The Importance Of Branding

The Importance Of Branding 1. INTRODUCTION: Now a day, the companies have recognized the importance of branding as an important key to success. This assignment is aims to analyse the importance of branding and its role in ensuring success in business. The scope of assignment covers the introduction to the brand, need of branding, key concepts in branding, importance of branding, brand architecture and role of branding for creating value. The exploratory studies include the both business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) markets. The research is based upon secondary data, collected from secondary sources such as journal articles, scholarly reviews, books and websites. In the end, a conclusion has been presented, based upon the research findings along with recommendations. 2. BRANDING: The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines the brand as, a design, name, symbol, term, logo or symbol or combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors. The branding is, endowing products and services with the power of a brand (Kotler and Keller, 2009, p241). The Malhotra (2012) defines the branding as, process of utilizing marketing strategies to enhance their products or services image so that it is more readily recollected by the customer. A product or service is called brand only when its dimensions differentiate from others, but satisfy the same need. The point of difference can be related to products performance (functional, tangible and rational) or related to the image/abstract of brand (intangible, emotional or symbolic). The success of branding strategy of a company is mainly dependent on its brand planning, consists of branding models. The Keller (2009, p2) presents two important models for building brand. (a) Brand Positioning Model: The focus of the brand positioning model is to establish the competitive advantage in the minds of customers. Its all about positioning brand better than others. The competitive positioning can be developed through four steps. Competitive Framework of Reference: identify the competitors and the nature of competition in the market. Creating Point of Difference (POD): identify the attributes and features, different from competitors products. Creating Point of Parity (POP): Identify the attributes and features, similar to the competitors products. Creating Brand Mantra: A core promise or brand essence, three to five word phrases, presents the spirit of the brand. Like Nokia Connecting People, TESCO, every little help, Sony Ericson Finger Talk, McDonald I M loving it (Gangal, 2011); (TESCO-Strategy, 2012). (b) Brand Resonance Model: The brand resonance model focuses creating intense and loyal relationships with customers. The key components of this model are following (Appendix 1) (Keller, 2009); these four steps are also guided by brand pyramid (six building blocks) consist of brand salience, brand meaning, brand response, brand judgement, brand feeling and brand resonance, which help in connoting the sequence. Brand identity: Describe who are you? Through brand awareness. Brand Meaning: Describe what are you? Through defining POP POD. Brand Response: Describe what about you? Through positive actions. Brand Relationships: Describe what about you and me? Through loyalty. 1.1 Need of Branding: The marketers engage in creating brand and promoting brands due to many reasons, because they understand the significance of branding into their business. The different authors / researchers presents the different reasons (motives), behind making their brands. The Kotler and Keller (2009, p241) and CMS (2011) indicates towards differentiating motive as a major reason of branding. The marketers are engaged in branding, because they want to make their products different than other branded and non-branded products, so that the consumer can easily identify their brand, otherwise, without branding, the consumer cannot identify the products of a particular seller (brand). The Malhotra (2012) presents the reason behind branding is to enhance the image of a product that can be recalled by customers. When consumers are having high image of product in their minds, they can easily recognize the brand among other brands. A chocolate lover can easily recognize KitKat Chocolate as it is his favourite chocolate brand and he is having high image in its mind, so he would be only KitKat chocolate among other chocolate brands. The ultimate impact of high brand image results in higher sales and higher customer loyalty. The Foster (2011); Hankinson (2012, p974) states that the branding plays vital role in the success of business. When a company does create brands of its products and services, it enjoys many benefits such as, (a) branding differentiates the companys products from other products. (b) branding provides the company with communication ways in order to communicate the messages, principles, values and characteristics of products to customers. (c) Branding builds the report of company in the market, as new products with good quality and reasonable quality are best known in the market. (d) Branding is an effective way of developing the loyalty of customers. (e) Once the brand is established, the companies also feel ease to launch a new brand or product under its established brands. (f) Strong brands also help the company in difficult times or at the time of crises. (g) branding helps the companys in winning the purchase decisions of customers. (h) branding increases the branding recall among customer and ends up with strong customer loyalty. 