During the month of August of 2011, Europe and America saw their economies enter a downward spiral towards recession. With a few months of adjustment and changes, the U.S. managed to slowly stabilizes its economy as the government has been careful with its decisions and the job market had slowly become secure. On the other hand, Europe is still falling as the economies of its countries is near the beginning of a recession. Americans should be concerned about Europe’s economy as if it continues to fall, as it will drag the recovering American economy back into another recession.

This blog post shows how quickly the economy can change if the government takes immediate action and make smart choices. The U.S. government has significantly cut its federal budget in areas such as aid for foreign countries. However, European governments were ignorant about the fact that their countries were economically unstable like the Greece’s government lets the debt build up. Worst of all, since the U.S. and Europe are major international trading partners; the continually failing European economy will damage the U.S. economy. So, the European governments should take immediate action to solve their crises before letting the problem spiral further.

Sources: The Economist      Picture

Derek Huang in his blog post, “Apple unveils refreshed iPhone 4S, but no iPhone 5”, talks about Apple Inc.’s marketing strategy of releasing the iPhone 4S instead of the iPhone 5. This announcement has disappointed the public, which was anticipating the release of the iPhone 5. Derek believes that this is a genius strategy created by Apple, because he thinks that Apple has inelastic demand. This means that Apple can adjust products and prices the way they want, while maintaining constant demand.

Although, Apple has not been impacted negatively by the release of its iPhone 4S, I think that, if Apple repeats this strategy again in the future, they will experience a large drop in sales. This is due to the fact that, in the cell phone market, the competition is increasing rapidly, which means that, if customers are disappointed by an Apple product, they would switch to another brand. If Apple releases the iPhone 5, then customers are expecting more features to be included since Apple has delayed the release. If Apple fails to satisfy customers in the future with the iPhone 5 then Apple should expect a significant loss of loyalty among its existing customer base.

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Chloe Chow talks about the possibility that Japan is releasing a hair washing robot, in her blog post “Robots Already?”. This robot can assist elderly and handicapped people with washing their hair. Chloe said that this concept will become useful not only for the incapable customers, but it will also help hair salon stores to reduce expenses by replacing employees.

This is another example of how technology is starting to replace human jobs. I do not agree with this idea, because not only does it replace certain employees who need the job to make a living, but I also do not think that these robots will be able to provide the same quality of service as a human employee. This means that customers will possibly be charged by the same price for a lesser quality of service, as these robots cannot tell if one’s hair needs more washing. Helping someone wash their hair is more than just washing it; it should be comforting and the wash motion should vary depending how the customer wants it. At this stage, robotic technology is not yet ready to design robots that can perform complex motions as well as fully understand human commands.

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Canadian grocery giant Metro is purchasing a majority stake in Marché Adonis as both companies try to expand further into the fast-growing, multibillion-dollar market for ethnic grocery. The purchase will give Metro ownership of 55% of Adonis’ market share. With this purchase, both Metro and Adonis will benefit from each other. The financial backing of Metro will help Adonis reach more consumers. Also, access to Adonis’ expertise will help Metro boost its advance into the ethnic food market.

This is a good tactic for Metro because it is beneficial for the company in the short run and also in the long run. In the short run, Adonis’ supplier network will provide ethnic foods in Metro stores, which could attract more consumers. In the long run, Metro will become more experienced in the ethnic grocery market through the help of Adonis and also knowledge gained for operation in the market. Also, this differentiation strategy will help Metro to standout among its competitors with products appealing to a larger portion of the market. Adonis, on the other hand, should expand in to other provinces like Ontario and British Columbia as currently the company only operates in Quebec.

Source: Globe and Mail       Picture

Twitter Inc. would be considered an entrepreneurial company as it was founded and created by an entrepreneur named Jack Dorsey. Twitter started as an entrepreneurial company and transitioned into a private corporation. During the entrepreneurial stage, Twitter Inc. had gained a substantial amount of profit due to the huge increase in consumer over the years. The business was created in 2006 and by 2011 the business has attracted over 200 million consumers which shows the speed of wealth creation of the company. Since Twitter Inc. is created based on the business of social networking, it is considered to have a high risk when it was first created. This is because over the recent years the industry of social networking is increasing as more social network websites are created every year. When Twitter was created it has to stand out among its huge competitor base and also has to attract consumers to continuously using it. It was difficult and also risky for the company to achieve those goals with small reputation. Twitter Inc. has designed varies of different website interfaces and features on a daily basis, the company wants to innovate the website as often as possible to make business fresh and entertaining.

** This is not for the blog assignment.