Bryant Hsiao's Blog

Mainly focused on the organizational behaviour and customer support, Zappos is not only one of the most successful online shoe retailer store, but also one of the best companies to work for. One might immediately think there must be a correlation between the two.

In my opinion, having costume parties and other perks definitely help employees stay motivated to come to work everyday with enthusiasm. Many companies believe that the most important part of a business is to keep the customers happy, but I think it is important to understand that in order for customers to be happy, the employees must feel content prior to serving customers. Zappos has achieved its goal of “Delivering WOW through service” as it is reported that the company receives 5000 calls per day. 

CEO Hsieh famously offers $2000 to any of the employees who want to quit because he doesn’t want anyone not liking their job. This is a good win-win situation because Zappos would get rid of any demotivated employees who might negatively affect the company’s “WOW service”, and the employees wouldn’t hesitate to stay because of the benefit they get. This strategic approach has proven successful as the company has sold $2.5 million of merchandise in 2009.                                                                                                                  Image source:

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=zappos+costume+party&um=1&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=738&tbm=isch&tbnid=iMYA2SSdD2Wi5M:&imgrefurl=http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/nov/29/cyber-monday/&docid=H1KID2NinDZpCM&imgurl=http://photos.lasvegassun.com/media/img/photos/2009/01/23/scaled.SVZappos0129MP10_t653.jpg%253F214bc4f9d9bd7c08c7d0f6599bb3328710e01e7b&w=653&h=435&ei=3L7PTsvUGOXXiQKZ2IVE&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=288&vpy=146&dur=2249&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=205&ty=143&sig=101459790517152981404&page=1&tbnh=116&tbnw=155&start=0&ndsp=29&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0

Maddie Erjavec recently blogged about the issue of advertising unhealthy food to children on TV that interested me, and I would like to further comment and critique on a few points she made. I agree that the increasing number of obese children for the past few years has a lot to do with the increasing amount of unhealthy food advertisements on TV, however one can argue that the businesses who choose to do this are not doing it for a bad intention.

Companies might regard it merely as its marketing strategy because helping the business succeed is priority. However, there must be a limit. In 2004, McDonald’s actually agreed to the filming of the documentary “Super Size Me” because it agreed that choosing McDonald’s the healthiest choice, but in my opinion, once this message has been delivered, McDonald’s should have the right to continue advertising. From that point it would be the responsibility of parents and children to make their decisions.

Also, it is wrong to say companies should never advertise to children because children at least have some buyer power, and just because they’re children it doesn’t mean that they have no ability to filter information and make good decisions.

It’s been five months since the first day of the NBA lockout, and the NBA owners and players are still in stalemate for how to distribute the $4 billion revenue. Both parties are unwilling to be the losers between this battle.

Really? What about the people who depend on the NBA for job opportunities like janitors and the people who help set up the arena before games? What about the fans all over the world that support and idolize the players? Are you still talking about losing?

A recent blog post published by Isabel Gillies in the Nytimes, described how her 9 year-old son had just started supporting the NBA before he knew about the lockout, and he would’ve easily fell in love for the game and supported it for the next 70 years, but now if the NBA is out for a year, he might never support it anymore because of the disappointment. Gillies says that there is nothing better than seeing her own son happy. In this case, the REAL losers are Gillies and her son. The NBA doesn’t understand the sense of betrayal people are feeling just because the players and owners can’t come to an agreement of who earns more despite already being millionaires.

Fellow classmate, Jeffrey Lu-Shao recently blogged about the release of the new polymer $100 bill. After reading, I wanted to extend on a few points he made. One essential element that Jeffrey did not touch on was the improvement of economic and financial welfare of the country. An article published from the Bank of Canada website claimed that there was a large reduction of the number of counterfeit bank notes throughout the past few years. This will help the economy because it prevents inflation. A few counterfeited bank notes might not influence the whole economy, but we also need to consider the counterfeits of the $50, $20, and $10 bills.

New $100 bank note

Fortunately, the Bank of Canada will be introducing new bank notes for these bills in the next couple of years, which will further enhance the security. Also, not only does the new bank not have a more eco-friendly impact to the environment, but it is also less costly to produce because it can last 2.5 times longer than the previous cotton-paper made bank-note. Overall this improves the reputation of the Canadian economy, as it will eventually be recognized internationally. If the economy maintains a strong reputation for high security, in the long run, tourists will more likely be attracted.

Previously, I wrote about Terracycle being classified as an entrepreneurial company because of Tom Szaky’s innovative ideas and how his products meets rising demand of eco-friendly products. Recently my fellow classmate Nicolas Buse classified Apple as an entrepreneurial company because throughout the past decade it revolutionized the way people listen to music. But recently in class we learned about a type of entrepreneurship that I’ve never heard of before that really interested me, that is social entrepreneurship.

