Recently, a conflict between the first nation and the BC Hydro’s $8-billion Site C hydroelectric megaproject in the north of BC has become a public concerned issue for the province and the federal government.
According to “First Nation chiefs to stage Site C showdown”, the problem mainly lies to building the dams would cause the flood of 83 kilometers of the Peace River Valley, which lead to the environmental damages and impacts on fishing, hunting or other activities in first nation area. But with the increasing population and the increasing utilization of the energy by mining companies, the society requires a relatively clean energy resource to maintain our sustainability.
Under such circumstance, how the first nation, who claims “B.C. is Indian land”, affect the organization’s business model? As far as I am concerned, this external impact for the BC Hydro will highly restrict the possibilities of taking any actions for the megaproject. While on the contrary, they will quickly shift their business more on rather small projects that setting up the system with fewer effects for nature, for example, a group of windmills or the solar systems. This external impact directly links to their future strategies and leads the company to change their primary focus in this region-at least for a couple of years before the wild use of the clean energy inevitable.

 Cited to http://www.vancouversun.com/news/First+Nation+chiefs+stage+Site+showdown/10215965/story.html in the addtional readings.

        Came from Vanessa’s blog post:

Will retail shift to being completely online.

   Vanessa pointed out that the “market changing” for many companies, especially companies like Staples and Blockbuster which are experiencing silent changes in their market strategies. Blockbuster has gone completely online and Staples is following its pace.

This marketing adjustment results in the shutdown of numerous branches of these companies. I think Vanessa’s suggestion about turning their stories into many backrooms can be undoubtedly valuable in their future development. Online shopping allows people to participate in a more convenient lifestyle and to broaden their possibilities of choosing products, but that also brings the heavy burden of the expensive transition fees. Due to the high expenses of the famous companies, online shopping clients nowadays are more willing to choose the relatively small companies to deliver goods. Customers’ privacy and security have become legitimate concerns for many of them. In addition to this point, it can relate themselves more with the transit advantages when they truly identify the needs of the customers. They can be more effective if they develop their own approach of delivering or cooperate with a company that can benefit their customers in a further way. This can resolve the problem of shipping the goods to their customers and uncertainty of the product during the delivery.

In com101 Class 6 we spent plenty of time talking about the marketing strategy, specifically we took Dell as a successful example. Dell changed its marketing strategy and tried to avoid being stuck by a wide range of competitors and focus on creating values and delivering solutions for its customers. This allowed them to cut the cost of the middleman and therefore earn more profits. More significantly, it was able to directly understand the market demand so it could fast react to the flexibility of the marketplace.

Indeed, the graph above illustrates that Dell has been through a rapid and dramatic increase since 90’. Especially after 94’, its revenue increased 21790 in short 5 years, which was more than 7 times greater than that of the last five years. Also, its inventory remarkably declined because of this shift of its marketing strategy as it provided Dell with high efficiency as well as quick returns to the investors. Dell transformed to a $12 billion company in just 13 years. The success of Dell Company points out the marketing problems of other companies that existed for many years.

However, their combined new strategy also has drawbacks, which should be aware of before running their company in the future. They should continuously analyze the shortages and take action. First of all, what is likewise the most important one is their poor customer service comparing with their “big dreams” in eliminating the retailers. The withdrawal of their retailers straightly leads to the limit of choices and limit of customer experience. Clients are used to testing and trying the products in person to see if they truly want them. With the development of the technology, creating 3D models on the Internet can be a really convenient way to solve the problem. These 3D models need to be exactly the same with the products and provide the customers with a Full-circle Appraisal of the products on the Internet in order to improve their on-line shopping experiences and to win a better patent among customers. The second weakness is that although they can exclude the retailer employees, they should not rush to do it. Why? Their relatively new way of marketing needs more customer services to help people to purchase their products and to get used to this buying experience.

References:

Magretta, J. (n.d.). The Power of Virtual Integration: An Interview with Dell Computer’s Michael Dell. Retrieved from http://hbr.org/1998/03/the-power-of-virtual-integration-an-interview-with-dell-computers-michael-dell/ar/1

What is the strength and weaknesses of Dell? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_strength_and_weaknesses_of_Dell

see the original site I created for this blog at http://blogs.ubc.ca/hugelessonfornokia/

To modern technology industrials and companies arena, the keystone of the success of a company is not simply relying on their innovations anymore, but their marketing strategy and their fast reacts to the unpredictable global marketplace. After reading the article “Why Nokia’s marketing strategy failed” by Peter Sandeen, I could not help myself thinking about the differences between two companies that have gone diverging situations—Nokia and Apple.

Nokia, the pioneer in the telecommunication and innovative technologies, had been bought by Microsoft for preventing them from bankrupting. According to all the research that I did for them, their failure could primarily blame the uncertainty of their goals or, in another word; they did not identify their value propositions correctly. Thought back ten years ago, Nokia was the limelight among all the mobile devices; my dream was to have a latest model of Nokia rather than iPhones.

The recession of Nokia can track back to that they fail to “communicate” with their consumers and convey the messages and reasons why they need the buy Nokia’s products instead of others’. This was a huge lesson that Nokia cannot afford. In contrast, Apple focuses on building their value propositions; they take the whole Apple families as a whole and provide a number of great reasons for customers to purchase their products. They eliminated all the unimportant opportunities to concentrate on their customer’s satisfaction. Taking iPad as an example, 32% of their users use it constantly while 42% users saying that they use it at least once a day. The high level engagement of the customers in the Apple stores and Apple devices provides Apple with much higher consumer loyalty.

According to these articles, I figured out that value proposition is just as important as the soul of a human. A company needs to do it correctly in order to attract their clients continuously. Most companies chose to do it in a singular way which means they only choose one area that they can be the “best” to beat all the competitors. However, missing the boat in evaluating themselves can directly lead to failures.

References:

Deng, J. (2013, September 23). Apple’s value proposition. Retrieved from http://blogs.ubc.ca/junyuandeng/2013/09/29/apples-value-proposition/

Sandeen, P. (n.d.). Why Nokia’s Marketing Strategy Failed. Retrieved from http://www.petersandeen.com/nokia-marketing-strategy-fails/