6 Smart Tips to See Your House the Way It Used to Look

6 Smart Tips to See Your House the Way It Used to Look Before old house restoration even begins, save time and money with a little investigation. Ever wonder what your home used to look like before modern improvements? Was there always a wall there? How could your Victorian home have such a modern kitchen? What is that exterior siding covering where the windows used to be?   Over the years, your home may have seen many remodelings. The larger and older your home is, the more opportunities the previous owners had for making substantial changes. Most homeowners like to leave their mark on property in the name of comfort and upgrades - everyone wants improvements. For whatever reasons, every next owner usually has different priorities. Like home ownership itself, remodeling is part of the American Dream for many people  and the opportunities for re-muddling increase as the age and square footage of the house increase. Many people want to restore a home to its original beauty, but how do you do that? Learning about the earliest design of your home can take many months. If you have no blueprints, youll need time to do some serious detective work. These handy tips will help you discover the origins of your old house, inside and outside. Tips to Discover Your Real Home 1. Begin with age. Homeowners think they are buying their own homes as personal property, but any property owner is really buying into a neighborhood of history. How old is your house? How old is the neighborhood? With a deed, the answer may be straightforward. Beginning with this information gives context to your house. 2. Your house is probably not unique. All architecture, including the common home, tells the story of time and place. Building and design are lessons in the history of populations. Put your house in context with how your country was populated. Where do people live in the United States? Consider this basic question: Why was your house built at all? What was the need for shelter at this time and at this place? What architectural style dominated the region at the time? If your home is in a line of houses, stand back across the street and look up - does your house look a little bit like the house next door? Builders very often built two or three houses in a row, efficiently using the same handed-down plans. 3. Learn about the history of your community. Ask your local historian or  ask a reference librarian where to look in your local public library. Does your town or city have a historic district with a historic commission? Anyone interested in houses, including real estate agents, often know a great deal about local builders and housing styles. Visit your neighbors and different neighborhoods. Their homes may mirror yours. Make maps of where houses were built in relation to local businesses, including farms. Was your house part of a farm whose land was split up? What major industries were nearby that may have affected rapid population growth? 4. Find floor plans for your old house. Remember that your old house may never have had blueprints. In the early 1900s and before, builders rarely drew up detailed specifications. The entire process of building was handed down from generation to generation. In the U.S., architecture didnt become a profession until the 19th century and building codes and regulations were rare until the 20th century. Still, research before restoration could ultimately save a lot of time. 5. Look under the rug. Remember the concept of hiding something under the rug or sweeping secrets under the carpet? Its good to remember that much of your homes history is right there in front of you with very little effort - if you know where to look. Unless remodeling was done by a master craftsman, evidence is left behind. Pull up some baseboard or molding to see the finished (or unfinished) flooring edges or wall heights. Measure the thickness of the walls and try to determine if they were built upon each other. Go into the basement and look at the under-flooring to see if its been patched when a new central heating system was installed. Where is the plumbing - is it all in one area, in an addition when a bathroom and kitchen were added? Many complex older homes started off as simple structures and were added to over the years. The architecture of a house can evolve over time. 6. Define your project. What are your project goals? Knowing what you want in the end will help you find a path to get there. Note that many of the words we use to describe the actions we take on a structure begin with the prefix re- which means again.  So, here we go again. Which Method Is Right for You? Remodeling: This often-used word describes a process of making changes to a house with little regard to the history of the home and its environs. The model chosen is at the whim of the current homeowner. Before you remodel your home, establish a checklist for your remodeling dreams. Renovation: Novus means new, so when we renovate we want to make our home like new. This term is generally used to fix a home in disrepair. Rehabilitation: Often abbreviated as rehab, rehabilitation is to restore or fix-up a property while keeping its architectural value. According to U.S. Secretary of the Interior standards and guidelines, you can do this through repair, alterations, and additions while preserving those portions or features which convey its historical, cultural, or architectural values. Restoration: Coming from the Latin word  restauratio, restoration brings the architecture back to a certain time period. The Secretary of the Interiors working definition includes words like accurately depicting the form, features, and character of a property as it appeared at a particular period of time. Methods include the removal of features from other periods in its history and reconstruction of missing features from the restoration period. Does this mean you rip out the kitchen sink and build a new outhouse? No. Even the federal government says its okay to keep code-required work. Source Preservation Terminology, Secretary of the Interiors Standards and Guidelines As Amended and Annotated, https://www.nps.gov/history/local-law/arch_stnds_10.htm

