Author: Gordon Woo

Categories
Culture & Teams motivation

Is fear the biggest impediment to Innovation? [blog post]

In the blog post “Overcoming Fear: The 3 Step Process” by David K. William he explains how feat is the “culprit” of innovation is fear. The main issues include dear of making mistakes, fear of getting fired as well as fear of conflict with a managers are some of many factors that in which he claims that inhibit innovation. He says to deal with this issue, the following should be done: firstly “leaders must truly trust employees”, secondly firms should rely more on principles rather than policy and lastly firms should allow employees to experiment before they create.

In my opinion what Davin K. William written makes a lot of sense especially how “An employee that feels supported and appreciated is more willing to devote their full energy, creativity and passion to the company and its goals, and will naturally innovate in every area within their influence.”, however what I want to know is what companies and firms that have little to no room for innovation? For example the role of an accountant is pretty straight forward and would have little room for innovation as its operating under a set guideline.

 

Sources: http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkwilliams/2012/11/16/the-single-biggest-enemy-of-innovation-and-the-3-key-principles-for-bringing-it-back

/

Categories
ethics New Markets

BC Hydro

 

 

Companies and firms are becoming more and more socially aware when it comes to issues such as the environment. With rapid social changes businesses would have to review their business objectives more often than before. For example in recent years there has been a positive attitude towards hiring female employees as well as becoming more environmentally friendly, as such many businesses now encourage and promote eco-friendly behaviors within the firm and hire more female employees over time.

The point of having good CSR may have many advantages which include it being a motivational factor as well as improving on corporate image.

With the changes in social norms, many new business opportunities arise, for example to make producing electricity more efficient and ‘smart’ BC hydro has implemented a mandatory program of installing smart meters within all households by the end of 2012. Firms such as Energy Aware has worked with BC hydro and has produced a complimentary good that would allow one to observe “how much electricity you are using and how much it is costing you”. However although the incentives of BC Hydro seems to be good, there are many concerns relating to the smart meter such as health concerns, privacy concerns and whether or not it would actually drive down the costs of electricity bills.

With the many concerns with the smart meter the issue arises for Energy Aware is that since people are so opposed to the project to begin with why would they buy The Power Tab? To top it off The Power Tab is going to be on the more on the expensive end, why would people pay a premium? As such BC Hydro and Energy Aware should work together and figure out a way to minimize the resistance to change.

In my opinion BC Hydro should not make this smart meter program a mandatory one and allow people to opt-out of the program as well as becoming more transparent. As such misunderstandings may dissipate and the resistance to change will lower.

 

sources: Com292 class + assignment

picture: http://www.trilliantinc.com/library-files/partners/EnergyAware-01.png

Categories
business Business news Growth Strategy

Websites as a business

Remember what Digg is? The once social media giant with an estimated value of more than 160 million was sold for only for $500,000 in the July

The website was first launched in the year 2004 as a way for anyone to put up their own news and other internet content instead of relying on the conventional newspaper. However around the year 2010 when Facebook and Twitter took off as well as a “series of redesigns…which some weren’t well received by users” and by the end of 2010 according to ComScore “Digg’s audience had fallen by more than half”of 2012.

Normally when a product going into decline a firm can implement product extension strategies to extent the products life. These strategies may include repackaging, redesigning, additional promotion as well as exploring new markets. However what I want to know is what kind of product extension strategies can be applied when the product is something like a website. When redesigning the website doesn’t work what can firms turn to, websites are non-tangible goods its’ not something you can simply repackage like or make an add-on for like the X-box 360 or the PS3. Would the same fate fall on the current social media giants?

 

Sources:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304373804577523181002565776.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet

Categories
culture

Corporate Social Responsibility

In recent lectures of economics and business fundamentals the issue regarding firms being socially responsible was brought up. In commerce class, we discussed why it is important for businesses to act ethically, advantages of acting ethical may include attracting consumers as well as the possibility of motivating employees. However in economics class the professor stressed how it is now “cool to be green”.  Which begs the question of whether or not businesses can act socially responsible as a business strategy or whether they really care.

