” If  the United Nations was fully funded why would we need the Arc or social enterprise”?

As we know, the United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-oparation. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, promoting human right, protecting the environment and so on. Overall, it is a huge organization that focus on many aspects of the social problems .

However, the United Nations is so big an organization that they cannot be able to focus on each small area precisely. For example, in the video, the social entrepreneurship pioneers teach the homeless children and hire jobless young people to build houses. The United Nations does not have ability to cover all these small but important things. Also, they are not able to hire so many people working on these areas. Everyday, the United Nations is working with “big staffs” like the Middle East Wars and global warming discussions.

Another piont is that although the United Nations has provided huge amount of fund, food or clothes to the places where the people are struggleing in poverty, it did not influnce a lot on the economy growth of these places. Compare with the United Nations, the social enterprise and Arc play an much more improtant part on the developement of these places. They not only provide them food and clothes to keep alive, but they teach them the skills and tell them how to make a living as well as build a better life.

Human resource management is an important part in a company’s system. It manages their workers, creates an organization culture and affects customer services. We have read that how “Happy Feet” treat their employees and improve their customer service. But how can small companies create a better working environment for their workers?

Small companies do not have abundant capital to improve the employees’ wages, or to provide free lunch everyday. They cannot provided everything their employees need like Google or build a golf court like SAP.  Their workers are not well trained, and they can loss skilled and talented workers very easily. Here are some simple but useful tips for smallcompanies. They can be attractive to both existing and potential employees.

1. Prepare a small room so that the employees can have a nap in it. The only things needed in this roon is couches, blankets and an alarm clock. Some research said that sleep in the day time is a good way to active people’s body.
2. Reimburese  the membership fee of the gym for the workers. Small companies do not have enough money and places to build a gym inside their company. So, why not let their employees go to the gym and keep healthy without any charge outside their working place?
3. An online dating company called Zoosk wants to build an enviornment that is friendly to dogs. They think that dogs can make people happy and make an active atmosphere. If you are a person who loves dogs, then go to Zoosk!

https://blogs.ubc.ca/abondar/2014/11/05/minimum-wage-debate/

In this blog, the author hold the opinion that increasing the minimum wage can benifit locals. He argue that although increasing the minimum wage can cause for a lost in many jobs, it in fact, it weeds out many illegal immigrations. I agree that in some extent, it can weed out illegal immigrations, but it also affect many legal citizens who need these jobs to raise their family. After all, There is a large number of citizens that work in these low-paid locations.

I think that there are some disadvantages of increasing the minimum wage. If the increasing wages cannot lead to an increase in the efficiency of labour, the price of services and goods would increase at the same time. This will cause an inflation in the market. Another point is that when the companies decrease the number of people they hire, they have to increase the work intensity of the rest of the workers. So we cannot say that the wage of these workers rise essentialy. Finally, as the tax rate is high, increasing the minimum wage would not have too much influnce on those low income people’s life quality.

However, increasing minimum wage can promote the transformation and upgrading  of enterprises. Some labour-intensive enterprises disappear, others are forced to innovate and improve their efficiency.

Vera Wang is a company which designs and sells luxurious wedding dress. The company was founded in New York, and it opened it’s first flagship shop in Shanghai China on January, 27th, 2013. After that, many Chinese girls bought their wedding dress although the price of their dress is very high. Some Chinese girls even announced that if they could not have a wedding dress from Vera Wang, they would not get married.

How can Vera Wang be so popular among these Chinese girls? I think the most important reason is their bussiness stratagy. When they opened their flagship store in Shanghai, the price of a wedding dress is from 30,000 to 300,000 RMB. The store is about 800 squre metre and has more than 80 sets of wedding dresses. Every customer has to pay 3,000RMB to try the dresses, and they have only one and a half hour to try them. This attracted many bad public opinions for the company, so they stopped charging this fee at last.

However, I do not think it means that the company loss in the battle. In contrast, this can be seen as an advertisement for the brand. After this, Vera Wang became a luxury brand in many Chinese girls’ mind, and the status of Vera Wang was highly improved. Also, many stars had worn Vera Wang‘s wedding dress like Avril Lavigne and Chelsea Clinton. This have attracted more and more Chinese to buy their product. In conclusion, thier stratagy in China is a complete success.

Sunrun is an United State-based provider of residential solar electricity co-founded in January 2007. It pioneered the use of solar leasing for residential customers and, depending on the applicable state law, offers customers either a lease or a power purchase agreement business model.

As global warming and air pollution continuous to grow these days, It is important for people to use renewable resourses like solar, wind, and nuclear power. As a company, Sunrun provided solar electricity that release zero carbon footprint .  They are response to the environment and contribute to the sustainable developement of  sociaty. For the customer side, they help their costomers to save money on the electricity bill. It seems that Sunrun meets the Corporation Social Responsibility.

However, as we know that firm is a self-contained, profit maximizing entity. Many people argue that the purpose of companies like Sunrun is only to earn more money. Government has a 30% federal tax credit for residential solar electricity projects, and the leasing companies are able to sell their tax credits via a tax equity fund. These people said that the government is wasting the tax payer’s money. For me, I think that profit maximizing and social responsibility can coexist. And the solar electric companies will works better and better that at last, they will be able to get off subsidies.

In mid-september, Apple Inc. announced that Iphone 6 and Iphone 6 plus would not be released in the main land of China. There were many comments on this event. A news website in China thought that the new smart phone needed a net license to come into China which they hadn’t get yet. Some people said that Apple Inc. had wasted time negotiate with China Unicom and China Telecom. Many net friends thought that it was because of territorial disputes on the app of google map.

