rental company price wars and ceased operations. From rapidly development of video rental, VidRent is no longer available because the prices became cheaper and it is cause by competitive advantages. Same as this project, VidRent is consisted of two parts; there are administrator part and customer services part. Through this system, customers can login to the website and making reservation of the videos after registered as a member. Besides that, VidRent provided several movies in difference categories that can let the customer making choices on the movies which types they are preferable. Movies voting, rating and recommendation given by customer on the movies are important to increase the interest of customers on movies rental in certain types. Search function is one of important part that provided to customer to find the movies easily by typing the title name of the movies. It is lack of functionalities on the payment section in this VidRent system. According to the features that state from the VidRent system, there are no provided transaction calculations and billing to customer after the movies are reserved or prepared on the cart. This system is no provided payment function and customer need process their payment by arrives to the shop. Payment record is not build in VidRent system and it may needs to link with another accounting system or POS system to control the business. From observation of the VidRent system, all information and pictures of the videos allocated on the interface that is too simple and the pictures are combination together make the interface looked complicated. Figure 2.6: Administrator Support (VidRent Online DVD Rental Software) Figure 2.7: Customer Support (VidRent Online DVD Rental Software) 2.4.3 Video Rental Software Commodity Rental Video rental software is a very efficiency system in the accounting area and transaction processing system. By adding accounting and point of sales system into video rental system, all-in-one system is powerful to let the user more easily to manage their transaction with auto calculation of the total payment and monthly account calculation. By using this function, cost saving and system simplification help the company run their business smoothly. From above statements, this is strengthens of this video rental software and it encouraged use in medium size of organizational. Same as VidRent system, video rental software has divided into two parts which are administration part and customer services support. This system is strongly concentrated on the administrator part especially the payment area. Accounting function and point of sales function in the system will benefit to the user in calculating monthly sales and transaction will become more quickly and sufficiency. From customer support section, the drabness layout and functionalities of the customer supports website is one of the weaknesses in this system. The most important of the search engine was ignored builds in video rental software, so customer cannot quickly search the movies which they need. It needs to take a longer time to search the movies by click the one page to another page until the end. In additional, there are no categorize of movies that place in order on the main page, user may be confused and it is become more complicated when the new movies are adding or update in the future. Besides that, this website is totally no interaction with the customers because customer recommendation, voting and movies ranking is no provided to the customer. This system is strongly focused on administrator part that use in business transaction process but it is poor in customers support. Figure 2.8: Administrator Support (Video Rental Software Commodity Rental) Figure 2.9: Customer Support (Video Rental Software Commodity Rental) 2.4.4 DRS PRO START 5.1 Online DVD Rental System 5.1 is divided into three versions which are DRS Pro Start 5.1, DRS Pro Business 5.1, and DRS Pro VIP 5.1. Three difference versions of the system can meet the difference need from customer who is running their rental business. In this case, basic function is more suitable for apply by small enterprise.  By the way, DRS Pro Business 5.1 and DRS Pro VIP 5.1 are more suitable for the medium or large company with contained advanced functionalities and specific solution that is given. DRS Pro Start 5.1 is a system that fully implement through online, customer no need reach to the shop and all the services are provided to customers through E-Commerce. After reservation is making by customer, videos are pack in envelop and directly shipping to the customer, it bringing a convenience way to the customers at difference location. Time saving and cost saving is a main issues for customer when they getting to the shop to choose the movies. Through online services, there are no any due date or late payment of the movies rental. So, the two functions that are time and date management and auto late calculation payment of the system can be ignore and omitted. By using this system, company need spend a larger amount of the human resources cost and material cost such as shipping cost, quantity of DVDs, and worker. From the powerful function of automation email sending function in this system, customer can receive the notification which sending by the system automatically such as disc returned/dispatched, titles requiring rating, recommendations, titles coming soon and etc. The function of search engine is provided to let user quickly search movies. Video rating, customer commend are welcome