Square launches in Canada
The square application is a new application that was launched by the creator and co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey. This is an incredible application and business venture for Dorsey because it allows anyone to accept credit card payments. This is a huge technological advancement, and looking at it on a business information technology viewpoint is beneficial for many small businesses. Small businesses such as a person who owns a small stall at a local bazaar or a piano teacher can buy the application and can then accept credit-card transactions.
This product is very simple to use. There is a free registration and only a 2.75% fee for all transactions. The disadvantage to this product is that it is very limited technological wise. It only accepts credit card payments and not debit, but it is a possibility that this will develop overtime to accept any forms of payment. Also, this application is limited to a very few smart phones. It is only available for apple devices and Google Inc’s android platform. If this application were to expand to the extent that debit card transactions were possible and other smart phones could download it would be great for individuals like Piano teachers who many not be an apple user.
Article link: http://business.financialpost.com/2012/10/24/square-launches-in-canada/
IKEA goes green but many of its customers are seeing red
IKEA is a very well known brand for furniture, however they are looking to “Go Green”. They are aiming to not only produce green, but are wanting to make sure that their customers are going green as well. This is a beneficial factor because it improves IKEA’s image and reduces their production costs. For example, the amount of energy they would need to produce the furniture, the packaging involved with it, and any other factors. The fact that the packaging will be recyclable is great because it helps with sustainable development and customers would be forced to live in a sustainable way because the products they are buying are energy efficient and environmentally-friendly. In addition, it is cheaper than the other products so it reduces customer’s costs and in terms of business ethics what it is doing is smart and ethical business decision. The major advantage to IKEA is that they would gain a major point of difference which would be its environmentally friendly products and would be more attractive than its competitors products.
Although this idea is beneficial for IKEA, there are a few disadvantages with it. IKEA has a few issues in terms of how they deal with customer issues. Many have complained that there are missing parts in the products they buy and that when they call up for customer service they are not being dealt with properly. Although going green increases IKEA’s profit, not having a good customer service and being irresponsible with making sure their products are packaged with all parts will make it lose potential customers.
Re: Profiting from prison labour
According to Amy Lee, she believes that it is unethical to give prisoners the right to work while others who are not in prison are left unemployed. I completely agree with this view point for many reasons.
First of all, it has a negative impact on the economy because if the citizens who are not in prison do not have a job, they are considered unemployed and that means companies are not using their available resources usefully.
Secondly, I believe that it is not fair to give prisoners the opportunity to work as they are supposed to be spending their time for the mistakes they have made. Working is not a way of punishing them. Not only that, but the motives of companies is not right as they are looking for cheap labour. Cheap labour as a whole is not right because it prohibits educated people to be able to get a job because what they were going to do is being done by prisoners.
As a whole, like Amy Lee said, there is no limit and companies go for what they think is best for their company, even if they have to use cheap labour as a means of gaining profit and not having to spend so much money on factors of production.
Article link: http://www.canadianbusiness.com/article/95731
Original blogger: https://blogs.ubc.ca/amylee/2012/09/13/business-ethics-profiting-from-prison-labour/
RE: Iphone 5 map app falls short
The iPhone 5 has come out and the major disappointment is their map app
As MahindR said, the iPhone 5 map app has been a major disadvantage to the phone as a whole. I completely agree with this as I have updated my iPhone 4s to the new iOS 6 and was completely dissapointed by they defect in the maps as it had been advertised for its “3D maps” which are completely wrong and mislead the user which is drawback.
I would say that although the iPhone 5 does have a few good features, it is not the greatest product apple has made as the software update was available for most iPhones so the difference between the iPhone 5 and 4s are very minimial. In addition, although the iPhone 5 is still popular and there are people wanting to purchase it, the fact the map app is inaccuarate may lead to consumers to rethink when buying apple products (and may even choose an alternate phone).However, apple’s iPhone 5 is one of the best in the world, but in order to make sure that their consumers do not move entirely away from purchasing the iPhone 5, they should, like MahindR said, be motivated to create newer applications to improve the image of the iPhone 5.
Article link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/05/us-apple-iphone-idUSBRE8941B020121005
Blog author: https://blogs.ubc.ca/comm101sec105/author/mahindr/
Turkey advertisement by PETA targeting school children
The following advertisement above is the one that PETA Is putting up near schools to make children think about what they eat. They are targeting children so that they can spark up discussions with parents and influence them to eat something else other than Turkey (specifically encouraging to go vegan). Although this campaigning strategy is targeting children, it’s targeting the more vulnerable population. Children are innocent so by PETA putting up their billboards near schools, children will take in what they see and qill question themselves..
The message in the image above is strong and the audience they are targeting is very emotional and putting up this advertisement outside elementary schools shows that PETA wants to target the vulnerable population who would most likely want to go vegan and ask their parents to not eat turkey or any other meat. Although PETA is an animal activist group and encourages people to go Vegan, is it ethically correct for any business to target school children specifically?
Vulnerable audiences is a major issue to think about because sometimes it may be ethical or unethical. Children is the most vulnerable audience and by advertising outside schools and near them, it may be bad exposure depending on certain products. PETA’s idea to target school children may provoke other business groups and/or NGOs to do the same. This could, maybe, be a bad idea as businesses may abuse this idea and use it to advertise about wrong things to children. So as a whole, even though PETA is targeting schools to raise awareness about animal rights, it should be done in a way so they are not just going for the easy and vulnerable population.
Article link:
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/PETA+targets+schools+with+turkey+campaign/7319007/story.html
Samsung accused of mistreating workers in China
Samsung, one of the largest electronic companies in the world, has been accused of mistreating their workers using child labour.
As a business, Samsung has responsibilities towards their employees and the environment they work in. Unfortunately, Samsung has not withheld any of them which is a violation of business ethics. Through an investigation it has been discovered that the Chinese employees have been working for more than 100 hours per month and that “children were knowingly employed”. In addition, six of Samsung’s plants and two suppliers were not following safety precautions such as providing the workers with protective clothing and were mistreating them (for example prohibiting them from sitting during shifts and a documentation of physical and verbal abuse has been recorded).
I feel that this form of business is unacceptable and violates business ethics because all businesses have to make sure that their working environments are safe. Samsung has violated these workers rights and it has been claimed that Samsung or its suppliers knew that their underage workers were using forged identity cards. This shows the company’s irresponsibility in terms of monitoring the authenticity of their workers and creating a safe working environment even in conditions where “high product demand led to overtime”. On my part, this is not a valid excuse for any business as they should constantly be supervising working environments and need to be able to work around situations like “high product demands” in an effective manner which does not violate their worker’s rights.
Article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/09/05/tech-samsung-labour.html
Hello world!
Welcome to UBC Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!