Reading Felicia Chong’s blog regarding Amazon, I totally agree how speed and convenience of delivery is the key point to attract customers. Felicia stated that Amazon fast delivery service in Canada will not be a “special” advantage anymore in the near future due to increasing amount of online shopping deliveries.

It is the same thing in USA, people are eager to receive their goods delivered as soon as possible. However, according to this article, customers are not willing to pay a higher delivery fees. This generates a problem for Amazon, since they will have greater costs of production to cover the expenses of fast-speed delivery. Amazon has lots of competitors such as Google Inc and eBay Inc. To maintain its position on top of the market, Amazon needs to find new advantages that other competitors can’t obtain. I would recommend Amazon giving out discounts if customers are buying in bulk. They should be prioritized compared and given more privileges. This will surely captivate the attention and willingness of customers to shop in Amazon compared to its competitors.

In my opinion, Social enterprises are required to boost and maintain economic growth of a country. United nations needs professionals to allocate their resources in an efficient way.As you can see from Osei-Duro Company, there are problems in conducting the process of dying fabrics manually, resulting in a 20% loss of profits. Social entrepreneurs are able to identify which causes the problem to occur.

In Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus offers micro-finance to help citizens build up their own businesses. However, many resources and money go to waste because people lack of experience. Arc initiative is essential in helping United Nations how to use the resources efficiently and what are the strategies to make sure the firms do not exit the industry due to competition. United Nations will be able to climb the social ladder within a society. With the help of Arc, rate of economy growth will skyrocket due to presence of healthy-competitive market.

Moreover, Arc usually offers job opportunities for citizen who dont have education background. This benefits both employers and employee, since employers will earn cheap labor and employees will gain vocational skills that may be useful for them in the future.

Collaboration between Alexandra Wang and H&M will definitely satisfy the desire of all shopaholic. At first glance, you may be thinking that Alexandra Wang is the one who choose to collaborate with H&M but actually it is the other way around. H&M is extremely selective in choosing partnership. Nevertheless, Alexandra Wang emerge as the winner because of the unique sportswear designs that capture the eyes of Creative Director of H&M.

Together, they are able to provide unique sporty designs that scream “branded and classy” in an affordable price. Moreover, they make them exclusive and limited. Customers especially shopaholic will take pride in wearing those clothes. It is a great move to scale up H&M brand through professional designers. In BC, lots of customers are more than willing to line up in the middle of freezing night to purchase these clothes.

However, if you are a colour person, these stuffs may seem unattractive to you. They only target a certain market whose takes comfort in wearing dark colours in shades of gray. This is may be one of the drawbacks.

The titles clearly indicate the motto of “Louis Vuitton” brand. According to article written by Salene Mazur Kraemer, Louis Vuitton never sold their products at a discount. It is said that Louis Vuitton burnt all unsold merchandise to prevent any imitation or eroding the brand’s name.

The first time, I pinpoint the word “burnt”, global warming issues come to my mind. How much greenhouses gasses did they emit every year? However, worry no more. Based on this article that I have discovered, Louis Vuitton does not have anything to burn because they are sold out. They clearly reach the “triple bottom line” point. They fulfill all the requirements for sustainability.

Can Louis Vuitton balance core values and heritage of the company under the growing pressures of business?

Louis Vuitton has its principles to sell the same price no matter where is the location of the store and only targets a high-end market. As a result, they may lose potential broad customers and are threatened to cheapen the brand. With competition everywhere, company is facing a great predicament.

CurrentC (manufactured by MCX) and ApplePay are currently in raging wars fighting for potential large users. These two applications allow customers to pay using other methods instead of swiping credit cards. Since ApplePay uses NFC that is accessible by mobile phone, it gives Apple an advantage point.  While CurrentC are built around QR code (barcode), they know it would be best if they can freeze apple product as long as they can by prohibiting Walmart to use ApplePay when still in contract with CurrentC.

Basing my opinion on this article, I recommend Walmart to cut off the deal with MCX and sign a contract with Apple right away. Every corner you turn around, people are using Apple products. Apple has its “brand power”, loyal customers of Apple will use its product no matter what. Moreover, ApplePay can be used using mobile phone that is accessible anytime and anywhere. In this fast-paced environment, time is money.

Drawing from NeysaFernanda’s blog, I disagree with her opinion because CurrentC can’t compete with ApplePay because their newest application will be launched on 2015. Walmart may have huge financial loss since customers will be reluctant to use CurrentC. Why use CurrentC when you have ApplePay at your disposal?

Although, it is true that CurrentC has track of its customer but what is the point? Most people are addicted to Apple products. Perhaps, I am bias but so as any other customers especially businessmen who value convenience and efficiency more compared to any other person.

Defeating Prabowo Subianto in Indonesia presidential election, more hardships and tasks are placed on the shoulder of Jokowi Widodo. He is expected to boost the economy growth rate that was declining for the past few years. Unlike its neighbouring countries like China or Thailand, Indonesia does not produce enough goods to export. Their manufacturing industry share remains as an outlier compared to others.

What should be done?

According to Gabriel Domínguez blog, Indonesia should take part “first hand” on power generation, shipping and ports in order to create a more competitive environment. Hence, catalyzing the process of economic growth.

I agree with his opinions because by participating more in global supply chains, soon Indonesia will realize what are the specialities and comparative advantage which is essential in generating employment and importing newer technology. Jokowi needs to embrace democracy by allowing more international trade, investment, people and ideas.