update by users. There are very limited catalogue in DRS Pro Start 5.1 package. The simple layout and less attraction website easy lead the users bored. Figure 2.10: Administration Support (DRS PRO START 5.1) Figure 2.11: Customer Support (DRS PRO START 5.1) 2.4.5 W3Rentà ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢ rental system According to the article, W3Rent is an online system that similar with DRS Pro Start 5.1 which is implements the business through E-Commerce. Customer no need arrive to the shop but they can receive the movies anytime, anywhere through shipment method from making reservation through online. So, time and date management and auto late calculation payment can be ignored same as DRS Pro Start 5.1. Security had provided to prevent unauthorized to access the information. Difference users in this system have difference access level such as customer only can login to the customer support website but they are not allow access to the administrator functional area. The staff can login to manage the inventory and being transaction with customer of the administrator area. Limit the functionalities can clearly divide the task for difference type of position and not confuse. According to article, there are no provided report function and transaction record function to the customer. So customer cannot find the history of transaction when they want check back the movies whether had rent by them previously or not. Report cannot generate without historical of transaction record. There are special function in this system is this system can handle the damaged item such as broken of DVDs, damaged DVDs, or lost of DVDs. The system can keep track this DVDs and placing them to specific section. Automation email sending had provided by this system that can help the company saving the cost of time because any notification, returned or dispatched are auto send out to the customer by mail. Besides that, this system had less interaction with the customer because it no provided movies rating and recommendation on the movies to the customer. So, company does not know which type of the movies is more preferable by customer and focusing on promote the popular movies that rate by customer. 2.4.6 Online Video Rental Management System Focusing on customer service is the main purpose of this project to target the customer preferable on the movies to affect the sales. An attractive main page of the customer website is very important to capture the interest of the customer when they are browsing to the website. Short movies previews at the website can attract the customer to click them and watch the content of the movies, so customer will immediately take a consideration of the movies to rent based on their preference. Besides that, the related movies will be prompt out below the movies that watching by customer, so customer can rent more. Powerful search engine and movies catalog should provide to the customer to search the specific movies with easily and faster. Furthermore, this system will give some suggestion to the customer when customer in hesitate to choose the movies by key in some words about what types of the movies are more prefer by them based on the mood feeling. After customer watched the movies, they can give some recommendation and movies rating through login to the website. In the administrator part, access level has provide to users to separate the position such as customer can browse to the customer support area to watch the movies, leave recommendation and enjoy the services that provide by this system, staff can login to administrator function to process the transaction with the customer but they are not allows to change any information of the inventory or delete the customer information. Only the boss or manager can access all the data in this system. Limit the function to difference users are important to ensure the security if the company to prevent attack by un-authorization. By the way, transaction record, payment detail and calculation functions have included in this system. Report need to generate and show the total sales of each month to easy the user make decision in supply the videos from supplier. Email automation sending function can given notification, promotion for new movies and remind customer when the rental is up to date. This system no provides videos shipping, so customer needs to rent the movies directly in the shop base on the limited resource of the Stop And Stick Company. 2.4.7 Discussion of table 2.4 and table 2.5 By comparing online video rental management system with another four existing systems, it found that the previously of four software are very strongly focused on the administrator part. If company only focus on administrator part, they would not know what are the types of movies customer more prefer from interaction with the customer through get feedback from them. By focusing customer services within this project, long term profit can be measure by update information from customer. All of these systems allow the users to keep track the rental, stores the customers detail, taxes calculation which are basic functionalities of the system accept VidRent system. Beside this, there have provides customer rating, recommendation give by customer and get the feedback from customer accept W3Rent System. VidRent System and Online Video Rental Management System no provide online payment and the transaction need directly process in the shop because of limited resource and the system are suitable for small enterprise