Category: Uncategorized

  The Last thing you want is to have your company become a environment you despise being in. Organizational culture is the goals that the employees of the company follow and strive to achieve.

  The CEO or founder of the organization usually determines and sets it’s values.  They should aid the company in achieving it’s objective and contribute to it’s cause.  If your running a daycare you probably shouldn’t a staff of socially awkward genius’.

  This is where the idea of “value based hiring” came from and the Canadian Government’s business blogs covers this issue well. You can teach an employee to write a report or analyze data quite easily but values are much harder to install into a person.  The people you hire have a enormous impact on your organizations’ environment and in order to keep the culture strong you need to specialize your hiring process.  You need to look at who the person really is and put them through situations where you can see where their true behaviour comes out.

  Organizational culture is very difficult if not impossible to change one it is set.

  Jimmy has a blog about how tobacco companies are building and sponsoring school in china.

  This is a very controversial point because what is education worth?  Is it worth having kids thinking smoking is cool? Does the company doing something good for bad reasons make it okay?  In this case I don’t think so because they are using it as a slimy strategy to take advantage of people.  This crosses a line when it comes to business ethics.  Yes, the goal for a company is usually to make money and this will probably ensure them of that that but taking advantage of people should never be your strategy.  If this was in Canada it would get shut down, whether by the better business bureau or by people’s protest.

  The only reason they are doing this is because it gives them prime access to a target market for cigarettes.  The people they will reach are poor, uneducated and most importantly impressionable children.  If they get taught smoking is okay and normal they will, that is just how social norms work.  If the tobacco companies take away their biggest competition, education on the health effects, they won the battle.

  Even great products can fail when the image of the product is slandered.

  Supply chain is a extremely key part to a business and can make or break products.  Zara, thanks to its efficient supply chain turns all of it’s products into valuable, rare items that need to be picked up fast.  However most company’s supply chain does the opposite.

  As Konrad explained, Chevrolet really needs to revamp the logistics for their Volt.  The product is doing very well in bringing new customers but if the car is out of stock, it gives a bad first impression to buyers.  Currently “over two thousand dealerships” do not have it in stock; this is causing a huge opportunity cost and lowering customer opinion on the brand.

  Chevrolet is making an effort to improve their Supply Chain.  One way is with “The General Motors/Wayne State University Supply Chain Case Competition”.  This might be too little too late though, their goal of 10,000 sales this year has a very slim chance of being met and their future hopes of 60,000 might be affected by the customer dissatisfaction already created.  The inefficiency of their supply chain was probably not factored into their prediction of sales.

  Wouldn’t it be nice being your own boss, working whatever hours you want and having all of the power that comes along with your company?  If you ask me, entrepreneurs have the life.

  However being an entrepreneur can vary greatly, there are your mom and pap store owners just doing it for the love and then there are your Gurbaksh Chahal‘s who make hundreds of millions of dollars before they turn 30.  Gurbaksh, a high school drop out at 16, sold his first business for $40 million before he was 18 and another for $300 million just three years later.

 This probably goes without saying but Gurbaksh is living the dream. Becoming a successful entrepreneur gives you an incredible amount of freedom.  Not everyone can become a Chahal though, it takes a special breed to be a powerful entrepreneur.  You must be resilient, brave, optimistic and most importantly a little crazy.  You have to be able to risk as much as your going to gain and not be defeated if you lose it all.  Sadly there is no guaranty you will ever even make a dime while being one, however there is also no limit to what you could make.

  Oil is one of the most profitable markets in the world with some of the most powerful people working in it.

  Cars just happen to be a huge part of their business.  It’s going to take a real heavy hitter to turn that marked “green”.

  GM had a electric car, the EV-1 that is said to have been one of the “fastest and most efficient production cars ever built.”  However it was cancelled by 2002 with only 1000 of the cars produced all together.  Hybrid and electric cars have been produced since but none have had too much impact on turning the auto industry “green”.

  There are hundreds of theories for why the electric cars died off but in my opinion it was money.  Oil companies make billions and cars are a very large chunk if that.  If they turn electric, not only will they lose the gas industry but it will start the fire of a sustainable auto industry, and then they will lose the oil for the cars as well.  For these people a pay check is much more important then a carbon foot print.  It is going to take someone with extreme power to take down these moguls.

