BloomReach

BloomReach INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi. Today we are in  Mountain View  with BloomReach. Ashu, who are you and what do you do?Ashutosh: Im the CTO and co-founder of BloomReach.Martin: When did you start this company and what was the reason for starting it?Ashutosh: So we started BloomReach in late 2008 early 2009. The vision of the company was to actually make the web a lot more relevant and personalized to the people. So like, over the last 10 to 15 years, the amount content of the web has grown by leaps and bounds. The amount of content that is available is huge.And while Google and Facebook after all are trying to make it easy for people to navigate some of that web, what happens is once you leave these portals and land on an international website, whether its Walmart.com or eBay, or Amazon, or even New York Times, finding the content on these websites are huge challenge. The amount of content that exist in any of these websites is more than the entire web, what the entire web was in 1998. So na vigating to that piece of content is really-really hard. What we want to do is to make it very easy for people to find and discover what they are looking for. So we started the company with that vision in mind.Martin: So, Google would be the entry point, and then once people are on the websites automaticallyAshutosh: It could be anything. Today if you look at any,  to build a website, right. very small portion of the people, like 5 10% come directly, and the rest of the people will come either through a social network, through an email, through an affiliate campaign, through Google, through page search campaign, or any other channel.So, people are going to land from where ever, whatever channel they picked. So its not that much about, like what channel they are picking, right. But they are coming from outside, they may land on any individual page of the website and not necessarily the homepage. So, what can you do, what can you do, all you know about that person, from where theyre coming, how they are coming, why theyre coming, and from their past behavior, and you use all that information to see what on your website is the most relevant piece of content for that user at that time and the name of that whole thing.Martin: Understood. So what enabled yourself to start this company based on your professional background?Ashutosh: So what does it take to make this thing happen?One is, like, being at Google, like, they found out how people are navigating the web, what are the challenges that they are running into, what are the struggles they have, right. So that was one big area of pain thing for me.The second is, working at a company like Google, I had access to lots of data, allowed to their systems, so became an expert in that system.And third is, my PhD was in Machine Learning and Data Mining.So, at some level all these things came together, where I could process a large amount of data, to make sense of that data and then present it to the people.Martin: Okay. Great!BUSINESS MODEL OF BLOOMREACHMartin: Lets talk about the business model of BloomReach. As you said, the users come through different channels to the website and then what happens next?Ashutosh: So if you take any website, right, what you want to do is you want to bring people in, you want to keep the people in over there and you want them to come again. So, bring the people in, that is marketing, right.So one focus is, how can you make your marketing a lot more effective bringing more people in.The second, so what have done is, we work at the website to understand how they organize their content. Is their content getting crawled easily or not, is this content in the same language as how people are looking for that content. So for example, the way people will describe a product in Europe is different from the way the will describe it in the  US.But, now if youre reading the content for European audience but launching it in the  US, that wont work or vice versa, right. So you nee d to make sure that language is the same with how people are describing it. So we do a number of things to analyze content to make sure that it is really accessible by various, like either to social networks or search engines or anyone. So that is one focus on the marketing side.And the second thing is, that once you are on the website, the way you navigate the website, you use the navigation search for the website, you go look at it, you go to search pages over there. So we provide a SNAP solution which is Search Navigation and Personalization.And actually, our third product now which is on analytics. What it does is, it helps analyze all the content of a website and the user behavior and it will see whats working and whats not working and what you can do to improve it.So the business model for different products is different. It is the combination of the usage and the performance, like how much customers are using it and what theyre getting out of it.Martin: I totally understood t hat you have this kind of recommendation engine that youre trying to sell and then the analytical part.  Regarding the recommendation, is it that you have some kind of snippets that you just enter or you totally rearrange the whole website and categories, etc.?Ashutosh: It can be both. So depending upon the authentification and what our customers want and will they see the maximum value, it could be a small widget on their website or could be an entire landing page or a combination of both.Martin: And how did you find the first customer?Ashutosh: The initial first few customers are always these early adapters, and either through family and friends. So working with our investors, their relationships, through our personal relationships we found some customers. One of the questions that their value proposition has to be strong enough that even though they understand that a startup is a risky value proposition, but by working with a startup their value is going to be so large if it work s, then Im willing to give it a try.Martin: Can you tell us a little bit more on how the technology behind this works, especially  in terms of the recommendation? So what type of data sets are you taking into account?Ashutosh: Yes, absolutely. As I said, right. Theres a lot of data. So for the data, we look at 3 key sources of a data.One is, any customers that youre working with, we Google and crawl and mine all the data that exist on their website.Second, that is crucial about the data is that broader web. Just to give you a context of why that matters is, if you look at any product as an example, you call a product a certain thing because everyone else calls it that. But any name is meaningless. It is the context of the rest of the web that name become meaningful.  So by crawling the web, were able to understand and associate what each word means or each entity means. And then were able to relate the content of the website.And the third thing that we look at is the users behavior. That ultimately if you’re trying to satisfy the users, you really need to see whether they like certain things or they’re not liking it.And by bringing these 3 things together, the content of a website, understanding of that, understanding of the users behavior, understanding of the product, and then picking the right machine learning algorythms to learn on top of it and collaborative conditions, search and that allows the data processing.Martin: Regarding the analytics product that you are selling, what type of actionable advice can you give your customers based on these insights?Ashutosh: So if you take any website, I mean you guys have one for yourselves.One thing you decide is what to write.The second, once youve written it, have you written it correctly or not. Are you missing things or not, right.Once youve done that, then how you are organizing the content on the website? Are you getting the right users behavior from that or not, right. Are there gaps in the content that youve written?So, we actually give advice on all these things. What to write, how to write it, who to go after, how to lay out everything, so it really fits.What is the purpose of a website or any of these things is connecting the right user to the right piece of content. Its not about, shall I go with email or shall I go with SEO, shall I go with SEM, shall I do page search, shall I build the website, do I do that traffic, no. Our business, in your case, it is a set of articles, for a retailer a set of products, any of those things, right. First is you need to sort out your entry, so we can tell you what is performing, what is not performing, how you should go  sorting  it.Second is, we see youre writing an article. First I tell you, you should write on security, then within security what people are concerned about, how you should be describing that, then how should you be laying it out, to what audience you should be reaching out to, should you be reaching out to the people in a certain age group, certain demographics, or certain psychographics,  what will work, what works? And once youve done all that, what work, what tends to, and help you to predict whats going to happen tomorrow. So we do all of it.Martin: Can you tell us how the revenue model works?Ashutosh: For this product?Martin: For analytics and for the recommendation.Ashutosh: On analytics, it is a function of the amount of the content that people are searching and the amount of the users that we are processing. So, if a website has a large amount of content and a large amount of user base which are a lot more than, because the amount of processing that we have to do and analyze and storage and everything, is a function