Grace Lee's Blog

Social enterprises are businesses owned by non-profit organizations that are involved in providing goods and services to contribute to making a healthy community. The Arc Initiative, a social enterprise, involves a group of business leaders, young professionals and students that create programs related to business management. The goal of creating these programs is to provide long-term betterment for local communities. An example of how these programs help is described by Salem Kassahun, an Arc entrepreneur and the owner of a craft boutique – Salem’s Ethiopia. She gained valuable knowledge on how to expand her business. Furthermore,…read more

*This blog post is a response to an outside blog: http://www.retaildoc.com/blog From growing and shifting trends towards online shopping and the termination of the physical retail stores, many companies have shifted its focus on its e-commerce. Best Buy, an electronics retailer, is still betting on its bricks-and-mortar stores, despite the pressure of reduction in costs if it switched to e-commerce business. The company closed 15 big-box stores earlier this year, has launched some smaller outlets of 5,000 square feet. In addition, it has expanded its online site and focused on its e-commerce, providing a “reserve…read more

   Jean-Paul Isson, vice president of  predictive analytics of the popular job recruiting website, Monster, was amazed to see the large amount of data the website was collecting. These data included résumé, emails and webpages that were visited and the information are all critical to helping Monster find the right compatibility between the recruiters and the user. However, the data could was not organized into something that the job searching engine could put to use. “Data integration was the real challenge,” says Mr. Isson. Monster, being a company that is relies heavily on technology,…read more

This post is a response to a classmate’s blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/angela11389/ Procter & Gamble (P&G) was accused of inflating import prices by $140 million to avoid paying taxes in Argentina, and as a result, Argentina took away P&G’s ability to do business within the country. P&G allegedly “funnelled currency abroad and hid income that was subject to tax in Argentina.” A consequence of this alleged tax fraud is the declination of the company’s stock. P&G’s shares were down 0.57% to $86.76 not long after allegations of tax fraud made news. As discussed in this course,…read more

In 2016, WestJet plans on introducing new planes with either slimmer seats or an extra row. The purpose of this is to cut down costs and increase its revenues. The initial plan, adding lighter seats, will help cut fuel consumption, but will be removed if the company decides to make an additional row. Greg Saretsky, Westjet CEO, has stressed that “keeping fares down is a key focus for Westjet.” Therefore, by densifying its planes, it gives Westjet a chance to lower its fares. Operations management plays a big role in the company’s plan….read more

Global campaigns against the oilsands companies in Canada are costing the industry $19.5 billion. This issue is related to the concerns of the large amount of carbon dioxide, approximately 2.8 billion metric tonnes, that will be released into the atmosphere if the goal of 4.7 billion barrels of oilsands bitumen were to be produced. Consequently, some projects have been stalled. “The delays have cost producers money and time, reducing the price they have received for tar sands crude as supply has outpaced the capacity of transport infrastructure to carry tar sands crude to…read more