1.2 Key Concepts of Branding: The key concepts of branding are the pillars, which help the companies to promote their brands towards their target customers. (a) Brand Positioning: Branding positioning is all about placing an image of the brand in the minds of customers. The Keller (2009, p6) describes the positioning as, act of designing the companys offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the minds of the target market. (c) Brand Attributes: The brand attributes are bundle of features and characteristics which highlights personality aspects of brand (Managementstudyguide.com, 2009). The brand attributes are developed through actions, images and advertising. (c) Brand Elements: The brand elements are components, which creates the identity of brands such as name, slogan, colour, characters, symbol, sound, jingle, shape, graphic, tastes and movements etc. (Kerr, 2012). For example, the symbol of Honda (H), slogan of TESCO every little helps, character of KFC KFC + old man, the yellow colour of McDonalds (M) and jingle of Nokia (Tune) etc. are the examples of brand elements, which creates the brand. (d) Brand Personality: The personality of brand is, sum total of characteristics of the organization or its culture, which reflects the organizations philosophy and mission (brandXpress.net, 2008). (e) Unique Selling Propositions (USP): The effectiveness of branding strategy can be enhanced through better identification and highlighting the USPs. The USPs are the key characteristics and factors, which presents that the companys product is better than competitors products (Kerr, 2012). (f) Brand Image: The brand image is basically customers set of beliefs about a specific brand (Managementstudyguide.com, 2009). The image of a brand is built up with the core association about brand in the mind of customers. (g) Emotional Branding: The emotional branding is consumers attachment to a specific, relevant and strong emotion (bonding), love or companionship to the brand (Rossiter and Bellman, 2012, p291). The focus of companies is to gain the emotional attachment of people, because when people are emotionally attached to a brand, it creates attitudinal loyalty that is beyond of behavioural loyalty. The emotional branding is effective for those products, which seeks the high involvement of people and positively motivated. The traditional advertising (based upon USPs) is also much effective for creating emotional attachment, but the impact of customers positive experience of products is effective in highly competitive dynamic environment. (h) Internal Branding: Due to the paradigm shift from product to services, a need of internal branding has been increased rapidly. There people actually deliver the services to final customers, so their role is vital in service delivery. They can deliver the service only when they truly understand the brand identity, commitments, values and elements, which can be communicated to internal employees through internal branding (Patla and Pandit, 2012, p115). The effectiveness of internal branding can be measured through employee complaints and feedbacks. Further, employees emotional attachment and lesser communication gap also enhance the efficiency of internal branding (Franà §ois-Gagne, 2012). 1.3 Importance of Branding: The most distinctive capability of marketing managers is to create, maintain, enhance and protect the brands, because they know the importance of branding for their business. It is said that the great brands, such as Nike, Sony, Mercedes etc. are not accidently become great, but they are the result of planned and thoughtful branding strategies (Keller, 2009). The important aspect of branding is that it enables the companies to launch their own brands and also protect their brand through registering copyrights (Kotler and Keller, 2009, p242). The high street clothing brands such as Next, Nike, Levis and Wallis etc. are running their own branded products through registering their own brands, which not only differentiate them from market competitors but also protect their brands from the copy. The big retailers such as TESCO, Sainsburys, Morrisons and Primark etc. have also launched their private label brands, which helped the companies establish their own brands in competition and thei r brands and trade market are registered, so its protection for them due to branding. According to CMS (2011), branding also supports the advertising strategy of a company, because when people are quite familiar with the brand name, colour, logo, symbol or any other brand element, then people, when they see advertised, feels their emotional attachment and feelings for the brand. In addition, if the people are having a good branding experience, then a high level of attachment will be formed and it will take the customers towards buying decisions and remain loyal. The key aspect of a brand is that, an effective branding strategy does not work for a sole brand but also works for the entire companys brand. The Kerr (2012) states that an effective branding increases the sales, but the impact of effective branding is not limited to the one brand or service, but all other brands receive the