In companies in the Fortune 500 firms in America, all firms would publish either sustainability, CSR or environment reports. This illustrates how in order to survive in today’s competitive market a firm has to in one way or another be socially responsible.

In my opinion whether or not the firm really cares about being socially responsible or using it as a business strategy to remain in the market would come down to the culture of the business. The culture of the business would have its own boundaries which creates distinction from one organization from another. In the end it comes down to a lot of factors and it would ultimately be up to you the consumer to decide whether or not the business or firm is socially responsible.

Sources: http://www.sustainable-supplychain.com/fortune.html

Categories
Growth Strategy

Lenovo Acquiring IBM PC division as a growth strategy (2004)

Lenovo was the market leader in China with a global market share of 2.2%. However when China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) and almost overnight the largest global PC companies became very active within the Chinese market. Lenovo was under tremendous threats as it was unable to differentiate its products in both technology and design. In addition Lenovo did not have a globally recognized brand, did not have a management team that was capable of managing a global company as well as not having strong innovation capabilities.

Luckily IBM wanted to sell their PC business and under the circumstances Lenovo was in it was to their best interest to acquire the business. Throughout the acquisition in the year 2004 there were many interesting strategies used by Lenovo to become a globally recognized firm as well as retain important consumers, for example IBM allowing Lenovo to use their brand name on the Thinkpad/ IBM brand name for a period of time allowing time for the major customers time to adjust to the change.

In my opinion the transaction done by Lenovo was very successful, not only did they minimize most of integration integrations risks such as retaining big customer. Lenovo transformed itself from relatively small company that only sold low end PCs in china to the second largest PC vendor in the world and my take first in the upcoming quarter overtaking HP.

Sources: http://english.sohu.com/20041209/n223402729.shtml

Categories
Supply Chain Management

DELL’s Supply chain management

In a recent class we talked about supply chain management and used Zara as the prime example. But what stroke me as the most interesting is how DELL’s supply management functioned. For DELL to cut costs, DELL removed distribution channels such as wholesalers and retailers.

The business model was simple and brilliant, however I think although the business achieved lean production, the downfall of this business model would be when markets in Asia such as China and India start to emerge and DELL’s business model did not suit the culture of Asian countries. In western countries people were content with the looking at catalogs or models online and then ordering it from DELL. However in Asian countries people like to examine the product first hand before purchasing and so because DELL’s business model did not fit well with the culture of Asian countries, it gave competitors such as HP and Lenovo to take over the market shares of the PC producing market.

Categories
Uncategorized

In reply to Cole’s “Brandcameo- a site that reveals the shocking extent of product placement in movies”

Interesting! I never noticed all the advertisement done within movies until reading your blog post. Its hard to imagine how much money company and first would spend on above the line advertisement to reach to a larger audience. I think the most important aspect when it comes to advertising your own brand is to make the advertisement as enjoyable as possible. Let the advertisement be subtle or not if the advertisement is enjoyable the perception of the firm’s brand would remain to be a positive one.

When reading your blog post, it reminded me of one of my favorite advertisements, although its the opposite of subtle and not in movies but the advertisement creates a lasting impression and people who watch the advertisement would leave the video with a positive perception for the company. Enjoy.

 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tnt+button+commercial&oq=tnt+button&gs_l=youtube.3.0.0l3j0i5.1592.5250.0.6117.12.11.1.0.0.0.60.430.11.11.0…0.0…1ac.1.cwH4TMGJ6AM

Categories
Business news ethics motivation

In reply to Tim Martiniak’s “Ethical Issues – Barclays plc”

In Tim’s blog post focuses on the recent scandal by one of Britain’s largest banks, Barclay and resulted in a fine of £290 million. He then goes on and explains how managers should ” take on responsibility for actually creating a positive ethical environment, i.e. setting clear goals, adhering to policies set out by the company or by managers themselves” in order not to set an example for employees. I agree on his point of view, as acting ethically would not only motivate employees as employees feel like they are creating meaning in their lives but also be able to attract consumers as acting ethical is what is considered to be cool.

