Emily Margitan's Comm 101 Blog

Last night I took a taxi and was shocked by how expensive my five minute trip was. Forbes article, “How Taxi Companies Rip Off Their Drivers” busts the myth that taxi drivers make a good wage. The article states that the only on special circumstances such as in a hurricane do taxi drivers make a fair amount of money for the hours they put in. Most taxi drivers have twelve hour days and barely make the minimum wage. Taxis nowadays accept credit cards but surprisingly there is a difference if you pay by cash or credit. When a cab driver is paid by credit card, part of their earnings (up to 10%) is taken by the cab company and then forwarded to the credit card company. They also often do not see their money for weeks. Alvin Narine, a cab driver in Boston makes on average $8.30 an hour for driving his cab. Cab companies stay in business while paying these minimal wages because their workers are immigrants who are happy to have a job. This article concludes by saying that cab drivers should hire legal council and bargain for fairer payment methods.

This article is a very good example of how workers can be mistreated and taken advantage of even in very public businesses. This is a problem that should be dealt with by Human Resources in taxi companies. In Comm 101 class 16 we learned about organizational culture in companies such as Zappos. Organizational culture covers everything from how employers are treated to the atmosphere of the office environment, companies such as Zappos or Grey Advertising, a company I did work experience for in high school, have a more relaxed and involved culture in the office compared to cab companies. In cab companies, workers work alone and are not in a normal office environment which can lead to issues such as the cab driver wage fraud. It will be interesting to see what happens with cab companies in the future.

I was recently reading a very interesting post in Akash Patel’s Blog about how Denmark has implemented a tax on unhealthy food. His post, “Denmark’s Nationwide “Fat Tax”?” discusses this very unexpected tax for a European country. It seems like a tax that would be implemented in the United States since that is were obesity is a widely discussed issue. Denmark has a low obesity rate of 10% yet the Danish government is not satisfied with their life expectancy of 78 years. The article on Freakonomics by Matthew Philips explains that this tax of 16 kroner ($2.87) per kilogram of saturated fat will be placed on goods with over 2.3% saturated fat content. This form of saturated fat tax is different from other fat taxes because it taxes the ingredient that is actually unhealthy.  The fact whether fat taxes are effective is still being discussed. For example, James McWilliams post confirms this debate. Danes responded to this tax by over purchasing products that would be taxed before the tax was placed. This situation is similar to the HST in British Columbia which is expected to be removed in March 2013. In January and February of 2013 there will likely be a reduction in people purchasing products under the HST because they will not mind waiting a couple months to pay less.

I was recently reading a Babbage blog post on The Economist website named “The Isle of Green“. This blog post was very interesting because it was a good example of the values that were discussed in Comm 101 class 14 – CSR & Sustainability. The Isle of Wight is a 380 square km island to the south of Britain which has relied on the mainland for its resources. This island has 140 000 inhabitants but over the holidays months or during its music festival it experiences an influx of tourists. EcoIsland, a sustainability group plans to have the island be economically sustainable and completely self sufficient. It’s chief executive, David Green (people do take after their names) confirms this by saying that the projects goal “is for the community to put its destiny into its own hands and build a self-sufficient future by integrating green technologies”. EcoIsland already being supported by large corporations such as IBM and Toshiba. So far $315 million has been raised to fund this project. If all goes according to plan, by 2020 the Isle of Wight will have the smallest environmental footprint in England.

In class we talked about how sustainability is a key factor for companies’ brand image, the Isle of Wight can be thought of as a company because it relies on the help from other companies to reach its goal just like companies rely on investors for help in achieving goals. We learned that in most companies the decision to pay attention to sustainability often comes from within. This is the case on the Isle of Wight because the small businesses on the island were part of the reason why this sustainability initiative was launched.

