Gregor Allan's Blog

The United Nations, with full funding from it’s various participating nations, would be woefully inept when it comes to answering for the needs of business-minded individuals in small, impoverished nations.

Theoretically, a fully funded UN could supply security, emergency food and water rations to every man, woman and child, and yet would be unable to give these men, women and children the skill set and abilities to give back to their community.

So we see a large gap between people in impoverished countries, who have the will to succeed, and yet lack the knowledge tool kit to do so, that would end up essentially wasting the valuable charity given money.

Now, even if a fully funded United Nations could give enough capital to every individual government so that each nation could fund it’s own socially minded programs fully, there would still be inefficiency and waste. Governments and the United Nations set forth lofty goals that, though well intentioned, are far too generalized to really be effective on a “boots on the ground” grassroots level. Also, government welfare and such systems take far to much time to reach everyone in need of their respective services and are hence behind the game.

The Arc Initiative, and social entrepreneurial missions similar to the Arc, attack a problem at the grassroots level by sending in experienced individuals willing to share their knowledge with entrepreneurs in developing countries, essentially giving them the tools they need to succeed with the charity given by the United Nations and their respective government agencies.

I’m all for lofty goals and lovely speeches, but I think that it would faster and more efficient to keep the talking to a minimum and use all that extra time helping at a hands-on level.

The music scene today strikes me as a market where every single competitor’s strategy is differentiation. Monarch Studio’s founder and Sauder alumnus Tom Dobrzanski said as much during the Question and Answer period with him the other day.

Each band employs Porter’s differentiation approach to their sound. Bands employ a fade here, a drop there. Genres, like rock and roll, or smooth jazz, are born out of the need to differentiate. But the greatest differentiator that I have heard in the music industry is the voice, the sound, of a band or artist. Frank Sinatra, booming over the roar of the crowd or Freddie Mercury’s falsetto soaring through the scales, it’s what makes a band stand out.

Yet today, that is too easily achieved. Don’t get me wrong: the same proportion of artists have this incredible gift, yet so many others employ producers who, armed with programs like Autotune, bend and stretch the abilities of an admittedly average voice into something extraordinary.

In the pursuit of differentiation, and hence success, and the creation of a new sound, artists become nothing more than acts, singing into a magic microphone.

Artists are speaking out now, calling for a halt to the imitation game that pop has become, and I feel like it is only a matter of time before bands that cannot perform live simply won’t be able to tour and hence earn massive profits.

In the music industry of the future, the ethical choice to be honest about your voice your sound and your group’s abilities will be worth far more financially than a creative producer.

I hope producers like Tom feel the same.

http://www.hometracked.com/2008/02/05/auto-tune-abuse-in-pop-music-10-examples/

Performance determines success and success entails a reward, which in turn motivates performance. That much is true in the business world, and in class we have seen examples of how the right rewards can light a fire in any employee.

Here at UBC, however, the board in charge of distributing athletic funding is doing it wrong. Their supposed “tiered” system of Elite Varsity teams that are poised for excellence, Varsity and then lower down, Club funding levels make sense in theory; reward the teams that will and do win with cash to help them keep doing what they do best. Except their system for determining the teams that are “Elite” is broken and hence the system of motivation does not work.

A perfect example of the aforementioned flaws is the funding difference between the UBC Men’s Rowing Team and the UBC Men’s Football Team.

This year, the football team lost their first three games, including the Homecoming game by an embarrassing margin. The UBC rowing crew has won every fall regatta (race) this year, including Western Canadian University Rowing Championships and Canadian University Rowing Championships, bringing back the Men’s Points Banner to UBC.

Yet the football team is classified as “most likely to succeed” whilst the rowing crew, the fastest in a country that wins internationally, is lower on the funding list. It begs the question:

Does this drive success in either sport?

Adding to the 2013 blog post http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/01/21/ubc-brass-announces-16-survivors-leaves-13-other-varsity-programs-awaiting-future-fate/#__federated=1

UBC is home to close to 50,000 students who are here to learn, live and have the time of their lives. The experience for most UBC students, Canadian-born or international, is nothing short of excellent as this university provides one of the most sought after post-secondary educations in North America.

