As Laura Schohenherr writes in her blog: “As environmental threats are building up, such as global warming, we become more conscious about our surrounding, the impact of our actions, and what we really value.” I agree with this, and think all start ups should have this in mind. A concept which is closely linked to this is the “Triple Bottom Line”, which includes social, environmental and economic factors to create a sustainable business.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/lauraschoenherr/2013/11/13/meet-the-needs-of-the-present-without-compromising-the-ability-of-future-generations-to-meet-their-own-needs/

It is getting more media attention, and more of the general audience is now firmiliar with the concept. For example just today (Nov. 17th 2013) this was a headline on Forbes.com: “Jessica Albas Triple Bottom Line Startup Raises 25 Million”. The fact that celebrities endorce the triple bottom line makes it more apealing to the general audience and hopefully one day all businesses will aim for a triple bottom line instead of the traditional economic bottom line.

The way Alba does it is through environmental friendly baby products that have no toxic chemicals in them. The company also gives back to the local community through an organisation called baby2baby by providing baby equipment to inner city families who cannot afford these products normally. And all at the same time as making a profit off her product line. This will become a truly sustainable business.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/annefield/2013/11/17/jessica-albas-triple-bottom-line-startup-raises-25-million/

Entrepreneur Paul Aitken saw a problem; the world’s wealthy had been snapping up Bentleys, pink diamonds and loads of expensive watches, often on easy credit. Aitken says “People who consume luxury goods are risk takers”, and offered them a solution to when they needed to turn their luxury assets into cash to pay unexpected expenses etc.

Out of this Aitken started an “upscale pawnshop”, where entrepreneurs, entertainers and sports stars can liquify their luxury assets. Today Aitken’s upscale pawnshop generates a revenue of $17 million. This is generated through an interest rate of 3.99% monthly.

This is a great example of a great way to start up a company. Instead of thinking of an idea, what one should do and something Paul Graham also argues, is to find a problem you can identify with and solve it. Incorporating views he suggests in his blog (paulgraham.com), one should work to solve a problem one has them self, or could have them selves. Though, make it narrow and very necessary. Aitken’s Pawnshop is dubbed “It’s the pawnbroker to the 1 percent” due to the exclusive nature – thus has a very limited customer base. For these few customers, however, it is a very necessary product. A couple of examples are listed in the article, where wealthy people are in situations where large amounts of cash is needed in a short period of time, and they do not wish to sell their precious luxury goods – then this pawnshop is ideal.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-11/online-pawnshops-for-1-percent-turn-conspicuous-consumption-into-cash.html

http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html

The Rolling Jubilee project deleted $15m worth of personal debt by spending $400,000.

It is a common fact that the US in a lot of debt, but personal debt is a huge issue for many Americans. So a group of the Occupy movement decided to clear the medical debt of a large number of private citizens. How is this possible? On the secondary debt market, as we learnt in class, where people buy and sell already existing debt – here the debt lenders, such as credit card and  insurance companies, sell their loans to reduce risk while other debt-buying companies then attempt to recoup the debt from the individual debtor and thus make a profit.

Though the project was not about making profit, but about charity.By spending a fraction of what the money the private persons would have had to, the movement successfully purchased the medical debt and deleted it.

This is an interesting, and creative, way to use the stock and debt markets which should maybe be used more often as it creates benefit towards the general economy as well as a huge impact on the people who get their debt deleted.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/12/occupy-wall-street-activists-15m-personal-debt

(Embedded link to classmates blog post and other business blog)

Upon reading Ally (Rutian) Gao’s blog I came upon an interesting point she made about Blackberry and government intervention. First some background:

As I have blogged about before Blackberry is in trouble and a purchase, of the once preferred smartphone manufacturer for business professionals and politicians, is highly likely to happen.Now Lenovo actively considered a bid, but government intervention from Ottawa said they would not accept a bid from a Chinese company in fear of compromising national security.

Now back to Ally’s point; how much can the government interfere in a global market economy? Can the government block the Blackberry shareholders wishes of selling their company? Canada has said they are open for foreign investment, but this is a step backwards!

https://blogs.ubc.ca/allygao/2013/11/05/lenovo-interested-in-blackberry/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/lenovo-considered-a-bid-for-blackberry-but-ottawa-wouldnt-accept-chinese-takeover/article15256976/

According to Maclean’s business blog the market is recovered after the recession; evidence is the highest number of IPOs since 2007. So now will be the right time to sell the troubled Blackberry, while the market thinks it will grow – thus having a high Price/Earnings ration based on the expected growth.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/11/05/a-wild-week-in-ipo-land/

The world is constantly becoming more environment aware, and companies are following the trend with continuous improvement with regards to sustainability.

Managers and executives of large companies like JPMorgan stated that business undergrads should grasp science and energy; it is no longer enough to have dedicated roles about sustainability, business leaders must understand it too.

This necessary increase in knowledge needed shows how businesses increasingly prioritise sustainability. One can say that being environmental aware and friendly is moving away from the traditional “point of difference” where only a few companies (like Lululemon and The Body Shop) to becoming a point of parity where if your business can not claim it is sustainable it has a disadvantage and its brand value should fall.