impact, associated with a particular brand. An effective branding of Apply iPhone 4 is not only promotes the brand equity of Apple and promotion of iPhone 4, but also promotes the other iPhone models and products of Apple. The Ashton and Pressey (2011, p1027) claim the branding reduces the competition. This concept is similar to the differentiation strategy, opposite of cost leadership strategy. A company that is facing high competition from its competitor can avoid the competition through differentiating its products from others with the help of branding. There are many examples about avoiding competition from branding. The Mercedes is a brand of automobiles, but it positioned itself as premium and luxury brand, bring out itself out from competition of regular car brands. TESCO belongs to the retail industry, but it positioned itself as wholesaler or cheaper product brand. Redbull belongs to the beverage industry, but it positioned itself as energy drink and separated itself from other beverage brands. This is how branding differentiates the products from the competition. The red action and blue ocean strategy also help the companies to avoid from competition (Appendix 2) (Kim and Mauborgne, 2010). The key responsibility of brands is to create value for their stakeholders. According to Kotler and Keller (2009, p242), the branding works for both consumers and companies. For consumers, brandings help them in identifying their favourite brands, because when brands are identical, consumer can easily recognize them. It also helps the consumers to identify the brands, based upon the experience, which brands satisfy their needs and which dont. Consumers are also saving from risks of buying such products, which are not giving them the true value of money. In the modern world, in which consumers are time starved, complicated and more rushed, so branding makes their lives easy with decision making and reducing risk. From the perspective of the firm, the key form of the value of a company is monetary benefits that means branding increases the returns on investment for their companys stakeholders through increasing sales. Further, brands also provide other benefits to companies. Branding simplifies the product tracing, product handling, maintaining accounting records, organizing inventory, legal protection and predicting demand for a particular product. Nestle UK Ireland is dealing in many brands across the UK, so branding of Nestle provides the company to differentiate its products from other companys products. The in-house facilities include locating the product, handling inventory and maintaining records of products (Kotler and Keller, 2009). Apart from internal attribute characteristics, brand elements and associations the branding strategy also leverages the brand equity from secondary sources such as Things (third party endorsements, events, causes), places (channels, country of origin), People (employee, celebrities, endorsements) and other sources (company, alliances, ingredients and extensions) (Appendix 4). The brand uses the foreign brand names, language and country of origin (Coo) in order to enhance brand equity of their product (Melnyk, Klein and V-lckner, 2012, p21); (Herstein, 2012, p147). The branding creates the value for its stakeholders through increasing sales, profitability and return on investment. When a strong brand is successful in achieving loyalty (both behavioural and attitudinal), then customers make repeat purchase and also recommends its fellows and friends to buy from the particular company (called positive word of mouth and referral group impact) (Kapferer, 2008, p20). Further, the strong brand can easily charge higher from their loyal customers, so using the premium pricing strategy for strong brand is an easy and strong brand also makes the customers less elastic to price increase (Kotler and Keller, 2009, p244). In short, from a financial perspective, the strong brands can get higher returns on investments. 1.5 Role of Brand Architecture: The brand architecture represents the structure of brands in an organization. Brand architecture basically sets of all components of the brand, like brands visual requirements, operational requirements, story, promises, meaning and personality traits, under a single unified structure (Moderandi Inc, 2006). In brand architecture, the corporate brands or umbrella brands (overreaching brand, top brand) are used across the products in the company such as; Virgin Train, Virgin Cola, Virgin Mobiles and Virgin airlines etc. Brand architecture can be unitary (one company name for all brands: Virgins), hybrid (sub-brands work individually but linked with company brand: Nestle SA), and diversified (brands are marketed individually: Yams Food (Pizza Hut, KFC) Pepsi Brands) (MarketingforWAHM.com, 2012, p260). There are several benefits of advantage of brand architecture (Verma, 2009); (Kotler and Keller, 2009); (KENNEDY and McCOLL, 2012); (a) the company can easily manage the products across fa mily brands. (b) The consumers can easily recognize the brands as part of their favourite brand. (c) It develops understanding about brands, how brands are related to specific portfolio and how they are different from each others. (d) It also reflects that how sub-brands along with corporate brand support the core purpose of the overall corporate brand. (d) It helps to develop new brand elements for new products. (e) It can help to assess performance of corporate brand, family brand and sub-brands individually. The characteristics of brand architecture, simplicity, no more than two levels, flexibility and proper arrangement of brands improves the performance of brand architecture (Daye, 2009). 