(http://i.cbc.ca/1.3814743.1477002401!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_620/walmart-garbage-bins.jpg)

 

Recently, CBC’s Marketplace went through trash bins at Walmarts and found they were filled with discarded food well before the best-before date, most of which appeared to be fresh and was still in its packaging. The response from Walmart is just a statement that says, “food which has not passed its best-before date is deemed unsafe for consumption.” After Marketplace contacted Walmart, the company locked up the bins behind the stores where the food was found.(http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-walmart-food-waste-1.3814719)

 

Bins can be easily locked up and garbage can be easily hidden, but how about Walmart’s corporate social responsibility? Can it be ignored like this? In fact, the more Walmart tries to cover what they have done, the more its lack of sense of shared value and social responsibility will be exposed. There is no doubt that the issue of excessive food is unavoidable for large stores like Walmart that has thousands of customers every day, but what really should be questioned is its way of dealing with the excessive food. “If you just give it away to people, then why are they going to buy it from us?” (http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-walmart-food-waste-1.3814719) The manager of Walmart once gave this explanation on why they threw away the food instead of donating it to food bank, which exactly reflects how they think corporate social responsibility is contrast to profit making. What Walmart focuses on is only short-term benefit, therefore throwing food away seems the most efficient way to keep the goods for sale always fresh; however, from the perspective of long-term sustainable development, Walmart should seek for a more environmental-friendly solution such as giving the food to those who need it, thus allowing Walmart to better show to public its business ethic and its attitude to shared value and social responsibility, which will bring the long-term benefit and help the development maintain sustainable.

 

A successful business is always trying to find the best balance between corporate social responsibility and profit making. Take the positive example of UPS’s rolling laboratory in Jorge Enriquez’s blog. (https://blogs.ubc.ca/jorgeenriquez/). In his blog UPS and its Rolling Laboratory: Efficiency Meets Sustainability, Jorge talked about the world’s largest package delivery company UPS’s sustainability strategy that “consist in reducing the emission by using alternative el vehicles in their delivery process”. I agree with the concepts of differentiation strategy and value proposition applied by Jorge. No matter it is UPS or Walmart, or any company, taking corporate social responsibility is not only confined to ethical aspect. What it is truly related to is people’s overall cognition to the whole company, which will ultimately affect a company’s position in the industry. Walmart needs to know that garbage is never as simple as it thinks, and so is its corporate social responsibility.

 

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         (http://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-galaxy-note-7-recall-714419/)

In a regulatory filing in South Korea this Tuesday, Samsung has confirmed that it is permanently stopping production of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone  (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/samsung-galaxy-note-7-exploding-battery-safety-concerns) This official “death” of Note 7 has put a final end to the crisis of explosions and fires caused by overheating batteries.

 

In fact, before this final decision, Samsung has been switching its solution to quickly fix this issue. Samsung first recalled 2.5 millions of devices after the report of overheating batteries came up in the beginning of September. It urged consumers to immediately turn off the phones and get them replaced with the new Note 7. Not too long after the recall, Samsung announced that it planned to issue a software update as another “quick fix” for its recalled Galaxy Note 7 smartphones that will prevent them from overheating by limiting battery recharges to 60 percent.(http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/samsung-galaxy-note-7-recharge-1.3759648) However, after more fires involving new devices that were supposed to be safe replacements for recalled models, Samsung decided to halt sales of the star-crossed Galaxy Note 7 smartphone on October 10th. (http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/samsung-galaxy-note-7-production-1.3798550).Just a day after the halting sale, the production has finally been ended permanently.

 

It might seem reasonable and harmless for Samsung to spend one month trying different solutions because people who own Note 7 have already paid, which means profits have already been created for Samsung. However, is Samsung really losing nothing? When busy changing its solution to public, one important factor that cannot be ignored is the opportunity cost of doing so. Consumers always seek more reliability from the producers when having a crisis. Spending a even longer period of time in deciding a responsible and reliable solution usually can better offset the damage of trust between customers and company, compared to just throwing out a quick fix，which producers are even not sure about its feasibility. Seeing Samsung making mistake to cover another mistake, consumers will only be more and more disappointed. The opportunity cost in this case, is customers’ faith on Samsung in the future. Realizing this problem, Samsung Electronics Co slashed its quarterly profit estimate by a third this Wednesday, soaking up a US$2.3 billion hit from ditching its flagship smartphone.(http://www.bnn.ca/samsung-slashes-us-2-3b-from-profit-forecast-as-note-7-crisis-spreads-1.583614)

 

This is not the first time Samsung has shown its lack of ability to recognize the severity of the problem and to find a responsible solution within a short time. The post on business ethics in Debbie Carr’s blog(https://blogs.ubc.ca/debbieecarr/) shows that when dealing with the health issues of workers such as manufacturing facilities and heavy working hours, Samsung “issued a statement of apology” supplemented by a “100 million won fund”, which still caused many to criticize Samsung’s ability to fix errors immediately. I agree with Debbie’s application of the concept of business ethics to this case. Like she said, it is critical that the company abides by the moral guidelines. A responsible solution can not only suggest a company’s ethical standards and emergency power, but help maintain a better customer relationship as well. This is what Samsung needs to learn.

 

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With online shopping evolving in the marketplace, customers’ expected wait times are getting shorter and shorter, which brings the question to the e-commerce market: can the general online shopping and delivering be even faster? In response to this question, the largest internet-based retailer Amazon.com Inc. decides to offer free same-day deliveries on orders over $25 of one million items in Toronto and 700,000 in Vancouver, ranging from everyday household goods such as coffee makers, snacks, drinks and shampoo to toys, electronics and luggage, starting this Tuesday(http://www.bnn.ca/amazon-launches-free-same-day-delivery-for-toronto-and-vancouver-prime-members-1.574629).  Holding convenience as the main value proposition, Amazon always attempts to raise the level of convenience for their customers. Developing same-day delivery is undoubtedly another behavior showing how Amazon embraces its value proposition.

In the conventional sense of online shopping, products that can be purchased are only those that customers are not in urgent need of, such as clothes, make-ups and electronics, due to the waiting period of delivering. Therefore customers won’t put online shopping in consideration when trying to get something that is going to be used shortly. For example, when trying to get a gift for tomorrow’s dinner, or a snack for later today, people won’t go to online stores even though there might be more options. By developing same-day delivery, Amazon changes people’s traditional knowledge of online shopping and also raises the level of convenience for their customers, which embraces its value proposition and develop the customer relationship as well. Also, same-day delivery helps Amazon expand its product coverage, including foods and drinks, which also helps develop its customer segment.

However, there are also challenges following by the decision of same-day delivery. For example, unpredictable variables such as weather and traffic condition will affect the performance of same-day delivery, thus requiring operation managers to make more deliberate plans to make sure the same-day delivery will function well. I also checked Amazon.com and found that there have been no clear notes on whether or not one product is able to provide same-day delivery. As the burgeoning service in Canada, same-day delivery should be promoted with stronger efforts.

Same-day delivery signals that online shopping is developing towards less wait time and more convenience. To employ this new service more efficiently, there are still lots of challenges involving with different apartments in Amazon to be overcome. Amazon has improved itself in the aspect of “making it faster”. The next step for Amazon should be focusing more on how to “do it better”.

 

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