Ayesha Hasan's Blog

The United Nations is a large international organization that has many goals, which include maintaining world peace, developing friendships between nations, helping improve the lives of the impoverished in terms of hunger, illiteracy, rights and freedoms. However their overarching goal is to be a “harmonizing center” for the goals mentioned above. On the other hand, the Arc or in that case, other social enterprises aren’t normally operating at such a huge scale, with the amount of power that the United Nations holds. The smaller scale of Arc and other social enterprises gives the upper hand when coming up with specific achievable goals.

Thus, judging by the difference in size, authority and the varying goals, even if the United Nations was fully funded, we would still need the arc or social enterprises, as they will be able to put a greater emphasis on creating shared value. This is because; at a smaller scale they can arrive at the crux of the problem and find a sustainable way to resolve it. Where as, a large organization like the UN will have many more pressing issues to deal with which may satisfy their organizational goals better and hence, smaller companies going unnoticed.

UN Goals.

Works Cited

“Sauder School of Business.” The Arc Initiative. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. <http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/Global_Reach/ARC_Initiative>.

“United Nations Millennium Development Goals.” Youthaward.org |. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. <http://www.youthaward.org/united-nations-millennium-development-goals>.

“Bodies, History, Visits, Employment, Address, Members, Budget, Information.” UN News Center. UN. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. <http://www.un.org/en/aboutun/>.

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According to a recent article, music sales in the US have dropped by 5% in 2014, and instead, downloading and the streaming of music have become much more predominant.

This article highlights several issues upcoming businesses should consider. How can technology hinder and aid them in their industry? If one considers a PEST analysis in understanding a business’s external environment, it is evident that technology does in fact play a large role.

Not only does the article target technology in the external environment, it also largely relates to the “social” aspect of a PEST analysis. The society in recent years has become more “tech-savvy” and this has lead to such a decrease.

Thus, for a firm, it is important not only to consider the internal environment but it’s also critical to understand the external environment in order to ensure business survival.

Music sales decrease as downloading and streaming increase.

Works Cited

Web. 10 Nov. 2014. <http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/3/19/1269026406827/Downloading-bar-001.jpg>.

“PEST Analysis.” PEST Analysis. Web. 10 Nov. 2014. <http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/pest/>.

Sisario, Ben. “U.S. Music Sales Drop 5%, as Habits Shift Online.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 Sept. 2014. Web. 10 Nov. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/business/media/music-sales-drop-5-as-habits-shift-online.html?ref=international>.

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Reading an external blog by Abby Perkins, it was evident that having good customer relationships can provide a huge competitive advantage for businesses.

In the post, Perkins discusses the importance of social media in satisfying customer’s needs. In fact she emphasizes that if a company initiates such customer service, such as providing platforms to customers for direct relationships, the company should pay particular attention to it. This is because she feels that “the only thing worse than not having a social media presence is having one that’s been abandoned.”

For many companies, such customer relationships can even play into the value propositions of the company. An example would be Zappo’s a company that I discussed in previous blog posts.

Other than that, Zappo’s, a company that I have interacted personally with that pays particular attention to customer service is a movie theater branch in Singapore called Golden Village (GV). It uses Facebook as a social media platform for all it’s customers. On their Facebook page one can post questions, concerns or praise that will be responded to instantly. Furthermore, they share pictures of events they have had, advertise fun competitions and their winners in addition to providing benefits for people who have liked their page.

In fact Golden Village in collaboration with Facebook at one point allowed Facebook users to create events directly linked to GV. Meaning that they could invite their friends to this event and through that event the people would be able to vote on the movie timings and days they were available. Hence such methods acting as value propositions.

In conclusion, I feel this blog is a must read for anyone considering a business which requires good customer relationships.

Golden Village celebrating their 20th anniversary.

Works Cited

“Golden Village Celebrate 20th Year Anniversary at GV VivoCity – Hpility SG | Singapore Blogger.” Golden Village Celebrate 20th Year Anniversary at GV VivoCity – Hpility SG | Singapore Blogger. Web. 6 Nov. 2014 <http://hpility.blogspot.ca/2012/05/golden-village-celebrate-20th-year.html>.

“Golden Village Mr Popcorn.” Facebook. Web. 6 Nov. 2014. <https://www.facebook.com/gvmovieclub/timeline>.

