Bonnie Zhou's Blog

Like many other people who have learned about Zappos’ work environment, I was amazed at how different their workplace compared to my interpretation of a typical workplace! In a nutshell, Zappos focuses on capitalizing their investment on their workforce, while supporting the organizational culture to make sure that the employees provide quality customer service. HR management is hugely linked to the company’s brand, since these employees are basically waving the company’s flag when they are serving customers!

I was also interested in finding out how Zappos compared to Canada’s top 100 employers of 2012. Turns out, the top 2 employers were Accenture Inc. and Adobe Systems Canada Inc. What these two have in common with the example of Zappos, is that all 3 of these companies have a good support in organizational culture! For example, Accenture Inc. provided their employees with ongoing employee development through tuition subsidies, high maternity payments, and $6000 bonuses for referring candidates for a vacancies! More on their company profile here. Adobe Systems Canada Inc. offered many of the same things, but their social events stood out more. You can find out more about their company profile here.

Following a presentation of sustainability, I felt inspired to try to leave as small carbon footprint as I possibly can. There are just so many things we can do now to help sustain the earth’s resources on a personal level and then translating this into the business world as well. Without a doubt, the economy is hugely affected by how people use the earth’s resources and if businesses become more aware of the environment, they can help sustain the resources for future generations to come.

I was also completely blown away when I read a blog on The Economist about a group called ECOISLAND (in Britain) that’s aiming to give the Isle of Wight the smallest carbon footprint in England by 2020! They are calling this island: the ISLE OF GREEN because they are going to become completely energy dependant.

“Despite having plenty of natural resources, the island has become increasingly reliant on the mainland for energy, water, food and other necessities.”

This group in England is an example of environmentalists who are taking a huge step into innovation and integrating green technology to build a self sufficient future. This example will likely inspire many more individuals and businesses in the world to do their part in sustaining a better future as well! I know I will!

Do you feel inspired as well?

After coming across Masaki’s blog post on Molson Canadian’s commercial I definitely got a good laugh out of it! This commercial definitely sits on the top of my favourite commercial list (check it out if you don’t believe me!) I am Canadian

Product positioning is successfully used in this commercial. By getting into the minds of consumers, Molson Canadian’s commercial focused on pushing its beer as the number one beer in Canada by highlighting nationalism. They are comparing themselves to the american brands and trying to get into consumers; mind as being number one. So, they were successful in providing a “hook” for its viewers, by promoting their product as a top canadian brand (while sneaking in some Canadian stereotypes)!

Here are a couple more Molson Canadian commercials that again promotes their beer as the number one canadian brand, thus positioning their brand on the top of the product ladder. In all their commercials, they end with “I am Canadian”- which is s clearly a nationalism statement! Enjoy!

watch?v=yukrEhNG-Po

watch?v=AnfIN7WVgNs&feature=related

To me, a company like Zara is very entrepreneurial because of their ability to turn new ideas into fashion in such a fast rate compared to other clothing companies, such as Forever21. Zara’s ability to send out new merchandise really quickly is a strong point of the company because they’re able to put out fresh and popular clothing in a matter of weeks. Also, Zara is continuing to be innovative, adaptive, and learning ways to put out new merchandise in quick ways. They are innovative because they are striving to push out new products, while adapting new production methods to put out their merchandise quicker than any other clothing stores. This innovation of theirs generate new demand, thus generating a high wealth creation! They are also continuing to enter new markets to open up many new stores in countries other than Spain. These reasons conclude why Zara is very entrepreneurial, thus positioning themselves as one of the top competitors in the clothing industry.

I came across Tim’s blog post: A Polar Iconic Design. I strongly agree that this was a smart move for since their part in donating $2 million over 5 years to World Wildlife Fund (WWW) is a rather small amount, but the actual marketing scheme behind this idea is what makes this campaign a very smart move. 

Right on the front page of Coca Cola, one can see that they are strongly marketing this campaign during the holiday season, making it a clever holiday icon! The new polar bear design and the awareness that it raises creates a very successful campaign all in all. Firstly, it builds a strong brand image for Coca Cola since their signature mascot is in fact a polar bear! More importantly, this campaign creates an incentive for consumers to buy their product over other substitutes, which creates a competitive edge for Coca Cola. Therefore, I can see why Tim thought this campaign was a win win situation for Coca Cola and WWW. However, I would like to add that this is actual a triple win situation! Consumers also feel much better with their purchase on a socially responsible campaign, so that makes this situation a win win win!