of that system.Around the recommendation and personalization, on that its a function of the usage, like how much are users getting, are they putting a lot of, are they putting on a few pages. Based on that I mean, it costs us percent to work there. And theres an element of how muc h value they are taking out of it as well.CORPORATE STRATEGYMartin: Lets talk about corporate strategies. What competitive advantage do you perceive of BloomReach over other companies?Ashutosh: So, I think I will expand that slightly more and I say that, as a startup, what is a competitive advantage and how do you build that over them. And theres number of things that you can do. One is when youre starting on day one, it is clearly technology and product. Your product that no one else has, so that is your competitive advantage. All your piece of technology that no one else has.So BloomReach, what we have done is a kind of tools with algorithms that are very-very unique. There are very-very few companies with a handful of people in the world who can do this kind of things. So that is one advantage that we have, that no one else has.The second thing is that, over time the amount of data that we have collected is unique to us. So the customer that we are working with, we have collected their data for the last one year or last 2 years, right. So we know a lot about whats going on. Our starting point is much better than anyone else. The network effect now that we are working with so many retailers as an example, our performance with the next retailer is so much better than it was with the first retailer, the first time. So big data advantage, network effect advantage.And third is, we have a large customer base that gives us the responsibility so that becomes a huge advantage. So you just have a huge footprint and now you can upsell more profitable thing to your customer base.MARKET DEVELOPMENTMartin: In terms of market development, one part of your business is related to SEO and SEM. Can you tell us a little bit more, what implications that your business model have on the total market of SEO and SEM because there are so many SEO agencies out there consulting websites how they should optimize the website and youre doing this somehow automized?Ashutosh: So what peopl e are doing is manually looking at small pieces of content and seeing what can be done over there. Now in that case, most of the time, because like how we can get around and get more traffic. As against as looking at like, why something needs to be done for SEO as an example. So if you have a website, but if you build it in a way that it can not be crawled, I mean that is a fundamental limitation of the way the content is consumed by different web search. So it is not really about SEO, its more around like the basic structure of the website. A simple way, say you have 5 pages, say you have 10 pages on your website. I can come with a link structure, and it will take 9  jumps  to get to the last page. Or if you have a website of a million pages, I can build a link structure with just empty links on our page so that we can get from any page to any page within like 5  jumps.Now, in a crawler based world, you need to make sure that the content is organized properly. Actually fundamental thing that has happened over the last 15 years is, if you go with any standard text book on marketing, it would be about how do you differentiate yourself, how do you stand out in the crowd. Make sense. But in a search based world, you need to me more part of the crowd than the stand out of the crowd. You can define everything that youre doing in a way that is different from how everyone else is calling. But guess what, people are searching based on how everyone else is calling and not how you are calling it. So you want to show up over there. So you need to be as similar to the crowd as possible as against as different from the crowd.So thats the opposite how marketing was in the past. So we are trying to solve those basic problems, which require a lot more data analysis and everything. So its neither competing with the agencies, so I mean, they have their place and they are doing a lot and they are helping. So if you are like, Okay this is the 5 categories that Im worried about, s hare it with the agencies, but if its more around like I want a website and make sure that is working well right over a million pages, no one can do it manually. That is where you need tools. And we have, thats where BloomReach come into place.Martin: Understood. So in terms of market development, you work at Google, what happens if Google enters a similar market like you do, because in addition to your data set, they have all the SEO or search engine data?  Is this some kind of viable threat that you are feeling or not?Ashutosh: I mean, Google has like 20 thousand engineers, sure they can do everything. And so, it is the case with any other company. But the customers that we involved are with, one is we know a lot more about them than anyone else would ever.So, this is a simple thing about, you don’t know what you don’t know. If theres a page that is not getting crawled, you just dont know that, theres nothing you can do about it. I mean, in our case, because we work very close ly with these enterprises, we know about that and we can work surfacing it.  So the amount of data and understanding that there is so much more the than anyone else.But then, if someone wants to get in this space, sure they can and then. But I think the competitive advantage that we have built over them, now we know, for example my customer. We know what has been going on on their website for the last 1.5 years, no one else does. So we will have that big advantage. So the starting point for anyone else would be much lower than ours.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM ASHUTOSH GARG In Mountain View, we meet CTO Cofounder of BloomReach, Ashutosh Garg. He shares his story of how he cofounded this startup and how the current business model works, as well as what the current plans are for near future, and some advice for young entrepreneurs.The transcription of the interview is uploaded below.INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi. Today we are in  Mountain View  with BloomReach. Ashu, who are you and what do you do?Ashutosh: Im the CTO and co-founder of BloomReach.Martin: When did you start this company and what was the reason for starting it?Ashutosh: So we started BloomReach in late 2008 early 2009. The vision of the company was to actually make the web a lot more relevant and personalized to the people. So like, over the last 10 to 15 years, the amount content of the web has grown by leaps and bounds. The amount of content that is available is huge.And while Google and Facebook after all are trying to make it easy for people to navigate some of that web, what happens is once you leave these portals and land on an international website, whether its Walmart.com or eBay, or Amazon, or even New York Times, finding the content on these websites are huge challenge. The amount of content that exist in any of these websites is more than the entire web, what the entire web was in 1998. So navigating to that piece of content is really-really hard. What we want to do is to make it very easy for people to find and discover what they are looking for. So we started the company with that vision in mind.Martin: So, Google would be the entry point, and then once people are on the websites automaticallyAshutosh: It could be anything. Today if you look at any,  to build a website, right. very small portion of the people, like 5 10% come directly, and the rest of the people will come either through a social network, through an email, through an affiliate campaign, through Google, through page search campaign, or any other channel.So, people are going to land from where e ver, whatever channel they picked. So its not that much about, like what channel they are picking, right. But they are coming from outside, they may land on any individual page of the website and not necessarily the homepage. So, what can you do, what can you do, all you know about that person, from where theyre coming, how they are coming, why theyre coming, and from their past behavior, and you use all that information to see what on your website is the most relevant piece of content for that user at that time and the name of that whole thing.Martin: Understood. So what enabled yourself to start this company based on your professional background?Ashutosh: So what does it take to make this thing happen?One is, like, being at Google, like, they found out how people are navigating the web, what are the challenges that they are running into, what are the struggles they have, right. So that was one big area of pain thing for me.The second is, working at a company like Google, I had acc ess to lots of data, allowed to their systems, so became an expert in that system.And third is, my PhD was in Machine Learning and Data Mining.So, at some level all these things came together, where I could process a large amount of data, to make sense of that data and then present it to the people.Martin: Okay. Great!BUSINESS MODEL OF BLOOMREACHMartin: Lets talk about the business model of BloomReach. As you said, the users come through different channels to the website and then what happens next?Ashutosh: So if you take any website, right, what you want to do is you want to bring people in, you want to keep the people in over there and you want them to come again. So, bring the people in, that is marketing, right.So one focus is, how can you make your marketing a lot more effective bringing more people in.The second, so what have