BlackBerry announced on September 23th that it had reached a $4.7 billion deal with Prem Wasta and his firm, Fairfax Financial, who want to take the business private.

This transaction is said to be a good thing for BlackBerry because it buys time for BlackBerry to fix itself while staying off the media. The company will still exist in the same form but no longer has to issue quarterly reports, layoffs, or compensation. They will be able to go silent and hide negative financial results while they work towards a long term comeback.

However, I don’t think a go-private transaction would take the business to a much better state. Even though going private would give BlackBerry some time to breath, it will not help the company execute on its strategy any better than being public would. The company will operate in the same way whether they got the media’s attention. Besides, getting a transaction share is not like they are getting a big injection of money, which would greatly recover the company’s finance. However, I do wish the best for BlackBerry and hope it can get back up and compete again.

 

 

Resources:

1. The Economist: Time For Plan Z

2. The Globe and Mail: BlackBerry weighing privatization

3. Reuters

4. The Week: Out of it’s misery-BlackBerry considers going private 

In 2006, Dell Ranks No. 8 in Fortune magazine’s annual list of the most-admired companies in the United States. My analysis shows this is mostly due to dell’s direct business model.

 

Firstly, Dell can greatly improve efficiency by speaking directly to the customer. They can adjust their offer in response to the customers’ request in a shorter time. Secondly, by eliminating the intermediaries, Dell could dramatically reduce its channel costs. Finally, this also creates more options for customization. The establishment of www.dell.com has opened up the company’s product to a considerable number of potential customers. By visiting the site, not only can customers order their PC, get technical support, but they can also download updates to their software. The more channels there are for the customers to buy products, the greater revenue the company will get.

 

Even though going direct to the market has many advantages, not a lot of company actually do this because of the high responsibility and the variable service the company itself has to offer. However, Dell’s business has proved that going straight to the market can lead to success for the company.

 

 

Sources:

http://www.dell.com/

http://www.gaebler.com/Dell-Direct-Model-to-Success.htm

http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~homaei/projects/files/ITM-Dell.pdf

 

Some time ago I saw a brand commercial produced by Pepsi. In the video, a  kid tried to get drinks from a vending machine. He  got two Coca-Cola and put them under his feet just to reach the higher button for the Pepsi Cola. Usually competition shown on television isn’t that blatant, so this commercial specifically got me thinking, is it ethical overshadow other brand by claiming the superiority of its own product?

The PepsiCo commercial clearly overshadows Coca-Cola’s popularity in children in that commercial, giving it a connotation by letting the boy walked away without the coca cola. According to a Businessihub post, “overshadowing a brand to increase the market penetration for one brand is considered as an unethical process by many.”

The two companies have been using manipulation and comparison advertising in recent television commercials in order to draw attention from a competitor’s brand to their own, which is a negative comparative advertising. There are obviously better ways to promote one’s product than to disparage others.

But there isn’t all downside on this situation. Even though the commercial made by both companies may seem unethical, by competing with each other in this way, both of the brands promote their brand names and become more well-known.

 

links:

pepsi, banded commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DijFob8vxgI

pepsi, summer time is pepsi time:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s21q2TL27Wc

 

 

 

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