1.6 Branding for Business to Business (B2B) markets: The previous discussion on branding and its importance presents the role of branding for business to consumers (B2C) markets. The business to business (B2B) branding is almost same as B2C branding but there are few differences, which indicates towards using slight approach for B2B branding. (a) The corporate brand is more visible in B2B branding than product branding. (b) The B2B target market is smaller than B2C large customer population (selection of advertising strategy is important). (c) The contracts with customers are long term (so pricing and product details are important). (d) The decisions of branding in B2B are more inclined towards functional aspects. (e) B2B buyers are using rational decision making rather than emotional decision making. (f) B2B buyers focus business relationships more than individual sales. (g) B2B buyers are elastic more on price (Brown, 2009); (Miller, 2007). These differences stimulate the marketers to take different approach for branding in business to business markets. In B2B branding, the companies build their brand equity and achieve competitive advantage through their core brand values. For example, the brand value of Dell is flexibility, Sony is famous due to innovation and IBM is having brand value of quality. So, when buyers (other companies) would like to make purpose decisions, they would focus on key value of company before making buying decision (Hague, 2010). Secondly, the B2B buyers make buying decisions on the basis of product performance, product availability, product price and services (guaranty warranty), so marketers of B2B markets highlights these particular benefits of their products in advertising rather than focusing on attributes of products. Further they focus on tangible advertising materials such as indoor and outdoor material, one to one marketing, relationship marketing etc. One research findings states brands when personified as a human can be used to manage B2B customers relationship with in a B2B network (Gupta, Melew ar and Bourlaskis, 2010, p395). 1.7 Implications for Brand Managers: This section highlights the implications for brand managers, because there are some counter arguments on a few concepts of branding and suggestions for brand managers to understand these keep points in order to correct their focus and ripe the optimal benefits of branding (Malhotra, 2012) (Royston, 2006). Branding should be simple: The people can remember and recall the brands, which are simple and having positive associations. The complex brand elements and ideas are difficult to remember and recall. Brandings should be safe: The game of branding should be played safe. Especially in global brand marketing, brand managers must focus on following local culture, customs, norms and legislations that would keep the brand safe from social or legal threats. Branding should be different: The success of branding is only when it is different from competitors through using innovative strategies and methods as part of branding strategy. Its all about creating opportunities through telling the customers that you are different than competitors. A brand is not only a Logo: Although the logo and brand name is an important element of branding (CMS, 2011), but brand is not only the logo. Brand Loyalty never was telling: The success of branding strategy is not evaluated how good you are doing advertising and promotions in order to tell the people they should trust you, but this trust must be initiated by people by themselves that would reflect the true effect of branding. Positioning is presence: Now a day, actions speak louder than words. The positioning of brand is not what people feel about your brand, but what you really make them feel about your brand. 2. CONCLUSION: The findings of secondary research conclude that the branding is having significant importance for the success of business. The marketers get several advantages of branding such as, greater financial returns, greater loyalty, improved brand perception, larger margins, improved employee performance, opportunities of extensions and licensing, improved communication, less threat from competition and more elastics to price increase and less elastic to a price decrease and overall success of the business. For consumers, the branding helps the customers to select their favourite brand, make buying decisions easily and reduce the risk of buying less valued product against their money. Apart from business to consumer markets, the branding is also very helpful for business to business markets. Brand architecture is good practice of arranging the brand into sequence in accordance with their positions in architecture as corporate brand, sub-brand, line extensions etc. The use of brand architect ure is helpful for companies to manage their brands effectively. The implications for brand managers are to understand the true spirit of the brand, develop effective associations and manage the brand across the architecture in order to reap the maximum benefits of architecture.

