Celine Grootes Blog

The greatest lesson learned from anyone else, would definitely be from my one and only mother! She taught me from a very young age on, that its important in life to always “BE YOURSELF”. I might be loud, crazy, maybe even obnoxious at times because of my outgoing personality, but hey, that’s me and there is nothing and nobody that can change that. If other people cant accept me for who I am, then I would rather not affiliate myself with them.

I came to the conclusion to always be myself at a very young age. My grandma was a strong believer in always looking tidy and perfect – where I (at age of 5) was a strong believer in having it my way, which usually was the opposite way of the way my grandma wanted it. Sorry about all the way’s. So, she would take my shirt and tuck it into my pants, a few seconds later I turned around ripped it out because that wasn’t the way I felt comfortable wearing it. She would repeat the process about 10 more times, and well I would do the same thing 10 more times as well. Eventually she gave up.

You might think, how does this relate to the greatest lesson learned from anyone else? Well it shows that being yourself, is not just personality wise its also the way you feel about yourself. I didn’t feel comfortable with my shirt tucked in, so I adjusted it in a way where I would feel more like myself. Throughout the years, I haven’t changed. I’m still loud and crazy and I’m planning on staying that way. Of course I have learned taking orders from other people (besides my grandma of course) but usually I make sure that these orders still match my values and my level of conformity- so that I can always be myself.

Some would say, the recession is slowly recovering, others would say the recession is finally coming to an end. Well, I guess it depends where one comes from and how the situation is analyzed. According the the national post, Holiday Sales will finally boost again by as much as 5%, which means annual sales will surpass $392-billion from the declined 0.7%, $373-billion from last year. Even better “British Columbia is expected to lead retail sales growth for the year, with a 6.7% rise in sales excluding gasoline, followed by Prince Edward Island (6.6%) and Nova Scotia (5.8%).”  Holiday gift supply companies such as Future Shop are expected to “hire more than 4,000 seasonal associates for what it expected to be a solid holiday shopping season, boosting its staff base by more than 40% for the period”. This all sounds awfully promising and leads me back to class 16 where we discussed forecasts. I remember that we came to the conclusion, that forecasts are almost always wrong. But how could such a forecast be wrong? Of course the numbers might not be exact and future shop might end up hiring less than 4000 seasonal staff, but the above numbers sound like a fair estimate of what could potentially happen this holiday season, or is in fact already happening, since the economy really is starting to finally recover 🙂

Quotes and Source:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/December+sales+better+year/3624065/story.html
Picture:
http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/France/Ile_de_France/Paris-99080/Shopping-Paris-Galeries_Lafayette-BR-1.html

An entrepreneur in my opinion, is someone who comes up with a great idea and takes a risk to make profits with that idea! Gabriel Coco Chanel for example is one of the most innovative entrepreneurs I have ever come across. After watching the movie Coco Avant Chanel, I was amazed that she was the one who made wearing pants a possibility for women and by that she created a whole new market for womens clothing. Pants for women has developed into an extremely large market, especially over the last 100 years, since it has become acceptable for women to wear pants. This has gradually evolved into trends such as leggings and shorts, expanding the market even further. If Coco didn’t make it acceptable for women to wear anything that basically covered legs, we might still be walking around in high wasted skirts! As stated in the article for class prep 19, “Wealth is created when such innovation results in new demand”, which was certainly the case for Coco. The brand Coco developed; Chanel has become one of the leading high fashion labels making millions of dollars of revenue yearly. Eventually Coco’s life came to an end, but the legacy lives on. She choose famous Karl Largerfeld to pass on her vision and he has certainly done an exponential job in continuing to come up with the latest trends and spice up the fashion industry!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvDFPjx-uBU

Being a victim of fashion myself, I wanted to refer back to our class discussion and article about Zara. One of the biggest problems I always face is where to spend the greater part of my allowance; Zara or H&M. After our class discussion and having read the articles I realized how productive Zara was in compare to H&M, to the point that Zara “reported 21% sales growth in 2005, to $8.15 billion. That puts Inditex ahead of H&M, which posted $7.87 billion in sales last year”, and Zara keeps growing. The secret to Zara’s success is clearly their rapid pace in reproducing items that surfaced the Grammy’s or even Madonna’s World tour in less than two weeks! So design, production and shipping happens within those two weeks.  That’s fascinating, and extremely hard to copy for other stores such as H&M and Forever 21, since they have a different strategy that takes much longer. Zara’s secret number two; LARGE expansions internationally, and again at a rapid pace. Zara ” opened 448 new stores last year, while H&M inaugurated 145″,and at the end of 2010 Zara is expected to have close to 5000 stores. With Zara’s rapid expansion, and latest styles, I might have to think even harder next time I roam Robson street, because If I really wanted to be up to date on the newest styles, I might have to start visiting Zara more often than H&M.

