United Nations (UN) is committed to promote international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, civil liberties, political freedom, democracy and achieve cooperation in World Peace. It is known to provide humanitarian aid to developing countries. On the other hand, there is social enterprise which is an organization (or a project) aims to maximize human and environmental well being. Some may argue that with the existence of UN, there is no need of social enterprise. However, I believe that social enterprise and UN does not have conflict to each other.

I see United Nations as an emergency aid in a short run. As United Nation is made up with the strongest country in the world, it also means that UN can be able to access to some of the world’s strongest resources. In the others world, it is a very resourceful organization that can provide immediate aid to any country in need. However, that aid is only for short run and UN can only aid the entire country, not every individual in the country.

On the other hand, social enterprise is different organizations gathering resources to aid a specific place or area. For example, Sauder’s Arc Initative aids developing countries (Ethiopia, South Africa, Rwanda and Colombia) to maintain local economy by sharing student’s business toolkit. The program encourages local entrepreneurship and achieve economic sustainability, which UN is not able to aid the countries to do so.

All in all, I believe the social enterprise and UN’s both is trying to make the world a better place. UN is able to provide resourceful help to a nation in a short period of time. While social enterprise is able to help build a sustainable economy in a country.

Founded in 1984, Lenovo is China and Asia’s largest computer manufacture. In 2005, the computer giant bought IBM’s personal computer division for $1.25 billion. Workers at the Lenovo production plant in China are used to stringent manufacturing systems, with only 18 seconds to add components before they are moved on in the assembly line . This ensures more than 400 Lenovo laptops are produced each hour. Workers are also expected to show respect to their high ranked staff. Unlike western economics, Lenonvo’s staff are not generally encouraged to voice their opinions  or to think independently. They would certainly shy from questioning the decisions of senior management . Hence, it may have cultural difference and causing problems in joint ventures with other companies.

Culture is the set of beliefs and values held by the staff of an organization, thereby determining what is considered the ‘norm’ in the business organization, it also help people to ‘fit’ in, based on the way things are traditionally done in the organization. As 30 years old company, Lenovo have it very own culture and the cultural differences between Eastern and Western firms can create a natural barrier to effective integration of the different cultures. Other problems such as language barriers and the workers of Lenovo might refuse to change to co-operate with another firm, as they are used to the Chinese culture.

All in all, this joint venture’s success is really depend on can the different culture of companies be integrated together.

“Lenovo Renews Joint Venture With NEC – ChinaTechNews.com – The Technology Source for the Latest Chinese News on Internet, Computers, Digital, Science, Electronics, Law, Security, Software, Web 2.0, Telecom, and Wireless Industries.” ChinaTechNews.com. ChinaTechNews.com, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.

Recently, a research have found American university produces most billionaires. Not surprisingly, the higher the ranking of the university, the more billionaire it produced. But what does this number tell us about the University?

Firstly, Alumni are generally institution’s most loyal supporters. In the other words, the more wealth the alumni of a university it, the more potential source of finance the university has. Meaning more research fund maybe generated by the university. A large donation from the Alumni will provide the university with newer technology, better facilities and so on.

Second, Alumni generate invaluable word-of-mouth marketing among their social and professional networks. This creates a more attractive picture of the university, which will leads more applicant to a university. Allowing the university to expose to higher quality of applicants and be more competitive in the world. Moreover,  an institution can continue to benefit from their skills and experience.

Using  Sauder school of business as an example, one of Sauder’s most notable alumni is Dr. William L Sauder, who donated $20 million and the span the business school is renamed the Sauder School of Business.

“American Universities Produce Most Billionaires.” AsiaOne Business. Singapore Press Holdings Ltd, 25 Oct. 2014. Web. 12 Nov. 2014.

As global warming is getting more and more serious daily, Sustainability becomes a more and more common topic. Customer believes that company only participate in sustainability in order to improve the company’s image.  But who would know there is a huge market under the topic sustainability.

The aim of Coca Cola (Coke) in Northern New England is to save water and waste reduction. Around 6 million pounds of plastic bottles and 4+ million aluminium can is recycle to coca cola last year and have continuing this practice for last 30 years. Most of the recycled product will be sold to Zerowaste and then will be converted in to fabrics. The fabrics sold to companies such as New Balance or Northface to produce clothing and shoes. More important, the demand for the recycle fabrics is way bigger than the supply. Zerowaste is constantly looking for new sources to gather more bottles and cans. This whole recycling process does not just help the world to reduce the waste and be more sustainable. It also creates lots of job opportunities to the the North England.

This case shows the potential growing market of recycling and Sustainable. As global warming is becoming a more known topic, people will start to recycle more. As products is been recycled, this also means the market of sustainability will also increase. And maybe, being one of the biggest market in future.

“How Coca-Cola Shrinks Its Environmental Footprint.” Environmental Leader RSS. Business Sector Media, LLC, 10 Oct. 2014. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.

After reading Danny Jeng’s  “The future of Apple’s innovation“, it impressed me on how Apple is still continuing to differentiate it’s product after years of the launch of iPhone, it also reminds of me Blackberry.

Blackberry has great success before the introduction of iPhone or Samsung smartphone. However, nowadays, This company is now near bankrupt. How is that possible? The reason behind this is a lack of innovative ideas.

Before, blackberry was able to survive in the market with limited amounts of creative and innovation as they are the only designer and producer of smartphones. Back then, Blackberry’s focus was to provide quality phones with pretty much same features. However, the product life cycle of the previous products seems to decline as iPhone was introduced to the market.