done is, we work at the website to understand how they organize their content. Is their content getting crawled easily or not, is this content in the sam e language as how people are looking for that content. So for example, the way people will describe a product in Europe is different from the way the will describe it in the  US.But, now if youre reading the content for European audience but launching it in the  US, that wont work or vice versa, right. So you need to make sure that language is the same with how people are describing it. So we do a number of things to analyze content to make sure that it is really accessible by various, like either to social networks or search engines or anyone. So that is one focus on the marketing side.And the second thing is, that once you are on the website, the way you navigate the website, you use the navigation search for the website, you go look at it, you go to search pages over there. So we provide a SNAP solution which is Search Navigation and Personalization.And actually, our third product now which is on analytics. What it does is, it helps analyze all the content of a website and the us er behavior and it will see whats working and whats not working and what you can do to improve it.So the business model for different products is different. It is the combination of the usage and the performance, like how much customers are using it and what theyre getting out of it.Martin: I totally understood that you have this kind of recommendation engine that youre trying to sell and then the analytical part.  Regarding the recommendation, is it that you have some kind of snippets that you just enter or you totally rearrange the whole website and categories, etc.?Ashutosh: It can be both. So depending upon the authentification and what our customers want and will they see the maximum value, it could be a small widget on their website or could be an entire landing page or a combination of both.Martin: And how did you find the first customer?Ashutosh: The initial first few customers are always these early adapters, and either through family and friends. So working with our invest ors, their relationships, through our personal relationships we found some customers. One of the questions that their value proposition has to be strong enough that even though they understand that a startup is a risky value proposition, but by working with a startup their value is going to be so large if it works, then Im willing to give it a try.Martin: Can you tell us a little bit more on how the technology behind this works, especially  in terms of the recommendation? So what type of data sets are you taking into account?Ashutosh: Yes, absolutely. As I said, right. Theres a lot of data. So for the data, we look at 3 key sources of a data.One is, any customers that youre working with, we Google and crawl and mine all the data that exist on their website.Second, that is crucial about the data is that broader web. Just to give you a context of why that matters is, if you look at any product as an example, you call a product a certain thing because everyone else calls it that. But a ny name is meaningless. It is the context of the rest of the web that name become meaningful.  So by crawling the web, were able to understand and associate what each word means or each entity means. And then were able to relate the content of the website.And the third thing that we look at is the users behavior. That ultimately if you’re trying to satisfy the users, you really need to see whether they like certain things or they’re not liking it.And by bringing these 3 things together, the content of a website, understanding of that, understanding of the users behavior, understanding of the product, and then picking the right machine learning algorythms to learn on top of it and collaborative conditions, search and that allows the data processing.Martin: Regarding the analytics product that you are selling, what type of actionable advice can you give your customers based on these insights?Ashutosh: So if you take any website, I mean you guys have one for yourselves.One thing yo u decide is what to write.The second, once youve written it, have you written it correctly or not. Are you missing things or not, right.Once youve done that, then how you are organizing the content on the website? Are you getting the right users behavior from that or not, right. Are there gaps in the content that youve written?So, we actually give advice on all these things. What to write, how to write it, who to go after, how to lay out everything, so it really fits.What is the purpose of a website or any of these things is connecting the right user to the right piece of content. Its not about, shall I go with email or shall I go with SEO, shall I go with SEM, shall I do page search, shall I build the website, do I do that traffic, no. Our business, in your case, it is a set of articles, for a retailer a set of products, any of those things, right. First is you need to sort out your entry, so we can tell you what is performing, what is not performing, how you should go  sorting  it .Second is, we see youre writing an article. First I tell you, you should write on security, then within security what people are concerned about, how you should be describing that, then how should you be laying it out, to what audience you should be reaching out to, should you be reaching out to the people in a certain age group, certain demographics, or certain psychographics,  what will work, what works? And once youve done all that, what work, what tends to, and help you to predict whats going to happen tomorrow. So we do all of it.Martin: Can you tell us how the revenue model works?Ashutosh: For this product?Martin: For analytics and for the recommendation.Ashutosh: On analytics, it is a function of the amount of the content that people are searching and the amount of the users that we are processing. So, if a website has a large amount of content and a large amount of user base which are a lot more than, because the amount of processing that we have to do and analyze and stora ge and everything, is a function of that system.Around the recommendation and personalization, on that its a function of the usage, like how much are users getting, are they putting a lot of, are they putting on a few pages. Based on that I mean, it costs us percent to work there. And theres an element of how much value they are taking out of it as well.CORPORATE STRATEGYMartin: Lets talk about corporate strategies. What competitive advantage do you perceive of BloomReach over other companies?Ashutosh: So, I think I will expand that slightly more and I say that, as a startup, what is a competitive advantage and how do you build that over them. And theres number of things that you can do. One is when youre starting on day one, it is clearly technology and product. Your product that no one else has, so that is your competitive advantage. All your piece of technology that no one else has.So BloomReach, what we have done is a kind of tools with algorithms that are very-very unique. Ther e are very-very few companies with a handful of people in the world who can do this kind of things. So that is one advantage that we have, that no one else has.The second thing is that, over time the amount of data that we have collected is unique to us. So the customer that we are working with, we have collected their data for the last one year or last 2 years, right. So we know a lot about whats going on. Our starting point is much better than anyone else. The network effect now that we are working with so many retailers as an example, our performance with the next retailer is so much better than it was with the first retailer, the first time. So big data advantage, network effect advantage.And third is, we have a large customer base that gives us the responsibility so that becomes a huge advantage. So you just have a huge footprint and now you can upsell more profitable thing to your customer base.MARKET DEVELOPMENTMartin: In terms of market development, one part of your business is related to SEO and SEM. Can you tell us a little bit more, what implications that your business model have on the total market of SEO and SEM because there are so many SEO agencies out there consulting websites how they should optimize the website and youre doing this somehow automized?Ashutosh: So what people are doing is manually looking at small pieces of content and seeing what can be done over there. Now in that case, most of the time, because like how we can get around and get more traffic. As against as looking at like, why something needs to be done for SEO as an example. So if you have a website, but if you build it in a way that it can not be crawled, I mean that is a fundamental limitation of the way the content is consumed by different web search. So it is not really about SEO, its more around like the basic structure of the website. A simple way, say you have 5 pages, say you have 10 pages on your website. I can come with a link structure, and it will take 9  jumps  to get to the last page. Or if you have a website of a million pages, I can build a link structure with just empty links on our page so that we can get from any page to any page within like 5  jumps.Now, in a crawler based world, you need to make sure that the content is organized properly. Actually fundamental thing that has happened over the last 15 years is, if you go with any standard text book on marketing, it would be about how do you differentiate yourself, how do you stand out in the crowd. Make sense. But in a search based world, you need to me more part of the crowd than the stand out of the crowd. You can define everything that youre doing in a way that is different from how everyone else is calling. But guess what, people are searching based on how everyone else is calling and not how you are calling it. So you want to show up over there. So you need to be as similar to the crowd as possible as against as different from the crowd.So thats the opposite how marketing was in the past. So we are trying to solve those basic problems, which require a lot more data analysis and everything. So its neither competing with the agencies, so I mean, they have their place and they are doing a lot and they are helping. So if you are like, Okay this is the 5 categories that Im worried about, share it with the agencies, but if its more around like I want a website and make sure that is working well right over a million pages, no one can do it manually. That is where you need tools. And we have, thats where BloomReach come into place.Martin: Understood. So in terms of market development, you work at Google, what happens if Google enters a similar market like you do, because in addition to your data set, they have all the SEO or search engine data?  