Entrepreneur Found: Trump

Donald Trump is a great example of an entrepreneur. He is one of the most well known entrepreneurs around and is known to be a harsh boss with the famous phrase “You’re fired!” 

He definitely demonstrates all 4 of the qualities necessary to be considered an entrepreneur where he took a huge risk–the biggest aspect of them all. At one point in his life, he owed many banks great sums of money he did not have because he lost it to failed attempts. Despite this hardship, Trump was able to pick it up and become one of the best success stories around. He has invested in many building projects and has come out of it with lots of money. 

Another aspect is that he’s extremely rich, owning many, many golf courses, towers (Trump Towers), hotels, and even merchandise. The Trump Entreprise is a huge organisation with many sectors, each making him lots of money in a short time. This all came upon at high speed, changing a man from owing millions to owning billions. 

The Trump Enterprise is so great in size, but nevertheless, it continues to grow. The number of buildings Trump owns, the general size of the organisation, and the projects taken on has continually increased to larger and larger extents. Even now, the Enterprise have two projects to be done in the year 2012, both being hotels. 

It is then obvious to call Donald Trump an entrepreneur as he satisfies with all the qualities an entrepreneur should have. He has taken on many risks of large extent with great wealth and continual growth to lead to a great success. Some even say “Whatever he comes in contact with turns to gold.”

Getting Ahead of the Rest

United Continental Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: UAL) today announced that it has selected Panasonic Avionics Corporation to provide Wi-Fi connectivity on more than 300 United Airlines and Continental Airlines mainline aircraft beginning in mid-2012.

 

IN-FLIGHT WIFI!! Companies need to continually invest into new and innovative ideas to keep ahead of the competition–or just to keep up…
With this new idea, United Airlines and Continental Airlines will offer something many other airlines can’t just yet. This new plan will definitely interest many travelers to move to its airlines, because with long last flights we just need to continue to find new things to do and what everyone hasn’t gotten themselves attached to is the internet. 
The two airlines will be positioning themselves, brand wise, at the top in the sense of being able to offer this feature. This aspect will be targeting the business market for business people who have to fly a lot for their job and targeting immigrants/travelers who will fly and may need to fly long hours on the plane. It is definitely a huge market and will interest many people. 
 

Competitive Prices Much?

The Amazon Kindle (Affordable and Functional)

The profit margin for Amazon’s new investment — the kindle tablet — is relatively low. In comparing its prices with the other brands in it’s market, it is really low and really risky. It’s prices are extremely competitive even though Amazon has been continually investing in its development of the kindle.
Is this a wise idea for Amazon to keep its marginal profits low?
I think it’s smart if Amazon can sustain growth, but it is also an extremely risky move. For a month, Amazon actually underestimated the number of kindles that were to sold. It was such an amazing hit and it definitely had to do with the cost of this tablet. The prices are so low that it has been on news articles.
Then came the nightmare…
Amazon forecasts slow months to come, whichll include Christmas. Amazon’s profit margin is only 4% while many other technology companies maintain a 20% margin more or less. This is a huge problem for investings into this company. Investors are questioning whether or not this is a good company to invest in because they don’t think they’ll ever get money with investing into Amazon.
Do competitive prices benefit the company?
Yes and no. Its highly risky and comes with its up and downs. Its causes frustrations in terms of investments from investors and it frustrates other companies in the field because of the extremely low prices. Furthermore, it makes it harder for Amazon to invest in advancing Kindle’s technology/features.

BlackBerry’s Brand IMAGE

What Happened!?

With BlackBerry’s one and a half day of complete silence of texting, phoning, and Internet browsing, blackberry has earned themselves a horrible reputation. The main problem blackberry now faces is the damage, not to it’s financial aspect, but to its image.

What Are It’s Best Solutions??

They’ve already given millions of dollars worth of applications to its consumers for its apologies and hopefully win back it’s customers trust.

But What Else Can It Do?

Well, the main problems it has to face are keeping current consumers and attracting future ones. With a bad reputation, this will be hard. So how should this issue be tackled?

Well…

The company could go after developing a better quality phone and service system. This strategy will go about improving its faults and creating a better consumer perspective of the brand. This innovative strategy will work for the long run, which will enable better products to put on its shelves, restablishing it’s place as a
leading competitor in the phone market.

On Another Thought…

BlackBerry can expand it’s product list to open to a wider market and appeal to a greater range of consumers. This will lead away from the main focus on the blackberry phones which now have a tainted image.
So far, BlackBerry has given $100 to each of its customers to use to buy apps to try and redeem itself from this awful incident. I don’t believe this is enough for consumers to be satisfied with because many business people who use blackberry mobiles will have had major difficulties in terms of business related situations. It should go for a strategy to further improve its brand position. People have already moved away from BlackBerry phones because they were so upset with its performance.

Technology (BlackBerry Blackout)

The Next Generation

The next generation of youths–the children of the future, the students of today– we are the first generation to take technology for granted. We’ve gone from the generations of the Elders to the Baby Boomers, Generation X, to the present generation: the Next Generation. This generation was born into a technology based world. Computers, cellphones, and televisions were already at our disposal and we take it for granted.

BlackBerry Blackout

During the recent BlackBerry blackout, many of its customers around the globe left their BlackBerry phones behind and moved onto new brands, one of which could have been the iPhone as the new iPhone 4s had come out. What a coincidence? Nevertheless, the outrage that was brought upon BlackBerry was big as people were fed up with its service and constant unreliability.

