#fourthblog

The Finale

Alas, we have come to the last phase of our business journey: our final pitching.

Unlike the previous venture proposal, we have now come to realize the cruciality of marking our products with reasonable and profitable prices to come to a point where all our expenses would become worth the sacrifice. During this time, we hypothesized that increasing our markup percentage would yield sufficient sales for us to continue with our business for the next few years.

To test this hypothesis, we took the initiative to draft a profit chart and we saw that we would eventually become “lugi” after a few years if we pursue with only 30% markup on our food items. In fact, we would not gain anything considering the production and administrative expenses we shall be incurring during the first venture, and will only begin gaining a little profit on the fourth year of our operation. And this, we figured, will not be able to sustain our business, considering we will be in constant need of supplies of fresh ingredients daily to cook our food combos.

Considering this dilemma, we came up with two options to choose from: either to increase the markup we were imposing on our unit products or increase the number of unit products to be sold while ensuring we use the least possible prices we could find of still-good-quality materials and ingredients of our products.

Upon deliberating and solving for the potential profit, however, we found that increasing the number of unit products would yield us profit at a longer period of time (1.5 years shy of our first operation). Similar to the previous issue, we realized that this would not be able to sustain us, and thus, have opted for the other remaining option: to increase the markup on our products.

At first, we were concerned that the prices may turn out a little too high for our student-customers; upon calculating, however, we found that they are still affordable and competitive in the market, for one complete meal in a bowl that costs P49.00 in our store would equate to roughly only one viand in our direct competitors.

It is for this reason that we rose to a 70% markup which will help us earn adequately, all while maintaining the affordability to our customers at only P49.00, P59.00, and P79.00 price per food combo, respectively. These prices with the markups, multiplied with the minimum allocated number of units to be prepared per day (50 pieces per food combo), would yield us a profit of approximately P49,000 during the first month of operation, contributing to a total of P800,000 gross profit for the first year, and our first million within five years of operation.

Upon embarking this journey towards being an entrepreneur, it was always a constant battle between understanding the needs of the people and having the sufficient resources to be able to compensate to these needs the people wants. As an aspirant, one must realize the responsibility an entrepreneur plays in the society which is not being a contributor to the local economy, but also a responder to the pleads of the people.

While approaching the Final Pitching, a series of emotions had surge within us, which mainly includes excitement and anxiety simultaneously. Upon reviewing the comments with our initial pitching and proposal, it was a great reminder for us that we still have a lot to work on. Some of the comments were directed to our finances should be broken down properly, how much profit we should set as a goal to attain within the end of every month, how the product should be advertised, and lastly, how to ensure that the advertisement means that were to be used are to be effective especially in the long run for the business.

With thorough reflection and understanding of these words coming from the panellists, the group once again huddled together and recalibrated new ideas up to the board. Moving on, we talked about what we need to change, improve, and remove in the initial plan for the start-up business. To begin with the final planning of the start-up, the team decided to meet up and assign each one with tasks so that the minimum amount of time for improvisation is attained.

To further elaborate the decided plan, the team had concluded to continue with the variety of foods that were to be provided, the means of the product would be produced, the ingredients that are to be used, and the key resources/partners involved within the start-up. The things that were improved would include the delivery methods that are to be utilized (which is instead of delivering it via walking, we would be using a bicycle to be able to deliver around the campus), the price of the product in generating greater income (where instead of Php 25.00, the price would be set to Php 30.00 to compensate proper ratio of profit to capital), the scope of the business (where instead of covering only the CMU-CON and University Hospital, but also for nearby colleges to cover larger population for possible customers) and the advertisement means (which is to include physical verbal advertisement and not only limited to posters and flyers, and online/ social media). These are the hypothesis definitions that the group has deduced upon total consideration of the deliberation with the panellists.

