This blog post is in response to https://blogs.ubc.ca/jvalcke/ blog post on Facebook in the workplace.

I could not agree more with Jaxon that Facebook entering in a new market is an incredibly smart decision to combat the rise of business friendly streams within the workplace cutting off a value stream for Facebook to gain more consumers. However, I feel that’s Porter’s idea on competitive advantage does not correctly express what Facebook has done to differentiate themselves. The company is doing different things to differentiate themselves yes but, they are not the only ones providing there new services. They are gaining new competitors that are with in the new market. I feel that  Rita Mcgrath’s concept of transient advantage, is that business must be constantly evolving and adapting in order to sustain a competitive advantage.  Facebook is no different, as for many years they dominated the social media platform. I would argue that slack and other workplace companies are examples of sustainable competitive advantage. Facebook’s response of entering the workplace market is their way to combat these companies from stealing  millions of possible customers.  As Facebook has clearly realized, workplace is very useful for companies and is a definite threat to their dominance at the top of there industry. Evolving Facebook by creating Workplace, the company is positioning themselves to sustain their transient advantage over other workplace companies as well as social media companies. Rather than losing the entire idea of creating a new platform that adds to the company’s over all value proposition and adds to their customer segment.

Word count: 261

It has become much harder in this day and age to emerge from the poverty into the middle class. The numbers for the poor will continue to rise, but there is a way that these numbers can decrease. With the help of small factories the people in poverty have the chance to become more profitable and gain more money than they would working in fast food chains.

looking into the PEST analysis we can see that the E (Economic Factors), are mainly affected by this statement, and can be viewed into a better understanding of why small factories should continue to give jobs to those people in poverty.

Economic Factors

• Decrease Unemployment rate, increasing middle class
• Stimulate the economy
• Stronger society, creating a more efficient society

This that could help to effect from a Political stand point.

Political Factors

• Lower taxation on products produced from smaller factories
• Increase tariffs on imported products to increase the world price
• Increase employment laws on small factories

When the company’s begin to start employing more people with in poverty the market will spike in-return increasing the economic growth within those areas causing unemployment and the poverty levels to decrease.

Throughout the many tools provided in business the best one for discovering what a company’s strives to achieve is the Business Model Canvas I feel it best illustrates the large interconnected system that runs with in a company. This provides a better understanding on the many strengths a company’s has and also shows what the company needs to improve on. The model was created by Alexander Osterwalder It outlines several prescriptions which form the building blocks that are Value proposition, Customer segment, customer relationship, channels, revenue streams, Key activities, Key resources, cost structure and key partners.  It allows both up and coming businesses and existing businesses to focus on operations as well as strategic management and marketing plans.  Once the model has been created you are able to see that every aspect affects the over all success. Also allowing the company’s to see what there best traits are that are keeping them diversified from there competition.

This is a very simplified example of two categories in a model with connections to each other.

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/businessmodelcanvasworkshop-150424015113-conversion-gate02/95/business-model-canvas-workshop-72-638.jpg?cb=1437981605

In this model it shows that the company’s value proposition strongly connects to the customers segment which is who the company attracts. By Tesla providing an environmentally safe vehicle they attract more customers who are interested in keeping a clean environment. Also with Tesla providing more options and a better sustaining battery life within there cars the companys vehicles attract customers with a higher salary.

With only being providing very few points for this Tesla model you are able to get a quick insight as to how the business model works as well as see that there is many opportunity’s for connections within. This is why I feel that the business model canvas is the best for seeing what a company plans to achieve.

word count 300.