Is this some kind of viable threat that you are feeling or not?Ashutosh: I mean, Google has like 20 thousand engineers, sure they can do everything. And so, it is the case with any other company. But the customers that w e involved are with, one is we know a lot more about them than anyone else would ever.So, this is a simple thing about, you don’t know what you don’t know. If theres a page that is not getting crawled, you just dont know that, theres nothing you can do about it. I mean, in our case, because we work very closely with these enterprises, we know about that and we can work surfacing it.  So the amount of data and understanding that there is so much more the than anyone else.But then, if someone wants to get in this space, sure they can and then. But I think the competitive advantage that we have built over them, now we know, for example my customer. We know what has been going on on their website for the last 1.5 years, no one else does. So we will have that big advantage. So the starting point for anyone else would be much lower than ours.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM ASHUTOSH GARGMartin: Imagine your little brother comes to you and says, Ashu I want to start a company. Maybe he liv es in  India. What would you recommend him? What should he do and what he shouldnt do?Ashutosh: Do it because youre passionate about something, don’t do it for money or dont do it for a quick outcome. I mean you are an entrepreneur yourself right? Im sure you guys have heard of a startup is a roller coaster ride.Martin: We also have written a post about that.Ashutosh: A startup being a roller coaster ride? And actually a startup is anything but a roller coaster ride. Its not a roller coaster ride. Working in a big company is a roller coaster ride. And let me explain what I mean by that.When you are in a roller coaster, you might be going at 50 miles an hour, 70 miles an hour in that roller coaster for 5 minutes. You know that at the end of 5 minutes the roller caster will stop. Youll be exactly where you sat, you have a harness around you, nothing is going to happen to you, you will get all the jerks, but youll be where you are. Nothing will change. The world will still be the sam e for you, right. Become me, you’ll be thrown around from one project to another, by the end of the month you will get a fat paycheck, thats it. Your check won’t go by more than 10 20 % next year. Thats it.A startup is like driving, you’re in the Bay area, like driving on a 101 and 150 miles an hour. Either youll be the first to reach your destination or you will die, nothing in between. Theres no harness, you dont control anything else on the road. If you succeed, you are the fastest one, youre just not there yet. That is what a startup is. So if you are ready for it.The other thing is that most people, I mean, I meet so many entrepreneurs, they are like, So what are you trying to do? Heres a good idea so Im working on it. Why? Because I want to build WhatsApp for this thing, I want to build Uber for this thing. Are you passionate about it? No, no, but this will have a huge market and customers want this. What are you passionate about? No, but I can make money through this t hing and the VCs are saying that this is a good idea. But have you give it a thought to what you want to do in life?And I think people missed out on that aspect. So you should have a reason why you want to do it, you should have passion behind it. Thats the key thing.Martin: When did you know that your passion is big data, machine learning and maybe search?Ashutosh: I have been doing this for the last 15 18 years. My PhD was in that, my undergrad thesis was in that, my master was in that. So it has been just over time. But the key passion is, how you make life easier for people. Thats starting way to go. And all these are different ways and baby steps you can take.Martin: What other advice would you give your little brother?Ashutosh: I mean this is tough work. You have to be ready to do everything. Like we were discussing earlier right, its not only about like, I like this piece of work or I don’t like this piece of work.You will have to do whatever is needed for you. You are the master in the office but you are also the janitor of the office. You just do everything. So thats one thing.Its a long journey.  You may have an exit in a year, you maybe successful right. You will die with that. And for the next 25 years right. So make sure that youre ready to make that commitment.Other thing is you need to make sure that you have enough support from your family, because in this race, for doing things and achieving our vision sometimes our family has to pay the price. And are they ready for it or not? Because once you are in, theres no looking back. You will have good days, you will have bad days. Are you ready for that?Martin: How did your family support you?Ashutosh: I was on vacation actually last weekend, which was probably the first vacation I took in 2 years. So that is one part of how they have to suffer from this.Martin: Not seeing you.Ashutosh: Not seeing you and youre not being there. But more importantly even when you are there, my wife kept asking me, so what are you thinking right now on the beach and not enjoying it. Do you mind if I quickly go and respond to that email or answer this thing. I mean, its a huge sacrifice. You are just not there for them.Martin: Ashu, thank you very much for your time! And next time you are thinking about starting a company, pick some idea that you are very passionate about. Thank you very much. Great! Thank you very much, Ashu.

Access Of Contraception And Abortion Within The Latina...

Access to contraceptives and abortion within the Latina community in Los Angeles, California has been influenced culturally, socially, and economically. Cultural beliefs, economic disparities, social environment, and language barriers have all prevented Latina’s access to proper pregnancy termination services, which is causing in the detrition of Latina’s sexual and reproductive care. Ultimately in order to promote better reproductive/sexual health and provide better access to contraceptives and abortion within the Latina community in Los Angeles, policy makers should promote safe sex practices within families, communities, and schools and also should educate Latinas of all options they have. In addition to education, sexual and reproductive health services such as contraceptives and abortion should be able to be accessible to Latinas, in order to reduce the amount of Latinas going through traumatic experiences that are indeed preventative. Outline I. Introduction a. Topic sentence: Throughout the United States, reproductive and sexual health needs for women have been overlooked and ignored especially for Latina women in Los Angeles, California. Hispanic women in the United States accounted for 25% of abortion. (Jones, Finer, Singh, 2010) b. Background/context: The disparities and injustices have had an overwhelming impact on Latina’s reproductive and sexual health care. According to investigators at Washington University they report that providing birth control toShow MoreRelatedThe Legal Battle Between Pro Choice Activists And Pro Life Supporters Essay1354 Words   |  6 Pagesfight has snowballed from a discussion about the morality of abortion to an argument that the whole of women haven’t a right to reproductive/ gynecological care at all. Now we stand here, around 50 decades later, with several laws, polices, and judges that seek to curtail a women’s options for reproductive health. Current Research The Post Roe V. Wade Era In 1973, the United States Supreme Court voted to uphold the legality of abortion. In the period immediately after the decision, small steps wereRead MoreTeen Pregnancy in the United States Essays3049 Words   |  13 Pagesearly adolescence health in the United States. Consequences of having sex at a young age generally results in unsafe sex practices. The consequences can be due to the lack of knowledge about sex education, and access to birth control/contraception (NIH, 2005). Due to the lack of knowledge and access to birth control, adolescents involve in risk taking when they start to explore sexual intimate relationships. Consequences of unsafe sexual behavior include sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy (NIHRead MoreTeen Pregnancy among the Latino Community2991 Words   |  12 PagesSince the 1920’s, teen pregnancy among the Latino community has been one of the biggest social problems. Factors like poor or no sex education, negative media portrayal, poor or l ower than average educational levels, social inequality and family pressure, such as encouraging womanhood in teen years, contribute to the high percentage of teen pregnancy among Latinas. However, teen pregnancy among Latinas has been decreasing in recent years. Recent programs such as public service announcement and sexRead MoreUcsb Human Sex Soc 152a Final Study Guide4110 Words   |  17 Pagescampaign to legalize contraception a. â€Å"Comstock Laws† [contraception was considered obscene] b. Margeret Sanger (Read Box on 19.1) i. Birth control movement 3. Contraception has not yet solved the problem of unwanted births a. Half unwanted pregnancies in the US result from not using any method of contraception, but the other half results from failure of a method that was used PGS. 305.2-308 Americans Are Divided on Abortion, but Most FavorRead MoreTeen Pregnancy and High School Drop Out Prevention3722 Words   |  15 PagesPolicies regarding teen mothers have been lost in the education system and people aren’t aware there even is a policy. â€Å"†¦Under Title IX, passed in 1972 and implemented in 1975, public schools are explicitly charged with providing equal educational access and opportunity to pregnant and mothering students† (Pillow, 2006). Sometimes even the slightest forms of discrimination can be enough to drive pregnant teens out of school.   