However, it is stated that Indonesia has been attracting foreign investor due to cheap labor, land and capital. The problem now is how to maintain the interest of foreign investors to keep investing in Indonesia.

Personally for an Indonesian citizen like me, I think it would be best if Jokowi can open up more company’s ownership to foreigners. But, not in excess so it can balance out ownership between international and domestic company. Solving the infrastructure within the country will attract more foreign investors. If public transports are working perfectly, it would be more convenient for companies to transport goods from one place to another. Eliminating all the documents hassle that needed to process when some goods are imported or exported from or into Indonesia will benefit both traders. This will encourage investors to do business with and in Indonesia which surely will boost the economic growth.

First Nations declared a vast area in Chilcotin to be theirs including mining and fishing area that was targeted by Taseko Mines Ltd.’s Fish Lake. While First Nations start to gain its identity back, it gets in the way for business to grow. Taseko is facing a huge obstacle in earning much profits and obligation to obey the laws simultaneously.

In this article it is stated that, First Nations prohibit any large mining, fishing and logging activities due to damage to habitat. From my perspectives, Taseko industries will have difficulties in expanding $1.1 million copper-gold mining project. They do not have any bargaining chips to negotiate with First Nations government. The main debate in here was Taseko and First Nations have different goals. First Nation clearly wants to claim land that once was theirs while Taseko industry are eager exploit the land to collect gold and copper. Taseko is highly encouraged to build relationship and earn trusts from government.

However, since First Nations government allows small amount of logging and mining to provide Tsilhqot’in tribe job opportunities, it is possible to continue the project but at a very slow pace. I would recommend Taseko to focus on previous, already stable project first such as Aley Niobium Project into perfection. Instead of focusing on the opportunities, the strength (Aley Niobium project) will likely to earn more profits.

After purchasing Instagram in 2012, Mark Zuckerberg bought another marvellous software called “Atlas” which is created by Microsoft. Atlas is an  application that provide service by following potential consumers in online advertising. Instead of appearing ads on laptop only like what “cookies” did, Atlas enables ads to pop up in every gadget including cell-phones. This enables advertiser a more accurate percentage whether consumers are akin or despise it.  Facebook will have a fiercer battle on who is better in advertisement industry and social media.

However, Facebook’s users privacy is at stake. In this article, Mark Zuckerberg is so determined to sell “some” of user’s personal information to advertising companies because he believes that is how business works. By publicising personal taste and preferences, some people felt threatened and insecure because strangers will have access to their life. Facebook is already crossing the line of privacy which ignites the fire growth of Ello (social media that promise to never sell any personal user’s information).

From my perspectives (which are supported by this article), to keep social media afloat, you need to have some support by signing contacts with advertisement industry. Otherwise, it may lead to bankruptcy. It is possible to find sponsorship or fund raising. However, these processes are not reliable because it will be difficult to convince companies to invest money on a project which will require constant donation. By selling some of personal information, both business and users benefit from it. Facebook earn more profits and satisfy users to a great extent by providing good maintenance and entertainment.  As an example, even after users including me know what Facebook is planning to do, we as the users keep posting photos and thoughts and other personal information on Facebook. Most of users are ignorance to this situation. Hence, it is a win-win situation.

For many years, China economic growth has increased tremendously in two-digits percentage. Even when US economy growth decreased, China never faltered. However, in this article, it is said that China’s economic growth is declining mainly due to unnecessary infrastructure (building skyscrapers and cities that are not utilized) which China can’t cover the costs. Investors are alert of the situation because China is 10% world GDP. If it keeps declining, it will have a huge impact globally. When you have a very low base, economic growth tends to increase rapidly until it slows down or reaches plateau. It slows down because other countries have cheaper labour (More people are moving up the social ladder to middle class).

The question is “should investors be worried?” Personally for me, I think they should because China has a collaboration with stake capitals and private capitals called “Wealth Management Product”. They manipulate people’s mind by saying it has 6% to 7% interest rate. Investors believe that it is safe to invest money in their bank.

However, the money is not used properly. In fact, the money is used to build a “ghost city”(wasted on infrastructure investment). So, they will not be able to pay their debt. It keeps going on for so long because of non-transparent financial product and ponzi financing. It will continue until something major happens and the bank cannot cover the problems anymore. So government has to fix it by using the reserved money that China has. This will cause break down of economic growth in China and finally affect the whole world. So, it is better to investigate and make a thorough research before investing in China companies.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/slowing-chinese-gdp-growth-worries-investors-1.2559940

Tesco is UK no 3 grocery retailers who unfortunately, receive another blow to its financial annual profit due to accounting mistakes. Tesco’s error are revealed by a commercial manager who was doing a report on a financial statement. In this blog, it is said that Tesco had overstated profit by 23%. As a result, Tesco shares closed down 11.6 percent at 203 pence. For the persons in suspect, 3 senior executives are suspended.

In a huge company like Tesco, corruption and fraud often happens due to huge amount of expenses and revenue that need to be calculated. Auditors are hired to detect and prevent errors and fraud in accountant’s balance sheet. However, in this case, the mistakes pass through the thorough eyes of the auditors. Although the main cause of the problems are still not identified, personally I think it is due to corruption. Because as a professional, it is highly unlikely to make such a huge mistake in the middle of the work and not realizing it. The executives mind are usually covered and filled with desire and greed. Because of their power and authority, they may pressure employees to smuggle company’s profit and put it inside their own pockets. This can be categorized under situational pressure for accountants and perceived opportunity for the executives. Therefore, in this case, personally I think the accountants are not to be wronged and punished because they are forced to do so.