Baoyi Chen’s Blog

(Picture taken from:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/hengshao/2014/11/10/alibabas-ambition-make-chinas-largest-24-hour-sale-a-daily-norm/)

The online retailer Alibaba has announced after the first hour of the annual discount sales event that 2 billions of goods has been sold. This astounding number was further explored that over 45% of the trades were mobile and goods from overseas markets. The 11th of November, a special day for Chinese as they celebrate if they are single. Alibaba came out with the idea that every year, on the 11th of November, single people should celebrate the singles day by spending money to shop. Therefore, Alibaba platform introduced “The Singles Day” in 2009 and it gradually became a “tradition” nowadays.

This event has obviously attract the crowds, whatever the quality of the goods are, because Alibaba has done a great job on marketing this event, got it played in the right way. The marketing strategic that Alibaba used were aimed at the group of consumers who have strong desire to spend money or to shop. Alibaba has made it clear that this event has to be a massive sale in order to attract consumers. This strategic has proven its efficiency and also brought everyone’s attention to the future of E-commerce.

Reference:

“Alibaba Singles’ Day Sales Pass $9bn.” BBC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2014. <http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29999289>.

(Pictures taken from: http://imgarcade.com/1/tesla-logo-on-car/)

The CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk has announced that Tesla is planning to launch about 700 satellites into the space to used for providing internet connectivity across the planet. Elon Musk was known for being bold and innovative, this idea of shooting satellites does not seem to be impossible despite the fact that huge amount of cost is needed. This has became the main obstacle of this project, in order to process, Tesla has to produce satellites which have relatively low cost.

Furthermore, if Musk wants this project to be resounded, he also needs to consider about the probability of all 700 satellites successfully shot into the space. Manufacturing costs have to be low due to the large amount and lack of funding. Musk could also consider about raising Tesla Motor’s sale revenue to gain more profit or funding. I have always found Tesla Motor having lesser commercial advertisement than other competitors. It would catch people’s attention if Tesla is willing to promote its brand a little more by advertisement and let others know about what Tesla is about without doing massive research. This might help with Tesla’s revenue. 

Reference:

“Tesla Motors Inc CEO Preparing To Launch Internet Satellite.” ValueWalk. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2014. <http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/11/tesla-ceo-prepping-internet-satellite/>.

(Picture taken from: http://www.humanipo.com/news/41991/7-africans-win-social-entrepreneur-of-the-year-award/)

“If  the United Nations was fully funded why would we need the Arc or social enterprise”?

United Nations as the leader of international co-operations is fairly different with Arc and social enterprise. The statement argue that Arc and social enterprise are not needed if United Nations is fully funded. However, this has to take in considered that the United Nations might not be able to provide aid to all countries that help. That is also why there are Arc and social enterprise, also, they do have different aims. The United Nations aims that every individual’s right can be respected through strengthened human rights. On the other hand, Arc and social enterprise share a similar directions of helping poor people to find a way to survive by teaching them skill, giving them educations etc. This would make a large difference since the one is helping poor countries with financial aids, and the others are helping with physical actions.

The United Nations might be “too busy” to find out that the best way to help undeveloped countries is not just simply provide financial aids, skills, technology, medications and educations are what needed indeed.

Reference:

“Sauder School of Business.” The Arc Initiative. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2014. <http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/Global_Reach/ARC_Initiative>.

“What Is Social Entrepreneurship?” Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2014. <http://skollworldforum.org/about/what-is-social-entrepreneurship/>.

Blog post link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/sunjie/2014/10/05/my-comment-on-unplugged-and-unproductive/

This blog post of Sun Jie has attracted my attention as he said that businesses nowadays are going online, and in his opinion it is a great thing as smart phones and network are being common and popular, going online and going mobile cut companies’ cost as these methods do not require much human resources, therefore no salary needed to pay for the workers and less mistakes could be made.

I did not fairly agree with what Sun Jie stated as I believe that human resources are crucial to a company’s survival value. Refer to what we have discussed in class, Zappos was a good example of showing how human resources and the style of human resource management can be comparatively important to a company. A company was built essentially based on human resources, a great team providing excellent ideas and wonderful services would bring  numerous profit to the company. Zappos’ s call centre proved that point as the company provides the workers outstanding working environment and welfare. I believe that the future of businesses would be mainly rely on mobile or Internet, however, in order to be successful, these businesses would require strong teams to support them anytime when technical issues happen or marketing strategics needed.

