The CVS Caremark Corporation

The CVS Caremark Corporation is a pharmaceutical company based in the United States and it was founded in nineteen sixty three by Stanley and Sidney Goldstein and Ralph Hoagland with the intention of selling health and beauty products. Within a year of its founding, this company had a chain of seventeen stores and when it was acquired by Melville’s in nineteen sixty nine, it had a total of forty stores. After this company was acquired by Melville’s, the driving force behind its growth was its new president, Franklin Rooney. Under Rooney, CVS saw tremendous growth due to the fact that after he took over the corporation, he concentrated more on the development of the pharmaceutical side of the business. By the time of his retirement in nineteen eighty five, Rooney had turned CVS into one of the most diversified retail chains in the United States through his knack for making brilliant acquisitions during his tenure.

Stanley Goldstein succeeded Rooney in nineteen eighty five and his major task was to continue the colossal work that his predecessor had left behind. Goldstein proved to be up to the task and under him; CVS continued its expansion with some structural renovation taking place in the corporation. Some of this renovation took place in nineteen eighty nine when the corporation created a profit sharing plan and an employee stock ownership plan whose intention was to distribute six percent of the corporation’s common stock among its employees as a way of motivating them.  Despite the recessive economy of the eighties, CVS continued to grow and rake in profits throughout the period (Eder, 1999).

Currently, the corporation has stores in forty five states within America and Puerto Rico and it sells prescription drugs and a wide assortment of other goods which include beauty products, cosmetics, photography services and convenience foods. It also has healthcare clinics located within CVS stores through which it provides healthcare services and in some places, they have centers that deal specifically with people affected by diabetes. The merger between CVS and Caremark a few years ago continued to ensure that the corporation’s continued growth went on uninterrupted (Pimlott, 2006).

It can be said that it is the strong leadership style of the company from its founding to the present that has spurred its extremely fast growth throughout the recent decades even when growth was not expected at all. The strong leadership has also enabled CVS to make ventures into the selling of merchandise which was not traditionally in its preserve through the acquisition of retail chains which dealt in products other than those which it was promoting at the time. These acquisitions have made sure that the diversification of this corporation continues and because of this diversification, it is likely to survive any form of a collapse in the sales of a particular product. This is due to the fact that it does not completely rely on a single product to make a profit and instead, it has a diverse range of them to ensure its survival in the very competitive market of the world today.

The company is headed by a Chief Executive Officer who is also the president of the corporation. Directly below him are the executive vice presidents each heading a specific department within the organization namely: Finances; Health Care Strategy and Management; Operations; Pharmacy Services; Legal; and Human Resources among others.

Why Older Workers Can’t Get Hired

There are many reasons why it is difficult for older workers to get hired by many companies today. According to the article Why Older Workers Can’t Get Hired, one of these reasons is the expectation of a higher salary than their counterparts due to their many years of experience. Older workers are expected to ask for a higher salary and this makes many potential employers hesitant because of the added expenditure to their businesses hence a preference for younger workers whose little experience ensures them a low salary. The second reason for a hesitation in hiring older workers is the belief that many older workers may not be able to work well with younger bosses due to the age and generational differences between them and may feel uncomfortable working for a less experienced boss.

A third reason is that many older workers lack the necessary skills to function in a modern and fast evolving working environment due to the fact that many have yet to embrace the new technology that has come into the market. For example, many companies currently require that job applications be submitted online, and many older workers, lacking knowledge in computers tend to lose opportunities to get hired despite their experience in their field of work. The retirement expectations of older workers may make a potential employer reluctant to hire them because it is believed that these workers will be retiring soon anyway and there is no need for taking the responsibility for paying their benefits when they only have a short time to work. Being unemployed for a long time may make older workers to be visibly frustrated and when they show up for interviews, they tend to be careless with their appearance and behavior and this immediately puts off the potential employer.

Amazon's Kindle: Aspects of Consumer Behavior

There are many aspects of consumer behavior which Amazon’s Kindle product and services should emphasize in their marketing plan. According to the article 100 Top Global Thinkers, many of these aspects are more concerned with the efficiency and affordability of the product as well as the existence of similar products on the market. It is therefore necessary for Amazon to keep these aspects in mind whenever it does its marketing because if it does not, then its products would not long survive the very competitive market environment of the modern world. In this paper, we shall elaborate on these aspects and how they affect the marketing of Amazon’s Kindle products.

The very first aspect that those marketing the Kindle product should consider is the fact that the product should be built or created to be more efficient than those of rival companies. This is essential for the marketing of the product because consumers tend to consider efficiency when buying a product. Consumers may prefer to go buy a product which is fast and wastes less time when they are using it even if the product is more expensive than similar products from other companies. The company should work on improving the speed of products if it intends to attract more consumers by promoting the efficiency of its products.

