After I listened a lecture about sustainability in commerce 101, it took my interest, because companies starting to prefer more eco friendly products and that preferance were increasing company’s both brand image and revenues. For example, The Hertz Corporation, the world’s largest general use airport car rental brand, announced that they are offering clean diesel base cars. With this feature company became the first car rental company who offers that car-fuel technology. Company called this section; “Green Traveler Collections”.

In that category, company offers variety of cars which are fuel efficient and that use clean fuel with lower CO2 and low emission technology. In order to support “Green Traveler Collections” company is using statistics[1] to show the savings to customers when they choose those cars. Thus, this creates cheaper car rentals and customers will spend less money on gas. By this category, company is aiming more eco friendly customers, who cares about sustainability and environment. Chairman and CEO of the company Mark P. Frissora says “Hertz has one of the largest, most fuel-efficient fleets in the industry”. It is anticipated that this feature in the company will increase company’s sustainability profile and generate more revenues.

Related Articles:

http://www.kbb.com/car-news/all-the-latest/hertz-adding-2012-volkswagen-jetta-tdi-to-its-green-traveler-collection/

Katya Sen’s post “Aldo’s Mass Customization Strategy” took my attention into mass marketing strategy. An example about that topic is the Zara case which we did in one of the lectures. Another example related to this topic is e-marketing and mass marketing strategy of company called American Eagle Outfitters.

American Eagle Outfitters is an American clothing brand, and their target audience is based on mostly teenagers. However, their diverse range of products, and suitable pricing leads adults to shop from this company. As we can see, company’s unique marketing strategy is their mass customization strategy. Customers purchase their products mostly from company’s webpage. Moreover, company offers online sales from their official website, and it is a simply designed and categorized web page where a customer can find every product of the company. Thus, customers purchase their products mostly from company’s webpage. Key difference between store sales and online sales is the diverse range of products.

Company mostly concentrated on their online sales, because it is much easier to show their products to customers and easier to make revenue. Both less fixed and variable costs create better discounts on online products, and provide broad variety of their own products. Consequently, customers don’t have to check the stores and they can purchase their favourite color-striped shirt or khaki pant via one click.

Related Articles:

http://247wallst.com/2012/08/22/american-eagle-outfitters-jumps-on-results/

http://www.internetretailer.com/2011/03/09/american-eagle-stalls-2010-flat-web-sales

After CSR & Sustainability, I realized that nowadays, environmental strategy creates a big positive change in companies sales. Using eco friendly products and mentioning this feature in advertisements makes your company different among other competitive companies. Also Wesley Prahalad’s  “Wal-Mart Goes Green” article created an interest on me to write about companies which are supporting environmental actions.

One of the example for that type of company is Boeing. Boeing announced that, their new airplane model, Boeing Dreamliner is designed to cut fuel 20% which is a big innovation in airplane industry. Company says that, improvement and new features in engine technology is the major contributor. For the success of this project, company adds “nearly a two-generation jump”.

Company is anticipating higher revenues from this model. One of the key point for this prediction is, its eco friendly feature. 20% fuel efficiency makes airplane green and cuts the main percentage of the air pollution. Also, company calls this model; passenger-friendly. Its design with larger seats and windows attracts passengers on long flights. Furthermore, being fuel efficiency cuts the costs and can decrease price of tickets. Briefly, this innovative feature will raise the standards and expectations in airplane industry, and generate much higher revenues to Boeing.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2011/09/27/boeing-787-dreamliner-to-cut-fuel-20/

Rodrigo Rejas’s Blog post about IT systems and its relation to business opportunities took my attention towards the importance of Internet in business life. Nowadays, it is stated that 1 out of 4 people on earth is using internet. Furthermore, the most popular websites are social network sites and research engines such as, Facebook and Google. They have a massive mass communication system mostly formed via their users. Facebook has more than 500 million members and Google has 700 million daily visitors.[1] After these statistics, companies changed their marketing strategy, and started to concentrate on e-ads and webpages. Many companies formed their official page in Facebook where you can find basic informations about that company. For example, Nike has an official page in Facebook and company has 12 million viewers, who have to be the members of Facebook. This is a great opportunity to publish their news.  This news includes recent products, company’s charity events, campaigns, discounts or promotions to encourage their customers to buy their products and follow the latest news. The best part is, company doesn’t have to invest huge amount of money to their advertisements. Also, 12 million viewers show the popularity of the page and the necessity of IT departments in companies.

http://www.facebook.com/nike

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[1] http://www.socialmediareinvention.com/2011/12/statistics-fortune-magazine-facebook-versus-google.html

It seems that Delta Airlines’s IT sector is doing a successful job, because company announced that they equipped Wi-Fi technology to their fleet. This makes them the first airline company, who offers Wi-Fi feature also on domestic flights. Next year, it will be possible to watch your favourite TV show online or make a conference call with your business colleagues on flights. According to company’s official website, they equipped wifi technology to both their domestic and international flights. In their advertisements about this innovation they mentioned that it will be in every flight, and this new on flight service will cost extra. Thus, for customers who doesn’t want to use wifi don’t need to pay for this feature. Company analysers say that, this will increase the demand for flights and the ticket sales. Also they added that, this feature will effect mostly businessman who needs to check mails and their products. Thus it will erase the lack of communication on flight and will generate non-stop communication and concentration for companies about their businesses. Another comment came from, Bob Herbst, founder of AirlineFinancials.com said that “It’s a big draw for the premium traveler, which generates so much of the revenue the airlines get”. In conclusion, this innovation on airplanes, will change the communication style on flight and create a new way of competition between airline companies.