Fast fashion is a growing trend as learned in the articles for Comm class 15 (Supply Chain Operations 2). The idea of fast fashion is no longer entrepreneurial with companies such as H&M, Mango and Topshop. I think that Zara is the most entrepreneurial because of their tight knit production structure and fast prototype ability. Their point of differentiation from other fast fashion brands is how they turn around their merchandise in the blink of an eye. For example, at H&M you will find that a few items are gone in a week but often the same items stay throughout the season. This does not spark the same shopping excitement that Zara does because customers know they can delay their shopping for a week without losing out. Zara’s ability to prototype within a few days allows them to have the newest trends in store. Zara has made the risk to not replicate their products often. This has benefited them because consumers buy products they like right away in fear that they will disappear. Zara is also entrepreneurial because of their quality innovation in their products. Zara has been innovative in taking over new markets outside of Spain such as Canada by storm. Eighty percent of their clothes are produced in European factories which immediately makes consumers think of quality. The risks that Zara has taken has definitely contributed to its successful innovation. In turn Zara has become very successful very quickly. I know that when I go for fast fashion, I go for Zara.

http://thirdeyesight.in/articles/ImagesFashion_Zara_Part_I.pdf

happy shopping:

http://www.hm.com/ca/

http://www.zara.com/

http://www.topshop.com/

http://shop.mango.com/

I recently stumbled upon Lisa Wong’s post called, “Tweet Me that House”. This blog post stood out to me because it involved real estate, which is a division that really interests me. Her blog post was based off an article from the Globe and Mail on how a realtor from New Jersey is mixing real estate searches with social media and bringing his three-year-old idea to Canada. His brand is known as BHGRE, standing for Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate. It may sound rather harmless but this new take on real estate will boost the stationary real estate market. The article mentions that real estate tends to focus on the agents selling homes rather than appealing to their customers that are buying or searching.

I think that the combination to social media with real estate will be successful. I have always been very interested to check MLS (Canadian Real Estate Association) about once a month to see what is going on with housing in my area. I find it very interesting to see how the price of a house that has been on the market for a long time can fluctuate. When I compare how much time I visit MLS to Facebook I realize that if house listings were on Facebook I would be checking the housing market regularly.  In the real estate market there are several different types of buyers. Firstly, there are buyers that are on a mission to purchase a home, there are searchers who are happy with their living situations but keep an eye on the market just from curiosity, there are long time searchers, people who are usually looking for a second home or an investment property who have no time frame on their search and there are businesses looking for property and investment opportunities. I think that the mix of social media with the housing market will be very useful for the searchers and investors since they are not on an exact mission. You never know what you will stumble upon on Facebook.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/tweet-me-that-house/article2189742/

This article questions whether American business schools put enough focus on Globalization. Some schools may do a great job at promoting their International focus, but Pankaj Ghemwat of IESE business school begs to differ. He believes that business schools are not international enough with 5% or less international undergraduate students and most case studies focused on America. The University of Chicago may seem very international with three campuses in Chicago, London and Singapore but surprisingly, the same material is taught at each location.

This article stood out to me because I would have never thought to question whether Universities have false advertising when it comes to things such as an their focus on International Business. I feel that UBC doesn’t fall under this category. For instance many of the articles we have read are international focused such as Ryanair, Russian Vodka and Euro zone crisis. Sauder also has a very high international student ratio. Most of my friends at UBC are international because my residence is about 75% international and exchange students. I have noticed in Comm 101 class that international students add depth to discussions by explaining their views of concepts based on living in countries other than Canada.

Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/whichmba%3F/2011/09/pankaj-ghemawat

Sweden has a butter shortage due to increased demand for butter. New diet trends as well as the downgrading dairy industry contributed to this shortage. The failure of  the dairy industry cannot be blamed on the price of farming and production in Sweden, which is similar to both Denmark and Holland. Milk production dropped by 15% over the last 20 years and the demand for butter rose by 18.2% over the past 3 years, it makes sense that butter is becoming a rare commodity. Substitution methods are being used in this situation to try and keep the butter industry afloat, Swedish cream production is being put on hold as Danish cream is being imported to Sweden.