use. Nowadays, more and more system needs to focus on the customer services to provide integrated system to the customer and catch up their time. By automation email generation, email can auto send to the customer when the movies up to date or during release the new movies to save the cost and time. From this, VidRent and Video rental software is lack of this function. Besides that, search engine and movies catalog is most important function to easy find information, product or movies from the customer. Lack of those functions from Video Rental Software and DRS Pro Start 5.1 System are easy confused and make the interface more complexity. For DRS Pro Start 5.1 and W3Rent system, the functions of time and date management, and auto late calculation payment are no need because they provided the shipping services to the customer and there are no any fines on the late return. There are differences of Video Rental Software which is included the functionalities of time and date management, and auto late calculation payment no matter it is same area with DRS Pro Start 5.1 and W3Rent system. 2.5 Chapter conclusion Chapter 2 concluded with five system comparison that included VidRent Online DVD Rental Software, Video Rental Software, DRS Pro Start, W3Rentà ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢ Rental System, and Online Video Rental Management System. Comparing between these projects system with other systems in current market had been done by comparing the specialization, features and functionality of the system. From the lack functionalities require by other system, full functionalities and special functions are need to add in this project to enhance the quality of the system and target to enlarge the market from small enterprise. Before comparison process, definition of this project had been identified and it advantages and disadvantages of this Online Video Rental Management System.

Kurt Cobain Essay -- essays research papers

Kurt Cobain Kurt Donald Cobain was born on February 20,1967 in the town of Aberdeen, Washington. Aberdeen is on the west coast and is about 108 miles southwest of Seattle. Aberdeen is a dreary place with about seven feet of rain a year. Kurt was born to Mrs. Wendy Cobain and to Mr. Donald Cobain. Wendy was a homemaker. She had a very tight bond with Kurt. He was her first born. She had another child three years after she had Kurt. Her name was Kim. Donald was a mechanic. He was very into sports. He often tried to push Kurt into sports but Kurt just didn't like them. Even though the Cobain's didn't have much they seemed to do all right. Wendy dressed her children in the best clothes she could afford. They always looked like the best dressed kids in Aberdeen. Kurt was an extremely happy child. He would wake up everyday so happy. He was always filled with joy and always had a smile on his face. Kurt once said his upbringing could be decribed as "white trash posing as middle class". His mother told him to stay away from the poor kids. She said they were dirty. So Kurt did and he also would beat the up. Then in 4th grade he realized he liked them better. Around that time people started to notice that Kurt was very good in art. Most of Kurt's friends didn't really like things like art and music. He loved these things so much he stopped making friends because he was different. Kurt was not such a health kid. His whole life he suffered chronic bronchitis. At age of seven he was diagnosed hyperactive. He was put on Ritalin. This seemed to make him stay up until four in the morning. They soon put him on sedatives. This did not work either. They made him fall asleep in school. Doctors told Wendy to try subtracting sugar and Red Dye #2 from his food. This was the right prescription for Kurt. Sometime during the 8th grade Kurt was diagnosed with scloiosis. In his later years the weight of his guitar made it worse. Suicide also ran in his family. In 1979 a great uncle committed suicide and in 1984 an uncle also committed suicide. Kurt was in love with music since the age of two. He was brought up in a musical family. One of Wendy's uncle had some records out in the 40's and 50's. Her brother was in a Rock and Roll Band. Her sister was in a country band and played the guitar. Almost everyone had some sort of musical talent. Kurt had always wanted to be a ... ... Kurt wakes twenty hours later and denies it was an attempt. At this time Nirvana decides to cancel the rest of the tour and take a rest. Through all of the tours their are rumors that tensions are high between the group members. The press says there is constant fighting. There is even a rumor that the group is going to break up. To add to the cancellation of their tour they also cancel all their involvement in Lollapalooza. Then on March 18,1994 a startling thing happens. Kurt locks himself in a room of his house. He will not come out and he has a 38 caliber revolver with him. He threaten to kill himself. Courtney Love once again calls the police. The police come and take control of the situation. They take the gun away. Some time around March 30,1994 Courtney calls for an intervention to get Kurt off of drugs. She realizes he really does need help. On March 31,1994 Kurt checks in to the Exodus Recovery Center. It seems as though Kurt wants help. This doesn't last long. The day after he checks in he jumps a wall and it is the last anyone sees of him. He is missing On April 8th an electrician finds Kurt dead in home, from an apparent self- -inflicted gun shot wound to the head.

