Companies and businesses are switching their supply chains to acquire the products they need and when choosing new suppliers consideration is been given to those that are environmentally friendly and/or care about society.  As Brooke Besley states Coca Cola is switching their sugar suppliers to those who refrain from “land grab” policies. Is this just a way for the companies to target their customer’s preferences of wanting to help small business and/or helping the environment in hopes the good media publicity will increase their companies profits, or are the companies making the changes because they truly care?

                     Money or Social/Environmental Responsibility

The answer depends on the company and the CEO of the company. The values and ethics of the people within the company ultimately decide whether they want to venture on the socially/environmentally correct for profit and marketing reasons, or whether they want to do it because they want to help others. As stated in the blog by Eric McNulty, it is the horse and cart idiom that comes into play. The question is which is the cart and which is the horse when discussing this issue?

Links

http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/02/doing-the-right-thing-or-makin/

Coca-Cola: A Step In A New Direction

Employees’ being yelled at in the workplace, is this a good motivator, or is it just hurting their abilities to work and also hurting the businesses “Organization Culture” at the same time? In a blog by Michael Schrage, he states that yelling should be viewed as nothing more than an extrinsic motivator in the workplace, and that it also ensures other workers will continue to do their jobs properly and efficiently because they will want to avoid being yelled at. Is extrinsic motivation of this level worth it or not?

Yelling at Employees,                        Right or Wrong?

There can be multiple views on the matter of using vocal aggression in the workplace, as it differs depending on the environment that it is used in. For instance a coach yelling at his players can be viewed as passion for the game. The Organizational Culture for a sports team however is very different to that of an office job.

I believe John Wooden, the legendary coach of UCLA said it best, “I never yelled at my players much. That would have been artificial stimulation, which doesn’t last very long. I think it’s like love and passion. Passion won’t last as long as love. When you are dependent on passion, you need more and more of it to make it work. It’s the same with yelling.”

Links
http://work.chron.com/yelling-acceptable-workplace-behavior-18554.html

http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/11/is-it-ok-to-yell-at-your-employees/

99 Wisdoms from Wooden

Smokes Poutinerie, a small business that started-up in Toronto Canada, had an opening budget of $400,000. Ryan Smolkin, the owner of the company, realized that this tight budget would not allow the company flexibility when it came to marketing and advertising for the business. Ryan quickly turned to social media to help solve his problem. Using Facebook and Twitter, Ryan quickly managed to gain new customers for Smokes Poutinerie and when he started gaining thousands of new “fans” through social media, these “fans” helped by spreading the word as well.

Smokes Poutinerie

Smolkin has now hired a Social Media Coordinator to handle his marketing over social media, as Smolkin realizes this type of marketing is like a marathon, customers want quality content that does not overrun their newsfeed and is consistent over time.

Social Media

This is one example of how social media is revolutionizing marketing and advertising for businesses. Instead of putting in large amounts of money to attract customers, it is more financially sound to use the social media method, as it does not only lower a company’s start-up costs, but lowers the businesses cost over time. When businesses use social media to market their product, they turn the customers into the Marketers.

Links

http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/08/smallbusiness/smolkin-smokes-poutinerie-marketing/

Scott Marshall, my colleague, wrote an interesting blog post about the customers change in demand from Cigarettes to E-Cigarettes, the reason for the shift is due to customer’s health perceptions regarding these products.

E-Cigarettes marketing teams are able to convince the public with ease and gain large numbers of consumers due to the bad publicity that has been placed on cigarettes over time. Since very little research has been done to date regarding E-Cigarettes, there are not many health concerns that are linked with “Vaping” in comparison to the large amount of research that has been done related to smoking cigarettes. This has made it easier for the E-Cigarette marketing teams to use this health concern and research results to their advantage when advertising to attract new customers to purchase E-cigarettes and they have focused on targeting the younger generation, who are concerned about their health.

E-Cigarette

“Vaping” is also considered to be “trendy”/”cool” by the younger generation and with this fact taken into consideration the E-Cigarette companies are hoping to keep this younger generation of smoker “Vaping” for many more generations to come therefore increasing sales and leading to potential increase in profits.

Links

http://www.nationaljournal.com/health-care/e-cigarette-marketing-is-working-20131114

The price of farmland in Canada has risen by 12% per year since 2008; this increase in the price of farmland has caused barriers for the entry of new/younger farmers to increase. This has caused potential farmers to reconsider their career paths as the initial “start up costs” are outweighing the potential profits of farming.

With increasing prices for Farmland, Potential Farmers are left with uncertainty.

Presently 75% of the current farmer’s do not have successors to their farms and most of these farmers on an average are 65 years of age, meaning that only 25% of farmer’s when they retire have someone who would be willing to take over their farms. This problem could lead to a shortage of farmer’s, as if no new farmer’s are willing to spend the initial start-up costs to buy the land needed for farming there will be a shortage of crops, which could mean supply of farm goods will diminish and prices will rise considerably which will affect the world economy due to the fall of supply.

It would be beneficial for farmland property prices to be made affordable to farmers and not linked to the residential property prices in the area.  This would increase the barriers to entry for local and overseas investors who are purchasing farmland, which is causing the increase in prices for the farmland.

Links

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/soaring-farmland-prices-a-crisis-in-the-making-don-pittis-1.2420223?cmp=rss

A shortage of wine, the consumers demand outweighs the supply for the product, what will happen to the market?

The Supply of Wine cannot meet the Consumers Demand for the             Product.

