Enhancing strategic defensive positioning and performance in the outfield

Over the past 20 years, professional and collegiate baseball has undergone a transformation, with statistics and analytics increasingly factoring into most of the decisions being made on the field. One particular example of the increased role of analytics is in the positioning of outfielders, who are tasked with tracking down balls hit to the outfield to record outs and minimize potential offensive damage. This paper explores the potential of location analytics to enhance the strategic positioning of players, enabling improved response and performance. We implement a location optimization model to analyze collegiate ball-tracking data, seeking outfielder locations that simultaneously minimize the average distance to a batted ball and maximize the weighted importance of batted ball coverage within a response standard. Trade-off outfielder configurations are compared to observed fielder positioning, finding that location models and spatial optimization can lead to performance improvements ranging from 1 to 3%, offering a significant strategic advantage over the course of a season.

The Malabo Declaration and agenda 2063: making climate smart agriculture real with conservation agriculture in Africa.

The African Union (AU) has provided the vision and even a hint of the future through Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want, to be achieved, in part, through accelerated agricultural growth and transformation, leading to shared prosperity and improved livelihoods. The promulgation is contained in the Malabo Declaration of the AU Summit held in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, in June 2014. Attaining the ambitious commitments of ending hunger, doubling productivity, halving post-harvest losses and poverty, enhancing resilience in livelihoods and production systems to climate variability and other shocks, and reducing child stunting to 10% and numbers of underweight children to 5% by 2025 requires a definition of the strategies and the operative paradigms. The Declaration also calls for African agriculture to become climate smart. This chapter presents the strategic positioning of Conservation Agriculture (CA) in making climate smart agriculture (CSA) real in Africa and harnessing partnerships, informed by science and analyses of lessons from past interventions. We conclude that investing US$50 per household, in a capacity development programme in CA for 25 million households, has the potential to increase land productivity, produce food surpluses and transform livelihoods, thus attaining the Malabo Declaration targets. The investment in and adoption of CA-based CSA to that magnitude will not only move Africa's agriculture to a new level, where a significant proportion of agricultural land is managed with CA systems, but also supply competitively priced raw materials for transformative industrial and economic growth in Africa.

Consumer Perception of Brand Repositioning Through Benefit Diversification and Intensity of Use

A company's positioning strategy is focused on how the company wants its brand to be perceived in the market. However, the constant change of markets has led many companies to carry on repositioning strategies to deliberately change their strategic positioning, namely by widening its product or service benefits to attract a wider market audience. As product or service positioning is always defined by the consumer, there is the need to understand the extent to which each company is able to communicate its new intended positioning and actually make it perceived. This chapter presents the case of Pedras, a Portuguese brand of naturally sparkling water which ramped up its communication efforts regarding the extension of its product's benefits in order to minimize the potential gap between intended and perceived positioning. Digital communication strategies are discussed to engage young consumers.

Reposicionamento Estratégico para Diferenciação por Meio da Educação Inovadora ## Strategic Positioning Differentiation by Innovative Education

Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo geral analisar os resultados decorrentes da implantação de uma estratégia para a competitividade voltada à educação inovadora, em uma instituição privada de ensino básico brasileira. O levantamento dos aspectos teóricos possibilitou a delimitação metodológica para a realização da pesquisa de campo, o estudo de caso, para o que foram recolhidos documentos, além da observação in loco, da realização de entrevistas e aplicação de questionários, em um esforço de campo com duração de três meses, no período de outubro de 2019 a janeiro de 2020. Como resultados, pode-se observar que a escola caso foi uma escola tradicional cuja missão era preparar alunos para o vestibular, mediante ensino convencional em disputa de preços com as instituições concorrentes. Com a mudança de posicionamento, a escola caso repensou seu projeto pedagógico, implantou novas metodologias, trazendo o aluno para ser protagonista de sua aprendizagem, vivendo experiências que desenvolvem competências cognitivas e socioemocionais. Sob o ponto de vista estrutural, reformulou o projeto arquitetônico e investiu em novas tecnologias para ensino-aprendizagem. As estratégias de reposicionamento estratégico da escola caso em implantar uma educação inovadora se mostraram eficientes para atrair e fidelizar seus clientes, em um case de sucesso.AbstractThis research aimed analyze results arising from a strategy implementation for competitiveness aimed at innovative education, in a private institution of basic education in Brazil.

