People are living in an era when the Internet has revolutionized their lives. A lot of people believe that whether a company can analyze and use data in a right way will determine whether it can success or not. Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, the author of “ Big Data” says :“it is better to have more data than clean data.” To be more specific, everyone knows that it is easier to classify and use data when it is in a smaller group. Today, however, there is an explosion of all kinds of information which makes it extremely hard to find “clean” data.

The main point is, what kind of companies should be data-oriented, some of them, or all of them? Google can certainly be a good example of using data and its success is basically all about data. Zynga also made a lot of efforts on collecting data. However, it ended up cutting up 520 employees in June, 2013. The reason of it is basically because of the lack of tactics. Zynga excessively depends on data and ignored some other vital factors like strategies and new ideas.

I think data should be one factor of a company’s success but cannot be the only one.

Resources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYS_4CWu3y8

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-06-03-zynga-cuts-520-employees-closes-new-york-and-los-angeles-offices

http://www.customercentric.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Big-Data-2.jpg

In the last few years, e-commerce has caused a huge threat to traditional commerce, especially for those retailers who own small businesses.By September 30th, 2013, the financing value of Taobao (the biggest online shopping market in Asia-Pacific center) has become more than  1,200 million dollars.

Compared with traditional commerce, the biggest advantage of e-commerce is lower costs since for online stores, there is not space rent. Except for it, online stores also get an access to more customers as well as their suggestions and comments in a more direct way. Partly because of all those obvious advantages of e-commerce, traditional commerce has been through a really tough time. I analyzed the store growth rates of top 100 US retailers in 2012 and found that almost 30% of them have been through a negative growth and when it comes to sales growth nearly 20% of them have. As mentioned, they are top 100 retailers which means their counterparts must have been in a worse condition.

In this case, some people tend to think e-commerce might replace traditional one in a short run. However, consumers still need to shop in person since it is more trust-worthy and time-saving. Although with all those advantages, it remains hard for online shops to be regulated. Frauds and low-quality products tend to let people lose confidence of e-commerce. Consequently, in my opinion, E-commerce and traditional commerce can actually make more connections to both be in a win-win situation.

Resources: http://www.stores.org/2013/Top-100-Retailers

http://www.adstreaminc.com/images/ecommerce.jpg

http://static4.depositphotos.com/1000764/300/i/950/depositphotos_3004053-Supermarket.jpg

The Sanlu Group used to be one of leading companies of the dairy industry in China and it was, in 2006 , ranked as the top 100 Chinese companies in Forbes list.

However, surprisingly, it was found selling contaminated milk powder with melamine in 2008, which sickened 294,000 infants and killed 6 of them. It ended up going bankrupt because of the irreversible damage of reputation. Sanlu, as a big dairy products company, was supposed to have an established inspection system. Nevertheless, it excessively pursued profits and expanded their brand, neglecting the inspection system. The company even accepted milk sources with lower quality to ensure the quantity of products but not safety of them.

The bankrupt of the Sanlu Group was actually an unescapable result because they separated their own profits from those of consumers and obviously paid more attention to their own interests. They actually got a chance to save their brand in 2007 when they got reports from some remote areas saying that some kids got kidney stones after drinking their powdered milk. However instead of taking some positive reactions such as inspecting and countermanding those products, they used some lame excuses such as hot weather and excessive water consumption to dupe consumers, leading the brand to a complete failure.

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