Biological and Cognitive Development Essay

Developmental psychology studies the changes and how such changes occur over a course of an individual’s life events. It seeks to understand the changes that are universal, the changes that occur regardless of the individual’s culture or experiences. Moreover, it also seeks to understand why and how individual differences occur – why some people respond one way in a particular situation while others respond quite differently. Further, developmental psychology is particularly concerned with the process by which behavior changes during an individual’s lifetime. By studying biological and cognitive development, psychologists and humanity hope to better understand, predict, and modify an individual’s behavior. BIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT Biological development refers to the changes in the body and brain from the moment of conception to old age. This development greatly influences people’s behavior. Three of these biological-related events are prenatal, from childhood to adolescent, and adult to aging. In prenatal development, the individual grows from a single fertilized egg cell, known as the zygote to an infant with billions of specialized cells. This period is divided into 3 stages: namely, the germinal, embryonic, and fetal changes. In the germinal stage, the zygote has become a small mass of cells; in the germinal stage, the fetus` brain and heart begin to develop, arms and legs appear, limbs and critical internal organs are rapidly developing; and in the fetal stage, the fetus` respiratory system has developed. So at the end of prenatal period, an individual have grown from a single cell into an amazingly complex individual who, on average, is about 20 inches long and weighs about 7. 5 pounds. The brain during the prenatal development begins to develop between the second and third week after fertilization, and by 3. 5 weeks a primitive nervous system is present. By the time of birth, virtually all of the approximately 100 billion neurons in the human brain are already present (Cowan, 1979). In the child development, an individual is like a virtual growing machine. By the age of 2, the average child is about 70 % taller than at birth and nearly 400 % heavier (Eichorn, 1989). As a rule of thumb, girls grow tall to about half their adult height by 18 months of age while the boys by the age of 2. Between the ages of 2 and 5 years, physical growth slows dawn and then levels off at a relatively steady rate until adolescence. The beginning of adolescence is also the onset of sexual maturation or puberty. The usual sequence of changes that occur during sexual maturation for girls are the following: breasts and pubic hair begin to develop and the onset of menstruation. For the boys, the first signs of puberty are the growth of penis and testes and the appearance of pubic hair. These early signs of sexual maturation take place during a rapid increase in height, muscle size and strength especially for the boys with growth peak at about the age of 14 years old. The girls on the other hand have their growth peak at 12 years old. However, boys grow taller than girls on average. But the growth of different parts o f the body is not uniform during the growing years. Physical growth ceases, on average, at about 18 years of age in girls and 20 years of age in boys. However, biological development does not stop until the end of life. The brain also grows rapidly during this period. At birth, the brain is about 25 % of its adult weight and size. By the age of 2, it has grown to about 75 % of its adult weight. Although all of a person’s neurons are present at birth, the number and complexity of the connections among neurons increase substantially after birth (Parmelee and Sigman, 1983), and this increase is partly responsible for the growth in brain size. Further, the increased neural connections and the development of myelin make possible more and more complex behavior and thought as an individual grows. In some areas of the brain, these developmental changes continue until adulthood (Parmelee and Sigman, 1983). The adult and aging life events are basically a declining stage. A variety of biological developments takes place as people age, including redistribution of body fat, decrease in bone mass, and decrease in muscle size and speed of contraction. Biological changes progress into old age. Many elderly people actually become shorter, partly because they slump and partly because of a decrease in bone mass. Muscle size and speed of contraction also decrease. Aging also takes its toll on internal body organs. The heart muscles become weaker, blood flow decreases, and breathing capacity continues to decline. Physical performance also declines. According to Stones and Kozma (1985), â€Å"these bodily changes are paralleled by declines in physical performance with age†. Beginning at about age 30, a person’s physical speed, strength, and endurance decline at an average rate at about 1. 