Perkins, Abby. “Why You Need Social Media for Customer Support.” Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing. 23 Oct. 2014. Web. 6 Nov. 2014. <http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2014/10/23/social-customer-support/>.

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No limits on length of calls with customers, a very lenient return policy and the ease at which employees can upgrade customers to VIP status all contribute to the exceptional customer service offered by Zappos, “America’s leading online shoe retailer.”

Now these tactics can be quite expensive on the firm, however do the costs outweigh the benefits? In the case of Zappos, who focus most of their attention on customer service, the advantages have exceeded the disadvantages.

Not only have they found that having good service helps retain customers, with the 160 hours of customer loyalty training their employees receive has also proven to improve their organizational culture within the business.

One thing that stuck out to me after reading this article was that a lot of business’ at times focus more on customer service and less on organizational culture. In fact, if the firms spends more time on helping to improve, diversify and strengthen their organizational culture, into a welcoming environment which favors equality and respects the time, wants and needs of everyone present in the working environment they may find it easier to provide better customer service. This is because employees will be more satisfied and motivated to do their job better.

A mind map connecting customer service and company culture.

Works Cited

Jacobs, Alexandra. “Happy Feet – The New Yorker.” The New Yorker. 14 Sept. 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014. <http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/14/happy-feet>.

Shnall, Tal. “Does Your Company Have Culture Ambassadors?” Leadership Cafe. 20 May 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014. <http://leadershipcafe.org/2014/05/20/does-your-company-have-culture-ambassadors/>.

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Henry Zhang’s blog post “Unlimited Vacation Days for Virgin Personal Staff”, surrounds a very interesting and often debated concept, the idea of a firm giving it’s employees the freedom to make their own decisions regarding their holidays and work hours. This topic is often debated as it pits an employee’s personal gain against the employee’s professional gain in the workforce. It questions whether an employee will or will not take advantage of such freedom at unsuitable times resulting as a cost to the business.

Henry, highlights in his post that Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Group’s boss has recently enforced this policy, where his staff consisting of 170 people could “take off whenever they want for as long as they want” as long as they feel that their absence will not damage their career and business in any way.

Now Henry makes two very good points in reference to Sir Branson’s decision, which I am in agreement with.

1)   This decision boosts employee moral, and increases employee retention.

2)   Sir Branson places himself in a great position to publicize his company in a positive light for no cost.

However in addition to this, I feel it’s also necessary to draw attention to the fact that ultimately this decision isn’t a publicity stunt at no cost. There is a reason why not all businesses implement such means that are likely to increase employee motivation. There are bound to be people who will take advantage of this freedom and this rule may make it harder of managers to deal with such employees.

Hence, I feel that the decision made has its pro’s and con’s, but for the most part I agree with Sir Branson’s decision of taking this implementation slowly by only implementing it in certain branches to start of with. This is a good way to ensure its effectiveness before taking the big decision of implementing this decision in all it’s branches and subsidiaries.

Sir Richard Branson

Works Cited

“Branson Offers Staff Unlimited Leave.” BBC News. BBC Business News, 24 Sept. 2014. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29356627>.

Zhang, Henry. “Henry Zhang’s Blog.” Henry Zhangs Blog. UBC, 26 Sept. 2014. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/henryzhang/>.

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BC Hydro’s $8-billion Site C hydroelectric megaproject has been a controversial topic recently. BC Hydro’s wants to expand and create a dam and a 1,100-megawatt hydroelectric generating station on First Nation’s territory, the Peace River in northeastern British Columbia. This is a bold move. I say this in reference to the article, where a few of the First Nation leaders express their issue’s with BC Hydro’s proposal. This is in terms of this action harming the environment and the territory that “would impair the (aboriginals) rights to fish, hunt and use the area for ceremonial purposes”.

This example is crucial in presenting to us the relevance of the external environment in making business decisions. The business before even suggesting such ideas must do a PEST analysis to see whether this idea of theirs will be accepted in the environment they operate in. Their views can even be further strengthened by looking at the opportunities and threats in a SWOT analysis.

Hence, knowing the external environment, and in this case the social aspects of the production area being First Nation Land, BC Hydro should weigh out the benefits and costs of this move in terms of publicity and social influence and then arrive at a decision whether to pursue this idea, as even though they may believe that this may have some social benefit, it may be a biased point of view.

An image of the Peace River in BC.