(Picture taken from: http://sites.davidson.edu/anthro/global/2012/03/18/starbucks-entering-popular-culture/)

Starbucks is everywhere. Saying that by living in a country that Starbucks is to be seen at each block of a street. But in Australia, it does not seem so much like that. Starbucks entered the Australian market in 2000, and expand massively in the following years, however, it has caused Starbucks to lose approximately 143 million dollars and more than 60 stores closing promptly.

This is then to be investigated, and released that Starbucks has been “too proud” of its brand. In fact, before Starbucks entered the Australian market, local coffee shop like Gloria Jean had been existed and popular for the whole time, and Starbucks, unfortunately having selling their product at a higher price than its competitors. 

Starbucks, owns 23,000 stores over the world, at the end failed in Australia. It can be concluded that Starbucks might be overestimating itself among all other competitors. As a coffee shop, its product might be different with others, but at the end of the day, Starbucks is not much a necessity for consumers. Furthermore, Australian have the sense of supporting its local community, being a little bit exclusive. The failure of Starbucks in Australia hopefully gives Starbucks an alarm of not being arrogant and too confident of its products.

Reference:

Lutz, Ashley. “Starbucks Has Failed In Australia.” Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 28 May 2014. Web. 20 Oct. 2014. <http://www.businessinsider.com/starbucks-closing-stores-in-australia-2014-5>.

(Picture taken from: http://www.homeboyzradio.co.ke/microsoft-finally-ditching-nokia-name-mobile-devices)

Nokia has dominated the mobile market for a long period, just as long as the market of mobile has been existed. However, since the rapid development in phone market in the recent years, Nokia has gradually started to lose its market competitiveness by lots of alternative companies and products. The popularization of the smart phone has increased a lot; iPhone and lots of Android Phones are starting to take over the domination and leading the trend of the market. However, with the global rising of supplying mobile phone, Nokia’s market range has been limited.

In order to improve the current situation of Nokia, the crucial factors to Nokia’s future to expand Nokia’s market share, will be emerge economies in India and Asia; joint venture with another complementary firm such as Microsoft. Nokia will be using Microsoft’s smartphone operating system to improve the sales and reputation. Nokia should keep their domination between the competitors with an advanced marketing strategic. In order to achieve the goals, Nokia need to concentrate on marketing. Since Nokia is not leading the highest production rate and selling rate amongst the world Phone companies, Nokia will spend the most effort on strengthen the marketing strategy in order to compete.

Reference:

Nokia Confirms Commitment to Windows Phone, but Is Asking “what’s Next?”.” Digital Trends. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2014. <http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/nokia-focused-on-windows-phone-still-isnt-interested-in-android/>.

Happened recently on September 18, 2014, the First Nation chiefs is wanting the Harper government to say no to BC Hydro’s $8-billion Site C hydroelectric megaproject. This project is not confirmed yet, but the First Nation chiefs are concern about their land would be take over, and they would not be able to fish, hunt and hold ceremonies. The issue of First Nation been unacceptable to any business project that might use their property is no longer a news. It is desirable for them to have their ownership of the land. However, BC hydro’s business plan to build a hydroelectric generating station near the northeastern British Columbia will affect multiple stakeholders. The government will be affected as the company needs the government to subsidise. Numerous benefit will be brought to the residents in B.C. as well as the company itself as an oligopolist. 

This is considering an external factor that affects the organisation’s business model from the societal and cultural aspect. As the new entrant of this particular market, the BC hydro is facing several problems conducted by a PEST analysis:

• Political – As the project still needs to be approve by the government
• Economic – As he project needs to be funded
• Social – As First Nation is unwilling to accept this project since the operation would destroy their farmlands and wildlife habitat.
• Technological – As this project will be beneficial with the technology to bring  residents clean hydroelectric

Nevertheless, the most important issue is the conflict between First Nation and the project. It is s that the First Nation wants their cultural properties to be reserved. For the conflict to be resolved, the organisation might need to offer more advantage to the First Nation in order to let them agree to the project.

Yeqi Yang’s blog post on finding a balance between profits and the corroborative ethics really interests me as it reminded me another news article that I read about indian workers having poor living conditions in Singapore. Although these two articles are not describing the similar situation, they are all link to one issue, ethics.