References: https://www.vista.ubc.ca/webct/urw/lc5116011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://socialmediainfluence.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/zara.jpg&imgrefurl=http://socialmediainfluence.com/2010/08/27/at-last-zara-opens-up-to-online-shopping-with-4-5-million-fans-waiting/&usg=__o-t1YyyBZ-1CCQYgVxX5bbC8tRo=&h=450&w=525&sz=72&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=_pnQhtgo6gQdMM:&tbnh=144&tbnw=168&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dzara%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D637%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=260&ei=EOfVTJP9EY-0sAPnxJyQCw&oei=EOfVTJP9EY-0sAPnxJyQCw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:14,s:0&tx=142&ty=130

Over the past few years, environmental concerns have  surfaced at an increasing rate, since people realize that resources are scare, and our planet wont be able to support this materialistic lifestyle humans are living for much longer. One great concern, has been the recyling of electronics. The world has developed an obsession with updating technology on a daily basis and releasing new products monthly. Consumers therefore want to keep with the fad, and buy the new technology. But where does all the old electronic waste go to? The “GEEP Electronics Recycling Centre” in China, is supposedly a centre where old computers get recycled. Instead, 120 tonnes of  imported “e-waste” is sitting in the factories backyard. The reasons why this is dangerous, is because dangerous chemicals from the computers are leaching into the atmosphere and harming the environment and human health. This is just one example of how we continue to destroy our planet bit by bit. My generation, is probably the first to realize that we have to change this. I never thought that I myself am contributing 2.275 tonnes of CO2 per year as I learned in class, but now that I am conscious of it, I will try to lower those levels, just like consumers should think twice about buying another electronic device, because chance’s are that the product will stick around longer than the person who buy’s it.

Source for picture and article:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/08/26/e-waste-recycling-programs-critiqued-for-environmental-damage-huh/

We know that our recent economy had a tough few years, and that we are slowly recovering…but one well known Swiss Company Victorinox AG had different plans. “Carl Elsener Jr., Victorinox’s approachable chief executive officer, proudly proclaims that his company has never outsourced production or axed jobs due to recession.” Victorinox AG is such a sucessful company that “Sales are roughly $200-million a year, 90 per cent of its products are exported”.  Even with that many sales, employes enjoy working there because they still get to enjoy 1.5 hour breaks every lunch. Of course Victorinox AG also has to deal with threats, such as cheap knock offs from China and Japan, as well as dealing with the new airport policy after September 11th, 2001 where no sharp objects were allowed in the plane. But according to Porters 5 forces, Victorinox AG has nothing to fear! They have great supplier power, maybe even a little bit of a monopoly, since no other company has produced such a high quality product. The threat of the substitues are small, since most of the knock of knifes are “too stiff to close or impossible to open”. They have great buyer power internationally to large companies such as airports and even small local stores, and they have strong durable entry barriers, so some cant just come in and copy their product!  Being Swiss, this once again makes me extremely proud of my little home country!

Sources: (also for all quotes):

Quotes and Article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/growth/switzerland-blazes-innovation-trail/article1750626/

Porters 5: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_08.ht

I have to admit, I’ve always been one of those people who constantly check’s their facebook on their phone, has the start up page as facebook on their computer and checks facebook at least every two hours when “doing homework”…you know, just taking a little break.

But my view on faceook has recently changed, especially since my future employer can easily look up my past. Sometimes I view facebook like a public Diary. Back in the 1900s they had paper to write things down and share with the world, but my generation has computers to share everything instantly, which can be extremely efficient but also very dangerous. I also recently found this article in the Globe and Mail that said “Facebook is a place that blurs the line between friendship, acquaintance, and stranger, and this is all the more true in business”. What we post now, might come back to haunt us later, and curent employers need to be extremely careful that they dont post bad things about their company, because they could get fired for their actions.

Of course Facebook can also be very useful, especially for small businesses or doctors as stated in “Community Relations 2.0.” by Thomas Boucher”.  The Globe and Mail article from above stated a great success story about a bar that was looking to have soccer fans to come in and watch the game at their bar. Sure enough the bar owner was able to reach 800+ German Soccer fans via facebook in just a few hours. The bar was so successful that  “There was a line all the way out the door and around the corner.”

I think, we really have to analyze Facebook and cut down on the time we spend on it doing personal things such as posting pictures and writing on friends walls. Its perfectly okay to use the worlds number one networking site for marketing reasons, such as promoting events, since its one of the most efficient ways to target all different types of people across the world.

References to all quotes:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/your-business/business-categories/web-strategy/facebook-is-about-interaction-its-not-about-sales/article1733173/

https://www.vista.ubc.ca/webct/urw/lc5116011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct