Article Summaries



Article Summaries

Inventory Management

The news article on inventory management relates to Verifone Mobile Cards. Verifone is the next big leader in the mobile credit card reader market after PayPal. What helped the company in becoming a strong PayPal competition is the fees offered by the company. In early May, the company launched SAIL which is an application launched specifically for the Apple iOS App Store. Later in the month of May, the application will be made available for Android as well. The application works on the principle of end to end encrypted payment gateway. Through this Verifone aims at targeting the smaller businesses that will be lured to buy it for the low fees. The fee for each swipe of a card is as low as 2.7 percent (Hachman, 2012) (Cathcart, 2003).

However, it is important to note that what sets the application apart is not just the cost but also the tools that it uses to report transactions. One of these tools is inventory management. The unique selling proposition of SAIL is that it is able to track offer redemptions through scanning the bar code using the camera in the mobile. This means that such type of inventory management through SAIL will give small businesses an opportunity to remain their customers through gaining their customer lifetime value and employing better customer relationship management strategies (Cathcart, 2003).

The SAIL app is also integrated with social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Yelp. The app is highly secure and reliable and is eco-friendly at the same time.

Quality

Krisher (2012) speaks of the Quality control and management at Lexus. The company has topped the auto quality study for the year 2012. The car owners' survey conducted for the year 2012 revealed that the overall quality of automobile in the US has improved a great deal. The most significant improvement has been seen in the Lexus cars, which is also the best car manufacturer in the US. The industry as a whole has worked on removing all the problems identified in cars in the past years. This is reflected in the significant decline in the repair rate of cars for the year (Krisher, 2012) (Gilley, 2002).

The survey garnered data from both the users as well as manufacturers of cars and divided them into categories such as winners, loosers, best models, technology woes most improved and going backward. Lexus has bagged many positions. Along with Ford the company bagged the best model award for the year. The company does not only manufacture top quality cars but it also manufactures trucks that offer the best functionality and utility (Gilley, 2002).

The company has also been ranked as the overall winner for the year in terms of quality. It is found that the number of problems reported in Lexus cars for the year was the lowest - per 100 vehicles there were only 73 problems. In this context, it is imperative to state that this is not the first time; Lexus has stood first ...