To test the hypothesis that were raised, the Final Pitching had been looked upon, the team had prepared their intellect, their materials, and their wit to answer the questions possibly thrown by the panellists. At a glance, the product may seem overly used but little do they know they are about to witness something that the university needs; an answer to a problem that each of one overlooks. Here, we presented the totality of our product, from target areas and ingredients to be used to the finances and expenses that are to be taken. Upon assessment, the panellists were thrilled and gave us the validation we need. In this way, hypothesis testing, in its own means, was approved and attained.

With the options that were in the line for the team as well as the decisions that had come along with these options, the team was able to break it down to what the start-up business was meant to be. Each of the team members were very glad and contented with how it all came about. By hearing the pleas and opinions of each, we are able to sum it up to a collective whole. We know, in some little way, we are able to leave something to the panellists and co-aspiring entrepreneurs which is to really be vigilant in looking out for problems, and responsive to those alarming ones especially those who could have a significant effect in the long run. With all of these, the team has finally envisioned to entirety of the business through laying out all the possible options, and picking out the best ones.  

Furthermore, this is not the end. We still had one task to go. This task was the finishing touch to what we’ve worked for in GEE-16, although could be a disguised beginning for an opportunity for us if we are all willing to partake. Upon deciding the theme and overall outcome of the video that we would like to present for our product promotion, we had come back to our roots, where the start-up all began, thus we decided to come up with a heart-warming, mouth-watering, and reality-reflecting video in doing our final project. Here, we showcase our product, its ingredients, its benefits, and its allocation in the university. It shows how our product could play a big role in the university and its people. The complete concept of the video was agreed fairly by the team thus executed was well and properly.  

SYNOPSIS:

King George VI was having difficulties in public speaking and he has a speech impediment. Bertie (King George VI) was having a session with a speech therapist, but Bertie gives up and tells his wife Elizabeth that he's finished with trying to cure his stutter. But his wife didn’t give and went to ask for help from Lionel Logue to help his husband’s difficulty in speech.  Logue and Bertie worked together, but no matter how much progress they make, all of it seems to evaporate as soon as Bertie gets into a stressful situation. Logue insists on delving into Bertie's personal life because he's convinced that Bertie's stutter didn’t start right after he learned how to speak. Things are already bad, and got even worse. Bertie's father, King George V, passes away and leaves the throne to Bertie's irresponsible brother David. But one day, Bertie gets the news that his brother David is going to leave the throne of England in order to marry an American named Wallis. That means that Bertie will have to become the king. Logue promises to help him deliver his speeches. In a dramatic scene at Westminster Abbey, Logue also makes Bertie realize that he deserves to be heard not as a king, but as a human being. In the movie's final scene, Logue steps into a broadcasting room with Bertie and helps him get through his first wartime speech. With Logue's help and friendship, Bertie gives a killer speech, and people all over England are inspired by his words.

REACTION-ANALYSIS:

Starting up with our fourth week,today we will be focusing on Distributed systems which has become a rising topic in the present day.

We all know from the very beginning the computer world used desktop applications which are also known as standalone applications.

These were very simple to use but when the world starting developing rapidly the need for distributed computing started rising up.More communication with other networks needed.Also occurrence of deadlocks(a deadlock is where computer processes gets locked and neither one can work until one releases the other..) in desktop applications became a headache to developers.These facts made that the world needed a new way of communication.

So lets start with distributed system and distributed computing. These two terms have a very close connection with them.Often these two terms has caused havoc and debated in computing community too.

A Distributed system consists of computers linked together through a network which allows resources to be shared.Distributed computing allows communication between the components of this distributed system.

We will now look at distributed systems Vs standalone applications

Distributed systems have proved to be very efficient since, *they have increased computing speed *works with low cost being reliable *run on multiple systems simultaneously *Doesn't affect the whole system if one component crashes.

The following are the elements of a distributed computer system.. 1.Processing components 2.Data networks for computers to communicate. 3.Data stores 4.Configuration of above elements.

Distributed systems uses protocols(rules applicable in computing world for networking mostly) For mail services which operate with the protocols like SMTP, POP3,IMAP Games and multimedia techniques uses protocols like RTP,SIP.

