Xiaomi, a Chinese-based mobile phone company founded in 2010 is compared with Apple. However, I believe we can draw another parallel here – with Dell.

Like Dell, Xiaomi sells directly to its customers, online. This eliminates the middleman which enables the start-up to gain price advantage. Similarly, Xiaomi is also open to customer feedback and its products tend to be market-oriented. The company releases updates and new features in response to feedback and surveys from their customers. This customization, while not as flexible as Dell’s model, adds value to Xiaomi’s mobile devices.

As technology develops and standard of living increases, smartphones are becoming less and less of a luxury good. As so, there is strong competitive rivalry between companies in the industry. Thus, those who can offer the best product at the lowest price are likely to have a greater advantage against those who cannot. Even though Apple remains successful in the sales of its iPhone models, competitors like Xiaomi are offering very similar if not better products at a much lower cost. This is a large threat towards Apple, especially in the Chinese market.

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Coca Cola Canada unveiled its newest downtown Toronto headquarters in April this year. The new facility was designed and built based on combining the diverse needs of the company’s 400 employees. This is undoubtedly a great motivation strategy as the working environment can be a primary hygiene factor (Herzberg’s Two-Factor theory) that causes dissatisfaction among the workforce. Additionally, Elton Mayo’s motivation theory in regards to the Hawthorne Effect justify that workers are more motivated and productive when management takes an interest in the welfare of their staff. Thus, Coca Cola’s move to integrate its some-400 employees’ input and to realise them as a new workplace can greatly improve staff morale in the company.

Aside from being an excellent motivation strategy, designing and building a new headquarters is also Coca Cola’s way of responding to changes in the labour market. The current generation of workforce clearly seek for many more and different aspects of a job – such as flexibility of working from home, quality of working environment and more – when considering one, as outlined in the article. By offering all of that in one workplace, the company is in an optimistic position to attract young workers in today’s society.

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“What do you call a consumer who wants to buy everything you have, doesn’t care what it costs and is less than five feet tall? A marketer’s dream? Nope. You call them kids.” (qtd. in Marwick)

Advertisement and marketing campaigns targeted at children have come a long way since making their first appearance in 1952, when Mr. Potato Head was first advertised on television. (Kelly) Today, ‘pester power’ has become a common term that is used to describe situations where children are persistently pestering their parents for “commercially available treats”. (Kelly) Children lack the cognitive development as well as knowledge to fully understand and differentiate between a marketing tactic and pure entertainment, let alone being able to make an informed decision regarding a purchase or product. That is the very reason why I personally believe that marketing campaigns designed to encourage pester power is an unethical business practise. However, that may also be the very reason why marketers target children – to utilise their naiveness, since any business’ only social responsibility is to use its resources to increase its profits, as Milton Friedman outlined in “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”.

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