They come in the form of schools refusing to allow excused absences when

Discrimination s Take Home Exam - 3414 Words

Discrimination Law- Take home exam Question 1 Due to medical problems associated with her pregnancy, Astrid needs to take an unpaid two weeks off work. Her manager, Renauld, is refusing to comply as Astrid has already taken all of her prescribed days off. As a result, Astrid is entitled to use the provisions set out in the Sex Discrimination Act . This legislation’s application is limited to its Constitutional heads of powers . It can be used by Astrid to get the flexibility she wants by making an application under it. This legislation provides protection against discrimination based on sex, marital status, pregnancy, family responsibilities and breastfeeding in places such as work, as experienced by Astrid. Firstly, Astrid could†¦show more content†¦Astrid being demoted due to her pregnancy requirements as outlined by her employer directly discriminates her compared to the hypothetical comparator . However, it might be difficult for Astrid to prove causation as a result of the employer giving reason as to his suggestion she become a contractor to receive her flexibility, being not as a result of her pregnancy in itself, but in the firm does not allowing part time work. Despite Astrid’s case not being strong through direct discrimination, she would have a stronger one as per her entitlements using the indirect discrimination test under the SDA s7B. The indirect test does not require Astrid to highlight a comparator, where her claim would be for the greater protection of women who require time off associated with their pregnancy. The first element of the test is whereby the employer has imposed a condition and requirement that is, all those who are employed as full time workers are not permitted to take any unpaid leave for any reason once paid leave has been used, which is constitutes a condition as per s5(2) . The following element to prove indirect discrimination is that the condition or requirement is likely to have the effect of disadvantaging persons such as those who are pregnant, with regard to Astrid. Furthermore, indirect discrimination is proved when the condition, requirement or practice is not reasonable in the circumstances. Astrid being

A Short Note On The Battle Of Jutland - 1540 Words

Hayden C. Melissa 8th English/ Language Arts Mr. Kevin L. Nelson 11 January, 2016 Navy Battle Of Jutland The Battle of Jutland was between the Germans and the British, the conflict was building up for a while, and on May 31, 1916 is when the battle began.The Battle of Jutland is one of the biggest naval battles in history, this battle was considered to be â€Å"the only major naval battle of World War I†. The battle evolved over time due to Britain’s declaration that its naval force was superior in Europe and the introduction in 1906 of the Dreadnought. The British and the Germans wanted two different things, the British wanted to protect their world wide kingdom. The Germans were in need of more place than the North Sea s coast and they wanted full control of the North Sea. Both countries avoided the conflict for a long time because of fear of losing and making their country vulnerable. A letter from King George to Jellicoe stated: â€Å" At this grave moment in our national history I send to you, and through you to the officers and men of the fleet of which you have assumed command, the assurance of my confidence that, under your direction, they will revive and renew the old glories of the Royal Navy and prove once again the sure shield ofShow MoreRelatedPeople, Service, and Profit at Jyske Bank6721 Words   |  27 PagesJyske Bank, which was the third largest bank in Denmark after Den Danske Bank and Nordeas Danish operations (see Exhibit 1). Jyske Bank was created in 1967 through the merger of four Danish banks having their operations in Jutland, Jyske being Danish for Jutlandish. Jutland was the large portion of Denmark attached to the European mainland to the north of Germany. Until the late 1990s, Jyske Bank was characterized as a typical Danish bank: prudent, conservative, well-managed, generally unremarkableRead MoreOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pagestimes as numer ous as those in the first wave, although in per capita terms, the peaks of international migration in the 1990s and 2000s were similar to those of the early 1910s and late 1920s. But if we look at all forms of mobility—domestic and short-term as well as long-term international mobility—other trends clearly surpass anything that has ever happened in the past. An extreme example of the recent volume and temporal concentration of modern flows would be the 130 million Chinese who have

The Myth Of The Latin Woman - 918 Words

â€Å"To believe unfairly that all people or things with a particular characteristic are the same† is one of many definitions for a stereotype. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary makes it seem like it’s nothing at a;l and something small and innocent when, in all honestly stereotypes are cruel and wrong. Using stereotypes in our daily lives should not be allowed because it causes people to think less of themselves and limit themselves from one s full potential. Having these stereotypes in our minds really limits our thoughts and opinions about certain things or people. Both essayist Judith Ortiz Cofer, and Brent Staples have personally experienced stereotyping and people thinking wrongly of them. In Cofer’s essay â€Å" The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria† and Staples â€Å"Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Spaces†, they talk about what they have been through with racial stereotyping and what affects it has them, personally. B ut even with those stereotypes in play they both prove that stereotypes do not determines someone s future and people are able to prove stereotypes wrong. â€Å"The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria†, by Cofer explains what she has been through with stereotypes and how she dealt with them. Growing up in an Hispanic culture is very different than growing up with an American family. There are certain things expected from each of those culture that are different from one another. â€Å"... for example, that of the Hispanic woman as theShow MoreRelatedThe Myth Of The Latin Woman961 Words   |  4 Pagesfollowing stories that involve life-changing events for the characters. The Bridges of Madison County is a film about a woman that commits adultery and realizes that she wasn’t pleased with her marriage. â€Å"The Storm† is a short story similar to the movie of The Bridges of Madison County; however it’s more of a subjective description of a woman committing adultery. â€Å"The Myth of The Latin Woman† is a short story similar to the film due to the fact that both are afraid of being judged because of their genderRead MoreThe Myth Of The Latin Woman889 Words   |  4 Pages This concept is supported in the essays The Myth Of a Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria by Judith Ortiz Cofer and The Ugly Tourist by Jamaica Kincaid. Both of these authors faced persecution because of their outward appearance. Cofer accounts being misjudged because of her Puerto Rican race. Kincaid shares with her readers the concept of human misinterpretation because of the stereotype of tourism. Of the essays, The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria is the more effectiveRead MoreThe Myth Of The Latin Woman Summary1445 Words   |  6 PagesIn â€Å"The Myth of the Latin Woman† and â€Å"If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?