5 % a year. The brain also continues to change biologically with age (Creasey & Rapoport, 1985). It decreases in size and weight, and some areas of the brain lose 50 percent or more of their neurons, specifically at the age of 50, with an average decrease of 2 % of brain volume every 10 years thereafter (Miller, Altson, and Corsellis, 1980). These age-related changes in the brain undoubtedly contribute to deteriorations of sensory, motor, and cognitive function. But just like biological changes in the body, these age-related changes in the brain are averages – the actual amount of change varies considerably from person to person. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT Cognitive development refers to the changes in knowledge about the world or specifically, it refers to the development of sensation and perception, of the ability to learn, to reason, and to solve problems. Just like biological development, cognitive development continues from birth through old age. The three cognitive-related events that I would like to discuss are newborn infants, childhood and aging. In infants, cognitive development begins from the moment of birth as they begin interacting with and gathering information about the world. They have all the rudimentary sensory abilities such as; they can see objects, can tell the different shapes and patterns but can’t change their focus very well. Their vision rapidly improves over the first six months to a year, although it may be several years until it is fully mature. Moreover, infants can also hear at birth but their threshold of hearing is higher and can’t discriminate well between sounds than adults. As with vision, an infant’s hearing improves rapidly over the first year, although it will be several years before it is fully mature. Further, infants have a well-developed sense of taste (Cawart, 1981) as they can discriminate among different tastes; they can also smell and react to different odors; and their sense of touch is particularly well-developed. Infant’s motor behavior consists primarily of reflexes such as rooting, sucking, and grasping. These reflexes gradually give way to coordinated voluntary actions, such as sitting and walking. On the other hand, infant’s can learn from the moment of birth. They show habituation, a simple form of learning where they stop responding to a repeated stimulus. They also learn through operant conditioning, which is making a particular response that brings about either reward or punishments. Although newborn infants can learn, they do not learn as readily as older children as their memory is not as good as that of adults. Children’s cognitive development theory is most influenced by Jean Piaget. He believed that people acquire knowledge by interacting with the world and that they construct knowledge through assimilation, which is incorporating new information and accommodation or modifying old information. He further proposed a series of four stages of cognitive development, where he described children’s basic intellectual abilities sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. According to Piaget, these stages represent qualitatively different ways of thinking that occur relatively and abruptly and in the same sequence for all children. Though many psychologists challenged and modified Piaget`s theory, arguing that cognitive development is not really stagelike, its basic tenets remain widely accepted. During Aging, changes in cognitive abilities seem to decline. This decline may be due to factors such as slow processing of information. Moreover, aging also show declines in memory performance, partly because they use fewer encoding strategies for remembering information and partly because they use fewer cues to retrieve information from memory. But long – term storage itself appears to be relatively unaffected by aging and, under favorable conditions, the elderly are nearly as good as young adults at remembering information. Further, laboratory studies indicate that performance on a variety of problem-solving tasks declines with age. But these studies also show that training and practice can markedly improve older adults` problem-solving performance. What is more, when tasks are familiar and the subjects have experience with them, they show little or no decline in performance