As a consumer, I will always choose a product the is continually improving and makes my life easier. A feature that is can not be seen in Blackberry’s product. As a result, this caused the destruction of Blackberry. Innovative products make the business stands out from the crowd, such as Apple’s iPhone. It is impossible to compete if the products is a lack of creativity and outdated.

All in all, Blackberry’s downfall is only caused by the companies lack of creative product and is no longer able to compete in the market, as more innovative products is introduced to the market. The only way for Blackberry to continue to survive in this market is to catch up with other smartphone firms — by designing a product that will stand out the crowd.

Silcoff, Sean, Jacquie McNish, and Steve Ladurataye. “How BlackBerry Blew It: The inside Story.” The Globe and Mail. Thomson Reuters, 27 Sept. 2014. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.

British Columbia is the third most populated province in Canada, a total of 4,400,057. It requires lots of energy to survive. Most of the energy s provided by BC Hydro.

BC Hydro proposal to build a new $8 million dam, Site C, to provided extra 1100 megawatts of capacity to increase the low living conditions. The problem is that the dam will built on First Nation’s land. Site C will destroy First Nation’s land, more importantly, their home. Currently, First Nation and BC Hydro bring this issue to the court and hoping to find a plan which can be able to satisfy both parties.

This case is a perfect example of economic development vs environmental. A successful business requires to balance the options that can satisfy the needs and wants of the different  stakeholders. The first nations requires job opportunities, while the BC Hydro requires land and labor to operate Site C.

If the needs and wants of Stakeholder is not well balance, it will create a stakeholder conflict. Eventually, harming the company’s reputation and financially. This is an ugrent conflict that BC Hydro needs to resolve asap, as every second the project is delayed, BC Hydro is losing money and opportunity cost of time. I would suggest BC Hydro to resolve this conflict either with negotiation with the First nation or relocate Site C to a more remote area, where no human inhabitant.

Stueck, Wendy. “First Nations Challenge to Site C Approval Could Make Dam a Test Case.” The Globe and Mail. The Globe and Mail Inc., 15 Oct. 2014. Web. 08 Nov. 2014.

Smartphone giants such as Apple, Samsung, HTC, are all trying to be the leader in one of the world’s biggest smartphone market, the mainland China. Despite the giant’s successful in the other markets, none is able to beat Xiaomi in the mainland China market. Analyze believes the success of Xiaomi is based on different business model.

Xiaomi’s phone is known for its aggressive pricing point among most smartphones. Both Xiaomi’s Mi3 and Apple’s iPhone 5C aims for the low price market, yet Mi3 is selling at $300 while iPhone 5C is $860. Xiaomi also builds a tight relationships with their consumers by asking for feedback and voting for what products does the consumer want. Compared it with other smartphone companies, which builds phone what the company wants. However, it is understandable why most smartphone companies does this strategy as their sales is all around in the world, meaning adopting a same strategy as Xiaomi maybe very expensive and the results from different countries may contradicts to other results. However, this give Xiaomi the advantage of understanding the mainland China’s market and be able to launch products which meets the demand of the market.

“Xiaomi Becomes China’s Top Smart Phone Vendor.” Xiaomi Becomes China’s Top Smart Phone Vendor (2014): n. pag. Canalys, 4 Aug. 2014. Web. 30 Sept. 2014.

Often, as a consumer the visual impression of the firm it the logo of the firm. When I am naming some of the companies such as McDonalds, Apple Inc. or Google you can easily picture their logos in your brain. Logos are essentially a form of branding that uses a visual symbol to represent a business, its brands or its products. Business spends millions of dollars coming with suitable logos that are distinctive and eye-catching to make and effective marketing strategy Most like, it will contain subliminal messages.

Often, the hidden meaning of the logos can be refer to the companies marketing strategy and business objective. Some famous ones are like McDonald’s golden arches is recognized the logo as “symbolism of a pair of nourishing breasts” and creating a sense of desire or need of McDonalds food. Another examples would be amazon’s logo, the arrow pointing from A to Z “representing the fact that Amazon provides a variety of items for sale, literally from A to Z. ” As a result, this indicates to the customers of what Amazon is about.

In short, I think that logos should be designed in simplicity so that the logo is memorable, which will cause the customer to remember the brand easier and become more recognizable.

Momog30. “15 Modern Logos You Didn’t Know Have a Hidden Meaning.”Diply.com. Diply, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2014.

McDonalds, everyone’s childhood favorite restaurant. It’s always a child’s happiest thing ever to dine in a McDonald restaurant. However, McDonalds have been discovered to use bought tainted meat to lower its production cost, These issues have significantly harmed the image and reputation of McDonalds. Edward Freeman believes a business survive depends on the firm’s care of it customer’s feeling, in which this case agrees with his believes. This issue turned customers against McDonld’s products and the firm. Although the bought tainted meat is only used in Asia market, yet it which caused McDonald’s global sales to decrease. Yes, using cheap price meat can cut cost of McDonald and result in greater profit, but it cause McDonalds to violate the ethical code of business practice. McDonald chose to adapt a higher profit course of action. It is clear that the customers are likely to be loyal to a company that does not act immorally. This case also shows the media will report unethical behaviour and can easy and seriously damage the image and reputation of a business, more importantly, it is really hard to recover from the loss.

Market Intelligence Center. “Sales Are down at McDonald’s – and Why Shouldn’t They Be?” NASDAQ.com. Nasdaq, 10 Sept. 2014. Web. 11 Sept. 2014.