The Beatles Story Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Beatles Story - Essay Example The group gained more popularity in Britain in the 1960s due to their creativity. â€Å"Love Me Do,† which was their first single, became a hit in 1962 (The Beatles, 2000, p. 75). The group started gaining popularity internationally in 1964, when they ventured into the American music market. The year 1964 was their biggest year that saw them conquer America – the biggest record market. This is the year that America was mourning the death of President John F. Kennedy and the group appeared on the scene to end the mourning and to bring Americans excitement and fun (Everett, 1999, p. 44). After 1964, the group had become international stars and they made extensive tour across the world performing commercial concerts. Their most notable influential albums include Abbey Road, The Beatles, and Revolver. The Beatles eventually broke up in 1970 and each member successfully pursued their individual musical careers (The Beatles, 2000, p. 108). As far as their style of music was concerned, the group mainly focused on the rock and roll genre of music. According to Barrow (2005, p. 156), the Beatles revolutionized the style, attitude and sound of popular music, as well as enhanced the popularity of rock and roll music in Britain and the world at large. Even though their first style was based on classical rock and roll genre, the group expanded the genre’s stylistic frontiers in the 1960s. The group utilized other genres and often encompassed them in rock and roll genre. The variety of genres that they incorporated includes psychedelic, baroque pop, and folk-rock among others. It is important to note that the members had diverse approaches to their musical composition, which further enhanced the quality of their music, and this made them a favourite of music fans across the world (Womack, 2007, p. 79). Apparently, as Womack (2007)

International business Case Analysis - Wal-Mart Essay

International business Case Analysis - Wal-Mart - Essay Example Why was Wal-Mart unsuccessful in Germany, withdrawing in 2006, and relatively successful in the UK? 12 Reference 16 How attractive was the discount retailing industry in the USA when Wal-Mart first began operations in the 1950s. The US retail industry has considerably changed over the few decades due to two related trends, one being the discount retailing and second factor is the increasing prevalence of the large retail chains. The discounting retailing sector is controlled by chains. The concept is fairly new and the first discount store appeared in the 1950s. Discount retailing is one of the most dynamic sectors in the retail industry. Until 1990s two important retail chains were Wal-Mart and Kmart (Jia, 2007, p. 5). The retailing industry is known to be the second largest industry across the globe with respect to total number of establishment as well as total number of employees. The retail industry generates about $3.8trillion annually. The top five retail industry operating acr oss the world are Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Costco and Kroger. Wal-Mart apart from being the largest retailer globally is also the largest company and generates approximately $256billion sales annually. In discount retailing industry the two main competitors are Wal-Mart and Target. ... With regards to Wal-Mart, suppliers who do not maintain or live up to the expectation of Wal-Mart point of system are thus replaced. Wal-Mart being a big brand and is powerful enough to make the suppliers recognise the fact and the situation when they do good business and thus can very conveniently switch suppliers at its convenience when they do not perform the work as expected. The suppliers also cannot afford to lose on the big brands, the key players and hence the supplier power tends to be low. As shown above the bargaining powers of customer are relative high as discount retail purchase can be substitutable and thus consumers has the power to go between the competitors depicting a high bargaining power. The switching cost involved in shifting from one competitor to another is also low and the consumers demand for high quality products at discount price. It is important to understand that consumer as individual does not have bargaining power with the retail stores but as a group consumers can demand a higher quality product at low price. Consumers are also price sensitive as a result the suppliers need to keep the price low to succeed indicating high customer power. Threat of new entrant is particularly low in the discount retailing industry as there exist a high barrier to enter the discounted retail industry with respect to investors, capital and competition. The huge capital required by a new entrant to compete with all the established retailers will take a longer time and establish them in the retail market. Although the switching cost is low for the consumers but brand loyalty towards a particular brand are relatively high and consumer would not like to shift towards a