with age. Older people have accumulated a lifetime of experience, knowledge, and wisdom that they bring to everyday tasks, and this can offset cognitive deficits that may occur (Canestrari, 1986). The picture of inevitable severe intellectual impairment that many people have of the elderly is therefore, a misconception. So, when we consider each of these life events though discussed separately, we will see that each of these two major threads in the development (biological and cognitive) of the individual are interwoven. Hence, we cannot separate one from the other and thus must be considered when studying about an individual’s development or life-span changes. References Canestrari, R. E. , Jr. (1986). Age changes in acquisition. In G. A. Talland (Ed. ) Human Aging and Behavior (pp. 169-188). New York: Academic Press. Cowan, W. M. (1997). The development of the brain. Scientific American, 241, 113-133. Cowart, B. J. (1981). Development of taste perception in humans: Sensitivity and preference throughout the life span. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 43-73. Creasy, H. & Rappport, S. I. (1985). The aging human brain. Annals of Neurology, 17,2-10. Eichorn, D. H. (1997). Biological Development: Current foci of research. In J. D. Osofsky (Ed. ), Handbook of infant development (pp. 253-282). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Miller, A. K. H. , Altson, R. L. , & Corsellis, J. H. N. (1980). Variation with age in the volume of grey and white matter in the cerebral hemispheres of man. Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology, 6, 119-132. Parmelee, A. H. , Jr. , & Sigman , M. D. (1983). Prenatal brain development and behavior. Handbook of child psychology, Vol II (95-1550. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Piaget, J. (1983). Piaget`s theory. In W. Kessen (Ed. ), Handbook of child psychology (4th ed. ). History , theory, and methods 9pp. 103-128). New York: John Wiley & Sons

Simon Bolivars Crossing of the Andes

In 1819, the War of Independence in Northern South America was locked in a stalemate. Venezuela was exhausted from a decade of war, and patriot and royalist warlords had fought each other to a standstill. Simà ³n Bolà ­var, the dashing Liberator, conceived of a brilliant yet seemingly suicidal plan: he would take his 2,000 man army, cross the mighty Andes, and hit the Spanish where they were least expecting it: in neighboring New Granada (Colombia), where a small Spanish army held the region unopposed. His epic crossing of the frozen Andes would prove to be the most genius of his many daring actions during the war. Venezuela in 1819 Venezuela had borne the brunt of the War of Independence. Home of the failed First and Second Venezuelan Republics, the nation had suffered greatly from Spanish reprisals. By 1819 Venezuela was in ruins from the constant warring. Simà ³n Bolà ­var, the Great Liberator, had an army of some 2,000 men, and other patriots like Josà © Antonio Pà ¡ez also had small armies, but they were scattered and even together lacked the strength to deliver a knockout blow to Spanish General Morillo and his royalist armies. In May, Bolà ­vars army was camped near the llanos or great plains, and he decided to do what the royalists least expected. New Granada (Colombia) in 1819 Unlike war-weary Venezuela, New Granada was ready for revolution. The Spanish were in control but deeply resented by the people. For years, they had been forcing the men into armies, extracting â€Å"loans† from the wealthy and oppressing the Creoles, afraid they might revolt. Most of the royalist forces were in Venezuela under the command of General Morillo: in New Granada, there were some 10,000, but they were spread out from the Caribbean to Ecuador. The largest single force was an army of some 3,000 commanded by General Josà © Marà ­a Barreiro. If Bolà ­var could get his army there, he could deal the Spanish a mortal blow. The Council of Setenta On May 23, Bolà ­var called his officers to meet in a ruined hut in the abandoned village of Setenta. Many of his most trusted captains were there, including James Rooke, Carlos Soublette and Josà © Antonio Anzoà ¡tegui. There were no seats: the men sat on the bleached skulls of dead cattle. At this meeting, Bolà ­var told them of his daring plan to attack New Granada, but he lied to them about the route he would take, fearing they would not follow if they knew the truth. Bolà ­var intended to cross the flooded plains and then cross the Andes at the Pà ¡ramo de Pisba pass: the highest of three possible entries into New Granada. Crossing the Flooded Plains Bolà ­var’s army then numbered some 2,400 