Wineries and companies that can produce or have access to larger quotas of wine will be able to benefit in the market, ensuring good profits. This opportunity is due to the demand for wine that presently is high compared to the relatively low supply for the industry. In order to make a profit, suppliers need to carefully increase their quotas by growing more vineyards whilst the demand is high and still be slightly cautious, because lots of the suppliers who were previously in the market have left due to heavy losses, leaving voids for other wineries to take their place. The biggest barrier to overcome for the increase in quotas is that it takes three years for a grapevine just to bear a reasonable amount of fruit before it can be profitable.  Therefore there are time constraints, which can’t be adjusted in order to produce enough grapes to actually affect the wine industry immediately. Hence one would have to question the benefits of long-term forecasts in the wine industry before changing present production and financially committing to increasing present production costs.

A crowded grocery industry is about to become even more congested with Amazon Co. entering the grocery industry. With Amazon entering the industry with the sustainable competitive advantage of already having a well established E-Commerce site, this will put the pressure on other retail companies, such as Wal-Mart and Loblaw’s, to either commence or improve the e-commerce aspect of their companies in hopes of competing with Amazon and to  ensure that Amazon will not have a competitive advantage in the future as E-shopping becomes more common and more popular.

Online Shopping

With technology changing the way customer’s shop for goods, it is important that businesses start strategizing and forecasting for the future. With e-shopping going to grow tenfold in the next 10 years, businesses that do not grow with changes to improve and adapt in order to meet their customers changing desires and wants, may be left behind and become unable to operate.

E-Commerce also has a lot of room for expansion compared to regular retail stores. If done properly, although the operations aspect of e-commerce may be more challenging to maintain, it could provide greater profits than selling the products in retail.

Links
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Amazon+sell+groceries+online+Canada/9109823/story.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/us-business/amazon-to-take-on-grocers-as-retail-landscape-gets-more-crowded/article15172182/

Canada’s new free trade agreement with the European Union has opened the door for new opportunities for Canadian businesses, but has also opened the door for new threats (European businesses) to enter and hinder already established Canadian businesses.

                                 Canadian and European Free Trade Agreement

The dairy, beef, and wood industries (to name a few) could all benefit from this trade agreement. The burden would now be placed on European suppliers of these goods to compete against the Canadian suppliers, if the European suppliers prices do not drop they will be greatly affected, as the consumers will be more likely to buy the cheaper Canadian products. What the free trade agreement really did though was get rid of the biggest barrier; entry for Canadian industries into the European market. With this barrier removed it is now easier for the Canadian companies to enter into the market (tariffs increasing prices from 5% to 10+%) without the consequences that would have hurt their product before the free trade agreement. The free trade agreement has made it a fair competitive field for all the suppliers from Europe and Canada on goods. The lowest price for the best quality will normally win and succeed.

Video
Canada and European Union Free Trade Agreement

Links
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Harper+announces+agreement+principle+European+free+trade/9052562/story.html

http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/porter.shtml

India, with more than one billion people, which now has a significant demand for oil and gas. This demand represents a terrific opportunity for Canada’s oil and gas industry. Canada has never been able to achieve top-twenty status as an oil and gas supplier to India, a horrendous situation given that India ranks #4 for oil and gas consumption. This new found interest for Canada’s oil and gas could not only significantly benefit the Canadian economy, but could also lead to increased competition for Canadian oil and gas exports.

India and Canada Economic Relations.

For the Canadian oil and gas industry, India represents a perfect opportunity, a large consumer that is not only willing to purchase these resources but also willing to aid with the construction of a pipeline. This is comparable to another large consumer, the USA, who is willing to buy Canadian oil and gas but not willing to help build and fund the Keystone Pipeline Project. Not only will India’s interest likely cause the USA to rethink their stance on the Keystone Pipeline Project, but also increase competition for Canadian oil and gas which could potentially lead to an overall increase in total profits to Canada based on the export of these resources.

Videos
Energy East Pipeline Project

Links

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2013/09/17/obama-signals-cracks-in-the-proposed-keystone-pipeline/

http://www.transcanada.com/energy-east-pipeline.html

http://www.thespec.com/news-story/4136422-envoy-says-india-wants-more-canadian-oil-and-gas-as-uranium-deal-inked/

http://globalnews.ca/news/878685/after-nuclear-agreement-india-sets-sights-on-canadian-oil-and-gas/

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/09/24/india-finally-makes-a-move-on-canadian-energy-assets/?__lsa=ed16-c57a

The shutdown in Washington has been grabbing media headlines throughout the world for the past few days. The question is how will it affect businesses and the economic market?

Businesses effected by Government Shutdown

The US Federal Government employs over 800,000 “non-essential” workers, which are being sent home during the lockdown, this group which makes up only a quarter of a percent of all Americans; however, this is still a very large number when considering the influence these consumers have on the market. Now they will be “tightening their wallets” because they are not receiving their paychecks from the government. Although the government signed a bill on October 5^th, stating these employees will be paid, they will only receive their pay once the government reopens, and this date is still a mystery. This will lead to these government employees not spending money at local restaurants, stores or other businesses, which will result in loss of sales and revenue for these businesses. This could lead to these businesses having to lay-off workers and in some instances even close their businesses if the shutdown continues for too long. For each day that the government is shutdown it is estimated that Washington DC will lose $200 million in economic activities.

Videos
Effects of Government Shutdown
Local Businesses Effected

Links
http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhendricks/2013/10/01/how-will-the-government-shutdown-impact-your-business/

http://globalnews.ca/news/876912/us-businesses-worry-about-a-prolonged-shutdown/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/30/absolutely-everything-you-need-to-know-about-how-the-government-shutdown-will-work/