Business Commons^™

Robo-Advisors - A Future Way To Invest?, Viraj Vishwarupe, Tommy Vu

Finance

Research Question: Are robo-advisors the future of investing?

As the capabilities of technology continue to advance, alternatives to conventional practices are created in an attempt to boost convenience and efficiency. This paper will focus on one such alternative, robo-advisors, an automated investment advisor platform. The technology is evaluated to answer the research question above and to assess whether it holds promise in the world of finance as well as the potential to ultimately outpace traditional forms of investment advice. To accomplish this goal, in-depth research is provided covering a broad range of topics concerning robo-advisors including the platform’s history, analysis …

Fresh Squeezed Fitness: A Case Study On The Marketing Of Orangetheory Fitness, Emma Schmidt

Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration

The fitness industry has grown immensely in the past decade as a form of health management. The industry has expanded to offer niche fitness facilities that cater to individuals’ specific needs and motivations. The purpose of this study was to examine the best marketing and branding practices utilized by Orangetheory Fitness. The research for this study was collected using a case study matrix, developed by the researcher, to evaluate Orangetheory Fitness’ marketing strategies. The study resulted in findings indicating the importance of technology advancement and brand differentiation pertaining to the success of Orangetheory Fitness. It is crucial for Orangetheory Fitness …

Creating An Efficient Business Plan For Longview Club Lambs, Karlee J. Dornbush

Agricultural Education and Communication

Longview Club Lambs is a small startup business located in Lincoln, California. Longview Club Lambs has the goal to maintain a high of level efficiency and productivity to compete with other club lamb businesses within the next three years (Longview Club Lambs, 2018). In order to do this, Longview Club Lambs will need to evaluate its current practices and determine the necessary adjustments that should be made to their business plan.

To create this new business model, the business will need to re-evaluate all its management practices and make the needed changes to adjust to a larger scale operation. Implementing …

Delegation Application, Erik Matthew Phillips

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Delegation is a cross-platform application to provide smart task distribution to users. In a team environment, the assignment of tasks can be tedious and difficult for management or for users needing to discover a starting place for where to begin with accomplishing tasks. Within a specific team, members possess individual skills within different areas of the team’s responsibilities and specialties, and certain members will be better suited to tackle specific tasks. This project provides a solution, consisting of a smart cross-platform application that allows for teams and individuals to quickly coordinate and delegate tasks assigned to them.

The Effects Of Organizational Philanthropic Movements And Related Public Relations Strategies, Gabriella C. Trapani

Journalism

The following is a comprehensive public relations campaign created after extensive research on public relations efforts and corporate social responsibility. The study is mainly focused on establishing the relationship, if any, between a company’s philanthropic efforts and their profits. The study seeks to answer questions such as “Is the return on investment for philanthropic giving worth it?” and “How might this impact company morale?” With a focus on measuring the success of a philanthropic campaign created for Sereno Group Real Estate company, a small to midsize residential real estate company in the Silicon Valley, this study serves as a basis …

Next Generation Protocol: Innovating A Resilient Future, Andrew Steven Rudnick, Jamie Cannady, Joe Decesaro, Juan A. Ortiz Salazar

Materials Engineering

Conventional practices do not account for product life beyond end-of-sale – these practices are not sustainable. We have developed an end-of-life protocol that includes a metric that we call the Recovery Rating. The objectives of this Next Generation Protocol, beyond supporting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, are to encourage the production of goods designed for recovery and to promote the collaboration between consumers, the public, and the private sector to recover goods at their end-of-life. The Recovery Rating that we propose evaluates and quantifies recovery potential of products. The Recovery Rating, which is normed against embodied energy from the …

Hosting The Third Annual Young Women In Agriculture Career And Leadership Seminar, Emma E. Morris, Madyline J. Braught

Agricultural Education and Communication

Agriculture has traditionally been a male-dominated industry; however, recent years have shown a significant growth in female presence. Women are beginning to take leadership roles both on the farm and within advocacy, lobbying, and business entities in the industry. According to the latest agricultural census data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), in 2012, women farmers controlled seven percent of the nation’s farmland (Census, 2014). Additionally, women held leadership roles in 14 percent of the nation’s two million farms (Census, 2014). This data is several years old, and likely the numbers have grown since the last census was …