men, with less than one thousand women and followers. The first obstacle was the Arauca River, upon which they traveled for eight days by raft and canoe, mostly in the pouring rain. Then they reached the plains of Casanare, which were flooded by the rains. Men waded in water up to their waists, as thick fog obscured their vision: torrential rains drenched them daily. Where there was no water there was mud: the men were plagued by parasites and leeches. The only highlight during this time was meeting up with a patriot army of some 1,200 men led by Francisco de Paula Santander. Crossing the Andes As the plains gave way to the hilly jungle, Bolà ­var’s intentions became clear: the army, drenched, battered and hungry, would have to cross the frigid Andes Mountains. Bolà ­var had selected the pass at Pà ¡ramo de Pisba for the simple reason that the Spanish did not have defenders or scouts there: no one thought an army could possibly cross it. The pass peaks at 13,000 feet (almost 4,000 meters). Some deserted: Josà © Antonio Pà ¡ez, one of Bolà ­vars top commanders, tried to mutiny and eventually left with most of the cavalry. Bolà ­vars leadership held, however, because many of his captains swore they would follow him anywhere. Untold Suffering The crossing was brutal. Some of Bolà ­var’s soldiers were barely-dressed Indians who quickly succumbed to exposure. The Albion Legion, a unit of foreign (mostly British and Irish) mercenaries, suffered greatly from altitude sickness and many even died from it. There was no wood in the barren highlands: they were fed raw meat. Before long, all of the horses and pack animals had been slaughtered for food. The wind whipped them, and hail and snow were frequent. By the time they crossed the pass and descended into New Granada, some 2,000 men and women had perished. Arrival in New Granada On July 6, 1819, the withered survivors of the march entered the village of Socha, many of them half-naked and barefoot. They begged food and clothing from the locals. There was no time to waste: Bolà ­var had paid a high cost for the element of surprise and had no intention of wasting it. He swiftly refitted the army, recruited hundreds of new soldiers and made plans for an invasion of Bogota. His greatest obstacle was General Barreiro, stationed with his 3,000 men at Tunja, between Bolà ­var and Bogota. On July 25, the forces met at the Battle of Vargas Swamp, which resulted in an indecisive victory for Bolà ­var. The Battle of Boyacà ¡ Bolà ­var knew that he had to destroy Barreiros army before it reached Bogota, where reinforcements could reach it. On August 7, the royalist army was divided as it crossed the Boyaca River: the advance guard was in front, across the bridge, and the artillery was far to the rear. Bolivar swiftly ordered an attack. Santanders cavalry cut off the advance guard (which were the best soldiers in the royalist army), trapping them on the other side of the river, while Bolà ­var and Anzoà ¡tegui decimated the main body of the Spanish force. Legacy of Bolà ­var’s Crossing of the Andes The battle lasted only two hours: at least two hundred royalists were killed and another 1,600 were captured, including Barreiro and his senior officers. On the patriot side, there were only 13 killed and 53 wounded. The Battle of Boyacà ¡ was a tremendous, one-sided victory for Bolà ­var who marched unopposed into Bogota: the Viceroy had fled so swiftly that he left money in the treasury. New Granada was free, and with money, weapons, and recruits, Venezuela soon followed, allowing Bolà ­var to eventually move south and attack Spanish forces in Ecuador and Peru. The epic crossing of the Andes is Simà ³n Bolà ­var in a nutshell: he was a brilliant, dedicated, ruthless man who would do whatever it took to free his homeland. Crossing flooded plains and rivers before going over a frigid mountain pass over some of the bleakest terrain on earth was absolute madness. No one thought Bolà ­var could pull off such a thing, which made it all the more unexpected. Still, it cost him 2,000 loyal lives: many commanders would not have paid that price for victory. Sources Harvey, Robert. Liberators: Latin Americas Struggle for Independence Woodstock: The Overlook Press, 2000.Lynch, John. The Spanish American Revolutions 1808-1826 New York: W. W. Norton Company, 1986.Lynch, John. Simon Bolivar: A Life. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006.Scheina, Robert L. Latin Americas Wars, Volume 1: The Age of the Caudillo 1791-1899 Washington, D.C.: Brasseys Inc., 2003.

Coca Cola s Leadership And Management Style Of The Company

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