Ducati & Texas Pacific Group †a ”Wild Ride” Leveraged Buyout

Ducati & Texas Pacific Group – A †Wild Ride† Leveraged Buyout 1. What is the nature of the opportunity? Could the Ducati brand be expanded beyond motorcycles? Why or why not? TPG strategy is to invest in undervalued firms’ that usually have been poorly managed. The investments are made in privately hold firms that are either unlisted from the beginning or that is being delisted from the stock exchange under the LBO process. TPG wants to invest in firms with a â€Å"healthy† basis but that are experience some problems that TPG believes’ that they can fix. Does Ducati live up to this? TGP has the opportunity, if the deal goes through, to purchase a controlling stake in Ducati Meccanico, producer of the best motorcycles in the world. The article describes that Ducati was in a great position of becoming for street bikes as what Harley-Davidson was for cruisers. They have a recognized brand, in spite of limited marketing, associated with high performance, i. e. high quality and high technology. Their bikes crushed the competition and won the World Superbike championships for several years in a row; 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994 and 1995. Their racing performance indicated on technical brilliance which is just what street bike customers’ prefer and therefore they had customers on the wait lists to buy their bikes. The core business possible growth was considered as high when comparing their number of sales to Harley-Davidson sales. In addition, to this the market didn’t foresee any new entrants of street bikes which also work in their favor. The manufacturing fundamentals were strong with low fixed costs due to high levels of outsourcing, 85 %. They offered the customers 15 models of bikes in four families founded on seven various engines. Furthermore, the most expensive part of an engine is the crank cases and cylinders but Ducati can keep these costs low since they have high levels of standardization of their engines and therefore only need two crank cases and three cylinders because. All these factors’ make Ducati look like an attractive brand that should have a prosperous economy. But they were under great financial pressure and faced severe problems in both manufacturing and financing. They had no money and weren’t allowed to borrow any either which caused extreme delays on payments to key suppliers. Therefore their factor was full of unfinished/almost-finished bikes. This affected their sales and extended their customer wait lists but it also affected suppliers and some of them went bankrupt. Ducati were short on working capital and the business was so entangled with Cagiva Group, which Ducati was a part of, that the detail’s on Ducati’s performance was not transparent at all. In the time span from 1993 to 1995 there was only a reliable balance sheet from 1995. TPG managed to assemble the profit and losses for the other years. All this together indicates a really poorly handled management. The forecasted EBIT for 1996 was negative and there was an imminent chance that Ducati went bankrupt since they couldn’t meet there payments. This lack of transparency has made it hard to find financing. TPG can succeed if they manage to build a model that captures their payback goal times three in three to five years. They need to find out what the Ducati should be earning and around these assets construct an international company. TPG can expect to take over a mismanaged company under financial pressure/distress but that have great potential in their strong brand and manufacturing fundamentals. To make this work they need to use a capable management team that can build up both the brand and the company. They need arrange the financing to be able to recover from the distress and to start making some money. But as they state in the article they will have to write at least a thousands of checks on their first day. Ducati brand could and should probably be extended beyond motorcycles even though a first step is to close the deal, take control over and built up the company. There for it might not be a good idea, at least not the first thing to start with. As I already pointed out Ducati is in a great position to imitate, for street bikes, what cruisers are for Harley-Davidson. Harley-Davidson has succeeded in creating a life-style brand with as much as 15% of its sales, with a growth potential, coming from just clothing and mechanical accessories. Ducati could look at the products Harley-Davidson is selling and how their selling them. They could also compare with a car company, like Ferrari, that has a lot of clothing and accessories that they sell. Ducati has a great potential to extend beyond motorcycles with motorcycle clothing and accessories and mechanical accessories. There are probably a lot of motorcycle stores that would want to sell their products and they could also sell them through their own shops and from online shops. It is just the imagination, costs and the combination of a balanced brand expansion that sets the limits. 