Hamra Farm: Tumba, Sweden

This situation ties in very well with our first class in Comm 101 where government intervention’s benefit on certain industries was discussed. For example, Russian Vodka, and how inelastic and elastic demand can be related to goods. This article discusses many strategies from Econ 101 such as the factors that change demand. In this case, the factor that increased the demand for butter is consumer tastes and the reason why the quantity is lower is because of the decline of dairy farming in Sweden.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-news/global-exchange/globe-correspondents/butter-shortage-has-swedes-churning/article2191753/

Just like Fashion, Advertising has its week in New York to shine and set new trends. This week is the week where Advertising experts from as far as Brazil and companies as big as Facebook and Nike share their ideas on ad innovation. This year at Advertising week events include a Financial Forecast with companies such as Google and ZenithOptimedia as well as a Multicultural Media Talent Pipeline where 100 students from 14 universities in the states learn about opportunities for multiculturals in the workforce. Two lucky students will be offered paid internships with InteractiveOne.

This article caught my attention because I am very interested in Advertising but I had never heard about Advertising week. I would be fascinated to know if they talk about concepts such as positioning and perceptual maps. This article can be related to classes 6 and 8 because at Advertising week the newest trends of  “getting into the mind of the consumer”[1] are discussed. There is also a multicultural focus this year at Advertising week which is a somewhat unexplored consumer base in places such as the United States. I definitely hope to attend Advertising week sometime.

Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/03/business/media/a-bigger-more-ambitious-advertising-week-is-set-to-begin.html?ref=media

Al Gore mid speech

iPhone 5 Faces Tall Order Living Up To Al Gore’s Hype

This article solidifies that the Apple iPhone 5 will be released on October 4^th, 16 months past the release of the 4^th generation iPhone. The 5^th generation iPhone is expected to have a sharper processor and camera, a sleeker and lighter design as well as a more advanced network system and graphics. It is also expected to have GSM and CDMA capabilities. The launch of a new iPhone will definitely cause Apple’s stocks to rise as well as their reputation in the mobile industry.

The long awaited release of the iPhone 5 ties into the law of demand in that the longer Apple waits to release it, the higher the demand will be upon its release. If an individual’s phone contract is ending in late September, they will want to wait for the iPhone. This fall I bought an iPhone 4 and ended up returning it a week later because the sales lady lied to me about how long it would be until the new one was released. I will definitely be going out to snag a new iPhone 5 as soon as I can so I can get as much value out of it as possible.

Team, Trefis. “iPhone 5 Faces Tall Order Living Up To Al Gore’s Hype .” Forbes. Forbes.com LLC, 29 Sept. 2011. Web. 4 Oct. 2011. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/09/29/iphone-5-faces-tall-order-living-up-to-al-gores-hype/>.

Vancouver based mining company Silvercorp Metals Inc. (SVM-T) was accused of misconduct in a report by Alfred Little. Silvercorp’s mine, Ying, in the Henan province of China, was discovered to have artificially increased its production levels, raised its grade of sliver and didn’t reveal that its main buyer is a related party. Silvercorp opposed accusations of a $1.3-billion accounting fraud that resulted in their shares dropping 20 percent to a price of $6.20 on Tuesday. On September 2^nd they posted links to financial reports and statements on their website to regain public trust. This small move will definitely not help them get out of their financial trouble as according to Mr. Block of Muddy Waters, “it seems there are a number of people looking at the company”.

Based on this article Silvercorp has a severe honesty problem specifically in the accounting sector. This could be a result of this being an international company based in Vancouver but with a mine in China leaving a large distance for information to be changed. Any company, large or small, can be hurt if they are not honest, for corporations are only as good as their reputation.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/silvercorp-stung-by-report-on-china-mine/article2164718/