Works Cited

O’Neil, Peter. “First Nation chiefs to stage Site C showdown.” www.vancouversun.com. N.p., 18 Sept. 2014. Web. 5 Oct. 2014. <http://www.vancouversun.com/news/First+Nation+chiefs+stage+Site+showdown/10215965/story.html>.

“Peace.” Peace Valley. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2014. <http://cdn.agilitycms.com/british-columbia-magazine/Images/Galleries/peace-river/peace_gallery-noborder.jpg>.

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Staples closes down 15 of its 331 retail stores in Canada. Borders goes bankrupt. Both these companies got let down by the evolution of our modern day society into ecommerce. More and more stores are selling products online, even food is sold online. And hence, this progression is affecting many businesses, as they no longer fulfill the customer needs.

When I hear such news, I realize the importance of customer relationships to a business. A business having good customer relationships not only increases loyalty, but it also gives the business insight into the customer’s wants and needs, and this is critical for the business. It helps them innovate and improve their current or new products in order to keep up with the fast moving industries.

In the case of Staples, some stores of theirs didn’t do too well, especially as the industry became more online based, and Staples not so much. What is interesting to read however is how Staples is now tackling the issue and changing their methods in the tertiary sector, when it comes to actually supplying their product to the customers. They have innovated to have an in store pickup window for online orders etc. and hence analyzing the customers mindset is crucial, as they are the ones buying the products and need to be pleased.

Staples

Works Cited

News, CBC. “Staples closes 15 Canadian stores.” CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 1 Oct. 2014. Web. 5 Oct. 2014. <http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/staples-closes-15-canadian-stores-1.2783780>.

“Staples.” Staples. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2014. <http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/archives/sunnews/business/media/2011/06/20110621-130310-g.jpg>.

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Earlier this year LinkedIn announced that their “publishing platform” also known as a “blog” is now available to regular LinkedIn users. Earlier on, this feature was only available to LinkedIn ”influencers”. These “influencers” are people chosen by the LinkedIn team, who they feel have influential opinions and would interest the general users. This recent change could be considered an upgrade and the customer base has varying opinions on it, as can bee seen by the comments on the article.

Personally, I feel that having the “influencers” being the only people who can openly convey their opinions through a blog can be discriminatory in some ways as they’re providing a more advanced product to some customers and not others This implies that not all opinions are worth being widely shared. However, this change could also be taken as a positive, as they’re widening the usage of this product. Additionally having an exclusive blog may have also acted as an aspiration for general users wanting to be requested to join this elite group.

I actually find it quite interesting the way LinkedIn has managed to vary the positioning of its products varying on their customers. Furthermore, I feel the value proposition of the product also changes depending on the customer base. There is the basic group, who are free users, then there are paid users and on top of that you also have “influencers”. The value proposition hence for an “influencer” would therefore be access to the “publishing platform”. However now my question is that as they have made this value proposition open to a wider range of people, will it still remain as important a value proposition for the “influencers”? How useful was this move in terms of their product positioning?

LinkedIn “Publishing Platform”

Works Cited

“LinkedIn.” LinkedIn Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2014. <http://cdn.searchenginejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/linkedin-publishing-630×400.png>.

Southern, Matt. “LinkedIn’s Blogging Platform Is Now Open To Users, Not Just Influencers – Search Engine Journal.” Search Engine Journal. N.p., 20 Feb. 2014. Web. 24 Sept. 2014. <http://www.searchenginejournal.com/linkedins-blogging-platform-now-open-users-just-influencers/91743/>.

“World’s Largest Professional Network | LinkedIn.” World’s Largest Professional Network | LinkedIn. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2014. <http://www.linkedin.com>.

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Reading Mark’s Blog, on Starbucks being under recent scrutiny for avoiding tax payments in the UK, I realize I agree with his point of view on Starbucks gaining an unfair advantage. In particular, a comment of his that I really liked and want to look further into in this blog post is “It is hard for smaller coffee shops to stay competitive with Starbucks because the smaller coffee shops are paying the full rate of the corporate tax and Starbucks is paying a fraction of what they should.”

