The Microsoft Surface advertising can be seen on the replay booths at all NFL games.

In Aiden Raff’s blog post, Aiden examines the $400 million deal between Microsoft and the NFL. He discusses how this 5-year deal makes the Microsoft Surface 3 “the official tablet of the NFL” but how there are issues with advertising as certain announcers have mistaken the Microsoft Surface 3 for iPads during live television broadcasts. I would like to go into deeper discussion of these ramifications and how they specifically affect the NFL and Microsoft partnership as a whole, and what the corporations should do to solve this issue.

First and foremost, the greatest problem with mistaking the Microsoft Surface 3 for the iPad is that Microsoft’s greatest competitor in the tablet market Apple gets immense exposure for free, the same enormous exposure that Microsoft paid a fee of $400 million to attain. In my opinion it is obvious that this can lead to a serious crack in the partnership between Microsoft and the NFL, a partnership that actually strengthens both corporations’ businesses greatly, as both companies involved get a great addition to their key partnership aspect of their respective business models. All Microsoft was attempting to do when they paid this hefty fee was gain a competitive advantage over Apple and try to gain ground on them in the tablet market. With announcers falsely advertising the iPad instead of the Microsoft Surface 3, it depletes the purpose of this great partnership between the two corporate giants.

In my opinion, the NFL should immediately work hard towards getting announcers to correct this mistake, as it will get Microsoft the advertising that they paid great money for. As well, doing so can potentially lead to many more lucrative deals between the two companies in the future.

Links

Microsoft’s $400 million deal with the NFL may do more harm than good

David Neeleman is the founder of JetBlue Airways and he became public about his attention deficit disorder back in 2000.

While surfing the internet I came across an extremely interesting blog post on bothsidesofthetable.com that discussed the link between ADD and entrepreneurs. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, ADD stands for attention deficit disorder, and it gives people short attention spans and often results in hyperactivity.

The thing I found most interesting about this particular blog post is how it discusses ADD in a positive light and how ADD actually helps entrepreneurs rather than hinder them. One example the article dives into is the co-founder of JetBlue David Neeleman. As the article stated, Neeleman would “sit at meetings where they were talking about meaningless drivel and he would burst out verbally that they were wasting time or he would throw out big ideas and try to push for change.” Founders and CEOs are seen as the leaders of the company, and as leaders they are expected to make key decisions. These key decisions they make can be extreme enough to do things such as alter their company’s business model completely or enhance their product to the point that they catapult themselves to the top of the market that they are competing in.  Most people would believe that having someone with ADD in this position with this much power would be an utter and complete disaster. However, as the article states: “ADD is a trait found in many successful CEO and entrepreneurs.” At first that fact would seem absurd, as it did to me also, but it actually makes perfect sense. People with ADD seek out novelty, and that is one of the foundations of being an entrepreneur. You must be innovative; you need the quality of being original, which means having a value proposition that no other company can match, and this is exactly what a person with ADD possesses. Thus, making them a perfect candidate to be a CEO of a company and lead their team to the top of their respective industry.

Links:

http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2014/11/02/why-add-might-actually-benefit-startup-entrepreneurs/

Women in Africa sewing clothing. People like Maryanne Mathias are responsible for giving these women opportunities like this to make money and improve their own living standards.

A social enterprise is any organization that places maximizing improvements in human and environmental well being ahead of maximizing profits. Even if the United Nations were to be fully funded, it does not necessarily mean that having Arc or social enterprise is useless. As a matter of fact, even if the UN were to have full funding, they would still not be able to improve the well being of humans and the environment like social entrepreneurs are able to. The problems that things such as the Sauder School of Business’s Arc Initiative solve go well beyond just financing and money. These are more so ethical issues that require the individual who is funding the project to have a passion in making it succeed.

Take Osei-Duro clothing’s co-founder Maryanne Mathias for example. When her company was struggling with production issues, rather than pour more money into higher skilled workers, she made the decision of personally fixing their production issues and provided better training to her current workforce, a workforce of women who really needed the money in order to live a better lifestyle. Hypothetically speaking, if a fully funded UN were in charge of this decision, they would most likely decide to use their large sum of funds to bring in more skilled workers to deal with the poor production quality that Osei-Duro was experiencing. As you can see there is quite the difference between the two scenarios, as one is strictly money based and the other goes beyond the financing and improves the lives of the struggling workers. This shows how the social entrepreneur made a much larger difference than a fully funded UN. Thus, proving why we would still indeed need the Arc/social enterprise even when there is a fully funded United Nations.

