In response to Maya’s blog on Washington’s new found marijuana laws will impact the economy of BC I am inclined to agree with her assumption that the original blog poster’s view is a bit exaggerated. While it is very true that British Columbia thrives economically off its conducive environment to marijuana production the impact it has on the province is not as strong one might suspect. Due to the nature of the product the industry is currently not being taxed unlike every other major production crop in the province. Therefore the shrinking of one market segmentation, and a fairly small one at that with less than 7 million people, will not noticeably affect the economy.

The more interesting issue here I find is the entrepreneurship opportunities that will arise from this referendum in Washington.  Now that “weed” has climbed its way out of the social gutter of drug dealers and been elevated to the open minds of business men and woman alike the companies we see spawned from this situation will be intriguing. Will there be mom and pop stores selling your local hash or will a big agribusiness step into the open market? Only time will tell.

For young aspiring entrepreneurs nothing is easier then saying “not right now” or “I have no resources” but a select few make over this hurdle and go on to do really special things. As there has been a lot of talk about social entrepreneurs in class over the past couple weeks I investigated into how people my age are starting ventures and creating change. After looking at Canada’s top 20 under 20 one winner really stood out to me, Mirian Dang. Her works with Discovery Days in Mental Health shows that the classic excuses associated with adolescents do not necessarily apply. The program centers on workshops given to other youth to explain Mental Health and how to overcome the stigma. Granted her work falls more under NGO rather than social entrepreneur as they are funded by Children’s Hospital of Eastern Canada. She still leads as an exemplar that the vision and enthusiasm that is needed to build up something from scratch can be found in each one of us if there is enough passion.

As a Sauder student I have yet to experience an entire week, maybe even a set of three days, without Apple being brought up as an example in at least one of my classes. They are made out to be a god among men in the Tech industry and I for one have had enough. Not only is it boring students to hear the same example over and over again but in a lot of cases it’s a bad example! They are often inferred to have great diversification when they mostly sell the same product in different sizes and capability levels. Having said that, most of the blame lies on students themselves as the majority of Apple references come when they are asked to participate. This is why I purpose a moratorium on Apple references. I believe that by doing this we will foster learning such that we hear about companies that are outside the general knowledge sphere. I loved it when I was introduced to companies such as Tagga, Zara and Zappos and even have a friend that started shopping on the latter. By forcing students to come up with new refreshing answers our base of information will expand.

Leaving destruction in its path, Hurricane Sandy ripped through the Northeast this week. In disaster situation like this it is sometimes hard to see a silver lining but for Montreal based Resolute Forest Products this is just what they needed as Pine Beatles continue to ravage the lumber industry in British Columbia. After shares dropped by over 4% at close of trading on the TSX Friday, the company is in need of some good news. They found it in Sandy’s estimated 50 billion dollar rampage as analysts expect a big bump in the lumber industry in the second and third quarters of 2013 as the rebuilding process starts to get underway. Once again proving that stock prices are heavily influenced by projections rather then purely revenue or profit.

This just goes to show the huge role of unpredictable factors play and how fickle the world of business can be. I especially think this Maclean’s article is relevant because it showcases the connection between analysts, stock prices and the hurricane. While it is not necessarily appropriate to think of profit margins as the death toll raises and New Yorkers start to get their lives together, such is the way of life and the world of business.

Canada has had a long history with tainted food and subsequent recalls. In recent memory the 2008 Maple Leafs Food, the Mad Cow fiasco of the mid 2000s pop to mind come to mind and now E. Coli, curtsey of XL Foods Inc. can be added to the list. So why are we doomed to repeat our mistakes?

Richard Leblanc’s blog from Canadian Business magazine seems to think the finger can be pointed at producer’s reluctance to implement adequate control systems. I would have to agree with him as it seems that quality control is not a priority for most agribusinesses instead the idea is to pump out as much quantity as possible. I equate it to a game of Russian roulette because as we learn from history once a company experiences this kind of bad press it takes time and a lot of reduced sales before consumers can trust them again.

