The council of Ontario Universities recently stated that 46% of students in post-secondary education wish to start their own business following graduation. This percentage spans across a variety of people in different faculties all of which have the idea of entrepreneurship idolized in their minds. But how many of those people will actually implement their ideas and start their own businesses?

Cole Nakatani, co-founder of IdeaHack, brought up an interesting question in a recent presentation that helps to answer this; “What defines an entrepreneur?” If the 46% of students knew that 75% of start-ups fail in their first year would the still believe in their ideas? If the person was truly an entrepreneur, they would. Entrepreneurship is all about believing in your project and implementing a plan in order to make that happen. Cole Nakatani is just one of the vast amounts of people who were able to use what they learnt at a post-secondary level and apply it to everyday situations.

Seeing Sauder alumni achieve the success in their lives shows just how attainable these ideals can be. It not only shows that the concepts and ideas discussed in school have a direct connection to the world outside of post-secondary but also that with the right frame of mind and devotion fueling an entrepreneurial goal is possible.

Twitter has been gaining more public interest in the last few months; the topic fresh off of everyone’s lips. In “Twitter Troubles” a fellow comm101 student analyzed the issues Twitter faced being compared to other social platforms. The main point being that Twitter doesn’t lend itself as easily to advertisers.

The blog agreed that Twitter has to focus on the fact that it is fully integrated with celebrities, a valuable point of difference it has. The blog also stated that Twitter needs to develop a way to become more user-friendly as the process of building up a following and finding meaningful information among the magnitude of tweets is a weakness the platform has. Another critique was that Twitter is only used extensively during certain times, such as sporting games, or natural disasters, rather than a daily routine.

The blog brings up a valuable point in the importance of celebrities in the Twitter world, I don’t however, agree that it should change the other features so that a following is significantly more easy to build up. Having a following on Twitter and taking the time and effort to build it is one of the main reasons why it’s so successful. The fact that ordinarily most people have a smaller network and following makes the larger accounts more credible. Advertisers can then aim directly at these people or businesses. It is a valuable point of difference that Twitter has and trying to shift it towards a point of parity would be detrimental to Twitter.

Siemens, a global electronic and engineering group, recently reported a significant change in organizational structure. Due to pressures to increase profits and make the company more competitive and innovative the company hope to simplify its structure.

They plan to continue to readjust the structure of their business and shift the responsibilities of approximately fourteen regional clusters of employees.

This means that operations, human resources and information technology are part of the new responsibilities that the local management has. Siemens employees more than 370,000 people and this change will affect the 200 countries where it operates. The shift is from a centralized organizational structure towards a more decentralized structure. Upon successful elimination of regional employees is a structure where information can flow easier and more efficiently among the different layers of the business.

Christoph Niesel, the fund manager of Siemens largest shareholder, agreed that the company has to move towards a “more focused faster and more reliable structure.” Rivals in the industry such as General Motors have already made significant changes to their corporate strategy, Siemens hopes to not fall behind and moving towards the decentralized system will do just that.

Sources:

http://online.wsj.com/ad/article/enterprisetech-management

What is the most important aspect about being involved in the business industry? – People. Most reputable businessmen and women in the field would agree that working with other people is pivotal in the world of business. This explains why organizational behaviour plays such a dominant role in evaluating the effectiveness of a business. When people work in an environment that they feel included and respected in, they are motivated to express themselves and work to the best of their abilities.

Bret L. Simmons is a credible business blogger and his blog on interdependence shows how people can not only work individually, but how this can contribute to the team working coherently as a whole. The people involved need to accept full responsibility for their actions and be held accountable, but they also need an extensive support network to supplement this.

In contrast to interdependence is dependency where one party in the relationship thinks that they don’t have to listen to anyone else and their opinion is the only one that matters. This type of relationship is unhealthy and is sustained by both the parties involved. It therefore takes both parties to change the relationship to become an interdependent one. This is where people feel supported enough to take the initiative themselves and ultimately has a positive effect on the business.

How does the concept of shared value relate to the plans for the Enbridge Pipeline to take place? Where does the boundary lie between generating natural resources to good use and helping the environment? An insightful blog post showing the relation between the two caught my attention and caused me to examine the relationship shared value has with a project of this magnitude. The post commented on how different perspectives of the project would have different views. If we solely focus on the people living in the Alberta community, the pipeline project would increase employment and provide their community with an economic boost. But does this directly correlate with shared value? The answer is no, while the pipeline project would benefit the local community it would be disadvantageous to the Canadian economy as a whole. The pipeline project is projected to cause an increase in the price of oil and causing a serious impact on the country. Another factor to take into consideration is the severe environmental implications this project will have.