This outrage is a funny scene from one perspective. The blackout made many of BlackBerry’s customers displeased, some to a strong extent. If we look into the past a couple of decades ago and compare ourselves to then, how silly should we feel? Sure, it is understandable that one gets fed up and annoyed with constant service problems, but we didn’t have this kind of technology AT ALL a few decades back. We are lucky to have this new invention at our hands, but even that does not please the typical Next Generation child.

This applies to myself as well. I get frustrated with the performance of my smartphone, its battery life etc., but if we think about what we REALLY have, we should actually be pleased. There are the exceptions where businesses require complete reliability in their technology in order for proper corporate functions, but for the young teens and young adults who just use their phones for socializing and games, the situation is astounding.

What will the future have in store for us?

DOW JONES + Retail Market

DOW JONES Positive?

In the month of September, the American retail market showed a growth of 1.1% in the month of September, a larger growth expected by economists. This is the biggest growth in the retail market in the last seven months and it was astounding that the auto dealerships and the clothing department was the leading success. The gas stations have seen an increase in selling as the auto industry has grown.

Coincidentally, during the same month of this great increase in retail, DOW Jones finally shows a positive increase. DOW has been dropping and dropping for quite some time, but now its risen 1.5%. I find this as a relief for DOW JONES because I’ve been noticing its constant drop with no sign of stabilization. It also shows that there may be a link between the retail market and DOW.

Also, the previous fear that the US was falling into a recession has faded due to this positive growth in the retail market. “Consumer spending accounts for as much as 70% of economic growth.” Although, economists are recommending that consumers hold back from future consumption because the unemployment rate is relatively high and wages are low. Also against the idea that there’s a higher consumption level, “the few sectors to miss out on September’s growth were groceries, liquor stores and retailers that sell books, music and sporting goods.” It is understandable that the sales of books and music are dropping because as technology continues to make advances, the need to actually buy books and music are decreasing. More and more people are learning to be more tech-savvy and so pirating of songs, and even books, are occurring more often. Songs are downloaded freely as opposed to iTunes purchasing, books are now more popularly ebooks where tablets are capable of holding many books in its system but weigh as light as one book.

Apple versus Samsung – Design Lawsuit

http://thisismynext.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analysis/

The world of technology business is extremely aggressive. Different organizations such as Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, etc, have been fighting with one another over copyrights claims like design and copying of technology. In this article, it reveals the fight between Apple (the plaintiff) and Samsung. The part of the article that I want to go over is the Design. There are two parts of the design that are mentioned given below:

 

Hardware and software trade dress claims

  • a rectangular product shape with all four corners uniformly rounded;
  • the front surface of the product dominated by a screen surface with black borders;
  • as to the iPhone and iPod touch products, substantial black borders above and below the screen having roughly equal width and narrower black borders on either side of the screen having roughly equal width;
  • as to the iPad product, substantial black borders on all sides being roughly equal in width;
  • a metallic surround framing the perimeter of the top surface;
  • a display of a grid of colorful square icons with uniformly rounded corners; and
  • a bottom row of square icons (the “Springboard”) set off from the other icons and that do not change as the other pages of the user interface are viewed.

Packaging trade dress claims

  • a rectangular box with minimal metallic silver lettering and a large front-viewpicture of the product prominently on the top surface of the box;
  • a two-piece box wherein the bottom piece is completely nested in the top piece; and
  • use of a tray that cradles products to make them immediately visible upon opening the box.
This is pretty astounding to read because we see different brands have its own style of make. When one sees a Mac or an iPhone for example, we immediately recognize its the Apple brand. Even the box the iPhone and iPods come in have its unique design. To think that Samsung is copying Apple with one of the most blatant aspects as the visible design of its products.
 
It is evident here that the two products look fairly similar. Mentioned above, they have the similar dress with the black bordered fronts with the home button at the bottom, the four app dock placement and the simple shape.
A question I want to bring up is whether or not the shape is something Apple should be bringing up. They are arguing that Samsung copied the rectangular shape with the well rounded edges. How many different shapes can phones have while keeping it conveniently shaped. The number of possibilities is limited for any company.
The products of both Samsung and Apple are evidently similar. I suggest going to the article for a more in depth look at the similarities. The applications icons are too blatantly similar that its hard to think that Samsung would get away with the same design.

 

BCFS’s Ethics in Action

My father’s company, BC Furnace Service Ltd. (BCFS), has accomplished lots in the past 28 years it has been up. An interesting fact that I was unaware of was that the company prioritizes Needs over Wants. Then, the ones who Need it more over others. This is one of the newest discovery I’ve made about my own father’s business and I rather like this policy.

The situation goes as follows:

A woman has scheduled for a furnace installed in her home two weeks prior to the date of agreement. Upon the arrival of this day, an elderly woman calls BCFS to fix the furnace in her home because it has broken down and there is no heat being supplied. The season at which this was happening was mid-winter. My father finds the first technician ready to go, who happens to be the technician about to leave to install a furnace in the first woman’s home, and sends him to the elderly woman’s home while having to cancel the appointment with the first woman. The company prioritized the needy first with the sacrifice of another potential customer for the last minute bail.

The ethical issue here is whether it was right for the company to cancel an appointment booked a while ago for an elderly woman who was freezing in her home during the winter months. I consider this a great act on the company’s response to the situation where the more needy comes before others who need it less, despite the response from the lady being “I don’t care! I booked an appointment first!”.