BMW Product inovation Essay Example

BMW Product inovation Essay Example BMW Product inovation Essay BMW Product inovation Essay BMW wants to attack the small Lifestyle car market gap. This gap has customers such as young professionals with a high disposable income. BMW has limited opposition, and as such there is a large usage gap, which means there is good potential for high sales. This market gap has the potential for giving BMW the growth it is striving for. BMW should target this gap using the Mini brand, as the Mini has the right image unlike any BMW branded products. The main risks for BMW are its limited knowledge of the market sector, and its limited financial resources. The main sector rivals of BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagon (Smart and Beetle), both have more sector experience and greater financial resource. These rivals will simultaneously attempt to out-price the Mini, and develop replacement products. The core established products of BMW, the 3, 5, and 7 Series, provide a stable cash flow, enough to develop and introduce replacement models. BMW is however an ambitious company and wants to grow. To do this BMW has been expanding its portfolio and attacking new markets, a risky, but profitable strategy. This strategy began with the launch of the Z3 sports car, and more recently the Z8 sports car and X5 44 vehicle. The latest stage of this strategy is the launch of the Mini brand. BMW has not produced a small, affordable, lifestyle vehicle since the days of the bubble car. The introduction of the mini range is the most risky of all BMWs strategies for growth. BMWs ability to inject personality, eccentricity, and fun into the Mini is the big risk. BMW is a not just a company, it is a brand. The BMW brand manufactures automobiles built on engineering precision, manufacturing excellence, and being German. As the adverts tell us all, a BMW is The Ultimate Driving Machine. The Mini is also a brand. The Mini brand is built on personality, eccentricity, and being British. BMW cannot just re-badge, re-engineer and re-sell the brand as the BMW Mini. The very appeal of the Mini brand would be lost. Huge media and public interest greeted the launch of the Mini1, the first model to be released. The Mini Cooper, perhaps the model most greatly associated with the brand, is soon to be launched, and it is this model that will perhaps determine the success of the product range. BMW is a multi-product, global manufacturing company. The BMW marque is well established as a maker of high quality automobiles. To maximize the performance of the company, its products need to be evaluated and classified so as to decide whether to invest, hold, or withdraw support from them. These are strategic decisions, and are made according to the information derived from the analysis of the company portfolio. The tools that will be used in the portfolio analysis and management are as follows: * Product lifecycle analysis * Boston Consulting Group Growth-Share Matrix * General Electric Multifactor Matrix These are all flexible tools that can be used to analyze both products and brands. The first step is to analyze BMWs product portfolio. BMW has a range of products, some currently on the market, and some awaiting launch (Mini CooperS). Below is an array showing BMWs current product portfolio, this will form the basis of the analysis of BMWs current and future market. The array above describes BMWs current portfolio in terms of the products themselves, but what about the markets. Each product follows the product lifecycle, each will be at a different stage of that cycle, and each will have different market characteristics. Although it is attractive to have all the products within a portfolio at the peak of their sales at the same time, this does create problems. BMW knows the importance of making sure that not all of its products are at maturity at once, as this might result in the products beginning to decline at the same time. It is clear from the time scale chart above, that BMW has staggered the lifecycles of three products. These are the 3, 5, and 7 Series saloons. This staggering not only helps to ensure a more constant income, but also allows for the development of replacement products, such as the imminent replacement of the 7 Series. BMW has also been expanding its portfolio recently and this can be seen by the presence of some new product launches in the last few years. The Mini being the most recent, and the Mini Cooper still to be launched. In order to classify BMWs products, an analysis of the portfolio is needed. The first formulated, and most simple is the Boston Consulting Group Growth-Share Matrix. The Boston Matrix shown over the page consists of four quadrants derived from Market Growth rate and Market Share. Market growth rate is the vertical axis of the matrix. This indicates the annual growth rate of the market sector in which each product falls, and can be used as a proxy for Market attractiveness. Market share is the horizontal axis of the matrix. This indicates the Market share of each product relative to its biggest competitor. The Boston Consulting group argued that the cash flow generated by a product is dependant on which quadrant the product falls in. BMW has a fairly settled portfolio of products. Each product is more a family of slightly different models, varying by specification. The BMW 3 Series is placed within a very crowded sector of the automobile industry; the Luxury small saloon. The 5 and 7 Series are larger and more expensive saloons than the 3 series, and are placed within slightly less volatile sectors of the market. The 3 Series is positioned just below the Star, in the Cash Cow quadrant in the matrix. The current 3 Series model is a market leader in a mature market sector. Its high market share leads to a high cash flow rate, and its position in a mature market means that investment support in areas such a product and process development is low. The 5 series too, is comfortably positioned as a Cash Cow. It is a mature product, placed and sold in a less volatile market than the 3 series. This means that the 3 and 5 series family of products have extremely high profitability, due to their high level of sales, and the low level of expenditure needed to maintain the sales levels. The 7 series however is a model in decline in terms of its lifecycle. It is found at the ultimate destination of all products, a pet. The product does have market share, but its desirability is waning and its performance relative to its competitors is not what it once was. The market for the 7 series however, is still performing well. This means that BMW should, and will review the model with a view to re-launch in the near future. The above products are all fairly settled. Many of them have been being manufactured for many years now with several re-designs and re-launches. BMW has however recently begun expanding its portfolio, and the result of this is some new star and problem children. One of these stars is the X5. The X5 is a new market area for BMW. The 44 market can be extremely profitable, especially the On-road 44 products. This market is very large and growing, and BMW have made an attempt to get a slice of the cake with the X5. The Z3 and Z8 are very similar products. They are both small sports cars, differing in the Boston Matrix in terms of market share and price. The Z3 is a star, but the Z8 could be described a problem child. More affordably priced than the Z8, and with a larger share of the growing market, the Z3 is a product beginning to mature and generate a good positive cash flow. The Z8 however has a tiny share of the same market. This is not due to overpricing, or poor performance. It is because BMW has taken the step of deliberately limiting production to ensure a high level of prestige and desirability for the product. Why do this? The Z8 could be described as an exercise in marketing itself. It is not about making profit for the company in terms of direct sales, but about raising awareness of the BMW brand and the values BMW wants its customers to believe the brand stands for. Even the placement of this product in a recent James Bond film reiterates this point. An exciting, debonair character, using a BMW during his technology packed adventures. These are all characteristics of the brand that BMW want to imprint upon the psyche of its customers. The second available tool is the General Electric Multifactor Matrix. Products are evaluated in terms of Competitive Position and Market Attraction. This matrix shows more clearly how the established 3, 5, and 7 Series are performing. The 3 Series has a large share of a large, attractive market. Its competitive position is also strong. The short arrow shows that it is only moving from this position slowly, it is maintaining its position. This reiterates the description of the 3 Series as a Cash Cow. The 5 Series is also in a similar position, if weakening more quickly. The 7 Series however, is different to the previous two models. It has a comparatively small share of a less attractive market. The long arrow shows that the competitiveness of this product is reducing rapidly and it is fast becoming a Pet. Once again the imminent re-launch of the 7 Series confirms this analysis, and BMW will hope it goes some way to improving the position of this product. The more recently launched, new products can generally be found to the right of the main three BMW products. With the exception of the Z3, their competitive positions are still fairly weak, but all three have good market attractiveness. This is logical; as BMW would not have launched products into markets it deems to be unattractive. They show the characteristics of problem children as newly introduced products finding their feet in the market. The emphasis of product portfolio analysis is the management of existing products to maximize their strengths. BMW also needs to look for new products and markets to remain profitable and grow. The most simple support tool for looking at growth opportunities is the Ansoff Matrix, which combines existing and new products, with existing and new markets to form a matrix. The four quadrants formed describe different strategies for growth. This type of analysis is also known as the Strategic Thrust of the company. As mentioned previously, BMW has a strong base consisting of three established products. These are the 3, 5, and 7 Series saloons. Along with the Z3, these constitute BMWs existing products being sold in existing markets. The most common strategy used here is to try to increase the market share of these products. This is done by increasing sales, either to current buyers and or finding new customers in the same market. This strategy is intuitive, but may lead to long-term product development problems. Hence strategies are required whereby new products are introduced to the product portfolio. These products can be aimed at either new or existing markets. The Z8 is BMWs supercar, and is aimed at the same market sector as the more affordable Z3. The intention of this product strategy is not to replace the Z3, as it could appear to be. The Z8 is a special case, intended to reinforce the BMW brand image. A more risky strategy is a new product for a new market, and this is where the X5 and Mini range fall. The X5 may seem entirely unlike any vehicle BMW has produced before, however it is not total diversification. For example, a four-wheel drive system has already been developed and used on models such as the M5, a high performance 5 Series. This engineering expertise is also coupled with experience in the sector derived from the acquisition of Land Rover, which BMW kept after the sale of Rover. Also from the ownership of Rover, came BMWs acquisition of the Mini brand. BMW has not produced a small, affordable, lifestyle vehicle since the days of the bubble car. The introduction of the mini range is the most risky of all BMWs strategies