2. How does this deal differ from a typical deal in the US? In terms of deal flow generation, due diligence process, negotiations and context? Deal flow generation The deal flow is the ability used by equity firms to identify attractive potential investment candidates, i. e. the ability to generate deal flow. This flow is generated from a wide range sources’, from for instance the experience and network built up by working in specific businesses to the network of senior corporate executives and it is this flow that discover opportunities that otherwise would have gone by unnoticed. Now days’ investment banks generally works as agents that sells the opportunity to invest for a fee paid by the seller in a sale process akin to an auction. To help Cagiva through its financial distress the Castiglioni brothers wanted to get a bridge loan from DMG so they contacted Razzano but he wasn’t interested in signing them a loan agreement. Instead he saw the potential of an investment and contacted Halpern since they were looking for a joint investment. Due diligence Due diligence is the valuation process undertaken before the parties sign the deal to identify the future of the potential investment but also to estimate the proper price for the investment. Equity firms’ usually creates a model on several hypotheses that captures the payback of the investment. Due diligence is a vital process in investigating the financial health, technology, the market, and the current management. A lot of different sources are used and in connection to this the investing firm usually signs a confidential agreement. The due diligence process generally starts after the parties have signed a Letter of Intent and paves the path to further negotiations between them. TPG have signed a Letter of Intent with the Castiglioni brothers and are trying to build a model that captures their payback. The problem for them is to separate the intertwined Ducati from Cagiva to find out what the Ducati should be earning to be able construct an international company around these assets. Negotiation If the sale is conducted through an auction by an investment bank intermediate the due diligence process often leads to a final proposal by the bidders’ and this is where the negotiation phase starts with chosen bidders. The negotiations then lead to an agreement between the parties. According to the article the negotiations in the US are done more in a linear path but the negotiations with Cagiva can best be described as a circular path. TPG has been negotiated with Ducati for almost a year. This is probably were the cultural difference is most prominent. Americans chose to discuss every issue separately step by step and after every discussion they want to include this in the contract between the parties. Italians see the whole picture in every discussion so when the Americans have decided something new in the next step of the precoess the Italians want to go back to the previous steps and re discuss them. Furthermore, Italians don’t like do business if they can’t trust the other part in America you don’t have to feel the trust since you include every little detail in the arrangement otherwise you can get sued. Maybe that is why the Castiglioni brothers might not trust TPG if they are not willing to re discuss everything again. Maybe that is why they are trying to shop the deal to others even though they have signed a Letter of Intent with TPG. This would never happen in America. But they have not participated in any meetings and in America it would probably not be hard to sign a contract under an LBO situation. TPG believed that their behavior replicated an act of trying to back out of the deal. Context LBO’s in U. S. eems much more organized than in Italy but at the same time this might make it harder to find interesting