Another aspect of marketing which should consider consumer behavior is the frequent changing of how the product is packaged. Consumers tend to believe that the products with a look that is new and different from the previous one is better. Amazon should therefore ensure that the look of its Kindle products is changed frequently to ensure that consumers are kept interested in them. New tools should be incorporated into the new forms of the product to make its use easier and this can be made a basis upon which the product is promoted (Poole, K, 2011). Consumers tend to prefer portable products which they can use anywhere at their own convenience. The Kindle products should be made more portable than they already are so that its marketers can use it as a strategy for marketing the product. Consumers are more likely to want to buy a portable product because of the ability to use them in any situation. They can read an eBook anywhere at any time and this can be used as a marketing strategy when promoting this product.

The best marketing strategy which considers consumer behavior is the promotion of the product as being cheaper than those of rival products. The company should ensure that the prices of its products are lower than those of similar products in the market if it can successfully attract enough numbers of consumers to buy its product (Bjørner, S, 2010). Because of the affordability of the product, the consumer is more likely than not to want to buy the product because the current difficult economic situations would push them to buy cheaper products. It has further been noted that consumers tend to buy products which they know a lot more about than those which they do not know enough about. Amazon should therefore ensure that its Kindle product is advertised frequently on television, the internet, and other media which are commonly used by consumers in their day to day lives. Consumers will as a result have enough knowledge about the advantages of the product and will be encouraged to buy it.

Ethics in Social Work

It is the duty of and a requirement for social workers to maintain the highest standards of ethics when carrying out their duties towards those who they are concerned with. While doing this, they should always keep in mind that the best interests of their clients are put above all else even if that specific client does not wish for the intervention of the social worker in their lives (Berkman, Chauncey, Holmes, Daniels, & et al, 1999, 9 – 16). In all of the situation that they are confronted with, the social worker should always strive to look for all possible solutions to a problem before choosing to take a person into the direct care of the state because not many people willingly come into the system and in fact, most prefer to deal with all their problems privately (especially the elderly). Even if they are forced to take the latter action, the social worker should make sure that their client is treated with the dignity that they deserve and that they have been made aware of and understand the circumstances under which they are being taken into the care of the state (Gregory, P, 2003, 369 – 371). A good social worker should also ensure that he or she follows up on the people who have been under their care to make sure that they have been placed under the best care available and that they are being treated well and with dignity by those who are caring for them. In this paper, we shall look into a case study of an elderly man and the various options which are available to him that the social worker has to present to him and to decide the best course of action to be taken in this case.

This case involves a seventy eight year old man who lives alone in an apartment and has recently been discharged from a hospital having broken a hip after a fall in his home. He has a brother who lives in an apartment within the same building. The social worker in this situation is put on a tight spot because the old man, Mr. P, seems to be a very alert person who I yet to lose his faculties at his age. Although he is having difficulty in getting out of bed on his own and has as a consequence neglected his personal hygiene, he still insists that he needs no help and that his brother, who lives within the same building should not be informed of his situation. He declares that he is just fine on his own despite the fact that the social worker clearly sees that the old man is not doing well at all. The dilemma which faces the social worker at this moment is what exactly to do in the best interests of the old man so that his inability to take care of himself does not in any way affect his health. There are several options open to the social worker on how to deal with Mr. P’s situation and all of these options have their pros and cons because one way or another, there is going to be a negative effect on the old man, whether physical or psychological. The social worker must therefore consider all the options open to him very carefully so that no mistakes are made in the final decision concerning the old man (Johnson, 2000, 19 – 25). However, he should not be afraid to do what is ethically the best thing for the old man no matter the consequences of his actions.

The first option open to the social worker is to respect the principles of confidentiality and self – determination and do nothing about the situation in which Mr. P finds himself in. at first glance, this might be the best idea considering that the old man seems to be in control of all his mental faculties and knows exactly what he wants (Vinton, 1995, 431). However, his insistence that he is well able to take care of himself does not seem to be correct because it has been noted that he can barely get out of bed without assistance and that he has neglected his personal hygiene because of it. This shows that if he continues to be left alone, then the consequences of such an action would be very detrimental to Mr. P’s health. The social worker’s doing nothing about Mr. P’s situation would be an equivalent of neglecting his duties and this would amount to ignoring the ethics which are the guiding tools of all social workers (Wang, Xiong, Levkoff, & Yu, 2010, 72 – 84). The best thing for the social worker to do is to weigh all the other alternative options available for the caring of the old man until such a time as he is well enough to go back to living his life alone in his apartment. The social worker should not bow down to the insistence by Mr. P that he can take care of himself and should instead do what he thinks is right not only for the old man but also in his conscience. In relation to this, the next step would be the next best option in dealing with the old man’s situation.