When I first heard about this scandal, I wanted to try and understand my views on it. From a business perspective, I looked at the advantages and disadvantages for Starbucks for cutting taxes. One of my major reasoning’s for continuing to support Starbucks was that if I was running a business for profits and found a way of cutting costs in a way that wasn’t illegal, why wouldn’t I? But then on the other hand, something kept nagging me that what they are doing isn’t right. They should grow their company ethically, in a way that they can reflect on their growth in a positive light without any doubts. A disadvantage I thought about was also customer perception, something we looked carefully into, when looking at product positioning. This one scandal would have changed the perception of Starbucks in many people’s mind in a negative way.

Hence those were my thoughts a few months ago. Now, relooking at this issue and Mark’s comment, something I didn’t really think about before, I feel that now I have a firmer position against Starbucks avoidance of tax, because not only is this issue, affecting customer’s perception on Starbucks as an ethical business but it’s also affecting the UK Society, and other firms that abide by the rules.

Starbucks, Taxes Due

Works Cited
Gompertz, Simon. “Starbucks ‘paid just £8.6m tax’.” BBC News. N.p., 16 Oct. 2012. Web. 16 Sept. 2014. <http://www.bbc.com/news/business-19967397>.

Graham, Mark. “Mark Graham’s Blog.” Mark Grahams Blog. N.p., 9 Sept. 2014. Web. 16 Sept. 2014. <https://blogs.ubc.ca/markgraham/2014/09/09/starbucks-and-their-creative-tax-plan/>

“Tax.” Starbucks, Tax Due. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2014. <http://prosintraining.com/ssm/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Starbucks-2.jpg>.

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Business Ethics

The article “CVS Vows to Quit Selling Tobacco Products” published in the New York Times on the 5^th of February 2014 highlights the decision made by CVS Caremark, America’s largest drugstore chain, to stop selling tobacco products, such as cigarettes. This judgment has lead to a variety of mixed emotions from stakeholders. On one hand health professionals are very pleased to see this drugstore encompassing their companies purpose, “helping people on their path to better health”. On the other hand this decision has inconvenienced customers who do purchase tobacco-based products from this drugstore. In fact, it is estimated that CVS would lose approximately 2 billion in sales due to this move. Hence this rather debatable decision in my opinion tackles the topic of Business Ethics quite well.

As outlined above, CVS’s purpose is focused strictly on benefitting the health of it’s customer’s, hence the sales of harmful substances in their stores is rather hypocritical. Thus such actions, raise the big question, “does the company truly care about it’s purpose, or is it only present to increase it’s sales?” Therefore, if CVS Care were to continue selling Tobacco products, they would be considered unethical. In time, stakeholders whom such products would not benefit would question the aims of the business, and such a thing could potentially tarnish the reputation of the business. Now, that CVS has vowed to quit selling tobacco, and has made it to the headline, it has managed to create a new image for itself, and this image positions the business as being ethical benefiting it in terms of being able to attract more customers, recruit potential employees, retain existing employees and even gaining the support of non-government organizations who may protest in other cases.

Thus, as quoted by Mr. Merlo, the decision to stop selling tobacco products “was really more of a discussion about how to position the company for future growth.”

“Near empty cigarette shelves are seen at a CVS store in New York” – CVS Quits Smoking

Works Cited
CVS. “We&#039;re a pharmacy innovation company and every day we&#039;re working to make health care better.” CVS Health Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Sept. 2014. <http://www.cvshealth.com/about-us/our-purpose-building-bridge-better-health>.

Cadbury Schweppes. “Ethical business practicesA Cadbury Schweppes case study.” The importance of ethics in business. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Sept. 2014. <http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/cadbury-schweppes/ethical-business-practices/the-importance-of-ethics-in-business.html#axzz3Crlu75MZ>.

Emery, Gene. “Nicotine, even through e-cigarettes, linked to increased cocaine in mice.” The Globe and Mail. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Sept. 2014. <http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/nicotine-even-through-e-cigarettes-linked-to-increased-addiction-to-cocaine-in-mice/article20371693/>.

Strom, Stephanie. “CVS Vows to Quit Selling Tobacco Products.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 5 Feb. 2014. Web. 9 Sept. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/business/cvs-plans-to-end-sales-of-tobacco-products-by-october.html?_r=0>.

“CVS.” Quit Smoking. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Sept. 2014. <http://e2e60d7b84a6c65eaeba-f1ef8650b408e2687e8eb32f405dc142.r82.cf3.rackcdn.com/5415892-CVS-Quits-Smoking-Pharmacies-Will-Stop-Selling-Tobacco.jpg>.

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