Cristine Li

Apple began a rage selling of their new product iPhone 5 from last Friday.  Apple fans “queued around the city” to got the new iPhone 5. Apple announced that they already sold 5 million in store iPhone 5 during the weekend, but it’s supply can not follow up the demand.

IPhone series may be the most popular and well-known smartphone in the world and it is benefit by Apple’s successful brand positioning. It’s fashional design, friendly and easy use experience, and unique system makes iPhone5 has a increditable increasing sales. By using the SWOT analysis method, it shows that iPhone5 has strong strength and great prospect compare to other smartphones. However, iPhone5 has a weakness that Apple introduces their own map on it instead of Google map. Many users  find out that the Apple map has “a number of geographical errors, missing information, and a lack of features”, this weakness will affect their future customers while they are making choices. Also, Apple cannot ignore the threat from their rivals. Since iPhone5 has huge shortage and some technical problems of Apple map, Apple’s rivals may get the chance to share the market.

(13 of 13. People line up outside of the Apple Store on 5th Avenue for the release of Apple’s iPhone 5 in New York, September 21, 2012.  Credit: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)

Read the artical here: Artical 1, Aritical 2.

Luxury fashion companies, such as Burberry and Tiffiany & Co., are both having a slowing growth in China. Both of them reported that their profit is less than what they expected. However, their rival, Prada, does not have this problem. According to Prada’s report,  “Sales in China rose 50 per cent to €334-million. Same store sales were up 19 per cent.”

Why there are big difference sales among these luxury fashion companies? I think one of the reasons is the their brand positioning. Not like Burberry, which is focus on the high-end fashional apparel market, Prada is “solidly in the luxury camp.” Prada’s products are more diversiffed than Burberry because they not only sells apparel, but luxury leather goods as well, which takes many Chinese luxury goods fans’ fancy. Maybe this different brand positioning make their profit growth different.

Also, even Prada can not ignore that the whole world’s economic is suffering a recession, expecially in Europe and North American. Even it does not stop the growth of the luxury goods market, it slows down it. The luxury fashion companies, however, count on too much on the sales in the holiday period for their good portion of annual profit.

Click here to read the Artical 1, Aritical 2.

Becoming Green, a private telemarketing company, hired 23 prisoners at low wage. Seventeen of them are being paid at £3 a day, which is only 6% of the minimum wage, to work in the company’s call centre. Meanwhile, 17 former employees were fired with the explanation that it was “part of the normal call centre enviornment”. Most of the fired employees said that they were fired because the company wanted to reduce a great amount of salaries payment by hiring prisoners instead of regular employees.

So is it unethical to hire low-paid prisoners?

There is no appropriate answer for it. For the company, it absolutely prefer hiring prisoners for saving costs and earn more profits. However, for the regular employees, they are non-competitive compare to the prisoners that they done the work at almost  free. For the prisoners, it provides them work experience except the extremely low wage. It seems unethical for both the employees and the prisoners about the wage differences. However, there is no rule that anyone is assigned to a particularly job, so the company has the right to decide who they want to hire. And it is actually having a ecnomic innovation which should be encouraged and congratulated.

Read the whole article here.