Global Trade and Commodities in 15th century Essay

Global Trade and Commodities in 15th century - Essay Example This region acted as a source of slave for the routes in Sahara to Mediterranean. The Portuguese opened this channel to the rest of the world. Portuguese had an economic monopoly over slave trade in Cape Verde of West Africa. Portuguese were particularly well versed with trade route between West Africa, America and Europe. They bought slave from interior of coast of guinea and transported them to the rest of the world especially in America where they could later work in sugar and other plantations. This trade was profitable to Portuguese. This African trade plus the development of Cape Verde islands, expanded tremendously with the emergence of labor-intensive farms that were used to grow, cotton and tobacco in the Caribbean and America as well. Other slave was taken to Brazil, which was a Portuguese colony. By 18th century, Britain had engaged in this trade and majority of ships doing this business belonged to Britain. Jacques Coeur merchant between 1432- 1451, carried out the other type of trade. The great source of trading wealth was the Mediterranean. That used to link Christian market that were more prominent in the west with the far east Muslim markets. He use to take clothes to Levant and could come back with spices from the east. It was a barter form of trade. The Chinese sea trade also took place in the 15th century. It took place when a merchant Zhen, a Muslim eunuch. He traveled as far as Persian Gulf, African coast. Chinese could now export porcelain, silks, silver, gold items and medical concoctions and in return they took herbs, ivory, rhinoceros, jewel, rare varieties of wood, and some ingredients for making dyes. The other trade took place in Europe inlands waterways between 15 to 17th century. This trade occurred across rivers especially after development of manmade canals that ensured there was efficiency in trade as routes became shorter. This developed in Europe only at the late 15th

Polaroid Advertising Campaign Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Polaroid Advertising Campaign - Essay Example This market arose due to the increased demand for technology products. It is at this time of history that the world war and competition for the world’s meager resources came to the peak. Technological growth also became a subject of importance an inventions became an order of the day. It is in record that at this point in history industrial revolution peaked (Qualters 2003). The company manufactures films and it is on record that the recent sales were about 50 films and over 100 types of cameras worldwide. The company is famous for instant film cameras that were replaced very recently in the year 2008 due to the onset of digital cameras because of digital technology (Porter 20005). For a start, Polaroid went through the growth phases that any newly established company could undergo. As have been noted above, the growth was propelled by apart from existence of adequate market; the competitors like Kodak Express also enabled the growth of the company. In fact, Polaroid, using it s strong strategies displaced Kodak from the market and made Kodak flee completely from the instant film technology field (Boone & Kurtz 2011). However much Polaroid posed stiff competition to its other competitors in their field of competition, there also existed other firms like the Nixon and Minolta who differentiated and specialized in pro ducts unique enough to file competition for Polaroid. This made Polaroid experience technical difficulties in their operations that resulted solely from competition from these firms. The state went as far as making Polaroid apply for bankruptcy state in the United States courts in the year 2001. The bankruptcy majorly affected their assets due to overtrading that the corporation was engaged in (Bushman 2010). Almost immediately, the firm undertook a reorganization exercise where it considered acquisition procedures, it approached several firms in a bid to strengthen its operations due to partnerships and mergers. This period could not allow Po laroid to be engaged in acquisitions. The company as a result needed to employ better strategies to increase its production of relevant products, the sales of such products to realize better revenue as well as engaging in cost reduction and minimization measures. One way that it identified could help it realize better returns was through thorough marketing campaign (Bushman 2010). Corporate/ Marketing Campaign Normally, corporate have both general and specific corporate objectives and marketing campaign strategies. The general major corporate objectives of any company are profit maximization objective for the shareholders to realize better returns in form of dividends. This is also geared towards ensuring that the investor confidence is busted and well directed (Cant, Strydom, & Jooste 2009). The other objective of establishing any corporate organization is to maximize the wealth off the shareholders. It is in the interest of any realistic shareholder to anticipate growth in form an d nature of their firm. This growth is only achievable if there is profitability and that part of the profits realized is reinvested in prospects like long-term assets that are meant to realize returns to the company. Polaroid during its formation had an objective of being the world leader in film technology. It also had the objective of diversifying its asset base by being one of the participants in