Check out their commercial here!

Recently in the news, millions of Blackberry users in Europe have been experiencing BBM crashes. This problem has more than in areas other than Europe, such as North America. The millions of users who have been affected by many of the BBM issues. I don’t have a Blackberry myself, but after hearing about all the issues around their BBM system has lowered my interest in purchasing a Blackberry. Instead of a Blackberry, consumers may go for an android phone or an iPhone even. This issue can really affect the company in the long run since consumers will start to go for substitutes, such as the iPhone. Blackberry hasn’t been releasing many new products as frequent as Apple or Samsung, which causes them to lose their competitive edge in the phone market. A company’s reliability in their products is also very important in gaining customer loyalty and eventually increasing customers. My recommendations: I feel that Blackberry should resolve the kinks in their BBM services and start pushing out new products so they can still have their competitive edge in the phone market, their BBM service.

Netflix, the growing online streaming company recently stated on their blog that their new service, Qwikster, will not be splitting up from the original Netflix website. Qwikster was suppose to be Netflix’s other website to go to for DVDs. After customers heard about the two different websites and accounts that they needed to have, many just decided to canceled their subscriptions. Netflix responded quick to the number of customers that were declining and quickly abandoned the breakup they had announced earlier.

I thought Netflix had a quick response to their decreasing customers due to splitting the company’s two services, DVD-by-mail and online streaming. The company was “listening to its customers (finally) and working to fix its relationship with them”. Good customer satisfaction is very important! By acting on their mistake, Netflix won back many customers. Following this issue, Netflix should continue to listen to their customers, build on their brand name, and improve their services. In general, avoiding a huge downfall in customer satisfaction is key in saving a company’s brand name, customers, and opportunities for the future! Netflix’s situation posed as a great example of a company that acted quick after listening to their customers.

When the iPhone 4S was revealed, a lot of disappoint may have came from consumers who were hoping for a completely different look . However, the news stated that the preorders were actually quite a success for Apple. More than a million people in the world ordered Apple Inc’s latest phone, the iPhone 4S, in the first day.  The pre-orders were above the expected amount and shares went up by 4% the next day it was revealed.

An explanation for this incredible success is highly due to the fact that Apple products are distinct and quite desirable relative to their competition. They are distinct from their competitors because of their ability to innovate and put out products that have changed how the world used technology, thus occupying a strong brand position in the market. They weren’t too worried about low sales because there are many loyal customers who would go ahead and buy the new product anyways. Many consumers would say that Apple has occupied the top of the product ladder in their minds! Without a doubt, Apple is a well-defined example of a company with strong brand positioning in their market.

With over 800 million users already, Facebook has already become the internet’s largest social network and they are pushing to become more that that. Recently, Facebook announced that they are pushing to become a media hub by including all other aspects of your life, such as what you are watching, reading, buying, and listening to, into your Facebook profile!

I think Facebook has created a great strategy because they can build huge partnerships with companies that distribute entertainment and news. In a world where innovation is skyrocketing at the moment, I think that this new idea can change the way people purchase music and movies. By sharing and recommending movies or music, Facebook users can substantially increase sales revenue for entertainment companies such as Warner Brothers, Miramax and Lions Gate Entertainment. They will allow Facebook users to watch movies online, using Facebook’s virtual currency called “credits”.

However, this strategy can raise some challenges for Facebook since some users may not like this idea of sharing even more of their life on Facebook.  The turnout remains to be unknown, but what do you think of Facebook’s idea of becoming a “tastemaker”?

It was said that many of Taiwan’s food ingredient suppliers were told to recall their products after the Department of Health detected a harmful ingredient called DEHP in their products.  Without a doubt, it is very unethical for some of these companies to be carelessly putting harmful chemicals, such as the cancer causing DEHP, into the food and drinks that we eat.

I am sure that many parents have been giving their children these candies and drinks (that contained these harmful chemicals) as treats for quite a long time. I know that I have consumed some of the food and drinks mentioned in the news article above. It is unfair for consumers since they do not know about the harmful chemicals in the food they buy until there is a recall. As a consumer myself, I will be watching what I buy, now that I know some of the contaminated products have been exported around the world and may even be shipped into Vancouver as well. These 167 food ingredient suppliers in Taiwan will cause other food and drink manufacturers in Taiwan to lose tons of business due to their carelessness in putting chemicals into food ingredients just to cut costs. I think that it is very unethical for companies to be putting cheap but harmful ingredients in their products since they are putting people’s health in danger.