In 1989, the well known “banana paper company” TNF Eco Paper created a new way to make paper—by using banana. The company chooses natural fibers from banana, coffee, hemp, lemon and other exotic tropical agro-industrial wastes. This tree-free paper product helps Eco Paper Company gain huge success.

When I first saw the banana paper, I feel it is amazing. Banana paper is quite a new and creative idea and it is able to relieve the environmental destruction. There are much less competitors in this market who sale similar goods. Meanwhile, since the manufacturing method turns more mature, customers are able to choose different raw materials of the paper, such like mango paper, coffee paper and so on.

However, I believe the eco natural paper market is not as mature as many people think. The tree-free paper is a little bit rough and sometimes people cannot use it in daily life. If you put a piece of banana paper in your printer, it will ruin your printer. This green papermaking process need more promotion to better market and deliver to customers.

http://thebananapapercompany.com/

http://www.ecopaper.com/

Culture is one company’s personality and soul. It is undoubted that Google has a very strong and powerful organization culture, which lead it to the way of success.

When you enter a random office in Google, you will see swings, sofas, and other furniture that would never appear in office area in other companies. Google creates a very free atmosphere for its employees, to let employees feel untrammeled and dig their creativity. One of Google’s core value is “You can be serious without a suit”. Google aims to drive innovation and creativity from employees and meet employees’ need in working space. Employees are able to make changes about their programs if they feel it can work better in that way. Everyone in Google is equal like the story happened in Google “if you want, you can share a office with CEO”. Google offers free working atmosphere, free flowing of employee, 20% of free time and free communication with each other.

Strong and powerful organization culture is soul of a company. Firms should establish their own cultures and deliver them to their employees to reinforce firms’ structure.

Alex Butler posted a blog which illustrates the opinion about Tim Hortons launched a new dark roast coffee. In Alex’s blog, it is quite obvious that Tim Hortons experiences an inverse stage from what its CEO announced several months ago–simplify the menu.

It is quite true that, Tim Hortons can keep its value proposition by cutting menu. Tim Hortons tries to provide a convient, quick and cheap coffee. Shortening menu is an effective approach to achieve this. However, the generation of a new coffee breaks the words what Marc Caira said. Like what Alex wrote in blog, expanding the variety of products, inversely, making the process of making coffee longer and more complex. But what I think is that, Tim Hortons should give up some relatively unpopular products, to provide a faster service, it still can generate  a new product to cater customers’ changing flavor. The reality is, launching a new product can help Tim Hortons to know customers’ current needs, which would help Tim Hortons to adjust its suppply chain and deliver better service to customers.

see more details in Alex Bulter’s blog:https://blogs.ubc.ca/alexbutler/2013/10/28/tim-hortons-testing-new-coffee/

It is no doubt that Nestle is successful in creating shared value. It has adequate market to advertise and sell its products and always finds ways to reinforce its partnership with other companies and stores.

Nestle owns lots of filiales, to occupy sufficient market share. It always seeks ways to expand its business and market by producing variable products to meet different tastes and needs, like providing hundreds tastes of coffee, milk tea, cream, chocolate, candy, milk powder and the list goes on and on. Nestle publishes dozens of new products per year averagely and seeks new market to occupy market opportunities. In this sense, Nestle is able to keep track of market trends and satisfy customers’ needs. To advertise and market products, Nestle builds different partnerships with multiple companies and retails. In this year, Nestle has built partnership with Beijing Children’s Hospital. In the past, Nestle sighed contracts with multiple video websites, such like Youtube. To develop and expand business, Nestle created share value by implementing multiple processes and eventually became a leader in food market.

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9

https://www.youtube.com/user/NestleCorporate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nestl%C3%A9_brands

Therese Poletti posted a blog about the differences between twitter IPO and Facebook IPO. From the article, we can find multiple aspects how Twitter avoids the mistakes Facebook made before one year. Firstly, Facebook chose Nasdaq to start its debut. However, during the debut period, the Nasdaq computer system has collapsed which resulted in unsuccessful stock trading. This is why Twitter picked NYSE instead of Nasdaq. From the reference Twitter offered, we can see that it only plans to raise one billion dollars , which is much less than Facebook did. Since the amount of Twitter’s IPO is 16 times less than Facebook’s, I think the technical operation of this public offering might be much easier than Facebook IPO. Therefore, the probability of unpredictable fault, such as the breakdown of computer system, would be much less.

See more details in Therese Poletti’ article in http://www.marketwatch.com/story/twitter-doesnt-want-to-be-facebook-20-2013-10-17

Every time I do some shopping in Ikea, I always can gain happiness. I am attracted by the delicious food and unique furniture, and my litter cousins are addicted by those child facilities. It is no doubt that Ikea is a quite successful company and its business strategies are the core reason of its success.