In Yeqi’s blog post, she mentioned that “The reason that such numerous brands choose Bangladesh is obviously the cheap labor, however, it cannot be ignored that the limit investment has more possibilities to cause a worse working condition.” I think this would be common to any developing countries that offers cheap labour, for example, China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippine, etc. These countries have numerous migrant worker all over the world to work either in factories or constructions to produce goods to another foreign company. However, their working conditions are normally poor as they are receiving low salary and their employers would concentrate more on profit instead of their working environment. I think this issue has to be emphasis as labour is essentially one of the most important parts to a business. Yeqi also said that “some managers only show the CSR (corporate social responsibility) in some superficial forms like doing charity or advertising on the media because they do not think the costumers would not pay for their social responsibilities“. This is also an issue as some company made themselves look beautiful publicly but actually they are doing unethical practices. For example, L’oreal, the French cosmetic who does animal testing before they launch their products. I think that is very unethical since the products are not for animal to use, furthermore, it would give significant damage and would be dangerous to the animal. Linking back to Yeqi’s blog post, I think companies should find a balance between profit and the corroborative ethics, in this way the consumers would be more happy and comfortable when buying and consuming the products, and the companies could established a relatively excellent brand image to avoid protests from the workers or from the pressure groups, also, good brand reputation would motivate employees as well!

Yeqi Yang’s Blog Post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/yeqiyang/2014/09/08/finding-a-balance-between-profits-and-the-corroborative-ethics/

(Picture taken from: https://www.mojandroid.sk/vlajkova-lod-od-huawei-ma-mat-qhd-displej-8-jadrovy-procesor-aj-3-gb-ram/)

Huawei was founded in the year 1987 in China, and now operating as a multinational networking, telecommunications equipment and service company. Huawei had an overseas strategy,  and worked pretty successful. Its global market sales revenue has achieved more than 2 billion dollars, accounting for 40% of the total sales revenue by 2013. This company aroused my interested because they sprout in the competitive telecommunications market, and allege that one day they would be beyond other popular companies like, Apple and Samsung.

In fact, Huawei does have high tech smartphone that can compete with Apple’s iphones. Huawei has invested a huge amount of money into inventing the 4G LTE technology, with certain developments and experiments, it published world fastest 4G LTE phone in 2013, this has brought lots of attention on Huawei, and made their brand more well-known. The company has established their product positioning as great capability and modern appearance but with cheaper price. In this way, they could have more sales revenue to build up a certain customer base and brand image. Huawei is little known as an international brand. Although its products have been selling globally, it is still rejected by some of the country like US due to US protectionism. However, Huawei has great invention with advanced technology and the sales are increasingly booming with the introduction of the Ascend series. I have done a SWOT analysis (shown below) on Huawei because I was interested at the transformation of this company, and I think the company would have to be unique and innovative so that it could compete with other telecommunication companies. Also, to promote its brand image, Huawei should be establishing its reputation as well as developing its products.

SWOT Analysis of Huawei’s product (the Ascend series)

References:

“Huawei Unveils New Phone to Compete With Apple and Samsung.” Bits Huawei Unveils New Phone to Compete With Apple and Samsung Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.

“Should We Fear the Growth of Huawei?” BBC News. Peter Day, n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.

This article “CVS Vows to Quit Selling Tobacco Products” elaborates the decision of CVS pharmacy stop selling tobacco. In the article, it was clear that the profit of the company would drop because the number of the tobacco buyers will be decrease, as well as the related goods that smokers would possibly purchase. However, this decision would be ethical since it will decrease the number of smokers, reduce second hand smokes, at the same time beneficial to the environment (quality of air) and the society.

Milton Friedman’s article “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits” stated one of his opinion about a business should “make as much money as possible while conforming to their basic rules of the society”. This statement, in my opinion, is not well suggested to companies that consider ethical issues like CVS. In long term, this decision of stop selling tobacco products would takes CVS to another position, which would be much more respectful in the industry of pharmaceutical.

This decision of quit selling tobacco products may not possibly bring huge financial benefit to the company, but it would leave excellent reputation and at the same time motivates the employees in the way that it might gives them passion and incentive to work in order to generate more profit.