After the evolution of websites,web apps,web services we have now a new type of web based application which are called RIAs which are known as Rich Web Applications. So what are exactly RIAs?

RIAs are also a type of web based system which uses distributed computing. Though RIAs use distributed computing they have desktop application characteristics too.They offer us better visual experience with fast performance. These offer the user direct interaction with page elements through editing,dragging and dropping tools. Over traditional HTML pages RIAs have the best use as they do not take much time to load like HTML pages once they are refreshed or reloaded. AJAX,Adobe Flash Player,Microsoft Silverlight are popular tools which use RIA technology.

We can also find types of distributed systems which are mostly commonly used terms in the information technology field.

1.Tier architectures 2.Monolithic and micro services 3.MVC architectures (model control view architecture)

Of theses I think that most of my beloved readers have heard about tier architectures. If not lets have a brief look at them!

Starting the with the basic architecture which is client server architecture also famously known as Two tier architecture we will go up-to MVC architectures.

This table will provide you with basic features of the tier architectures.

Next comes the architectures, monolithic and micro services.

This is a comparison between monolithic and micro services architecture

MVC architecture

The MVC architecture basically has three components known, 1.Model - represents data and business layer. 2.Control - handles requests made by users. 3.View - displays data.

MVC has become a widely used software in web application development as it has advantages like ability to work in simultaneous development environments and code re-usage and so on.Originally this was introduced to desktop applications and then were converted to use in web development too. This is also used to develop user interfaces. Languages such as Java,C#,Python uses this architecture.

And of course this architecture has drawbacks too. *Increased complexity *Need of multiple programmers for the relevant layers *Requirement of knowledge of multiple technologies as MVC has many sides to coped with.

Further more MVC architecture can be categorized as Classic MVC,Client side MVC,Client and server MVC and MVC web version.

*Classic MVC

Classic MVC has the following model and it is important to note that in this model only one way communication is present between control and view.

*Client side MVC

Only client is present.Spring uses this technique.

*Client and server MVC

Both client and server uses this architecture.Also known as dual MVC architecture.But this lacks proper configuration.

*MVC web version

To end about talking distributed systems we will look into communication technologies used by these. Majorly three ways are implemented to communicate in distributed systems.

1.Functional oriented communication *RPC/RMI

2.Message oriented communication *CORBA

3.Resource oriented communication *REST

The third type of communication will be discussed separately in the near future. Basically RPC and RMI has following features..

Overall RMI is better than RPC as it gives a cleaner code.Therefore errors can be identified easily.

On the other hand CORBA facilitates communication within systems that are deployed in different platforms.This also supports many languages.

To end the biggest topic we will take a look at XML and JSON which are used in data storage. These both are similar in many aspects but have some dissimilarities too.

To learn more about XML and JSON you can visit these links..

https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_json_intro.asp https://www.w3schools.com/xml/

Tomcat server

Now leaning onto the final topic,we'll take a visit to details of a Java based open source application server called Tomcat.

Tomcat started as a servlet and now functions a fully functioned server. Tomcat can be downloaded by the Tomcat official website according to your user requirements.

This is the link to official site

https://tomcat.apache.org/download-80.cgi

To run Tomcat Java kit must be working well.To find whether this is okay we can use the windows command prompt and run the simple command %ECHO JAVA HOME%

If Java has being configured correctly it will give details about Java tools or otherwise it will say that the PATHS haven't been configured correctly.Then you can configure them using the standard way(You can have a look at my first blog article to proceed)

After downloading the executable file by Tomcat site you can run it. It will give simple options to be filled prior to it's execution. Tomcat has three ports,namely 1.Server shutdown port 2.HTTP port 3.AJP port

These three ports are connectors and they play a very crucial role once it comes to web application development using Tomcat server in deploying them in the server.These ports will be listening to requests.

HTTP port will be listening to TCP protocol while AJP port will listen to AJP(Apache JServ Protocol) Usually by default 8080 is used for server shutdown port.