The blog gives the example of McCain’s Foods as the ideal model. So I think the lessons we can learn here are a secure and safe supply chain managed by a competent operations team can assure the mutual benefit of all stakeholders in the company.

In today’s ever growing fast food market place the task of setting your company apart from the rest of the field is becoming more and more difficult. Wendy’s plans to expand its market range through their brand re-imaging. The most prominent part of this new strategy is the logo change which sees the quarter-century old emblem updated with a more modern interpretation of the iconic girl with red pigtails (old and new logo pictured below). However that is not the only adjustment coming to Wendy’s ; employees can expect to be dressed in a more “casual” styled uniform and new health conscious products will be introduced. This strongly suggests they are trying to move away from the typical fast food joint on the perceptual map dimension of environment.

While undoubtedly the company has put a lot thought and research to this new look they are promoting one still wonders what, if any, impact it will have. In my opinion Wendy’s has been around too long and has been too big for consumers to all of sudden reposition Wendy’s as a healthy and friendly restaurant when most think of it as guilty pleasure fast food. It sounds to me that Wendy’s is trying to be something its not.

After reading Katya’s post about the seldom talked about danger to the environment that electronic cars pose I was shocked and actually upset by some of the statistics. Clearly this was new information to me and I began to question the ethic of positioning certain brands like the Chevy Volt (pictured below) as Good Samaritan cars.

Having said this I do believe that companies that produce electronic cars have in their business models the desire to provide customers with an eco-friendly alternative to traditional cars. This is why I believe that throwing innovative solutions to our society’s troubling reliance on gas under the bus is not an appropriate response.

Instead we should be funding research to iron out these kinks like the use of hazardous materials so that in the future we may be able to come up with an efficient and effective way of getting around without sacrificing the environment.

After our class that focused on Burger King and their Russian expansion I had a little debate with some of my group members. I had mentioned how I thought it was naïve to think that BK could maintain a perfectly ethical business practices while having to deal with notoriously corrupt Russian government. This got me thinking as to how there is all this hype to investing in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) despite it seemingly like such a headache to deal with local regulations and practices. This is why I did some research to find a second grouping of countries worth investing in grouped by an acronym. MIST countries (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey) have all the up and coming appeal to them but with less government officials looking to keep their hands in your pocket. Of course the downside to MIST is a much smaller population and each country has its faults. Specifically I point to the instability while the Syrian civil war’s violence spills over to Turkey and South Korean growing tensions with their Northern counterpart. Having said that given well researched and strategic planning I think MIST countries are vast in opportunities.

The scientific community has been at a consensus for some time now that not only is global warming a very real trend but we as humans are the ones that are behind it. We may like to avoid this fact in our lives but our governments are afforded no such luxury.  The Kyoto protocol has tried to facilitate a solution known as “cap and trade”.  The idea is complex so I have found a video that helps explain.

The first four minutes are about what cap and trade is while the last six explain why it will not work.

The video was made in 2009 while a very recent Economist article come to the same concusion. It seems that our quick fix solution is not working out as the one billionth CER has just been rewarded while the price for them has dropped to 25% of the original in five short years. It is becoming increasingly clear that this solution only works on paper. Canada should be ashamed after backing out on the Kyoto protocol and its citizens need to do more to force the issue as our current plan is not working.

The CRTC is currently listening to arguments from many different special interest groups on the topic of how the proposed merger between Astral Media and Bell will affect those for which they speak for. The overall concern of the hearings seems to be that with this addition Bell could start a strangle hold on the television market. Where this starts to border on unethical territory is that given this deal does go through, Bell will hold unprecedented market share in what is already an oligopoly.  This opens up the possibility for them to charge premium prices for those with Rogers or other companies to access networks like CTV (which is under the Bell corporate umbrella).

Of course with the government intervention in the form of the CRTC there also comes the question of what the government role should be in the free market. There were concerns raised by separate unions about Bells poor track record for cutting costs by streamlining their properties which negatively influenced the Canadian content on programs such as the news.  In this case it seems the CRTC is doing its job by investigating to the fullest extent how this acquisition will affect the Canadian consumer.