Blog://linkis.com/disq.us/NvyMi

Picture Reference: http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2012/10/24/entertainment/men-not-women-are-better-multitaskers-swedish-study/
This blogger, Tony Robinson, brings an interesting and absorbing topic to us; he thinks choosing a woman as his business partner is much better because men are more likely to have corruptions and failures in business.

The conclusion is based on his 30-year business running experience and I totally agree with him.

There are two main reasons. First of all, I am a girl, and certainly I stand by the women side. On the other hand, although nowadays a majority of successful business is set up by men, that is partially because in the old times, women served as housewives or did other jobs rather than starting a business. Women just began to explore the business world in the recent centuries. With respect to the relative rate of successes in business, women actually did a better job than men. Tony Robinson’s women partners, in common, have confidence, energy and requisite knowledge to work with him while the men partners always show their “unwillingness to really get their hands dirty” (Robinson). It is easy to understand because it is the nature of men. Their nature also applies in the everyday life; I saw many boys talking condescendingly to others without anything they could really show off.

I do not mean to make a generalization to all the men, but I still persist that Tony Robinson is right; women are better than men in many cases in the field of business.

Article:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/business/media/music-sales-drop-5-as-habits-shift-online.html?ref=business

Picture Reference:http://musicworkshopcompany.wordpress.com
The article above states that more customers prefer to listen to music online rather than download it or buy the CDs nowadays. Although the customers’ habits shifting online could be accepted and reasonable, the question is, in the music industry, “can [this] growth be enough to offset the dropping sales of CDs and downloads” (Sisario).

So far, the answer is no.

Music companies, though, are mostly worried about the dropping sales of downloads right now, they were supposed to make some preventions in advance. For instance, decrease the price of downloads in order to be more competitive with streaming. These days, more places are covered by WI-FI network, especially in the universities, WI-FI is even available while walking on the street. When people can listen to music online with less payments, why do they bother to spend more money on downloading? In my consideration, the music company should alter their focus from “old-fashioned” CDs (like producing smaller amount of CDs according to the decreasing needs) and downloads to streaming. Based on the previous-year data, the company (suppliers) can charge a little bit more for listening online and provide a wider range of music simultaneously.

Anyhow, the winner in business will always be the one who can amend the strategy flexibly as the customers’ tastes change.

Article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/younger-workers-poorer-than-parents-generation-research-says-1.2775231

Picture Reference:http://rhetoriccamel.blogspot.ca/2010/09/no-money.html

According to a recent research, it indicates that the younger workers in Canada have really low salaries compared to their parents. This is a strange phenomenion because most of them are more well-educated and theoretically they should get a good job much easilier.

However, that is not the reality. So, why?

In my opinion, the first reason is the globalization. More elites from other countries come to Canada and get good education; this group of people generates or even increases the employment pressure faced by the Canadian young generation. Therefore, globalization partially causes the current undesirable situation.

Secondly, even though the younger workers are well-educated, most of them do not have practical skills to compete with the ones who are sophisticated and familiar with the rules of society with decades of experiences. The older you are, the more you learn and understand. This is a thing that you cannot learn from school, you should learn it by yourself starting at the moment you step into the society.

However, this is a serious problem for both governments and younger workers. As long as the older generations retire, less taxes will be received and it is hard to support the welfare system such as health care. The government has to rely on a small proportion of the population to pay more tax (because younger workers are poor!).

I think, the Canadian government should limit the immigration population and create more opportunities for the local people. Besides, the companies should not only focus on their profit, trying to believe the young generation is crucial.

Article: http://time.com/3402723/iphone6-line-apple-release/

Picture Reference:http://www.macrumors.com/2014/04/18/iphone6-renders-design-changes/
With the new products launching and the iso upgrading, Apple company, again, attracts an ocean of fans to buy iPhone6/6plus; even I, myself, was surprisingly happy and felt lucky to buy the last iPhone 6 in the apple store (which is true! The last one!). Therefore, I am wondering why Apple company is so successful compared to their competitors.
Firstly, the Apple products are easy to use and the engineers stand on the customers’ viewpoint while inventing new products (Bajamin). The concept of the company is quality over quantity; if you think about the number of their products, you will find they do not have many stuff actually. However, the every single product can be considered as a limestone to some extent and shows its personalization. I think this is the most important reason why it is so popular around the world. In general, it is because they meet the customers’ needs.
Secondly, they are targeting at Chinese market right now which is a really smart marketing plan. This can be seen in the recent Apple press conference; there is even a interpreter who translated the English to Chinese on the conference. They have realized that a large proportion of customers is Chinese and tried to expand the market further. ( I am Chinese, and I know how crazy the Chinese loves IPhone)
Thirdly, they have really good promotions. For example, if a customer wants to buy a IPhone, he can sell his previous iPhone to Apple store and offset some money on the price of the new phone. This service promotes the customers to stick on purchasing their products.
Last but not least, they persist in hunger marketing so as to create a seller’s market. There is no doubt that this strategy is extremely successful otherwise how come almost all the iPhone 6/6 plus has been sold out in a week. In China, the price of iPhone 6 goes up to 12,000RMB if you buy one from the black market.
Undeniably, the Apple company perfectly understand the consumer psychology and win the audience.

Article:www.timescolonist.com/news/local/wild-west-of-groundwater-billion-dollar-nestl%C3%A9-extracting-b-c-s-drinking-water-for-free-1.587568
Picture Reference:http://canadians.org/blog/nestlé-opposes-thunder-bay-becoming-blue-community
The business ethics expressed through the article “‘Wild West’ of groundwater: Brillion-dollar Nestle extracting B.C.’s drinking water for free” written by Dan Fumano are about business discipline and water trust. Because the underground water was poorly regulated by BC government, as a huge company with great social impacts, Nestle was supposed to be self-disciplined and use the water efficiently and temperately. Actually, they showed their attitude; they were willing to pay for the water and support the government to complete the relative laws and provisions. Owing to this poorly regulated underground water system, it is more like a free market to anyone who makes profit based on it. For a free market, self-organization is the most important (microeconomics, Gateman). Although all firms make decisions on self interest, but because they have to make a good impression on consumers, they need to demonstrate their business ethics by taking some specific measures/ sacrificing a certain amount of the profit. I believe the reason why Nestle chose to support the government is because they were trying to reduce the negative comments spread among crowds; but anyway, the society supervises companies to perform their social responsibility and force them to be ethical (or at least seem to be ethical).

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