Ikea is known for its affordable price and unique designed furniture. It focuses on cutting operational cost instead of variable cost. Every employee in Ikea even does not have a fancy office. Then, every designer is allowed to work in Ikea’s factory, designing products with workers and engineers, to promote productivity. In this sense, designers are able to get more control about their own products and they may tend to feel motivated and work more effective. One more thing is that, Ikea changes its market strategies when its location changes. In my country—China, Ikea offers more western style furnishing and try to differ from other competitor. Furthermore, the location of each store also changes from country to country. In china, the locations of stores are lied in outskirt of cities while in western country, stores are tend to near highway.

Resources:

http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/how-ikea-adapted-its-strategies-to-expand-in-china/1/196322.html

http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00111?pg=all

Blackberry used to be a leader of mobile technology before it became a piece of history in phone market. Blackberry is out-competed and it fails to adapt to competitive market.

When we think about Blackberry, the first thing comes to our mind is its physical keyboard. As Emily Yang mentioned in her blog, “I think a physical keyboard is one of their great advantages ” and she pointed out that the reason why Blackberry failed is that it has followed the current trend, touch screen, and lost their own advantage. That is true. But this is not the only reason. We all know how huge the impact iphone has done to cellphone market and how it shifts customers’ preference. Blackberry failed to find the balance between its advantage and touch screen. Meanwhile, a split operational model also results in failing. One part design and manufacture phones and the other part sell products means that feedback from customers cannot be sent back directly to producing part and they cannot make promotion timely. As Emily mentioned, if blackberry can find balance between their features and trend, it still has chance to come back to market.

Resources:

Emily Yang’s blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/yiyang/2013/10/05/blackberry/

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/once-cool-blackberry-failed-to-keep-pace-with-rivals-analysts-1.1468209

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/the-inside-story-of-why-blackberry-is-failing/article14563602/?page=all

It is undoubted that Apple is one of leaders in smart phone market since the first image of smart phone was found by IBM in 1993. Apple has created a strong brand name and good reputation for customers, as well as high-organized business team and product development team.

Apple establishes a clear business model, and that is why it gains a huge success. Apple positions an unambiguous and certain customer group–wealthy people, innovators, people with good jobs, good lifestyle, just name a few. And Apple has its own special value proposition, providing value by providing products and services for customer and fulfilling customer satisfaction. Apple management layer is extremely sensitive about market change, and this sharp business sense leads Apple to innovate and launch new products. Meanwhile, Apple pursues user-friendliness and seeks the most efficient way to satisfy customer’ needs. Since clients purchase convenient, fast and powerful comprehensive mobile internet devices, Apple conforms this consumption trend and emphasizes on user experience, to provide popular devices and services.

Resources:

http://www.osnews.com/story/3921

http://www.cfoworld.com/human-capital/22717/steve-jobs-value-proposition

In Aug.31 2012, ALTe Powertrain Technology announced it would invest a $200 million in China to produce vehicles which are powered by ALTe’s Range-Extended Electric Vehicle powertrain and used serial plug-in hybrid electric technology. In March 20 2013, ALTe signed a cooperation agreement with Henan Benma Company to establish a new commercial vehicle manufacture in China–MESA Industrial Technology Corp.

Since ALTe is a mature company in producing plug-in electric hybrid vehicle powertrain, entering process may not be difficult. Nonetheless, ALTe Powertrain Technology only takes 30% share of the whole MESA Industrial Technology Corp, thus it is not able to take control of the joint venture company. Since hybrid vehicle market is not mature and popular in China, it is easier for MESA Industrial Technology Corp to create a good impression to potential customers. However, on the one hand, most local citizens are not willing to pay more on cars which look similar to low price gas-powered cars, on the other hand there is a large amount of hybrid vehicle manufacturers and sellers existing, such as BYD and TOYOTA, ALTe still facing lots of obstructions when entering Chinese market.

Resources:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/alte-powertrain-technologies-signs-joint-venture-agreement-in-china-168130186.html

http://evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=29877

http://altept.com/?p=1112

In August 3^rd, Fonterra published a report and said they had found bacteria in some products that could cause botulism, a potentially fatal disease that affects the muscles and can cause respiratory problems. This big issue brought a quite serious impact to Fonterra. A piece of news published in CNBC announced that “Shares of the company tumbled as much as 9 percent in Asian morning trade” and “The New Zealand dollar…falling to a one-year low of $0.7670”.

This scandal creates a negative image of Fonterra and decreases clients’ confidence of purchasing their products. Creating and sustaining an ethics corporation is essential and it is also important for firms to establish business ethics. Firms should follow moral principles and shoulder obligation for their customers, employees, stockholders, etc. Companies should apply the highest standard of integrity and balance the contradiction between benefits and business ethics. As we can see, firms cannot gain the trust of clients and public, as well as surviving in competition without business ethics. Once companies get into ethical trouble, the situation they can stage a comeback is quite harsh.