Organization Culture depends on the employees within the company: it is “a pattern of shared values, beliefs and assumptions considered to be the appropriate way to think and act within an organization.”

People always complain that the new Y generation, the Millennial, are lazy, self-centered, and demanding. The bad news for them is that this new generation is going to take over the workforce eventually: according this article, study shows that by 2025, nearly 75% of the workforce will be overtaken by Millennial.

With this ‘takeover’, I believe that the future organization culture of companies will change. As the Y generations are much better at technology and enjoy teamwork, company operations will certainly adjust to how these people best function: work will be more likely done through teams use of technology. Digital communication has become one of the Millennium’s best skills, thus I anticipate it’ll become a big part of the organization culture: people will connect to each other through online medias, such as Google +, Facebook etc instead of ‘old-fashioned’ e-mails and letters.

Generation Y also have a different social/work mindset, and this cause them to be motivated by different incentives. For example, their ‘laziness’ may cause them to be motivated to work in a more flexible workplace over pay incentives. As a result, organization cultures will be further transformed as HR has to set up different strategies to target and motivate the ‘new’ workforce.

 

In class 15, we discussed the importance of creating shared value. This is the idea where companies work beyond the so called “social corporate responsibilities” and actually integrate their production with 3 key factors: social, profits and environment. As a result, they’ll achieve economic success through appreciating societal needs. Recently, the foundation tied to Rockefeller family (heir to Standard Oil Co.) announced that it is going to join “other groups in exiting coal and tar sands investment”: they’re planning to phase out of fossil fuel use and commit to climate change. In short, they’re cutting their investments from coal, natural gas and oil sands producers.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund‘s action is a symbolic boost for a more sustainable environment. By doing this, I think they’re one step closer towards creating shared value. Global warming has become a significant issue, thus with fossil fuel’s carbon emissions being one of the main contributors, cutting ties with those non-renewable energy firms shows that they’re committing to the environment issues. It is an act of discouraging non-renewable energies to taint our planet further more. The Rockefellers’ movement may also create a momentum which brings in other shared value acts for the environment: in a way, it signals other firms to divest from the fossil fuel firms as well: “since the fossil fuel companies have the money, we have to have something on our side, and that’s people,”- Bill McKibben. Ultimately, the fund is attempting to set a trend which moves stakeholders away from fossil fuel (oil) companies, encouraging the use of renewable energy.

In conclusion, Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s decision shows me that some organizations/firms are actually making an effort to meet the societal needs. If their divest plans succeed, I anticipate that it will certainly help promote the use of sustainable energy and hence a more sustainable environment.

Click here to see the Article

Read More:

1. http://www.rbf.org/post/fund-announces-plans-divest-fossil-fuels
2. http://breakingenergy.com/2014/11/05/who-is-afraid-of-fossil-fuel-divestments-apparently-the-fossil-fuel-obby/

 

 

 

Crispin Mwanyumba’s blog-post regarding Coca-Cola’s new release of the “Coca-Cola Life” caught my attention, and I find myself agreeing with some of his analysis. Crispin points out that he applauds Coca-Cola for making an effort to try to change Coca-cola’s brand image: the new Coca-Cola Life is a healthier drink in comparison to the traditional Coca-Cola as it contains less calories and promises all natural sugar (replacing artificial sugars). Despite this effort, he describes that this strategy may be ineffective as it is hard to change Coca-cola’s position in the consumer’s mind, and that there are already many competitors in the ‘healthy drinks’ market.