for growth. BMWs core competences of engineering precision and manufacturing excellence will no doubt ensure that the Mini is well made and functional. It is BMWs ability to inject personality, eccentricity, and fun into the Mini that is the risk. However, the greater the risk, the greater the potential rewards. A useful tool to analyse the environment of BMW is PEST analysis. PEST is an analysis of the external environment and is useful in identifying potential customers, markets and developing product strategies. BMW believes there is a market gap for a lifestyle vehicle, and PEST will aid the targeting of that gap. This analysis, although highly subjective, is useful in the decision making process. It confirms the idea of a young, professional customer base, looking for high quality in a small car. Another tool is SWOT analysis. SWOT is a structured approach to evaluating the strategic position of a business, providing more information in developing product strategies. SWOT identifies a companies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It can successfully be used in conjunction with gap analysis, as it assesses the factors affecting those gaps. For example, BMW does see the small Lifestyle car as a very attractive market gap, but SWOT may show that the risks are too high and BMWs resources to low, to enter that market. The marketing Potential of a product is the maximum number of potential customers. There cannot really be any certainty to the maximum number of potential customers for the Mini. Estimates nearly always come from market research data and evaluation of the markets of similar products such as the VW Beetle. BMW, as a global manufacturer, would be interested in the world Market Potential for the Mini. In Europe and the US, stable, growing economies mean that an already large number of young professionals are on the increase. The existing usage is the total number of customers purchasing a certain type of product. Data for evaluating this number is usual derived from market research again, as companies are unlikely to reveal exact sales figures to each other. There are really only two rivals competing in the same sector that the Mini will be targeted. This infers that the existing usage is relatively small. The Usage Gap is the difference between the Market Potential of a product, and the Existing Usage of similar products. If this is a large number, then there is the potential for a rapid expansion in sales. As the market potential for the Mini has been identified as being large, and the existing usage of the Mercedes SMART and VW Beetle small, then the potential for a successful product is good. The product gap is created by segmentation of the market via the requirement for different features. BMW is primarily a luxury brand, manufacturing large luxury products. BMW wants to attack a market with the Mini, where the main brand characteristics are eccentricity, and fun. Therefore the Mini cannot be sold as a BMW Mini, a stand-alone brand has been set up, so as to give the Mini its separate image. The competitive gap for the Mini is a measure of how well BMW markets the brand. The Beetle and Smart have similar features to the Mini, but good customer relations and clever promotion will help to make the Mini a success. BMW has identified a Product Gap that can be filled by a small Lifestyle car. This gap has customers such as Young professionals with a high disposable income. BMW has limited opposition, and as such there is a large usage gap, which means there is good potential for high sales. BMW can target this gap using the Mini brand, as the Mini has the right image unlike any BMW branded products. This market gap has the potential for giving BMW the growth it is striving for. BMW has core competences of excellence in design and engineering, and as such will be sure to make a product that is technically sound. However, BMW has little or no experience in manufacturing small, fun cars and no knowledge in how to market a product that bears little relation to the typical BMW. Coupled with the limited financial resources of BMW compared to its rivals in this sector, then there is a high risk of the failure of the product if it is not right first time. BMW has identified an excellent potential new product opportunity. This opportunity is within a new market which BMW has no experience, and the BMW brand has no association. To ensure that BMW is successful in this venture, a specific, structured new product strategy is required. It is extremely useful for marketing directors and designers of BMW to receive strategic guidance from the senior management about their vision and priorities for new product development. By this report suggesting guidelines about which products and markets BMW should be interested in targeting, management can identify a focused new product strategy. The importance of making sure that a product is introduced correctly can be seen in the finances of companies that do not introduce their products successfully. Poorly launched products will quickly fail due to high levels of competition. These high levels of industrial competition have come about due to three driving forces. These are international competition, fragmenting markets, and rapid technological change. Missing the desired launch date of a product, or spending more than planned in its development has the effect of significantly reducing eventual profits. As around 80% of the eventual total product costs are committed to be spent by the end of the concept design stage, spending wisely at the design stage and ensuring launch dates are met will maximize profits. This financial plan will look forwards three years, and will consider the potential UK market only. Target Market: The market to be discussed here is the UK Market for a small Lifestyle car. This gap has customers such as Young professionals with a high disposable income. Size: Large Market Potential. BMW has limited opposition, and as such there is a large usage gap, which means there is good potential for high sales.