This, from an environmental view, is a great evolution which will benefit the environment in the long run. However, one can be critical and say that companies are only doing this to associate their brand with sustainability and in reality have no interest in the environment –though let us hope this is not the case.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/dc56473c-2445-11e3-8905-00144feab7de.html#axzz2h8qQN868

Its common knowledge that Facebook’s IPO was a failure. According to the news articles sourced Facebook was too late (8 years after founding), it had too much hype around it causing the company to over estimate the volume of shares, NASDAQ had several technical errors, and over all a lot of things just didn’t work out for Facebook.

Now Twitter is going public, and has now chosen to be listed on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange). Usually for large Silicon Valley social media companies like Facebook, Zynga, Grupon etc. NASDAQ is the most popular exchange, but a lot of comparisons between Facebook’s IPO and Twitter’s IPO have been made, and Twitter is doing lot different.

It is rumoured that November 15^th is the date the IPO starts. Twitter is getting listed on NYSE not NASDAQ, they are using Morgan Stanley, not JP Morgan. They do it before they make their first billion dollars. And several other minor changes should make the Twitter IPO more successful that the Facebook IPO.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2013/09/13/why-twitters-ipo-wont-be-like-facebooks-ipo/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-15/twitter-picks-nyse-as-exchange-bolsters-tech-ipo-allure.html

Boeing was first. They established them selves as the strongest brand, and Airbus had no points of difference to push Boeing off their throne. Boeing was used almost exclusively for decades; until recently when a $9.5 billion order on Airbus planes was made – sheduled to overtake Boeing in the long term.

So what has happened here? Boeing had trouble with their most popular model (the 787) and when they could not deliver, nor seemed as appealing as before due to trouble with batteries etc. they lost their points of parity – a plane has to work – and thus lost a significant market share in the Japanese market.

In the world wide market, Boeing and Airbus aim at the exact same market, which could be considered  too broad of a market – which is not a profitable idea. One example of this is “But Boeing’s strategy calls for it to be dominant in the sales of midsize and larger jetliners because Airbus has pulled ahead in sales of the newest single-aisle planes, with the A320 neo tallying more advance sales than Boeing’s 737 MAX.” To avoid this, Boieng needs to create a different point of parity, for example the Boeing 777X’s fuel-saving abilities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/business/international/jal-orders-9-5-billion-worth-of-airbus-jets.html?ref=international&_r=0

According to Al Ries, the person who coined “positioning” says “by introducing a cheaper iPhone, Apple will lose its position at the high end. And conversely, it won’t sell very many inexpensive phones because of competition from Chinese and Taiwanese companies.”

What this effectively means is that Apple bit of more than they could chew, by wanting to maintain the high end smartphone market – while aiming to get a larger market share through appealing to lower income earners. According to Ries this will hurt the brand over all, by moving their positioning from a clear point where people know what to expect to an undefined brand.

Earlier this fall Apple was ranked number 1 in terms of brand value, however this could be reduced with the ambiguity surrounding the two different iPhones. Google, which ranked number 2, is the producer of Android, which is now Apples toughest competition (next to Samsung).

This, however, is only one mans opinion. There is a posibuility that the two different phones will start to dominate the market by increasing the market share significantly. And perhaps it was a smart move to use the “iPhone” brand on this new product, so lower income earners who now can afford an iPhone 5c associate them selves with the “exclusive” Apple and iPhone brand. Only time will tell.

http://www.firstpost.com/business/by-introducing-cheaper-iphones-apple-will-lose-its-high-end-position-1103013.html

Today (Sep. 30th 2013) the Top 100 brands were ranked by brand name value by Interbrand Corp. In 2011 Blackberry ranked 54th, today they were not on the list.

Lately Blackberry has received a lot of negative publicity for their lack of demand for their smartphones while their rival smartphone companies Apple and Google now rank respectively one and two in the world. Blackberry was forced to lay off 45% of their staff worldwide, and their losses are approaching one billion US dollars.

The ranking is based on three aspects that make up a brand’s overall value: financial performance of their branded products or service, the role the brand plays in influencing consumer choices, and the strength the brand has to command a price premium or secure earnings for the company, Interbrand says. So with this definition its not hard to see why Blackberry is falling on the list.

Looking at the potential opportunities that arise (considering a SWOT analysis approach to the problem) instead of the external weaknesses and the threats by continuously advancing competition, Blackberry’s market share has fallen so much the lately they have received a takeover bid. Being bought up by a larger private company could give them the time they need out of the media attention to rebrand them selves, and figure out first how to “fix” their lagging points of parity, and then define their points of differentiation to increase demand.

Source:  Ligaya, Armina. “BlackBerry Ltd Falls off Top 100 Global Brands List as Apple Takes Top spot.” Financial Post. N.p., 30 Sept. 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. <http://business.financialpost.com/2013/09/30/blackberry-ltd-falls-off-top-100-global-brands-list-as-apple-takes-top-spot/?__lsa=a1a4-72af>.

After the reading the reading assignment before 1st class, I could relate the current article with something I had already written on the topic, about a proposed minimum price on alcohol in Ireland:

Feel free to give me feedback! www.tinyurl.com/lhprh76