I think that some some of these opinions have a big probability to be the right one. But I want to think of it in a different way. In my opinion, this might be a strategic plan of Apple Inc. As we all know, China is a huge market for smart phone products. So that Apple really wants to make a purchase boom in the main land of China. It sent out the message to delay the time of releasion and use the customers’ mentality. Customers’ desire to buy the product would rised dramatically. With this effect, Apple may increase the sales in some extent. On an other hand, many scalpers appears in this situation. They will sell the product in a much higher price. As a result, people are more willing to pay for the price set by Apple although it is more expensive compares with the price in north America or Hongkong.

Also, I can see a disadvantage of delay the release time in China mainland. Apple wants to sale an amount over 9,000,000 units in the first weekend. But the delay may obstruct this plan.

I am looking forward to the selling amount in Chinese mainland.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/There+will+pipeline/10122968/story.html

http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21606271-250-year-old-promise-indigenous-peoples-still-binds-atlas-king-george

The Tsilhqot’in has title to 1,700 square km of land in the western province of British Columbia. It is an example of first nations territory ruled by the government. The first nations have causes some effects on some organization’s business model.

These businesses may want to mine precious metals inside the territory of the first nations. Or like the Nortern Gateway pipeline to carry Alberta crude to the west cost, it come trough the land of the Tsilhqot’in. Thus, athough they have the permission of the Canadian government, they need to negotiate with the first nation’s government.

This is because these programmes affect the indigenous’ life to some extent. They may cause environment problems like water pollution or deforestation. So the aboriginals may have trouble hunting and fishing, or the next generation may suffer from shortage of resources.

The people who own the business should do something to prevent this. Something they have done like sharing the interest or building schools for the aboriginal area as an exchange should be add to their business budget. Also, it is their responsibility to due with the environmental problems cause by thier programes. They should build connect with these first nations and seen them as a partner with their business. If they don’t, they may face legal issues. So these first nations can be seen as an external factor that impact the business model.

http://strategyonline.ca/2013/09/19/mec-uses-consumer-motivations-to-inspire-a-rebrand/

Mountain Equipment Coop changed it’s name to MEC in Jun, 2013. The company’s chief marketing officer Anne Donohoe said, the rebranding is meant to reflect the evolution of the company and its increasingly urban customer base①. Also, the company segment each activity in store with a set of new signals like “biginners”, “day tripper” and “rider”.

In this way, the company positioned their product in the customer’s mind different from before. The new brand looks streamlining and catch people’s eyes easily. This gives the customers a deep impression on the company’s logo as well as its products. Also they focus on a younger age group because they have big purchasing power. They pay attention to various cultures so that they can expand overseas.

To analyse the company using the Value Proposition Canvas, the pains of the customers is they do not have good equipments for some kinds of sports like cycling. Also, they may not meet many people who have same interests in sport area. So the customer job oc MEC is to provide good quality sports equipments for their customer. They also began hosting running and cycling clubs in 2012②. From these, the customer gains are that they have a place to get the sport equipments they want, and they can find friends who have  same hobbies through MEC’s services.

①②:http://www.thestar.com/business/2013/06/18/mountain_equipment_coop_changes_its_name_to_mec.html

https://blogs.ubc.ca/jtugman/2014/09/24/blackberrys-hopes-of-a-second-coming/

I have read this blog and I agreed with most of the author’s opinions. He hold the idea that it is difficult for people to change their mind to buy Blackberries instead of buying from a brand that they have already familiar with. I totally agree that people do not expect to change, so blackberry may find it hard to dominate the market.

He also comments in the blogs that “trying to sell a dying brand to a market based around brand loyalty isn’t the brightest idea.” This is true that Blackberry is not a big brand compare with Apple or Samsung and it’s market share is suffering from a declining trend. However, Blackberry still has a good reputation and high visibility around Canada, or maybe around the world. Many people still believe in the brand name, and Blackberry still has a lot of fans around the world.

I also want to add my own opinion and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Blackberry’s latest product ——”Passport”. It changed the screen width and made the aspect different from other smart phones, and research showed that this is the best width to make people reading and watching comfortable. It also developed the area of business uses and made people more convenient to use the phone in business.

From these points, we can see the innovation of Blackberry. However, I saw an arguement comment that it costs higher for blackberry to produce the handset compare with other larger companies like Apple, who shipped 32.5 million iPhones during the second quarter of this year, while BlackBerry moved only 1.5 million handsets. As a result, Blackberry have set a rather high price for the phone. So it may not balance the supply and demand.

Everything is uncertain now for the future of Blackberry. I am looking forward to watching the result.

Alibaba Group’s success
In the evening of September the 19th, 2014, the Chinese biggest e-commerce site listed stock in New York. It brought a feast of capital that night, and the IPO raised an amount of 20 billion dollar.How can Alibaba be so success in 15 years?

First, It appeared in the correct time in the correct country. During the beginnng of 21st centery, the economy of China developed rapidly, many small companies were founded and they needed a channel to gain all kinds of information. Alibaba provided a platform to gain all kinds of information. Also, Alibaba built a bridge between enterprises to help them trade successfully.

Second, it created a new mode of e-commerce. It does not produce products themselves so that they do not need capital for R&D and warehouses, they play a role of ‘middleman’ in every transaction. It also provides a wholesale market that neither Amazon nor ebay can do that.

Next, Alibaba’s customers cost very low to enjoy their services. It offers free registration, and it costs nothing for ordinary members to transact through Alibaba’s retail platforms. For TrustPass members, it costs no more than $400 per year to carry out domestic trades. But because of the large number of transaction. Alibaba still earns a lot.

As Alibaba listed stock in New York, it attracts lots of investors because it provides a tool to open up China’s emerging middle class market. Also, this event is the symbol of the coming of China’s internet era.