Original Article: http://www.startribune.com/business/160778445.html

Image: http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/post/2012/06/delta-to-offer-international-wifi-service/792828/1

Fragrance company Axe was founded in 1983 in France, and company entered into US markets in 2002. Their only product was a body spray. Mid 2000s, company started to explore other sectors such as, shower gel, hair care and deodorants. In those areas company made success which was unexpected. Axe, started to take control of these sectors after changing their marketing strategy. Company used different type of advertisements to attract youngsters. In those advertisements they were using fragrances as an essential body requirement for guys, and company used woman as an attractive gadget in their advertisements to affect youngsters and choose Axe products. Nowadays we call that “sex sales”.

For example, in 2008, Axe made a commercial about their new product; “Axe Dark Temptation” which is a new fragrence, smells sweet chocolate.They used a man made of chocolate who uses public transportations and goes to collage, women were biting and eating chocolate from him. Briefly, Axe’s “sex and sales” marketing strategy made an explosion on the sales of their products, and generated huge profits in return.

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-10/strategy/30262401_1_axe-tv-unilever-marketers

The Finnish telecommunication company Nokia, is struggling because of the competition in the smart phone market. Company has announced a  €1.3bn loss in the first quarter of 2012. The biggest reason of their loss is the excessive competition in the market. After splendid enter of Samsung with Galaxy smart phone, competition between market leader-Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy extremely increased the competition in smart phone market. To satisfy the expectations in that kind of environment, Nokia published their last smart phone, Lumia. However, Lumia failed to satisfactions, and the number of sales stayed way behind the expectations. In many markets, Lumia, Nokia’s smart phone, called as a “failure”.

Stephen Elop, Nokia’s chief executive made a comment about the environment of the market. He said that, the business was working its way through a significant company transition in an industry environment that continued to evolve and shift quickly. In order to adapt to rapid change in smart phone industry, Nokia changed their software system in their smart phone products. For example, for Lumia, company quit using their old operating system, Symbian and chose unused Windows Phone software, owned by Microsoft. That sudden change in their software product made a huge fall on the Nokia’s revenues. Clearly, we can say that even after the merger both companies couldn’t succeed and closed the first quarter of 2012 with loss,

The Smartphone Shakeout: Time Is Running Out for a Viable No. 3

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/19/nokia-slumps-loss-competition-apple-samsung

http://www.aljazeera.com/business/2011/02/201129144053920207.html

One of the most well known oil company, BP (British Petrol) is suffering because of the crisis in the Gulf.  Nowadays, inside the company, managers are having hard times on coming with a good solution for the crisis. Day by day, the leak in the Gulf is spreading, and this means that damage on BP is also increasing. For this substantial topic, CEO of BP, Tony Hayward gave a panel, and he mentioned about the magnitude of the crisis. He also confessed that they underestimated the magnitude of the Gulf crisis, and later, he interpreted the situation in the Gulf as being “out of the loop”.

Gulf crisis is the most important issue for BP right now. It cannot be considered as an internal mistake in BP, it is now also regarded as an environmental disaster. Inside the coast places which are the most closest public areas in the gulf, are suffering from epidemic health diseases. People are complaining about health diseases and they are charging BP for those health issues.

According to results mentioned above, BP isn’t suffering just because of the leak of oil in the gulf, also company wounded very badly by creating an excessive amount of enviromental pollution around the gulf. Finally, these are all effecting BP’s brand image, and this will create a fatal wound on their sales. Briefly, this can be a great example for the importance of crisis management and contingency planning.

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle800.do?categoryId=9040158&contentId=7073358

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-06-21/opinion/kimberly.bp.management.crisis_1_bp-crisis-senior-management?_s=PM:OPINION

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10281079

An athletic gear company, best known for their yoga gears, Lululemon announced their stocks and the shortage occured in their products. 20 years old, Vancouver based company Lululemon, showed their reports of their sales and revenues. From these reports we can see their increasing both in their stocks & inventories and also in their revenues. According to their reports, Lululemon is increasing their revenues from $186.8 million which was athe last year’s numbers to $285.7 million. We can see that it is a 53% increase, and they only achieved that increase in one year.

On the other hand, Lululemon has failed in their predictions and they had some problems about the amount of products on their shelves. This year, they are increasing the supply of products and now their predictions are also rose up as same as their revenues. After these official reports, Lululemon is considered one of the fastest growing companies in the first quarter of 2012. Now, company is planning to increase their style and innovations on their products. Also, company began to increase their inventories and stocks in order to satisfy their customer demands.

In contrast, company can be described as success in their sales, but in order to not face this issue again, Lululemon has to make some changes in their marketing research & strategy.

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http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/06/07/lululemon-shares-guidance.html

According to the news, CEO and the chairman of the NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch is charging for corruption and phone hacking in England. He is considered as the emperor of his news company and his company is considered one of the biggest news corporations by consulting and statistical firms and economic magazines. He is one of the oldest person in that business and he began this business nearly 60 years ago. After the successful 60 years, nowadays, we are hearing his name mostly and his company name, News Corp with corruption and phone hacking rumors in England. His newspaper company NewsCorp is one of the major newspaper company in England and they have a nice brand image in public opinion. After the explosion of these scandals, the newspaper company is facing with serious and critical issues and they are losing their investors and value of their shares day by day. He is charging as bribing, unethical business image, attack on people personal life, and using people personal information and publishing them in public platforms. So, there is a serious problem about business ethics and using media in a bad way. After the charges, the owner of the Rupert Murdoch, made an announcement of shutting down the newspaper company, and he will resign from his board membership in the United Kingdom newspaper companies. Considering his name with corruption is effecting his shares and his company image very badly, and unfortunatety, there is a formidable negative change coming on his both personal and professional image.

Bibliography:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/apr/26/murdoch-admits-phone-hacking-coverup

http://www.presstv.com/detail/188126.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/world/europe/murdoch-resigns-from-british-newspaper-boards.html