Natural Disaster Animal Evacuation, Nicole Amanda Booten

Agricultural Education and Communication

In the past 20 years there have been massive natural disasters that have devastated communities and states across America. In Southern California and on the Central Coast, there have been widespread fires with the largest fires being: in 2003, the Cedar Fire affected San Diego, in 2007, the Zaca Fire impacted Santa Barbara, and the Witch Fire devasted San Diego, and in 2017, the Thomas Fire affected Ventura County (Cal Fire, 2018).

Although Cal Fire has information on helping lower the impact of a fire on your animals and property, there is currently no protocol or general plan of action …

Analysis Of Potential Vermicompost Market In California, Jason Alan Thomas

Master's Theses

Vermicompost transforms agricultural waste into a high quality soil amendment, though market acceptance remains in its infancy. This study examines how growers’ willingness to pay for vermicompost is affected by grower’s crop, region, income per acre, knowledge level of vermicompost and compost, previous use of compost, and the willingness to pay for compost. The survey results pulled together 223 responses from California growers. It was discovered growers’ had less knowledge of vermicompost than compost but were willing to pay more for vermicompost. There was statistical difference amongst the responses. It was shown the market value per ton of vermicompost lies …

Novel Wine Pouring Machine, Jacob N. Rardin, Erin Clark, Berkeley Davis, Julia Trenkle, Brett Wittmuss

Mechanical Engineering

This Final Design Report outlines the “Novel Wine Opener” senior design project completed by a team of mechanical engineering students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The project was sponsored by Bill Swanson, owner of the Center of Effort vineyard and winery in Edna Valley, CA. The goal of the project was to produce a novel wine pouring machine for the Center of Effort. This device should be able to remove the foil cap from a wine bottle, uncork the bottle, and pour a glass of wine at the winery and at public events. The finished product should …

Assessment Of The Potential Of Proposed Stations Of The California High-Speed Rail As Major Hubs For Physical And Economic Development, Seitu Akira Coleman

Master's Theses

This study investigated the potential for development of station catchment areas around the proposed California High-Speed Rail System. The study was prompted by a review of practices of Japanese railway company groups that engage not only in train operations, but also in business diversification and property development within the station areas of their lines. These actions allow the company groups to diversify their revenues streams, increase ridership on their lines, and operate as a whole with net profits. This is in contrast to transit agencies in the United States, which only focus on transporting passengers along their lines and do …

Farmers For America Documentary Screening, Tiffany Jane Thompson

Agricultural Education and Communication

The agriculture industry is seeing a decrease in the number of beginning farms, operations that have been in existence for 10 years or less, across the United States. According to the most current Census of Agriculture by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), beginning farms make up approximately a quarter of the 2.1 million total farms across the country. This is a 20 percent drop between the 2007 and the 2012 censuses (2012 Census Highlights, Beginning Farmers, 2017). At the same time, the average age of the U.S. farmer is increasing and is now at 58 (Williamson, J. & …

Going Off Course: A Case Study On The Marketing Strategy Of Patagonia, Jamie Elizabeth Drawbridge

Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration

In recent years, society has seen a shift in marketing practices from traditional to non-traditional strategies in order to stand out amongst competitors and connect with customers. This is especially true of the outdoor gear industry. With participation in outdoor recreation on the rise, companies in the outdoor gear industry must come up with marketing strategies as active as its consumers. The purpose of this study was to examine the marketing strategy of Patagonia. The research for this study was conducted using a case study matrix, created by the researcher, in order to evaluate Patagonia’s marketing strategy. This study found …

More Than Music: A Case Study On The Marketing Of Outside Lands Music Festival, Emily Haworth

Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration

The evolution of marketing has shown a general progression towards experiential and digital marketing, and away from traditional marketing. Digital and experiential marketing are at the forefront of many company’s marketing strategies due to their ability to form lasting brand relationships with consumers. The purpose of this study was to examine the marketing techniques of the Outside Lands Music Festival and their draw on millennials. Research for this study was gathered using a case study guide established by the researcher, which highlighted the past experiential and digital marketing efforts of Outside Lands and their sponsors. The results of this study …

Wisehart Cutting Horses Business And Customer Portfolio, Tawni Brook Stoneburner

Agricultural Education and Communication

The cutting horse industry has been around for many years with the first competition being held in 1898, as a way for people to prove their own horses’ ranch talents and has now grown to an industry based on trainers and clients (NCHA, 2018). The main goal of the trainer is to get a horse prepared to show at its best ability and to win the most earnings (Wisehart, E., 2017). According to the American Quarter Horse Handbook, “Judges score the horses on their ability to keep the cow from returning to the herd, cow sense, attentiveness and courage.” (AQHA …

The Santa Barbara County Fair Entries Office Manual, Heidi Alyssa Morisoli

Agricultural Education and Communication

Employee training is vital to any company and essential for an organization’s success (UMA S. N, 2013). Job training is defined as the process of enhancing the skills, capabilities and knowledge of employees doing a particular job (Schappel, 2016). Regarding job training, 76% of employees have reported this type of training is most important when obtaining a new job (Schappel, 2016). Not only is training desired amongst employees but it also improves morale of employees, decreases the need for employee supervision, increases chances of promotions, and increases employee productivity (UMA S. N, 2013). One training opportunity that companies utilize is …

G3 Facebook Campaign, Virginia Rose Lee

Agricultural Education and Communication

G3 Enterprises, started by the third generation of the Gallo family, provides packing and supply chain services within the wine industry. The transportation department focuses and specializes in transporting wine grapes from vineyards to the wineries for Gallo and external companies. In some ways, marketing a service as business-to-business can be more complex than marketing a business-to-consumer product according to B2B International (Hague, Harrison, 2017). Therefore, G3 needs to branch out of its traditional marketing and keep up with current trends by creating a greater social media presence. If G3 Transportation can successfully showcase its trucking service through social media, …

New Product Launch – Syngenta, Kendra C. Legge

Agricultural Education and Communication

Launching any type of new product poses a risk of failure. To ensure success, it is important to know the audience to which a company is launching a product. In Joshua Grossnickle’s book The Handbook of Online Marketing Research: Knowing Your Customer Using the Net he writes, “It's the first rule of business: Know your customer.” It is significant to not only know what makes up an effective product launch, but what the target customers believe make an effective product launch. The chemical company Syngenta is about to launch a new insecticide “Minecto Pro.” Direct feedback from customers about this …

Malene Wines: The Beginning Of A Brand, Tyler Menane

Agricultural Education and Communication

Malene Wines is the most recently developing brand under the Crimson Wine Group. Currently, the brand is being produced and managed under Chamisal Vineyards. Malene Wines started off with one brand of rosé wine, that has only been available for purchase in the Chamisal tasting room or wholesale. This has caused confusion for the consumer in differentiating the two brands. To help begin the separation of the two brands, Malene Wines has recently received a modified Airstream trailer to serve as a mobile tasting room.

Whereas Chamisal Vineyards is a brand focused on Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with small production …

Bringing Awareness Of Associated Students, Inc. Club Funding Opportunities To Cal Poly Clubs: Increasing Participation Through Public Relations, Abby Lee Cavanaugh

Journalism

The following study investigates the strategies and tactics that are most important when developing and implementing a public relations campaign geared towards university students. It analyzes the best practices of researching, creating and evaluating awareness programs. This study serves as the basis for the “Bringing Awareness of Associated Students, Inc. Club Funding Opportunities to Cal Poly Clubs: Increasing Participation Through Public Relations” campaign. In this campaign, Associated Students, Inc (ASI) Club Services is seeking to increase awareness and participation in its club funding program. The campaign includes a situation analysis, SWOT analysis, goals, objectives, target audience, media, strategies, tactics, evaluation, …