Now with the Scandal I think Barclay would need to work on fixing its’ image as well as establishing re-establishing trust with customers
. There are a lot of things in which Barclay’s would have to fix both internally and externally, and starting by acting ethical would be a good place to start.

Categories
Growth Strategy

Is it possible to make eSports as popular as real sports?

Amongst the many discussions found in gaming community, the argument whether or not eSports can become as popular as real sports would always be at the center of attention. If you’re not familiar to the term eSports stands for electronic sports a new breed of competitive play in games.

Currently in eSports, arguably one of the more popular eSports out there would be StarCraft 2; a real time strategy game where the goal is to eliminate your opponent through economy management and the micro management of the units.

In real sports partly the reason why it’s so popular is because there are people that are making money or some sort of benefit through the teams. For example they would want people to identify to a certain team, then buy the rights to producing goods for that particular brand hence making money through the team brand. However right now with the available pool of money available in the scene, is lacking although there are large prize pools with players winnings up to three hundred thousand a year, if you’re not consistent in winning simply put, your life is hard.

In the future; bigger teams would have to be established and create better conditions for players. It can already be seen with some of the teams such as Evil Geniuses; they are able to buy a team house facilitating proper training atmosphere and area to create viewer content for sponsors and it is working(Sponsors include monster energy drink, Sapphire gaming, steel series, Intel etc). As the writer, coming from Hong Kong, I have never tried or seen a monster energy drink in Hong Kong, however when I saw it Vancouver my curiosity through seeing all the advertisements gave in and bought myself a monster.  Another thing that has to be changed is the

The biggest obstacle would be the mindset of people. The day that people see the game not just a game but a competitive sport then sponsors would start to look at the scene seriously. The viewers are there, in many cases there are as many as 530k viewers tuning in to watch live streams of SC2, It will ultimately be up to whether or not sponsors are willing to accept this niche market and start funding tournaments and teams.

All in all; there is hope for this new breed of competitive play however the road in creating the brand and finding sponsorships won’t be easy.

 


http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-08-17/sports/29992868_1_esports-kasparov-gaming/2Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhF9oZJ-ZhI&list=UUqTXZYQkynopSoxlqzp2i4w&index=3&feature=plcp

(picture)http://media.thealistdaily.com/editorial/2011/09/MLG%20competition.jpg

Categories
Business news

Will RIM’s Blackberry 10 save the company?

 

With well over a year overdue will the Blackberry 10 make the difference RIM needs? Recent studies have shown that RIM had plunged to near the bottom of the global brand ranking with competitors such as apple leaps up to 2nd place while rim falls from rank 54 in 2010, rank 56 in the year 2011 and now its ranked 93rd.

Their sales and market shares have also dropped dramatically. Their shipments dropped 41% within the time span of 1 year and  their market shares have dropped form 11.5% to 4.8%. The new blackberry 10 may also be the final nail in the coffin for RIM. Their newest operating system being completely incompatible with the existing BES system, on one hand it may make loyal blackberry fans really happy and something that RIM employees could be motivated by (through the try thought of doing something meaningful). However on the other hand companies that have engrained RIM’s Blackberry within their infrastructure due to the changes in the operating system they may very well reconsider making the full transition over to the blackberry 10’s operating system or change into IOS or Android resulting potential loss of giant customers.

I think in the end it will depend whether or not the blackberry 10 will bring true innovation and creativity towards the mobile market, hopefully it could be a device that saves RIM much like how the iMac saved apple when the late Steve Jobs introduced it to the world

 

 

 

 

Sources:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/smartphones/21099/blackberry-10-why-rim-needs-fight-apple-survive

http://www.pcworld.com/article/262131/rim_in_trouble_thanks_to_blackberry_10_bes_chaos.html

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/10/02/rim-plunges-to-near-bottom-of-global-brand-ranking/

(picture)http://cdn.crackberry.com/files/kevin/blackberry-10-dev-alpha-hero.jpg

Spam prevention powered by Akismet