targets that have the same growth potential or at least the competition of acquire them might be harder. The development of the high-yield markets in Europe compared to US differ since the markets in Europe was not as developed as the US market. This made it harder for TPG to accomplish the same level of leverage as in the US. Halpern compare the debt-to-equity rat io as 2:1 in Italy compared to 3:1 in the U. S. On the other hand TGP were looking for companies that had grown hastily but still was arranged as small company and in Italy companies aspired to be small because of the fact that they then paid less tax. In order to pay even less tax it wasn’t uncommon, according to Halpern, to find relatively small companies with as much as 50 subsidiaries. This is usually not the case in the U. S. To overcome the aim to stay small and to not go public â€Å"Tremonti Law† allowed companies that went public in 1996 a two years tax relief. 3. What is the value of Ducati at the time of the deal? How much should TPG be willing to pay for 51 percent of the equity? Please assume that the target return is 35 percent (annualized). Observe that you are required to value the firm. For the valuation of Ducati, observe that since this is a leveraged buyout, the debt-to-equity ratio will change drastically, and you need to handle this in the appraisal model you use. Furthermore, you need to think about the inputs you shall use in the valuation. How do you determine return on assets? Which risk free rate of interest should be used? Which risk premium should be used? Etc. To value Ducati we can use the APV-model. APV treats the firm as it is all equity financed. A suitable unleveraged beta for the estimation is a beta in the same industry that is all equity financed and the article states that Harley-Davidson don’t have any long-term debt which means that their beta is unleveraged. I will therefore use their beta of 1. 09. We will use CAPM to discount the cash flows and a rule of thumb to know which rate to use is to match the risk free rate with the country that we are going to invest in. The 10-year government bond is 6. 4% in both the US and Italy so this wouldn’t have caused any trouble here. Since the 10-year bond is 6. 74% in both countries we will not add any extra country risk for the investment. The risk premium that we are going to use is 7. 5%. TABEL 119961997199819992000200120022003 EBIT-5. 4+58. 2+79. 4+96. 3+111+123. 3+146 -Taxes(53. 5%)0-31. 1-42. 5-51. 5-59. 4-6. 6-72. 3-78. 1 +Depreciation+6+7. 3+9. 1+11. 1+13. 5+15 . 7+18. 1+20. 7 +Amortization+24. 7+24. 7+24. 7+28. 5+28. 5+28. 5+28. 5+28. 5 -Capex-12. 9-15. 5-20-24-22-24-24-25 Change in Working Capital (see TABEL 2)-0. 9-1. -32. 9-17. 3-2. 9-11. 2-10. 5-10. 3 Total cash flow 13. 342. 317. 843. 168. 766. 37580. 8 +1229. 8 TABEL â€Å"199519961997199819992000200120022003 Cash9. 411. 322. 689. 837. 279. 987. 2132. 2 6%6%6%6%6%6%6% Transaction cash required 9. 411. 322. 628. 532. 636. 2138. 841. 344 Accounting receivables 8084. 583. 2124. 5139. 9141. 6152161. 4170. 6 Inventory5537. 249. 265. 461. 768. 172. 676. 380. 2 Other3. 32. 22. 73. 21516. 81819. 120. 2 Current assets147. 7135. 2157. 7221. 6249. 2262. 7281. 4298. 1315 Accounting payable4030. 350. 478. 794. 4104. 1110. 9116. 6122. 6 Other11. 39. 410. 13. 27. 88. 79. 49. 910. 5 Current Liabilities 51. 339. 760. 991. 9102. 2112. 8130. 3126. 5133. 1 Working Capital 96. 495. 596. 8129. 7147149. 9161. 1171. 6181. 9 Change in Working Capital 0. 9 1. 3 32. 9 17. 3 2. 9 11. 2 10. 5 10. 3 CAPM: Re= R f+? (Rm-Rf) = 0. 0674 + 1. 09 x 7. 5 = 14. 92% Terminal value by with a multiple: TPG is willing to pay 400-500 billion lire for 100% of Ducati. Enterprise value: 280+140=420-40=380 Earnings multiple: (Enterprise value)/(EBITA for 1995)=380/60. 4=6. 3 (how many times this year’s profit is TPG willing to pay for Ducati) We use the multiple on EBITA for 2003 ? 195. 2 x 6. 3 = 1229. 8 (this have to be discounted to present value we will therefore add it to 2003) Value of Ducati if it was all equity financed: 13/1. 1492 + 42. 3/1. 14922 + 17. 8/1. 14923 + 43. 1/1. 14924 + 68. 7/1. 14925 + 66. 3/1. 14926 + 75/1. 14927 + 1310. 6/1. 14928=602. 3 billion lire But Ducati has liabilities so we need to value that as well. TABEL 319961997199819992000200120022003 Net interest expenses1131. 128. 928. 123. 117. 912. 36. 3 Tax shields(53. 5%) 5. 916. 615. 51512. 49. 66. 