Jamie Oliver and his trainees from disadvantaged backgrounds

Famous TV chef Jamie Oliver and his restaurant Fifteen is an example of a social enterprise. The main difference between a tradition and a social entrepreneurship is that the social entrepreneur not only uses his or her innovative skills to start up a business, but he or she also comes up with ideas to solve society’s pressing problems. I admire the fact that Jamie Oliver took the initiative to help disadvantaged young people and gave them the opportunity to open a new page in their lives by training them to become professional chefs. Despite the larger sum of income Apple makes compared to Fifteen, I still admire Fifteen more because of the intention to assist the people in need.

Video of what Fifteen is about

An entrepreneurial company is one which was started from scratch by a person who was willing to take the risk to start up basing on an idea. The innovation behind this idea is the most important element of because it is what differentiates the company from others. In this case, Terracycle, founded in 2001 by Tom Szaky, would be the perfect example.

CEO, Tom Szaky wears the company's products that are made from waste

The job of collecting soda cans from schools helped Szaky see the potential business. Another crucial point about being a successful entrepreneur is to provide what consumers want and need. Szaky successfully realized the fact that customers have become increasingly eco-conscious. Terracycle turns old packaging into some of the coolest goods on the shelf. Also, its has a unique method of production, which is to have 9 million voluntary collectors to help collect a variety of wastes. These elements fall under Schumpeter’s definition of entrepreneurship.

One would also notice the risk that Szaky had to take when he decided to start up the company because after all, the products are literally made from garbage. Nevertheless, the company has created substantial wealth already within the ten years of operation.

The anticipated, well not for everyone, iPhone 4s was released last week. Many customers were disappointed that the iPhone 5 was not released.

In June, H&M announced its collaboration with Versace, a luxury clothing brand. They are set to design two women’s, men’s and home collections for the fast fashion chain. Creative Advisor at H&M, Margareta van den Bosch says, “[Versace’s] collection for H&M will be glamorous and flamboyant.”

Although this collaboration is regarded to benefit both clothing companies, according to Porter’s generic strategies, the collaboration consists of a combination of generic strategies, which might influence the brand image in the future. H&M, arguably uses cost leadership strategy because it sells relatively low priced clothing, conversely, Versace uses the focus strategy as it sells luxury clothing at relatively high prices to a specific group of customers. The collaboration of the two companies may result in undermining the high quality image of Versace’s products. Even if it does not damage the quality image, Versace is risking projecting a confusing image of the brand. On the other hand, H&M’s customers might regard H&M’s focus to be on the quality of its clothing; thus the price of its products may increase. This can cause substitutes to use their low pricing strategy to attract customers. H&M might also lose buyer power because they wouldn’t be able to offer low prices.

During our tutorial, we talked about the Value Proposition of firms. Specifically, we talked about Google Plus (+) recently entering the social networking market, and we discussed how it is able to compete with Facebook.

It is quite neat to look into the differences of these two social networking websites because from a broad point of view one can say Facebook and Google+ are just the same thing. In reality there are points of differences (and parity) within different companies.

Although both Google+ and Facebook have different features that benefit people in different ways,  Google+ focuses on privacy because it realized that more people are concerned with it. The “Circles” feature allows people to gather and separate single groups of contacts that they can selectively share content with.  Also, “Hangout” allows people to meet online as a substitute for a meeting in cafes.

It may seem difficult to believe that Google+ will become more popular than Facebook due to Facebook’s strong brand recognition and loyalty, what’s unique about Google+’s strategy is that they aim at a small segment of people, that is, people who want more privacy and people who frequently have social gatherings in cafes.

http://www.besttechie.net/2011/06/29/google-plus-compete-facebook/

Foreign trainees have claimed to be mistreated in a Japanese firm while assembling cellphone parts. Six Chinese workers have reported to have been assigned to 16 hour workdays with unhealthy working conditions. These foreign trainees were promised job training, better life and good pay before arriving in Japan, but it turned out to be a completely different story. 

Critics say these foreign trainees have been exposed to unusual and life threatening working conditions with few legal protection. Government statistics show that a high percentage (experts consider it to be a high rate for young people who have passed strict physical tests to qualify for the job) of foreign trainees have died in the past 5 years mainly due to strokes or heart failures which relate to the wear out of excessive labour.

These Japanese firms are clearly violating simple business ethics that includes legal rights and safe working conditions. This is seriously considered unethical due to the fact that the article mentions that even the United Nations, human rights groups and several court cases could not stop this problem. Japan already faces the problem of labor shortage in farms and family-run factories. Nevertheless, it will damage Japan’s reputation.