Links

http://skollworldforum.org/about/what-is-social-entrepreneurship/

http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/Global_Reach/ARC_Initiative

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-growth/going-global/production-problems-nearly-unravel-high-end-fashion-label/article14286870/

A Brazilian fan reacting to the 7-1 blowout loss to Germany. It was at this point all of Brazil had realized that their $14 billion investment had gone to waste.

The FIFA World Cup is the grandest stage of them all, it is where legends are made and the hopes and spirits of people around the world are lifted. While all of this is utterly amazing, the business side of the World Cup is the exact opposite, and as Brazil learned this year, sometimes the price tag is just too much to handle.

Reports had Brazil spending close to $14 billion on the World Cup, a staggering figure that is almost 2.5 times more than what South Africa had spent on the sporting spectacle in 2010. To make matters worse, the Brazilian officials had promised private funding would provide financial support for this project, but all of that near $14 billion came directly out of the public purse. Despite having the strongest economy in South America, Brazil has serious issues, specifically that of poverty and sanitation, as 50% of their population does not have access to basic services.

In my opinion, this article links strongly to our discussions about ethics in business. The Brazilian government had made the poor ethical decision of putting a sporting event ahead of the well being of their own citizens, the same citizens who are the very backbone of their economy. By doing so, they have not only made the living conditions of their citizens worse than before, but they have also “shot themselves in the foot” so to speak, in the sense that they have incurred an enormous debt that will take years to pay off. If I was given the expected cost figures and had the choice on whether to host the World Cup or not, I would 100% say no, and rather than invest that $14 billion into a sporting event I would invest it into things such as education and healthcare, which would make the living conditions of my citizens stronger and as a result, my country’s economy as whole better off.

Links:

http://www.sportsnet.ca/soccer/world-cup-2014/2014-fifa-world-cup-brazil-cost-poverty-drugs-public-spending-money/

The US based company is trying to battle back from a $192 million loss in the most recent quarter.

In my fellow classmate Brodie Woods’s blog, he discussed his recommendations for Sprint in regards to their attempt to have a big turnaround from their $192 million loss in the most recent quarter. Brodie stated in his post: “Going forward Sprint needs to primarily deal with their massive loss of costumers and try to build long term subscriber growth.” I could not agree more with this statement, as this is the largest problem Sprint is facing as of right now. The key reason Sprint is “in the red” when it comes to profits is because of their poor customer relationship aspect of their business model. Referring again to Brodie’s post, he went on to add: “Sprint was ranked dead last in customer satisfaction for poor service, reception, and reliability.”

In my opinion, customer service is one of the most important aspects to having a successful company that lasts in the long run. Companies such as Amazon, Google, and Samsung are amongst those with the highest customer satisfaction ratings and their success speaks for itself. If Sprint is serious about wanting to make this big turnaround that they have been dreaming about into a reality, I recommend they invest most of their time into their customer service department. By doing so, they will immediately begin doing damage control to their poor customer relationships aspect of their company, and as a result, they will be strengthening their business model, which is the perfect beginning point to lead a large turnaround and to competing with top notch competitors.

Links:

Sprint Lays Off 2000 Workers

PepsiCo was arguably the largest company involved in this scandal.

Reuters has reported a brand new shocking development that over 300 companies, including PepsiCo Inc. and AIG Inc. had secured deals with Luxembourg to have their tax bills slashed. The companies involved have reportedly saved billions of dollars in taxes and it is said that Luxembourg provided hundreds of private tax rulings to corporations seeking favorable tax treatment.

As we all know, this is a case of financial fraud, which is a topic we covered in class 5 (financial accounting). The biggest question asked when most people read this story is why would the companies commit such a crime? Well, based off an article on the CGA PD net, there are normally three things that drive a company to organize such a scheme. First is pressure, which prompts honest people to commit illegal acts. Second is opportunity, which gives individuals the perception that they can get away with the act, and lastly is rationalization, which gives the person the ability to justify why their action was dishonest.

In my opinion I strongly believe that those three points are the main cause for financial fraud. Furthermore, I feel that this case is no exception, as the 300+ companies involved in the deals must have faced the need to make more money (pressure), saw a low risk easy way to do it through Luxembourg (opportunity), and had the excuse that hardly anyone would expect Luxembourg to assist in such an act (rationalization). Thus, proving that those three points are indeed the foundation and justification for any company to commit financial fraud.

Sources:

http://www.businessinsider.com/300-companies-including-pepsi-and-aig-are-securing-secret-deals-to-slash-taxes-2014-11

https://www.cga-pdnet.org/Non_VerifiableProducts/ArticlePublication/FinStatFraud/FinStatFraud_p1.pdf