United Nations is more of a political organization, which deals with sever issues. Nevertheless it has a section of its operations dealing with development of Low Income Countries, however the allocation of resources within organizations will always remain uneven. The money resource will always be prioritise for emergency issues, such as the recent crisis in Ukraine, rather than ongoing crisis in Ethiopia and other African countries facing poverty every day.

Therefore even if the United Nations was fully funded, Social Enterprise and organisations such as Arc will be constantly needed, as they don’t just “help” these countries by giving them money, but they teach them how to make money, which is far more important and long-term successful. Like a famous saying says “Would you rather keep giving fish to a group of people all your life, or put an effort to teach them how to fish for themselves once and it will serve them for all their lives, passing through generations”.

Following Business Insider on Facebook, I found an article “24 Must-Read Blogs for Entrepreneurs“, which lead to hours reading different blog posts in attempts to find something that I was going to write a post on.

Mark Suster’s post “How to Solve the Biggest Frustration Marketers Have With Social” attracted my attention, as I am planning on majoring in Marketing and nowadays social media is a great part of that activity in any field.

Suster discussed the importance of measuring the effectiveness of the marketing campaigns through the use of the new media. He mentioned the amount of detailed information that a marketer needs to know and analyze in order to create accurate predictions and decisions regarding his further actions. Being a 21st century raised young adult, new media has been very much a part of my lifestyle, however never have I realized the analytical process behind the RTs, FAVs and replies, that occur on the web.

Suster mentioned also a website called awe.sm, which allows for entrepreneurs, corporations or even individuals to track their ROI (Return on Investment) of the Social Media. Websites like these could really improve the way corporations track their popularity, especially with ever-increasing internet usage. Therefore these websites can aid corporations in planning and creating strategies in the marketing aspect of the business.

Gender inequality in a business world. The issue has been faced so many times by millions of women who find themselves unfairly treated. The headlines of articles such as “Women: you’ve lost out on £1.2m because of unequal pay” and “Baroness Brady: ‘The only reason to look down on other women? If you’re helping them up’” outline the need to tackle this gender gap in the business society. However, being a feminist myself, the idea of feminism in the corporate field has been misunderstood and misinterpreted.

In general terms, feminism has gone a long way from getting women the right to vote (appart from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Vatican City, Brunei, UAE, etc.) to women being able to take on jobs that are more suitable to men, due to physical abilities. Being a feminist in general terms, means to support women’s right to be able to do activities that men are able to do and get awarded for them the same way as men. That said, feminist movement has been taken over by women who mislead the society, by acting in inappropriate ways (e.g. nude protests, violance etc.). They are extremists.

When it comes to corporate environment, women are quite often percieved that way, the extrimist way, however it is rarely the case. The truth is gender inequality exists in the corporate world more than it does in general terms. Women have always been paid lower than men for the same job. Thinking from a leadership role it is understandable that women are of lower efficiency than men, as they tend to have children, needing paid months off, are more emotional than men and tend to be more understanding and not strict enough, as well as many other common traits associated with women coworkers. As a female student thriving to be successful in the business world, I start to think that the only way a female can have a successful career is by abstracting herself from any ability to feel as well as having no social or personal life, which can be distructing from the role she takes on at work.

It becomes a problem, even when looking at the most simple terms. The population curves of the LEDCs (Less Economically Developed Countries) show a wide base, meaning more children are being born, so the population keeps steady, when looking at the population curve of the MEDCs (More Economically Developed Countries) we see that the base of the pyramid is narrower, as more women work and refuse to have children (however the issue of decreasing population is not limited to this factor only). Decreasing population could lead to global issues.

In order to tackle this problem, corporations need to become more sensitive to the needs of women, in order to keep the societies healthy. There needs to be a compromise between gender in the workplace and the treatment should be according to the needs of each gender, not necessarily equal.

Other sources: http://www.wisegeek.org/in-which-countries-are-women-not-allowed-to-vote.htm

Looking through a number of blogs, David’s blogpost about the Berlin’s separation between East and West struck me as a surprise, as I have always assumed Germany grew and developed as a single country ever since the Berlin Wall fell in 1991.

Researching more into this matter, I have discovered that indeed the West part of the country is more economically and commercially advance than the East. The businesses are more prosperous on the west, than on the east. A simple example of this division is the lamps used on the streets. As the satellite image within David’s post shows the colour of the street lights are different, that is because the lamps used on the East part of Berlin are gas-powered, while the West light are electric, which reduces the energy consumption and produces brighter light, clearly visible on the image.

The reasoning behind it turned out to be more complex than a simple explanation of the old-ways of communist societies. Over the decades (from when the Berlin Wall collapsed) thousands of young East Germans migrated into the West in search of a better and wealthier life. Therefore the economy of the East of Germany is struggling with a shrinking and ageing population. By the current of Eastern Germany, the firms that are based there will not be growing or making much profit anytime soon.

