Amazon has built 38 new fulfillment centres in North America and some in other countries such as Europe and India, and also smaller warehouses called “sortation centres” which allow Amazon to ship packages directly to customers. This is all in order to avoid the holiday delivery congestion.

Building sortation centres and new fulfillment centres will raise the efficiency of the company as the products can get to the customers much quicker at a lower cost. Additionally, it will have a positive impact on their reputation which they lost from late arrivals of packages. This action also shows that the company is considerate of their customers. Since Amazon is targeting much wider range of customers than most companies that focus on one field of industry, customers are one of the priorities they have to consider about.

Moreover, Amazon is also expanding its area of Fresh grocery service to New York city area. However, it might not be a good idea as it will make more competitors and also Amazon has a disadvantage for this as it is not well-known for the grocery service. In comparison, the company like FreshDirect has an advantage for this as it only focuses on this field and is known for this service. Expanding the field of business can give the company more opportunities but it can also give more threats and can be quite challenging.

Now they have 158 FCs around the world specifically in East Asia, India, Europe and of course North America, which increased their capacity of fulfillment. With this many FCs, Amazon would be able to deliver the packages much faster than before and would reduce the late arrivals. This coming Christmas would be the first challenge for Amazon to see if this actually works out well.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-09-26/amazons-grand-plan-to-avoid-holiday-delivery-snafus-again

There are currently pro-democracy protests happening in Hong Kong and some firms and businesses are being affected by them. Many banks are temporarily closed because of the protests. However, it is said that the protests will not have too much impact on economy or financial stability as long as it is short-term.

This news surprised me because I went to Hong Kong this summer for vacation and I personally have many friends from Hong Kong. Because I have many friends from Hong Kong, I was aware of the issue that China and Hong Kong are having since China took back control of Hong Kong in 1997. From my perspective, China and Hong Kong are completely different in terms of political system and other aspects. The biggest difference is their political systems; democracy and communism. Hong Kong has its own government and because it used to be a British colony, their political system is closer to Britain’s than China’s. Also, from these protests, it is clear that citizens in Hong Kong are more likely to support democracy over communism. Considering these facts, it is unfair and unethical to take away their promised democratic rights even though Hong Kong is going to go back to China in the near future.

However, even though this might be the biggest protest that Hong Kong has had in their history, it is extremely hard to change China’s decision. Firstly, because Hong Kong does not have many people compared to China, and secondly, because China’s government and the nation itself have much greater power than of Hong Kong. In the article, Fitch Ratings head of Asia-Pacific Sovereigns Andrew Colquhoun said that these protests will not last long and will not have much impact on their economy considering the facts above.

However, this might be a good chance for both China and Hong Kong to discuss their relationship and issues they have been having for a long time. Since Hong Kong has to go back to China in several years, they cannot keep competing each other like this forever. They somewhat have to find a way to sort out how their relationship is going to work without harming any rights or cultures that they have respectively.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29405480

In the crisis of BP oil spill which took 11 people’s lives away, BP company took all the responsibilities for this incident. However, in the article, it was found that it was not only BP’s fault, and that government other companies were also involved in this incident.

Both BP company and the government were being unethical before the disaster happened since they did not investigate various activities and decisions enough to make sure that everything is on the right track. Even after the incident, they thought that giving out money would solve everything which I think is an unethical action. This disaster could have been prevented if the company looked more carefully into the safety and thought more about their workers’ conditions. They focused too much on gaining a profit and did not concern much about other factors such as making sure that their workers are working in a safe condition. Additionally, if the government had more strict regulations on safety checks, it might have prevented the disaster as well. This incident taught us that the responsibilities of a business or a company is not only to make a profit but also to make sure that all stakeholders including workers are treated equally under the safe environment. This incident also gave a company and government a chance to re-investigate how the safety regulations should be in order to prevent any other crisis like this to happen again.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12124830

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