Vertu is a maker of luxury mobile phones that cost from $6,000 to $12,000. It features sapphire crystal faces, and titanium, gold or platinum bodies. Some don’t think it makes any sense to either make or purchase such an expensive phone. An increase, however, has been witnessed of the sales of Vertu recently.

Why did that happen? I think the main reason is that Vertu started using the latest version of Android: 4.2. I admit that not a lot of people would want an old Vertu with gaudy appearance but dumb functions. However, today, by using Android 4.2 to strengthen its POP, its POD(luxurious appearance) finally differentiates itself from other smartphones and improves its sales. Vertu used to be seen as uncompetitive not because of its luxurious appearance but the lack of functions. By contract, its luxury has always been and will be a strong point.

As Vertu’s chief executive officer, Massimiliano Pogliani said “There are people who appreciate certain things, and there are people who do not. And if you do appreciate this sort of thing, and you can afford it, then it’s your choice how you spend your money.”

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2013/02/vertu-ti-official.jpg

http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/12/vertus-first-android-smartphone-will-cost-7-900-euros/

Zappos has been named as the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For 5 years in a row. It has become a representation of employee-centric companies by highly valuing its employees and organisational culture.

By watching the video showed in class, I knew that Zappos has an area providing its employees with free drinks and snacks. Also, the company usually organizes some activities which enables the CEO and employees interact and communicate in an easier way.

In this way, despite the higher costs, Zappos gains employee loyalty which cuts its turnover cost. Also, by being more motivated, employees work more efficiently and provide customers with better services, which protects the company from losing customers. Finally, I think the most important thing is, this kind of organisational culture makes what Zappos is. It makes Zappos more unique and differentiates it from other companies selling similar product, which makes it more attractive both to customers and employees.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/.element/img/1.0/sections/mag/fortune/bestcompanies/2013/snapshots/zappos.jpg

In terms of the most recent data from IDC, in Q3 of 2013 Android made up 81 percent of devices shipped. Apple’s iOS, however, made up only 12.9 percent.

Towards the figures, it seems to be rather obvious that Android dominates market share, but does it mean smartphones with Android system, such as Samsung, HTC and LG also dominate the market? The answer is, no. Data from Canaccord Genuity shows that during the same period the profit apple made made up 56 percent of the profit in the whole mobile device market.

Then, why did iOS only take in 12.9 percent? One of the reasons is apple is the only company who uses iOS, which can also be seen as one of its POD. Moreover, by selling its own APPs, iOS actually made more money than Android did. It shows that figures can sometimes be deceived. High market share does not mean high income. Also, rather than focusing too much on volume and quantity, what apple always does is to focus on quality, creativity and POD, which proved to be successful by gaining more revenue for Apple.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tonybradley/2013/11/15/android-dominates-market-share-but-apple-makes-all-the-money/

http://cowichansound.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/silver-apple-logo-apple-picture.jpg

Recently, snapchat turned down a 3-billion cash offer from facebook. A lot of people think Evan Spiegel made a dumb decision to turn it down. However, I think Spiegel’s decision actually makes sense. Messaging service market is definitely competitive, which can be assumed as one of threats of snapchat. It, however, has an extremely strong strength which can help it overcome those competitions, which is uniqueness.

The technology snapchat uses is not the most advanced one in the whole market but the ephemeral way it deals with all those messages attract already millions of users that share 350 million snap chats per day.

Messaging service is not a blank market. Ephemeral messaging service, however, is. These kinds of messages encourage people to be themselves since they are not permanent. Sometimes people post on facebook and twitter to only show people the stuff they “want” others to see but not who they really are. With such a strong POD, snapchat definitely has great opportunities and potential. As known, the customer base of snapchat keeps growing faster and faster. Evan Spiegel came up with an idea which nobody had ever thought before and it values not only 3 billion.

resources:http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2013/11/15/snapchats-smart-not-to-sell-out-to-facebook-or-anyone-else/

http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2013/11/13/report-snapchat-turned-down-3b-offer-from-facebook/

http://socialmediatoday.com/sites/socialmediatoday.com/files/imagepicker/246411/snapchat.png

In course 17, we learnt the importance of IT which helps a company improve their products and services through gaining useful information from their customers. Nowadays, almost every bank has its online banking system and most work both on computers and mobiles. No wonder it is an efficient way both for customers (to get services) and banks (to offer services and gain information). However, there is something more important than that—consumer’s priority.

Mobile banking threat is on the rise. It is reported that online banking Trojans, which are used to steal banking information from the user, soared to a record high with more than 200,000 infections. Customers tend not to use online banking apps anymore with knowing this which may lead to losses of banks.

In this situation, a bank is supposed to partner with security firms with stronger brand names and better security systems, which creates a POD for the bank. It is understandable that security must be people’s priority when they choose a bank to use, so the bank must let consumers know that it’s the bank’s priority, too.

Resources: www.tibco.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Hackers-With-An-Agenda.jpg

http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2013/11/12/mobile-banking-threat-on-rise/

On 1^st Oct, Paul Bulcke, the chief executive of Nestle, said during a teleconference that they have already evaluated 97% percent of their businesses and came up with a list of those could not be fixed, which means that they might be sold.

Nestle, as the largest food manufacturer in the world, owns more than 421 factories and 300 kinds of products in 61 countries, which definitely makes it harder to regulate its products quality and balance sales of its multiple brands.

I think the reaction of Nestle is wise and obeys law of the market. Normally, a company starts from offering a certain kind of product and service. When it develops to some degree it starts offering more types of products and services to expand market and gain more potential customers. However, as the size of the company becoming bigger and bigger, the brands of it becoming more and more, there may end up being a lower quality of products and unbalanced developing speed among brands.Consequently, it is a reasonable action for Nestle and good for its future.

resources: http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2013/10/01/nestle-looks-to-get-rid-bad-brands/?intcmp=obnetwork

http://lindabezze.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/nestle-brands.jpg

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.