The foundation of United Nations (UN) aims to help people under starvation, poverty and homeless.  If the UN was fully funded, why would we need the arc or social enterprise?

From my perspective, there are variety reasons. First of all, there are countless people who need help in the world. UN cannot provide assistance for all people in need even though they have fully funded. There are always some poor people in corner they cannot see. Secondly, it is more worth and longer lasting to teach someone to have a survival skill rather than give them financial support directly. As an old Chinese saying goes, if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day but if you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime. Dorothy Stoneman said in the video: “We had three hundred abandoned buildings in where I lived, we had hundred maybe thousands of young people standing on the corners with nothing to do, and lot of homeless people.” What these social enterprises did is hiring these young people to rebuild these buildings to create houses for homeless people. Social enterprises helps people and change the society in a business way.Last but not least, UN is not focus on business. Not like Arc Initiative, it aims at providing a way to exchange business skills for students and young enterprises.  It not only benefits students and young enterprises, but also can promote economic development in South Africa, Ethiopia, Colombia and Rwanda.

With programs and people like Arc Initiative program and social enterprises, our society will be better off.

Image: http://bethellaw.net/social-enterprise/ http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/~/media/Images/International/ARC/South%20Africa%20Class%202013.ashx

Customers can be regarded as lifeblood to companies. In Jennifer Mavor’s blog she mentioned in order to maintain customer service everyone needs to understand company’s core values and do their best to satisfy customers. The question is how to satisfy customers?

Personally, I think hear customers’ voices are crucial. For example, managers can check suggestion box or answer customers’ complaint calls often so that the company can know its drawbacks. Moreover, employees’ attitudes affect customer satisfaction a lot. No one wants to pay money to see a glum face. For example, flight attendants always treat customers with polite, patient and smile. Thus, training workers how to serve customers is beneficial to improve customer satisfaction. Nonetheless, customer service not just about how to interact with customers, it also refers to after-sales services. For instance, Zappos has 356-day return policy and free shipping on all domestic orders. Another key point is providing quality products. Let customers feel that they have pleasant shopping experiences is important, and customers are happy only if they get satisfactory products.

Customer satisfaction is significant because it is a company’s point of difference and an indicator of customer loyalty. When a company owns high customer satisfaction it will gains repeat customers and more profit.

Blog link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/jennifermavor/2014/10/30/businesses-that-go-above-and-beyond-in-customer-service/

Image: http://www.findtheedge.com/general/satisfied-customers-are-not-just-the-domain-of-customer-services

DreamWorks is a well-known and successful company in Hollywood. Its unique organizational culture contributes a lot. DreamWorks regards creativity as a crucial factor in organizational culture. The company foster employees’ creativity by spontaneous discussions, encourage risk-taking, openly discuss mistakes, share successes and nurture professional development. What’s more, the company provides comfortable working environment for staffs like free foods and yoga class. Under this kind of culture and human resources management, I guess the reason why DreamWorks always produce high quality animation is obvious.

As far as I concerned, organizational culture plays an important role in a firm. First of all, a positive organizational culture can encourage employees. A comfortable working environment makes employees enjoy their works and always have energy to work. Naturally, employees’ enthusiasm and potential can be well stimulated. DreamWorks provides great environment for workers because the boss knows workers cannot come up with fantastic ideas under a stressful environment. Conversely, if a firm fails to build its organizational culture, workers would work with negative attitudes. Secondly, organizational culture also plays a guiding role. Business value and business spirit that shown by organizational culture lead employees to right direction and tell them what should they focus on during their work. For example, DreamWorks regard creativity as culture so that the staffs know they need to be creative in order to make great progress on their works. Thus, having a great culture can make a firm closer to success.

Article Link: http://www.workforce.com/articles/dreamworks-animation-cultivates-a-culture-of-creativity