6 The tax shields illustrate how much less taxes’ Ducati needs to pay because of the interest expenses and that is what we need to discount in order to value Ducati. 5. 9/1. 1125 + 16. 6/1. 11252 + 15. 5/1. 11253 + 15/1. 11254 + 12. 4/1. 11255 + 9. 6/1. 11256 + 6. 6/1. 11257 = 56. 7 billion lire Value of Ducati: 602. 3+56. 7=659 billion lire Value of equity= 659-280=379 billion 4. Should Halpern consider applying a country risk premium in determining the appropriate discount rate for Ducati? They should not consider applying a country risk premium since the Italian the long government bond of Italy and the US are the same, i.. . 6. 74%. 5. Should Halpern walk away from this deal? Why or why not? Ducati has a lot of problems that I already covered under the first question. But as a summery are under great financial pressure and have faced severe problems in both manufacturing and financing. The reporting of their financial performance is not transparent at all instead it is entan gled with the Cagiva Group. This has made it hard for TPG to hunt financing to the LBO. It is perhaps not a surprise but they have a problem with their working capital and the payment delays leave them with a lot of unfinished bikes. This has lead to a decrease of their sales and enlarged wait lists. Then we have a badly manage management by the Castiglioni brothers who continues to shop around for other deals even though they signed the Letter of Intent. There is also the risk of insolvency of Ducati and bankruptcy of Cagiva which have made TPG worried about the Italian legacy. A bankruptcy of Cagiva after a closed deal could lead to a delay of the deal for up to four years and this would be cost them a lot of money. The deal also has a lot of benefits. Ducati is the world leading manufacturer of motorcycles and if managed well they could probably be profitable very soon. They already believe that this want be a problem with Minoli as CEO. The brand is well-known and easy for investors to understand. This opens up the opportunity for IPO which could in fact obtain higher sales compared to trading. TPG has worked with the deal for one year so they have really had time have to plan for the changes in the Ducati. 6. If TPG pursues the deal and purchases a stake in Ducati, what are the critical steps that TPG needs to take in order to make the deal successful? Please be specific in your answer! First of all they need to get the Castiglioni brothers to stop shopping around for other deals. They have â€Å"signed† the deal through the Letter of Intent and it is the brothers and Cagiva responsibility to follow the contract. Maybe easier said than done be the negotiations must continue in order to get a deal. TPG also need to finish their due diligence model so to that they can identify the future of the potential investment but also to estimate the proper price for the investment. It is hard to close a deal otherwise. The due diligence is also important in investigating the financial health, technology, the market, and the current management. If they sign the deal TPG can expect to take over a mismanaged company under financial distress that has great potential through its strong brand and manufacturing fundamentals. To make this work they need to use a capable management team that can build up both the brand and the company. They also need to start up and arrange the NewCO establishment, the senior debt and write at least thousands of checks on their first day.

Marijuana as a Subculture Essay - 1356 Words

A subculture is a group of people who share a distinctive set of cultural beliefs and behaviors that differ in some significant way from that of larger society. Marijuana smokers can be considered a subculture for many reasons. Marijuana is used by millions of people around the world, either for recreational, spiritual, or therapeutic reasons. Some call themselves the cannabis connoisseurs; people who respect cannabis and use it responsibly. Few drugs have been so politicized recently as marijuana has. It is frequently praised by one side and condemned by the other, on the basis of emotional issues rather than an objective view of research. It was 1920 when smoking began to catch on in the United States. Its recreational use was†¦show more content†¦Marijuana smokers are a subculture because they share sets of beliefs, values, language, and other things that are different from the views of the larger society. 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