McDonald’s, one of the world’s leading fast food restaurants, is beginning to increase its efforts to be a leading competitor in the coffee industry as well. McDonald’s already serves coffee, but it is going to start selling bagged coffee in grocery stores, something that Starbucks and Tim Hortons already do. What’s interesting about this is that McDonald’s is starting to introduce its bagged coffee in Canada, before it even introduces it in the US. McDonald’s coffee is not exactly in market as Starbucks coffee, being much cheaper, but it is very similar to Tim Hortons coffee, a brand that is basically synonymous with coffee and doughnuts in the minds of many Canadians. McDonald’s has been trying to compete with Tim Hortons for a while, and even has a week-long promotion every year where they give out free coffee. This is to try to attract people to try their coffee and they will see how good it is, because most people have never even tried McDonald’s coffee. Why would they need to when they can just go to Tim Hortons, right?

The very famous ‘Golden Arches’, instantly recognizable by most North Americans

I think that McDonald’s will have a hard time competing in the coffee industry with Tim Hortons, but if they can get their name out there as a major competitor, it can be worth the effort. Especially since Starbucks made almost 10% of its revenue in 2011 from selling its bagged coffee, according to this article.

After our lecture on social entrepreneurs, I was inspired to write a blog post about one, and so I chose Craig Kielburger, one of Canada’s activists and social entrepreneurs, who also happens to be from my hometown, Thornhill Ontario. When he was 13 he found an organization called Free the Children to help the fight against child labour in developing countries. Since then, he has also created Me to We, a social enterprise. Me to We provides volunteer trips for people to work on Free the Children sites, and also sells clothing and accessories.

A goup of volunteers from Me to We helps to build a school in Ecuador

Half of the profiits are donated to Free the Children, and the other half are re-invested back into the enterprise to keep it sustainable. I find it very interesting that Kielburger created a social enterprise to help support his own charity, which in a way makes not only his social enterprise self-sustainable but also his charity, as he is helping to support it himself. I also found learning about social enterprises very interesting because it opened up a new world of possibilities to me that I can do with my business degree from Sauder.

I suggest you all read more about Me to We on their website, it’s a pretty cool organization.

I recently read a blog on the iPhone 5 that I found very interesting. The blog is talking about an article which states that the iPhone 5 sales could boost the US economy by almost a percent. I found it amazing that Apple has such a defined position in the market that their sales are actually believed to be able to boost the economy. Apple expected to sell 8 million iPhone 5s in the first weekend, however sales were slower than they expected and they only sold about 5 million in the first week. I do not think that the iPhone will be able to boost the economy as much as economists had predicted, because their sales were much lower than expected, and I also think that the money spent on the iPhone 5 would have been spent somewhere else instead, therefore not a gain to the economy, just spent in a different market.

A former Tim Hortons employee from North Vancouver is suffering from kidney failure, and her former coworkers are scrambling to raise funds for her surgery. Her boss has started a fundraiser at his Tim Hortons shop, her former place of employment, and at the other shops that he owns. Camba, the former employee, got her visa revoked when she got sick because she was no longer in good health, and is being forced to return to the Philippines. Her surgery, which she hopes to have done in the Philippines, will cost $24,000, and with the help of Tim Hortons staff and customers, she has already raised $10,000.

Camba is seen here fundraising in the drive-thru window of her store

I think that this is very good publicity for Tim Hortons. It shows that they value each of their employees and that it is a great place of employment. Tim Hortons has also been known to be involved in many fundraisers in the past, and even have their own charity, the Tim Hortons Childrens Foundation (more information on that can be found here). I believe that this is an incredible point of difference that puts Tim Hortons about other businesses in their industry.

In the past three years, biking has increased 26%, bus trips 17%, and car use only 4% with a population increase of 6%. At first glance these numbers seem like they would be good news to TransLink, Vancouver’s public transportation company. However, this is quite the opposite. Oddly enough, the increase in public transportation users is creating a problem for TransLink. They are funded by fuel taxes, so a decline in car use means a decline in revenue from fuel tax for TransLink. As the demand for public transportation rises, the reveue from fuel tax drops.

It seems a little ironic that when more people stop driving and start taking public transportation, TransLink has a decline in revenue. TransLink has been having financial trouble recently and it looks like they are going to have to start looking for other ways to raise funds besides from the fuel tax. Some of their options include an incremental carbon tax or vehicle levy. More information on that can be found here. A vehicle levy was proposed in the 1990s but it did not go over very well with drivers then, so I don’t know how it will go over now, but if I was a Vancouver driver I don’t think I would want to pay more money to support the public transportation.

An interesting article from CBC on this topic can be found here.

Nokia is coming out with a new cell phone, the Lumia 920, but before the product even comes out they have run into issues with their ad campaign. This new phone was to be released to bring Nokia back up there with Apple and Android, specifically using the camera which uses OIS, Optical Image Stabilization technology. However, in the commercial, the video, which was meant to look like it was being taken with the phone, was actually not. Nokia was given a lot of criticism, and made a public apology, which can be read in a full article here http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/09/nokia-conducting-ethics-review-of-misleading-lumia-920-ad/. Many companies do this in their commercials, however they include a disclaimer in very fine print that nobody notices. I think that misrepresenting a product to the market is unethical, and just because you include a disclaimer, does not make it okay.

Nokia’s Lumia 920, the smartphone featured in the commercial

Here is a link to Nokia’s commercial if you would like to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lYMlJP77FQ

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