Vine which started almost completely by accident has turned in to a multimillion dollar social medium. Vine has made a lot of individuals famous, and has helped entertain consumers for over a year, however, a lack of innovation has caused Vine to stay stagnant. However, Twitter has recently shut down vine. Twitter is planning on implementing the features that are in vine which mainly includes the 6 second videos which will be implemented in to vine.

Vine which initially exploded has been used much less frequently as time goes on. The social platform has an extremely small amount of traffic compared to when Vine first kicked off.  However, competition from Instagram, snapchat, twitter, and YouTube has taken out the necessity that is the 7 second videos for vine.

These various other social mediums can incorporate these short 7 second videos, while providing a platform in which individuals can share much longer videos or pictures and text. Therefore, Vine becomes obsolete as consumers can look towards any of these alternatives.

In Andrea Atanacio’s blog “The Planet, Live” she discusses why Twitter decided to shut down vine. she makes very good points which I agree with that include that the celebrities of vine are switching to other social media platforms and Twitter wants to focus on their vision in the future as a live news platform. Live coverage of large events like the presidential election attract a lot of visitors to their website and Twitter wants to expand on this aspect in the future. I completely agree with Andrea on the point that because Twitter has shown decreasing profitability over the last two years and most of the users of vine have left that they should shut down Vine and focus on the future vision of twitter. Twitter is live and this is a large point of difference when compared to other social media platforms.

Vine does not have any significant points of parity when compared to its competitors which are the other social media outlets. In fact, there are restricted because they are only able to send out videos that are no longer then 7 seconds. This social media app has thrown in the towel as it could not move fast enough to differentiate itself from its competitors.

Twitter made an extremely smart move by shutting down Vine which is lacking behind its competitors. Twitter should use the features that were available in Vine to differentiate Twitter a little more from Consumers and they should focus on the future by expanding on their vision as a live platform which Andrea summarized very well.

Word Count: 427

References:

Newton, Casey. “Why Vine Died.” The Verge. N.p., 28 Mar. 2016. Web. 14 Nov. 2016. <http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13456208/why-vine-died-twitter-shutdown>.

Perez, Sarah, and Katie Roof. “Twitter Is Shutting Down Vine.” TechCrunch. N.p., 27 Nov. 2016. Web. 14 Nov. 2016. <https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/twitter-is-shutting-down-vine/>.

Following world wide reports of over 100 cases of the Samsung Galaxy Notes exploding and catching on fire, Samsung has decided to announce a massive recall of their new phone. There are now halting sales and stopping production completely of their new phones and they are encouraging consumers to return their phones. There has already been many instances in which individuals have been severely burned and have needed skin graphs to replace their skin which has been burned off.

Samsung has reportedly tested their phone and have found no external or internal issues, however this is not shown through the numerous cases of their phone catching fire. Even airlines are taking precautionary measures to ensure that no Galaxy Notes are allowed on the plane in the event that the explode or catch fire (Cosmin 2016).

This incident will tarnish Samsung’s reputation and will cause even the most loyal Samsung customers to rethink buying another phone from Samsung. There will be a missive swing of customers flocking over to Apple or Android. Google has also launched their new phone Pixel which will definitely sway a lot of consumers to their phone instead of getting another phone from Samsung. Samsung will see their bottom line profits decrease drastically and they will need to strategize to keep the customers they have previously had, as well as potential new customers.

Samsung is giving customers over $100 of in store credit, as well as a guaranteed replacement of their phone for their newest model. However I believe this incident will cause all consumers who purchase phones to think twice before they walk in to a Samsung store. In Alon Aminov’s blog “Have the exploding Galaxy Note 7s Destroyed the Company?” he discusses that ramifications of this incident and how the company will face decreasing profitability in the next coming years. However, I really agree with his point that the customers of Samsung should be able to use their newest model which is the Galaxy S7 until all of the issues are absolutely fixed. Anyone who is still using their phones should feel safe about the product and Samsung should incur this large fix cost to mitigate some of the damage that has been caused to their company.

Word Count: 372

References:

Cosmin. “Airlines Improve Safety Measures after Reports of Exploding Samsung Galaxy Note 7                   Units.” Phone Arena. Phone Arena, 2016. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

Chipotle has grown drastically over the past 12 years growing from several stores to 1,900. It has managed to sustain this rapid growth by differentiating itself from other fast food chains. These differentiation factors include Chipotle’s effective operations management and value proposition to customers.

With its core value of, “Food With Integrity” it utilizes locally growth organic vegetables and responsibly raised meats. This differentiation factor alongside consumer trends of willing to pay more for healthier foods, Chipotle is able to charge a premium with average bills being ten dollars an order (Gagliardi, 2015).

Further with Chipotle’s effective operations management of focusing on standardization rather than customization and focusing on corporate expansion verses franchise expansion, it has allowed them to retain high profitability than competitors.

Standardization Vs Customization:

Chipotle offers a limited menu of food items and also utilizes a highly efficient assembly line. This standardization of limited items for Chipotle allows them to lower food waste and reduce food inventory resulting in costs savings (Li, 2015). Further, the assembly line allows workers to specialize in one step of the food preparation process providing them a comparative advantage in food preparation. This in addition to Chipotle retaining only the most efficient workers has resulted an increase of inventory turnover allowing them to serve over 300 customers per hour and attaining $2.5 million dollars in revenue per store (Li, 2015).

Corporate Vs Franchise:

Every individual Chipotle is company owned, in contrast to many fast food companies that utilize the franchise model. This decision has led to slower company growth but has resulted in higher cash flows by allowing Chipotle to retain the entire retail level profitability rather than just collect franchise fees.

Given Chipotle’s key strengths of utilizing its, “Food With Integrity” value proposition and focusing on a corporate model compared to a franchise model, it has managed to increase its top line and bottom line profitability compared to its competitors. This increase in profitability compared to competitors is further magnified by cost savings resulting from a standardized operation model. These factors have indicated that greater profit margins can be achieved in the fast food industry and led me to believe that this type of corporate model will be a new era in the fast food industry.

Word Count: 368

References for Articles and Images Used:

Gagliardi, Nancy. “Consumers Want Healthy Foods–And Will Pay More For Them.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 18 Feb. 2015. Web. 02 Oct. 2016.http://www.forbes.com/sites/nancygagliardi/2015/02/18/consumers-want-healthy-foods-and-will-pay-more-for-them/#105032cb144f.

Li, Sam. “Chipotle: It’s Not the Burrito – It’s the Operating Model.” Technology and Operations Management. Open Knowledge, 9 Dec. 2015. Web. 02 Oct. 2016.https://rctom.hbs.org/submission/chipotle-its-not-the-burrito-its-the-operating-model/.

Roemmele, Brian. “What Are the Keys to Chipotle’s Success?” Quora. N.p., 20 Aug. 2011. Web. 02 Oct. 2016. https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-keys-to-Chipotles-success.

Zheng, Micheal. “Chipotle Nation.” Technology and Operations Management. Open Knowledge, 18 Nov. 2015. Web. 02 Oct. 2016. https://rctom.hbs.org/submission/chipotle-nation/.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=chipotle+image&espv=2&biw=1018&bih=773&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHr7yW573PAhUN4GMKHclxB2UQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=chipotle+image+many+pixels&imgrc=cDA3j7mNPhTBJM%3A.