The hope for Eastern Germany is still there, however in order to improve the economy and the market Germany will need to tackle the population issue before anything else.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10003467/Berlin-satellite-image-reveals-stark-east-west-divisions.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10198308/Germany-faces-east-west-divide-for-decades.html

Running into this article on Business Insider website, I though about Class 18: Sauder Alumni and various things that Ian, Nolan and Cathy touched upon while giving their side of starting and running a business. As the Sauder Alumni and Hoffman describe, an entrepreneur is a very diverse position, which requires the person carrying the title to be able to compromise and know more than any other person working for her/him. Based on these opinions and stories, I believe that starting a business as a team is better than starting a business on your own.

Entrepreneur is seeking for the competitive advantage to differentiate his firm and idea from others in the market. This task is very difficult to tackle solo, therefore many entrepreneurs opt for finding co-founders and a group of people who are able to make the start-up successful, by brining in a number of various skills and mindsets. Having more than one person on the leadership team helps with having to make decisions, as they tend to be not one sided, but carefully weighted against other arguments suggested by the business partners. As a general rule the decisions produced as a team are more logical and successful in the business environment.

By working together with a number of people, an entrepreneur also tends to keep his idea in line with his/her company’s ability. Since entrepreneur is a person who is passionate and strongly driven to thrive to achieve his goals and ideas, he often reaches over the limit of reasonable and attempts something that is either not logical or even harmful to the company. Working with a number of people, with different personalities and goals helps to keep the original entrepreneur from making vast decisions and harming the business.

This article I found about anti-littering campaign in Toronto caught my eye because I wouldn’t expect Canadians to be against environmentally-friendly campaigns. However as I read through it, it became clear that it is the companies that were used in the campaign that were against the use of their brand names in this negative connotation. It is completely understandable, as no respectful firm would want their products to be looked at as litter and the government supported it.

Nonetheless, looking at this issue from a marketing perspective, the campaign leaders could have advertised it to these companies as being a part of creating a cleaner environment in Toronto and therefore the firms could take advantage of this to enforce their social responsibility in the name of their brand. This in turn would eliminate the “damaging effect on their trademarks”, and would do quite the opposite.

Based on the article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/toronto-ads-crossed-the-line-with-depiction-of-prominent-brands/article20379559/

We are living in the age of evolution of information technology and online shopping is no exception. It is easier nowadays to order items, such as clothing, electronics, home appliances and even food online, then spend money, time and energy on driving to the shopping centre to get these items. This is a great opportunity for the retail stores to open up new possibilities and start selling their products online. Many stores, such as Apple or Wal-Mart, took that opportunity and experienced a sales increase.

This new market is not only profitable for businesses that are looking into entering it, but for the consumer, who is receiving the service at his convenience. But there is another question that arises, what happens to the actual stores? If e-commerce keeps expending, there will be no need for shopping malls and they will just lose business and close down. Therefore in order to survive, Shopping malls need to step up their game with offering entertainment, in the form of indoor amusement parks for children, cinemas, etc. A great example of this are the malls in Dubai, which include indoor ski resort, hotels, huge aquariums and amusement parks. Therefore malls in Dubai are so successful and they also make great profit for their owners.

Based on the article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/online-shopping-forces-malls-to-evolve-and-keep-customers-coming-back/article20777568/

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29170560

The article above describes how Malaysian Airlines, along with other major airline companies, such as Emirates, claims that at the time of its flight MH17 was shot down in the eastern Ukraine, they were unaware of missiles being present in that area. Nevertheless British Airways and other airlines were avoiding flying over that region as they knew (based on the information available “publicly”) there were dangerous weaponry present in the area.

This is more of a political topic, than a business one, however by reading this article, a couple of things came up, that I wanted to mention here.

First of all, this is clearly a publicity move, meant to take the blame away from Malaysian Airlines; who, based on two tragic accidents in one year, are now loosing business and the shares have dropped in the past 5 months. Unfortunately, this only contributes towards the bad reputation of Malaysian Airlines, as it is their responsibility as a large firm to be aware of the global situation and avoid any situation that is going to in any way endanger their clients.

Second of all, the unrest in Ukraine began during the fall months in 2013, and went viral internationally. The fact that a large company, such as Malaysian Airlines “didn’t know” that there are dangerous weaponry in the area of a serious unrest is plain ridiculous.

An article from The Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/sep/10/energy-consumption-behind-smart-phone

Nowadays, technology is extremely advanced and widely used all over the world. It is no surprise that the market base for cellphone companies is extremely wide, as a life without cellphone in the modern world is not only difficult but somewhat impossible. One of the promotions that we often hear is that by using out cellphones to read newspapers, books, etc., we save our planet’s atmosphere, as less trees are being cut to produce paper to print the above listed items. However as this article points out, cellphones aren’t as “green” as the makers advertise them to be.

The truth is that pressure groups are demanding from cellphone companies to lower their environmental footprint. In my opinion, they should be socially responsible, in order to attract their customers, and if famous newspapers (such as The Guardian) start to point out their unethical behaviour, it will soon reflect on their sales. On the contrary, cellphones are not only wanted, but needed, therefore the fact that sales will drop is questionable.

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