La Gestión Estratégica de costos. Estudio del Posicionamiento Estratégico en algunos emprendimientos en época de pandemia en la R. O. del Uruguay en el 2020. Estudio de casos / Strategic Cost Management. Study of Strategic Positioning in some ventures in times of pandemic in the R.O. of Uruguay in 2020. Case study

En el 2019 el mundo se vio conmocionado por una pandemia, la enfermedad coronavirus (Covid 19). Según la OMS desde su inicio hasta agosto 2021 se han producido 4:291.462 muertes, 202:490.807 casos reportados. Todos los países se vieron obligados a tomar medidas, por el alto contagio, y con muchas variantes por la mutación del virus, a la vez que muchos laboratorios comenzaban con el estudio para poder llegar a una solución. Las medidas tomadas han sido muy variadas, desde no tomar ninguna medida en particular, hasta el cierre total de actividades.En el caso de Uruguay, se tomaron medidas tempranas y algunos sectores de la economía permanecieron abiertos, dependiendo de la etapa en la cual se estaba.Tanto las empresas, como las personas tuvieron que tomar decisiones para poder sobrellevar la situación.La Gestión Estratégica de Costos es el análisis amplio de los costos que consideran en forma explícita las estrategias y está conformado por 3 análisis: la Cadena de Valor, el Posicionamiento Estratégico y de las Causales de Costos. En este trabajo, se analizan, básicamente, los dos últimos en nueve emprendimientos. Estos casos incluyen micro emprendimientos, emprendimientos individuales, reconversiones de empresas o la incorporación de nuevas áreas por la pandemia, todos con el mismo objetivo: sobrellevar el contexto y de ser posible obtener ganancias. Hay diferentes realidades, desde emprendimientos que obtuvieron pérdidas a otros que obtuvieron ganancias

Strategi Segmenting, Targeting dan Positioning dalam Membentuk Brand Image Kafe Pan Java

Marketing is the main activity carried out to maintain business benefit, develop, and receive. Therefore, to attract consumers to make purchases, business people must be able to implement STP (Segmenting, Targeting, Positioning) strategy. This study aims to determine the segmenting, targeting, and positioning strategies used by Pan Java Cafe in forming a brand image. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative, with data collection through interview and documentation. Then the data are analyzed using data reduction, data presentation and drawing conclusion. The results shows that the Pan Java strategy segmentation is based on Demographic, Psychographic and Behavioral segmentation. In the targeting strategy, Pan Java Cafe sets a target, where only the marketing team is in the upper middle class community such as Civil Servant (PNS), student, teacher, lecturer, and tourist. Meanwhile, Pan Java's strategic positioning positions its business as a tourist village or cafe that offers a place with a different, unique, comfortable, and safe atmosphere. Currently, Pan Java has formed a brand image as a cafe which is made up of local products.

Online Reputation Management in Canadian Hospitals

This paper aims to evaluate how Canadian hospitals manage Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and their own corporate websites to promote their brand and reinforce their strategic positioning. We carried out a literature review about corporate communication, branding and health organizations; and then, we defined 48 key performance indicators to analyze how the best 85 Canadian hospitals managed Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and their corporate website for promoting their brands. We concluded that most Canadian hospitals used their corporate website for disseminating journalistic information; Facebook and Twitter, for interacting with patients; and Youtube, for publishing videos about health education.

A comparative analysis of employees’ and customers’ attitude towards Islamic banking

Purpose Islamic banking industry with all of its exponential growth and global recognition has been under criticism for the past two decades. However, the problem signifies further when such criticism is made from within the organization and is well supported by outside (the customers). The purpose of this study is to provide a coherent exploration to investigate the factors that polarize its employees and customers across many parts of the world. Design/methodology/approach To investigate the phenomenon, a total of 30 responses were taken through interviews 15 each from customers and employees. Afterwards, the data was analysed and summarized into two categories. In doing so, the top five Malaysia’s Islamic banks were shortlisted to collect data from employees and customers. Findings A detailed thematic analysis resulted in six themes (Contradiction between theory and practice, Islamic banking knowledge and awareness, inadequate Shariah training, employees’ background, Shariah compliance, Islamic banking benefits) for employees and five (Islamic banking benefits, applying Shariah in Islamic banking, knowledge of Islamic banking, Islamic banking promotion, Islamic banking employees’ behaviour) for customers, respectively. Research limitations/implications The results have stronger implications for both practice and theory as organizations can assess stakeholders and their perceptions about Islamic banking. Another implication is the comparative examination of employees and customers which can potentially affect decision and policy making in Islamic banks. Islamic banks can also address employment-related issues related to employees’ behaviour vis-à-vis marketing-related problems faced by its customers that will ultimately improve its global market share and strategic positioning. Originality/value The study is based on the importance of Islamic banking in Malaysia and explores the factors that potentially create a positive or negative insight into Islamic banking – both in employees and customers.

Leveraging the pharmacy executive beyond the pharmacy enterprise: Opportunities for advocacy, senior leadership integration, and strategic positioning

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