  Kids, need one-on-one help? Yeah Right. 

  At the rate at which teacher unemployment is increasing one-on-one help might be impossible.  Every year the increase in the number of education employees decreases slightly.  We are now 12% lower then the peak in 2006.  This is mainly due to countries in North America have a lot of dept.  Education is one of the “benefits” that gets cut.  In Canada we have many social programs so our funding cuts are more spread out over the programs, however that just means we had a less concentration of funding in the first place.

  Economics’ fist rule is scarcity, that there are not enough resources for everyone.  Although there might be a smarter way to allocate ours.  Politicians usually help out the loudest complainers and not do what will have the overall best outcome.  The people who argue against the cuts on the school systems aren’t as loud so they get lots of funding taken away and reallocated.

  I know this is how politics works and as long as our society isn’t educated in maters such as this it won’t change but the morality issue still stands.

  Marketing is what made Red Bull the company it is today.  This powerhouse took over by building its brand name.

  Red Bull is extremely good at creating innovative marketing strategies and at improving current one.  They branded themselves as youthful, energized and adrenaline filled.  They are huge supporters of extreme sports and sponsor anything from racing to stunt pilots.  It is the desired sponsor for all the X game athletes.

  However Red Bull is also known for there original events.  They literally create sports for all kinds of athletes; Red Bull Crashed Ice is a sport in where players race a downhill ice track filled with obstacles.  This sport is only for professionals but it is a blast to watch.  Red Bull also puts on events that anyone can join.  Flugtag, a event where you have to make a device that will carry you the farthest distance possible in the air after leaving a platform, only has a few requirements to join.

  Just imagine, no more set working hours, vacations whenever you want, and a six figure income.  Sound too good to be true?  It probably is.  There are thousands of “Gurus” online that claim they can teach you how to make millions from home.  Everyone has seen their adds showing people making money in the very first week.  But if there are jobs  this amazing, why are they still a secret?  Who in there right mind would keep working at a 9-5 job making $40,000 a year if they could have so much more freedom for so much less effort?

  Sadly the only people who make any real money through these programs are the people running them.  It is either a complete scam where you have to pay to learn their techniques or it is a pyramid scheme and with those, only people at the top make money.

  Yes there are those odd people who luck out, everything goes in their favour and they become extremely rich.  Dr. Spencer Silver for example, who invented post-it notes by accident.  However  the only guarantied ways to have a six figure income is through inheritance.  If you don’t have that you simply need hard work.

  Seems as if Southwest Airlines has a some problems with their maintenance regulations.

  The discount air travel company had a bit of “internal confusion”  when it came to the “requirements and performance” in their inspections.  They seemed to think that a few cracks in the fuselage were not dangerous.  I personally do not understand how something like this could happen.  If it is the least bit unsafe, especially with commercial air travel, the technicians should never have allowed it to be cleared to fly.  If it was a scheme to save money, it didn’t work because as a result the company had to ground 79 planes for re inspection.  A simple instance of “confusion” coasted Southwest Airlines a $10.2 million USD fine.  However more importantly it had the potential to cost lives. 

  I am not sure what reasons were behind the mistake although my guess would be bad management.  Someone discovered the crack and either that person, or the highly more likely, someone with a higher status made the decision that it was fine.  In my opinion, a mistake that involves others safety is completely unacceptable and the person who made it should be dealt with in a extreme manner.

  Carl Sorabella was an employee for Haynes Management, a real estate company in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, for 14 years.  He was a hard working employee that showed up early and left late.  He even received a raise recently. 

 However he was fired after he told his employer that his wife has terminal lung cancer. When he notified his boss he did not ask for anything obscure, but only for something completely reasonable;  all he wanted was to modify his schedule to work in the evenings and weekends so he could be there for his wife during her treatments.  This truly sickens me.  Carl didn’t ask for a raise to pay the medical bills, to be excused from some of his responsibilities or even for time off.  He simply wanted to to be there for his wife in her last moments, still ensuring he would continue to complete his work.

  Employees such as Mr. Sorabella are assets to a company and should be rewarded for their hard work and dedication.  At the very least Carl should of been allowed to take time off.  In my opinion, illness will never be justified terms for termination.