† the subject of feeling like an outcast due to being of a non-white culture is examined. From the perspectives of two different women from two separate cultures (Puerto Rican and Indian), a series of anecdotes show the discr imination they face throughout their lives, all because their heritage does not match up with the world around them. â€Å"The Myth of the Latin Woman† focuses primarily on the stereotypes of Puerto RicanRead MoreThe Myth Of The Latin Woman Summary968 Words   |  4 PagesThe article â€Å"The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria† by Judith Ortiz Cofer is about the hardships that Latin women have to go through due to many stereotypes portrayed by the media. Cofer starts out be reliving an experience with a drunk man who re-enacted â€Å"Maria† from West Side Story and even though she was aggravated, she tried to keep her cool even though everyone around her was laughing and applauding. She states that growing up in New Jersey, she suffered from â€Å"cultural schizophrenia†Read MoreThe Myth of the Latin Woman Essay1470 Words   |  6 Pagesor positions they can adopt, and that’s exactly the reason they look for some professional help. In order to better understand the different kinds of identity or how it is modified over time, it is important to analyze some texts. â€Å"The Myth of the Latin Woman† by Cofer and the two episodes of In treatment Season One, Week one: â€Å"Alex† and â€Å"Sophie† are going to provide a base to discuss identity problems or diffusions in this essay. When the characters are deeply analyzed, readers will notice howRead MoreThe Myth Of The Latin Woman By Judith Ortiz Cofer892 Words   |  4 PagesInequalities within minorities is not limited to economic unfairness but also social inequity. The second story that shows how inequality within minorities is â€Å"The Myth of the Latin Woman† by Judith Ortiz Cofer. â€Å"The Myth of the Latin Woman† is an essay based on the real life experiences of Judith Ortiz Cofer. The story talks about the racist inequalities she has went through as a women of Hispanic descent. â€Å"a young man, obviously fresh from a pub, spotted me and as if struck by inspiration wentRead MoreJudith Ortiz Cofer s The Myth Of The Latin Woman997 Words   |  4 Pagescampfire. This hasn t been the first time I have heard similar remarks, whether it is because I am a woman or a homeschooler. That doesn t make me dumb, lazy or lack social skills. Though most are just myths created by people who make assumptions based on previous experiences with people good or bad and think everyone in that group is the same. Judith Ortiz Cofer s essay The Myth of the Latin Woman by speaks to me because I have had similar experiences and I felt her pain. â€Å"As a Puerto RicanRead MoreAnalysis Of Judith Cofer s Article And The Myth Of The Latin Woman Essay1648 Words   |  7 Pagesprocess of having an abortion. While Judith Cofer takes a similar route with a few differences. Her article talks specifically about the struggles of a Latin woman. Both articles talk about the obstacles women are faced with while also taking the time to focus on specific topics. â€Å"The Alienable Rights of Women† by Roxanne Gay and â€Å"The Myth of the Latin Woman† by Judith Cofer complement each other because they both discuss how women are perceived and stereotyped by others/society. Gay’s article supportsRead MoreThe Black Men And Public Space By Brent Staples, The Myth Of A Latin Woman, And Shooting2366 Words   |  10 Pages Just Walk on By, Myth of a Latin Woman, and Shooting an Elephant; Depression from Stereotyping and Prejudice There has been many years of racial stereotypes and wanting to fit into a group. The essays that show this theme are Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space by Brent Staples, The Myth of the Latin Woman by Judith Ortiz Cofer, and Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell. Staples shows his audience the struggles he has gone through as a black male. Cofer shows her audience the stereotypesRead MorePrejudice and Discrimination Depicted in Graduation, Myth of a Latin Woman, and Letter from Birmingham Jail670 Words   |  3 PagesNot everyone will like you in fact many will hate you for no reason because they don’t know anything about you other than what you look like. This is the case in many stories like Graduation by Maya Angelou, Myth of a Latin Woman by Judith Cofer and Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther king Jr. To any reasonable person these stories would seem very depressing because of the way these people are treated and most of the time they get this treatment because they are too afraid to speak up. Although

Sociocultural Forces Free Essays

Before starting to plan to franchise a Mc Donald’s in another country. They obtain the relevant information from the target market in addition to the individual customers of the organization. They find out the shifts in areas like the consumer behaviour and purchasing patterns of the market. We will write a custom essay sample on Sociocultural Forces or any similar topic only for you Order Now Fundamentally, this is the key condition for executing a suitable customer relationship management system. Some of the Sociocultural forces from the countries where they were planning to enter that Mc Donald’s took into consideration Cultural Cultural: McDonald’s international restaurants satisfy local tastes and customs by offering unique products, services and other items to the menu. Customers in Norway can order McLaks – a fresh grilled salmon sandwich with dill sauce on a whole-grain bun. McDonald’s fans in the Netherlands can have vegetable burger and in Italy and Greece customers can help themselves at a fresh salad bar. Population Changes: Changes in population demographics have many potential consequences for organizations. As the total population changes, the demand for products and services also changes. When McDonald’s opens restaurants in a new country, the jobs it creates stimulate the national economy and broaden the local tax base. Besides the new jobs directly linked with McDonald’s restaurants, the company indirectly supports other segments of a country’s workforce by hiring local construction firms and purchasing from local suppliers, local farmers and local distributors. Educational Levels: All the staff and employees at McDonald’s are given a handsome salary package and attractive incentives in accordance with the level at which the person is working. That’s why employees at McDonald’s in other countries are satisfied and motivated. Higher educational levels allow people to earn higher incomes than would have been possible otherwise. The increase in income has created opportunities to purchase additional goods and services, and to raise the overall standard of living of a large segment of the population. The educational level has also led to increased expectations of workers, and has increased job mobility. Workers are less accepting of undesirable working conditions than were workers a generation ago. Better working conditions, stable employment, and opportunities for training and development are a few of the demands businesses confront more frequently as the result of a more educated workforce. Norms and Values: McDonald’s has an open-door culture; any employee can go to the Restaurant Manager and can discuss any problem or new ideas for the improvement of the restaurant. Nobody has any hang-ups; everybody does everything. McDonald’s also believes in value to the customer, that is, why prices are value oriented â€Å"†¦ nothing sells forever unless it is value for money.† Norms (standard accepted forms of behavior) and values (attitudes toward right and wrong), differ across time and between geographical areas. Lifestyles differ as well among different ethnic groups. As an example, the application in the United States of Japanese-influenced approaches to management has caused firms to reevaluate the concept of quality. Customers have also come to expect increasing quality in products. Many firms have found it necessary to reexamine production and marketing strategies to respond to changes in consumer expectations. Social Responsibility : is the expectation that a business or individual will strive to improve the welfare of society. From a business perspective, this translates into the public expecting businesses to take active steps to make society better by virtue of the business being in existence. McDonald’s is firmly committed to give back to the community where we operate. They are happy to become involved because they recognize that organizations have a role to play in helping communities to work successfully. How to cite Sociocultural Forces, Essay examples

Financial Accounting Reporting And Analysis -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Financial Accounting Reporting And Analysis? Answer: Introduction There have been several modifications that have been done in the reporting requirements of the listed companies for improving the transparency and authentication of the information that is given to the shareholders. Continuous disclosure is an important management of the Australian stock exchange disclosure framework. It is done to ensure that price sensitive information in relation to the stocks that are traded on the stock exchange, should reach the shareholders. Before this was made mandatory, the information would reach the shareholders in quarterly, semi-annual reports, and the companies would convey the information through periodic fillings to the exchange and the regulating people(Dichev, 2017). If there is a time lag in the correct information reaching the shareholders, they may suffer huge losses because of the same. In the world where money is invested every second, information is considered the most important factor. The sale prices can alter every second, and this it is i mportant that correct information reaches at the correct time, so that shareholders can manage their funds without incurring losses. In cases where companies default in the same, they are voluntary suspended from the stock exchange and also loses there credibility in the market. It is done to take care of insider trading and prevent people from dealing in fraudulent activities on basis of any price sensitive information