While the concept of the Enbridge pipeline seems beneficial to the local community, this is just a short term strategy to provide a quicker way of transporting oil and provide more employment. For the project to succeed it needs to implement the concept of shared value and fully evaluate all the aspects. For this to take place, the goals and benefits provided for individuals has to be beneficial to the economy as a whole.

What role does Business Technology Management (BTM) has in the modern business world? According to the article by Joe Mullich in The Wall Street Journal; a great deal.

The article highlights the idea that for years MBA programs as well as executive training programs have solely focused on the technical side of integrating technology with business management. Which for many, can be a major turn off as business people shouldn’t be focusing on simply computing software (management information system) but rather on business technology management. They should be focused on a type of management that blends information with technology in order to make decisions more effectively. People should then be able to provide detailed reasoning, without being too technical, why certain technology can improve inventory ratios or supply chains or simply the way the business operates.

The success of the business is greatly dependent on the various areas of the business and the numerous people, to be able to successfully work together. Having someone who is business savvy and able to understand the mechanics and technology behind the business would be a tremendous asset to any company.

The article highlights what the average avid businesses savvy person knows about Blackberry’s decline in the business world, but also brought up an interesting point – Blackberry’s way out. Among all the other declining figures of the company’s books (45 percent sales drop and $965 million loss recently reported), was the notion that the company had a 32% increase in companies utilizing their servers.  If Blackberry were to zone in on its network and security-software capabilities, it may just be able to survive. With Blackberry’s main competitors, Apple and Android, able to produce and adapt their companies to fit the needs of the ever-changing smartphone market, Blackberry needs to focus on another customer segment. As the article puts, “BlackBerry has to stop thinking just like a smartphone maker and more like a software shop that caters to all if it’s to survive.” In addition the once promising international market in Asia and Latin America have also dropped 28 and 62 percent respectively, further cementing the fact that Blackberry has to completely change its current business model and instead of competing with efficacious rivals in the smartphone industry, differentiate and take on its own niche appealing to businesses.

Abercrombie & Fitch have been under public scrutiny over last few months with their CEO, Mike Jeffries, claiming to solely market their clothing towards “cool, good-looking people.” But the inquiries haven’t stopped there as they recently announced a new line of anti-bulling T-shirt aimed at students. The article highlights that only problem is the T-shirts aren’t available in plus sizes – the very reason why the company was under so much scrutiny in the first place.

With consumers becoming more aware of the brands and the products that they are endorsing through their expenditure, the importance of a strong brand image is more important than ever. The CEO has claimed that “No young people should ever feel intimidated, especially at school, whether for the clothes they wear, or because someone perceives them as different.”

But is this message consistent with the actions that they have taken? No, claiming that the brand is inclusive is completely futile without the necessary actions to back it up. The brand implications from all the negativity has been devastating towards the company’s image and the company has to re-evaluate its marketing and values in order to ever be successful in the industry again.

As the rise of social media falls upon us, the use of hash tags by companies to interact with consumers has grown exponentially. As shown in the article, Starbucks has done just that as they endorse the coveted Pumpkin Spice Latte. Through the use of promo codes contests, the customers are fully integrated into the experience as they are encouraged to enter with pictures with #PSL and #Celebrate10, revelling in the tenth year that the innovative drink has become available.

Many other industries have followed the social media trend as HomeSense designed a similar contest with the prize being a gift card towards their renovation dreams. All of which show how adaptive and influential hash tags can be. Businesses have become more tech savvy with their marketing as they realize the potential that hash tags have, not only do they collectively show what products consumers want and provide immediate feedback, but with marketing that focuses on building customer relationships.

This shows that marketing is truly about responding to the needs of the customer segments. As the traditional forms of marketing and advertising wears down, the age of hash tag has dawned leading to the most involved consumers yet.

A common question that arises is the place that ethics has in business. Many argue for and against the issue but few truly understand how they intertwine and the importance ethics has. Take Sauder alumni Nolan Watson for example; who is a striving force behind Sandstorm Gold and a powerhouse in the business world. In a video entitled “Compassion Kills” he shared insight to his own life and how he considered leaving business school to become a humanitarian. His father then guided him to become a businessman first to know how organizations run, how economies work and find solutions to the problems facing the world. He then started his own organization, Nation’s Cry, and exemplifies the role ethics has in business for all of us. Gone is the stereotype of the cut-throat business world, but instead how people can use their power and business knowledge to positively impact the world. Nolan Watson is one person; imagine the effect the entire graduating class could have if committed to using business as a way to reach out to the rest of the world. As Nolan stated, “I could do more to help others if I could help build their economies.”