The social worker would decide that the best thing to do for Mr. P would be for him to be put under involuntary placement due to the fact that he has an impaired judgment about the current circumstances of his life. This would be the best course to take in the immediate moment considering that neither of his siblings know about his current situation and that he has yet to inform them about it. Even if they were to be informed now, it would be days until they made the necessary arrangements to cater for their brother who would have by them turned for the worse due to neglect. It is the duty of the social worker to place Mr. P in a nursing home or a similar facility until other arrangements about his care can be made. This should be done despite the insistence by the old man that he does not wish to be placed under assisted care because in this situation, the social worker has to take into account not only what the old man thinks is best for him, but also what he himself thinks is the best thing to do for the old man. In this case, the social worker should take it upon himself to decide on behalf of Mr. P what is the best thing to do for him because it would be ethically irresponsible of him to leave the old man in the state in which he found him just because he wishes to respect Mr. P’s wished.

Another option open to the social worker in dealing with the old man’s situation in what can be considered as the least restrictive route would be to contact Mr. P’s brother who would check on him over the weekend to make sure that he is alright. This would be the best course of action for the social worker to take as long as he does it discreetly because Mr. P has specifically requested that his brother be not informed of his situation. It is the duty of the social worker to inform Mr. P’s brother of his condition because he is the only close relative the old man has at the moment and the brother’s knowledge of this situation would more likely than not ensure that he regularly checks on Mr. P and by doing so, there would be an assurance the he is well taken care of until other arrangements can be made for him. However, telling his brother about his condition would be breaking the principle of confidentiality and self determination to which Mr. P has a right. Furthermore, if Mr. P were to find out that the social worker had told his brother about his condition against his wishes, then he would lose any confidence he had in the social worker and this would make getting any future cooperation from him very difficult to get. Moreover, perhaps there was a specific reason why Mr. P did now want the social worker to inform his brother of his condition, perhaps because the brother also has a serious medical condition which may be fatal if he is given such news, or perhaps they have been estranged for some time and the brother would likely even bother to show up to check on Mr. P’s condition. All this should be put into account before the social worker can go ahead and inform the old man’s brother about his condition (Hoskins, I. 1993, 347).

The final step which a social worker should be taken when making a decision concerning what to do about Mr P is telling him that he is not convinced that the old man can attend to his own needs and that the best thing for him to do for the time being would be contact his brother and explain the situation to him. It is most certain that Mr P will protest the social worker’s decision and it is the duty of the social worker to convince him that it is the best option for the old man for the time being. The social worker should make sure that the old man completely understands his situation and that he is agreeable with the arrangements which are to be made for him until such a time as he gets better (Tremethick, 1997, 27 – 31). The social worker should also assure the old man that the situation will only temporary and that Mr P can get back to living his life as he used to once he gets better. After doing this, the social worker should then personally meet Mr P’s brother and explain to him all that he has noted about Mr P and the type of care which he requires in order to remain comfortable as well as put him on a fast road to recovery (Russell, 2004, 121). It would further be best if the social worker continued to keep monitoring Mr P’s ondition under his brother’s care and if he notes that he is not getting any better, then he should consider other options that will ensure that old man’s well being, even if it means places him involuntarily into a nursing home where he will get the necessary care he needs.

President Obama's Relationship with the Media

The relationships which individuals in society have with the media tend not only to be beneficial for their public image but also determine how powerful their influence is within that society. A good relationship with the media ensures that the opinions and the agenda of such an individual are widely propagated and the message which he is trying to get through to the public is delivered. In this paper, we shall look into the media relationship of President Barrack Obama and how it has helped him throughout his political career to eventually achieving and maintaining his popularity in the highest office of the United States. It has been noted that President Obama has continued to have a very good relationship with the media even after becoming president and this partly explains why he has remained very popular with most of the American public because the media tends to give very positive news concerning him.

One of the most effective tools which the President seems to have used for developing solid and lasting media relationships has been the background sessions with reporters where he has discussed his opinion of events with reporters off the record (Olsen, C, 2003). This has ensured that reporters have come to know him as an individual and consider him to be more down to earth than those politicians who tend to have a very impersonal relationship with reporters. As a consequence of this personal relationship with reporters, President Obama gets more coverage from the media than his political rivals and this has ensured his continued popularity with the American public because the media is one of the most powerful and influential institutions in the United States. Obama’s use of this institution has been very skillful especially considering many politicians consider it to be the enemy unless it is serving their own interests. Obama on the other hand has embraced the media, often using it to transmit his message to the public and as a tool for garnering public support for legislation that he backs in Congress (Kidwai, S, 2007).

Many would consider the President’s relationship with the media to be unhealthy due to the fact that were it not for the media, then he would not be as popular as he currently is. It can further be stated that the media is so much in favor of him that it may be tempted to only reveal the positive aspects of him and cover up any negative image that he may have (Rand, H, 1998). The great relationship he has with the media may also ensure that he gets his way in many matters concerning the governing of the United States and that the legislation he supports gets passed in Congress despite the fact that some o the legislation may be highly unpopular with the public. A good relationship with the media can give an individual unlimited power over those whom it has influence over and this is exactly what it has done for President Obama. Such power in the hands of an individual can be very dangerous to the democratic systems of the nation because in the hands of an individual, it can lead to a type of dictatorship which is not healthy for the people of the United States.