As consumers become more and more health-orientated, they have substituted into more natural drinks such as juice and smoothies, resulting in huge decline in sales for soft drinks. In order to approach this fall in sales, Coco-cola has released quite a few drinks in order to encourage people to drink coke: Coca-Cola Zero, Coca-Cola Diet… and now the Coca-Cola Life. ‘Life’ has a different color for its bottle and can packaging: it’s green. Crispin states that this color change may affect demand as consumers mostly only associate Coco-Cola with red. This may be true: once the representative color is changed, consumers may not even notice this new drink as it no longer seem to be a highly recognized product. However, I do think it’s all about the physical position of the product on the shelf: if ‘Life is placed right beside all the other Coca-Cola products, I see no concern that consumers may ‘miss’ out this drink. This new ‘green’ color may also help consumers to see that Coca-Cola has taken action to increase its natural approach. Moreover both Coca-Cola Zero and Diet are not packaged in the original red color yet  there were still a lot of sales, thus color of the can/bottle can be seen as not that big of an issue.

 

However, besides that point, I agree with Crispin’s view on difficulty in changing Coca-Cola’s position in the industry. Coca-Cola’s position has been well established in our minds since we were young: it is a soft drink, and although it tastes awesomely refreshing, it contains a lot of sugar and is an unhealthy choice. Releasing ‘Life’ will not change our minds by a lot, especially after Coca-Cola Zero’s negative media feedback. If we wanted a healthier drink, Coca-Cola would never make the top of the list: there are simply so many other drinks for us to choose from. In my point of view, I think if Coco-Cola really wishes to boost revenue from ‘healthy’ drinks, it should start a brand new drink which is stripped of any ‘Coca-Cola’ name on it. To climb up the healthy drinks ladder, Coca-Cola needs to start on a fresh page and climb the ladder without any past Coca-Cola (negative) images dragging it down.

Related Article:

1. http://www.bidnessetc.com/21356-coca-cola-ko-pepsico-pep-news-us-soda-sales-decline/

I use Spotify on a daily basis ever since my friend recommended it to me: it is a program which enables easy access to various music streaming services. Recently, Sharon Zhao wrote a new post in her blog regarding the revolution of the music industry: she points out that streaming and other kinds of online music may eventually ‘kill’ the music business.

Although it is true that music companies are(may) suffering from the online threats as consumers are seen to be substituting away from buying physical CDs and albums to streaming them online free of charge, however, I disagree that the music companies may be the ultimate losers in the long run. As technology and trends shift and is altered, music industries will lose profit from the physical albums: this is inevitable. However, I anticipate music companies will adjust their positions in the music industry to allow them to become ‘winners’ again. Afterall, the music companies and singers are the innovators and they are the ones creating new music for us everyday. If their business starts to suffer and they become motivated  to leave the music industry, there will no longer be any music provided for us and we will become unsatisfied. Besides, music companies can earn profit through many alternative methods; for example, as technology has advanced causing concert halls to become more accessible, and consumers becoming wealthier due to improved standards of living, music companies will find that more people are willing to go to concerts on a regular basis thus they can make money out of it. A music company which makes use of this change in trend will gain from consumers once again.

On the other hand, Sharon also shares concern that most consumers are not willing to buy music even when they’re sold online. Currently, Spotify allows consumers to have a freemium account, in which they can choose to upgrade into a premium account. I think Spotify uses excellent strategies such as annoying promotions in the between sound tracks to encourage users to upgrade into premium version. According to this article, already there has been 6 million people with a premium account. thus trend shows that people are actually becoming more willing to pay for music streaming services: after-all a premium account allows them to have convenient soundtracks where they have complete control over what they want to listen to. As Spotify’s popularity increases and brilliant marketing strategies within its freemium account is used (adverts kill mood and freemium also limits listeners to ‘shuffle’/skip music ),it may be possible that the music industry will become well supported by the premium users of Spotify. Out of 5 of my friends, 2 already uses premium.

Moreover, some singers, such as Taylor Swift, chose to remove her tracks from Spotify recently in hope to gain revenue from CDs/online sales. This is another strategy music businesses could adapt to increase its profits without relying on online streaming services.

Related cites:

1. Taylor Swift’s Decision to remove her music fromn Spotify: https://news.spotify.com/uk/2014/11/03/taylor-swifts-decision/