that they may have from unwanted sources. So the need of continuous disclosure is very important for reporting entities(Fay Negangard, 2017). In this essay the various aspects of continuous reporting for disclosure requirements and its effectiveness is discussed briefly. Literature Review In this case study, we see how the shareholders of the Bellamy Australia suffered because they were not given correct and accurate information about the financials of the company. The shares were suspended on the Australian Stock Exchange in relation to the ban that occurred on the supply of the milk products, because of this the share price dropped from as high as $16.50 about 12 months ago to just $6.68 on Friday, before there was a halt on the trading of the shares. It was mentioned that there was a halt on the trading of shares because the company wanted to fulfil its requirement of continuous disclosure and for the same the company went for voluntary suspension, but that had affected many small shareholders who invested in the company(Fay Negangard, 2017). So why is it that important to meet these requirements of continuous disclosers and how does it support the investors and the companies. In countries like Australia, America and Europe, the government requires that the companies must provide some information to the shareholders on continuous basis if it alters the price and value of its securities and derivatives. Section 674 requires companies in Australia to inform the shareholders through the stock exchange about the various price sensitive information which may not be generally available to them(Given, 2016). This is done to prevent insider trading. It is very important that information must reach promptly, thus the need of continuous disclosure is there. The information that is provided must have certain qualities like it should be factual, should be accurate, reach timely and should never be disclosed to private parties, this might lead to insider trading. All this information must reach the stock exchange and should be made public for the need of the shareholders(Guragai, et al., 2017). The information that companies need to provide the shareholders are any sig nificant changes related to the assets, operations, financial position, any mergers, disinvestments or acquisitions etc. Any such information that might affect the position of the investors must be made available to them through appropriate channels. This is how this system works. With the help of this information the shareholders can judge the credibility of the company and can decide whether they want to invest in the shares of the company or not. This will help them from any unwanted losses and help them in taking effective decisions. In the given case of Bellamys correct information was not provided to the shareholder and that had affected their credit position and they had to incur huge losses. The company also suffered and lost their position in the market, owing to their poor stand on the situation that led to voluntary suspension of trading of funds and brought the company and the shareholders to a vulnerable position(Prasad Chand, 2017). The Australian Stock exchange has provided a list of guidelines that the company needs to follow to make sure that they fulfil the needs of continuous reporting of disclosure requirements. In any case if they default then they would be penalized and would not be allowed to trade their stocks in public. There is an option of carve out as per which there are certain situations in which the companies do not need to follow this policy of continuous disclosures of reporting entities, this includes- breach of law in disclosing the information, an incomplete negotiation or proposal, a trade secret or if the information has been created for internal management if the entity. There should be reasonable reason for withholding the information and if found guilty there is a serious breach of law and criminal proceedings can be initiated against the company. As per rules, the company might need to pay a civil penalty proceeding with a maximum amount of $1 million, along with criminal proceedings and other suits can also be initiated(Sweeting, 2017). Thus, it is important that companies around the world, where this law prevails must follow the requirements closely and comply accordingly with all the stated rules and guidance. Now the thought of the hour is how effective are these policies and how helpful have they been to the companies and the shareholders. This can be deciphered from the various civil and criminal proceedings that have been initiated against the companies in lieu of the non-compliance with the stated laws. But there are still incidences happening with respect to insider trading and price sensitive information is still being used for personal benefits by private parties. It is very important that more strict rules must be formed to prevent companies and dealers in indulging in these kinds of activities. This is very important with respect to the financial wellbeing of the country(Maynard, 2017). Conclusion Based on the above analysis and the case study, it can be said that it is very important that companies should follow this policy of continuous disclosure and provide correct and accurate information on a timely basis. This must be in practice more than on paper and strict actions must be taken against companies who indulgences in any defaults. This must be done to ensure the security of the shareholders, like in the case of Bellamy the shareholders suffered huge losses, because they were not provided with correct information at the time required. It is also necessary that timely audit of the companies listed on the stock exchange must be done and proper audit reports must be provided to the stock exchange(Han, et al., 2017). It is the duty of the stock exchange to do proper screening before listing the company and defaulters must be banned from trading their securities. This will help in improving vigilance and marketing the financial situation of the companies in question more secu re. Also the carve out option that is provided to the companies must be more strict, so that companies do not use the same as a veil to avoid complying with the disclosure requirements that they need to comply with(Chariri, 2017). Refrences Abbott, M. Kantor, A., 2017. Fair Value Measurement and Mandated Accounting Changes: The Case of the Victorian Rail Track Corporation. Australian accounting Review. Alexander, F., 2016. The Changing Face of Accountability. The Journal of Higher Education, 71(4), pp. 411-431. Birt, J., Muthusamy, K. Bir, P., 2017. "XBRL and the qualitative characteristics of useful financial information". Accounting Research Journal, 30(1), pp. 107-126. Burke, J. Clark, C., 2016. The business case for integrated reporting: Insights from leading practitioners, regulators, and academics. Business Horizons, 59(3), pp. 273-283. Chariri, A., 2017. FINANCIAL REPORTING PRACTICE AS A RITUAL: UNDERSTANDING ACCOUNTING WITHIN INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK. Journal of Economics, Business and Accountancy, 14(1). Chiapello, E., 2017. Critical accounting research and neoliberalism. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Volume 43, pp. 47-64. Crosby, N. Henneberry, J., 2016. Financialisation, the valuation of investment property and the urban built environment in the UK. Urban Studies, 53(7). Dichev, I., 2017. On the conceptual foundations of financial reporting. Accounting and Business Research, 47(6), pp. 617-632. Fay, R. Negangard, E., 2017. Manual journal entry testing : Data analytics and the risk of fraud. Journal of Accounting Education, Volume 38, pp. 37-49. Given, L., 2016. 100 questions (and answers) about qualitative research. s.l.:Sage. Guragai, B., Hunt, N., Neri, M. Taylor, E., 2017. Accounting Information Systems and Ethics Research: Review, Synthesis, and the Future. Journal of Information Systems: Summer 2017, 31(2), pp. 65-81. Han, B., Subrahmanyam, A. Zhou, Y., 2017. The term structure of credit spreads, firm fundamentals, and expected stock returns. Journal of Financial Economics, 24(1), pp. 147-171. Maynard, J., 2017. Financial accounting reporting and analysis. second ed. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. Prasad, P. Chand, P., 2017. The Changing Face of the Auditor's Report: Implications for Suppliers and Users of Financial Statements. Australian Accounting Review. Sweeting, P., 2017. Financial Enterprise Risk Management. Second ed. UK: Cambridge University Press. Financial Accounting Reporting And Analysis -Myassignmenthelp.Com Question: Discuss About The Accounting Financial Reporting And Analysis? Answer: Introduction Transfer pricing is a concept that is very much existent in this modern world. It refers to the total value that is attached to the prices of goods and services between related parties. It is the total price that is charged in a transaction. It has many positive aspects as it helps the companies in avoiding double taxation and relieves them of the unnecessary tax burden. But in the process of doing so, it has often led to the unlawful use of the law, by companies to curb the genuine payment of taxes, that they were to pay. In this modern era and globalized situation, this concept of transfer pricing holds utmost importance given that the companies indulge in cross trading and consumers are attracted towards policies that help them in payment of fewer taxes. In this assignment, the dark side of transfer pricing will be discussed as stated by the authors (Sikka Willmott, 2010). It emphasizes the importance of cost allocation between the nations and how cross-country trade is being aff ected by the modern means of tax cutting that is covered under the veil of lawful tax avoidance. This forms the core of this article and throws lights on the different aspects of transfer pricing that includes the darker side which is not very popular in terms of disclosure. Analysis 1.The core argument of this article that the authors want to present is that the concept of transfer pricing is always taken in good light, considering that it makes it easier for the companies to indulge in cross country trade and avoids the pressure of double taxation, but there is a darker side to the same. This is very apparent from the way companies are making use of the law to avoid taxation and the pressure is then given on the consumers indirectly, who end up paying more prices for goods because of the complex taxation policy (Burke Clark, 2016). This article highlights certain incidences where it can be clearly seen how companies are making use of this policy to avoid paying taxes. For examples, countries like China and Russia, that enjoys huge international trade owing to their great products at cheaper prices, make use of this transfer pricing policy to sell products to the international trader at lower prices, that causes these countries huge loss of revenues in the form of taxes. As per reports the Chinese exports are underpriced and the imports are overpriced, this is causing huge loss of revenue. Even in Russia, where there is no strict guidance and rules and in absence of direct foreign investments, the government must resort to other methods like subsidies and no taxation zone, to promote trade and to recover from the losses that occur because of the taxation policy that governs international trade. Not just developing countries, even developed nations are getting affected because of these policies, countries like the USA are also losing on revenue (Crosby Henneberry, 2016). Transfer pricing not only refers to the transaction of goods and services but also refers to the transfer of wealth that occurs between nations when they indulge in international trade. The aim of every nation is to improve its economic condition by developing its GDP and for the same they try to indulge in such activities as activities as per which they end up paying les s or no amount of taxes. But this in turns affects the profitability of other countries, as they lose on taxes, that it there primary source of revenue (Dichev, 2017). On the forefront, it may look that the transfer pricing policy is helping the countries in avoiding double taxation, but it is also helping the companies in tax avoidance as they transfer all their transactions to such area in which they do not have to pay any taxes. Tax havens are an aspect of transfer pricing schemes, where certain areas are such that where the companies do not need to pay any taxes if they have transactions in that zones. Many companies try to make use of the same and try not to pay taxes (Han, Subrahmanyam, Zhou, 2017). The prevalence of such schemes is very difficult to be judged as they are very carefully and tactfully hidden and accessed only when there are some major fallouts, or whistleblowing. It also leads to compliance issues in many multinational corporations, and the same effects the ov erall operations of the companies. It also affects the cross-country trading and international mergers that occurs with a viewpoint to provide better services and resources to the public. Thus, we see that not just in promoting international trade, the concept of transfer pricing also plays an important role in promoting the incidences of tax avoidances. Many companies try to avail the same, make misappropriate use of it and this leads to loss of revenue. Because of the same many countries do not encourage international trade, and the end users are the most affected party in the whole scene (Sikka Willmott, 2010). 2.This article, in general, reflects the conventional techniques of management accounting, that cover different methods like decision making, future-focused, timeliness. In this article, the authors have provided a brief view on how the various aspects of transfer pricing are affecting the overall cost and revenues that the companies are earning owing to the aspects of the tax havens that are prevalent in case of transfer pricing concepts (Fay Negangard, 2017). Transfer pricing is a method that helps in determining the overall cost that the countries pay in case of international and cross-border transaction lieu of the goods and services that they exchange. This helps in generating more revenue, thus helps in effective cost management which is an important aspect of the conventional management accounting. This article also reflects how companies are taking decisions on having transactions and shifting all their operations to tax-free zone, so they end up paying less amount of taxes (Abbott Kantor, 2017). This is an aspect of decision making that reflects the conventional method of management accounting. This article also focuses on the future focused aspect of the transfer pricing policies, where companies tend to go for such deals, in which they will have to pay no taxes in times to come. And, the future aspect is there in the fact that so many companies have to lose on their profits and have to lower their rates, and the government is also losing so many amounts of income owing to these transfer pricing policies and how the same will affect the times to come (Alexander, 2016). This is different from what is provided in the textbook because in the textbook the focus is more on the contemporary aspects of management accounting which focuses on performance evaluation and management. Performance management covers the aspect of modern management method, that includes, communication of business strategy, tracking the performance, evaluating the rewards and recognition and the overall guide for the future development of the company. The measures are very simple and are mostly controlled with the help of system software and tools. This is an important aspect of the contemporary method of management accounting that includes, use of balanced scorecards, use of performance trackers, inventory regulators (Chiapello, 2017). It makes the work easy and more accurate and there is less human intervention in this. This is how the contemporary method of management functions. But the same is not applied in this article of transfer pricing and focuses mainly on the conventiona l method of accounting. There is no use of modern methods of performance trackers that can help in regulating the overall work done by the companies in dealing with tax avoidance and reduction of the overall revenues for the countries (Prasad Chand, 2017). The major characteristics of effective performance measurement control include emphasizing the overall positives, it must be reported in a timely manner, there must be proper benchmarking and it must be limited to the performance measure. All this is not present in this article on transfer pricing that reflects the dark scenario of the countries and the international trade under the realms of transfer pricing and its policies (Maynard, 2017). This is how this system works and same has been explained in this article, covering the different aspects on how the countries are suffering owing to the decision-making capabilities of the nations on declaring regions as tax haven and no proper scrutiny being done later to find how the companies are taking undue advantage of the same (Guragai, Hunt, Neri, Taylor, 2017). The bigger picture appears all rosy, but the darker side is still prevalent which is not there in open and requires a lot scrutiny to be assessed. This is how the conventional and the contemporary methods of management accounting are different from each other in terms of the overall performance management and the same is reflected in the article stated above. Conclusion Based on the above analysis it can be said that there must be a more simplified way by which governments can track the overall performance of these companies that are indulging in international trade and the overall effect that it is having on the revenue of the countries in question. The outer picture might appear rosy but there is a dark side to it and it is the need of the hour that same must be brought out in open and the end user should not be affected because of the same. The conventional and the contemporary methods of performance management must go hand in hand and should reflect the true position by using the modern tools in synchronization with the techniques of the contemporary method of management accounting (Chariri, 2017). In this way, the companies will not be able to take undue advantage of the laws and by-laws on transfer pricing and correct revenue will be reflected. This is the long run will help in promoting international trade and help in curbing tax evasion. Str ict punishments must be there for companies that are found defaulting in this zone and a proper performance tracker must be developed to look at the companies that function in this respect. This is how the concept of performance management can be synced with this aspect of transfer pricing (Sweeting, 2017). Experts must be appointed to look over the minute details under the broad picture of transfer pricing and how changes can be initiated that will discourage the companies from indulging in any form of tax avoidance. References Abbott, M., Kantor, A. (2017). Fair Value Measurement and Mandated Accounting Changes: The Case of the Victorian Rail Track Corporation. Australian accounting Review. Alexander, F. (2016). 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