To maintain the teaching quality, infrastructure, food, residence, and resources available to students here, UBC needs substantial sums of money. Its greatest tool to increase revenue is to increase tuition.

This hot topic is on the forefront of everyone’s minds here on campus.

I don’t see why everyone is complaining.

Yes, granted, UBC is about equality, and the 10% tuition raise for international students now tips the scales so that national and international students are, all Canadian taxes included, no longer paying equal amounts, with international students shouldering extra costs, but they are in no position to complain. Brown University, the Ivy-League, ranked lower globally for quality of education costs around 62,000 dollars per year. At UBC, even the most “outrageous” tuitions are not even two-thirds of that sum.

Here at UBC, we enjoy a world-class education, and there is simply no viable way to maintain the same standard in a difficult economy without raising funds.

So, if I may be so bold as to give advice to the students who find this tuition raise an outrage, I say this: If you don’t want to pay the tuition hike, don’t. All you’ll need to do is find another university of equal value to call your home.

Best of luck.

http://www.brown.edu/about/administration/financial-aid/cost-attendance

Without a doubt, the best business model I have ever seen in action and heard of capitalizes on uncertainty, has grassroots, ethical and even supernatural (I’m not kidding) marketing and is the most influential for profit on the face of the earth:

The Holy Roman Catholic Church.

Let me explain; the Catholic Church has been around for around two millennia and has never once dropped out of prominence in that vast span of time. From a moral perspective, the Church has done some very great and some very horrible work, but I’m not interested in examining it as a religious entity, I am talking about the Church as the definition of a successful for-profit enterprise, and the world’s most effective Ponzi scheme.

It uses an incredibly creative marketing strategy and hasn’t had to change its value proposition for millennia: give us your time and your money, and we will save your immortal soul.

Religiously, that’s fine and dandy, but as a business? It’s absolutely brilliant! Bring in investors who throw substantial sums of their hard earned wages at you as long as they live for a return that they will literally never see in this lifetime.

It’s a nigh unending Jordan-esque river of capital flowing straight into the vaults of the Vatican, and the best part is, no one can seem to give enough, as an immortal soul is never quite safe until, well, your time – or your coffer – has run out.

I believe if a corporation were able to imitate the Catholic Church and extract the same amount of capital from a similarly inelastic market, then they would be more than able to stand the test of time, too.

Building on Pathos’ blog

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2012/09/in-defense-of-nice-churches.html

The naturally gifted are everywhere. Yet we only truly notice them when they effortlessly trump our best efforts. From a students perspective, I see individuals casually compare 90 and higher averages on midterms that they never studied for where the class median was 53 percent. As an athlete that competes internationally (and sometimes wins), I cannot help but notice those that seem to casually shrug off advice, do a slack warm up, never even bother to look over their equipment and then proceed towin their respective events. The Australian Sports Commission wrote an article detailing exactly how phenoms operate.

In the business world, phenomenal individuals exist as well. In sales, they are the ones with the toothy golden smiles that close every deal, in operations, the guys that can effortlessly “turn around” a failing system, and in finances, they are the individuals who can seemingly make money appear out of thin air. Everyone wishes they were like them.

I don’t think they are good for much.

You heard me. All the talent on earth doesn’t make up for a dedicated, constant, and irrepressible work ethic. The ability to sit down and grind is invaluable to businesspeople, regardless of the task that they face, because I guarantee that one day, in the Big Leagues, the golden smiled salesman is going to go toe to toe with a guy who’s got teeth that shine just as brightly, yet put in his hours and made the best proposal anyone has ever seen. That guy, the one who worked for it, will get the deal and the naturally talented will fall to the wayside. Play it smart; hire someone willing to do the grind.

SOURCE: http://www.ausport.gov.au/sportscoachmag/coaching_processes/no_shortcut_to_the_top_for_naturally_gifted

Sources:http://www.vancouversun.com/news/There+will+pipeline/10122968/story.html?__federated=1

The Nothern Gateway pipeline is necessary. The Conservative government has recently given it the go-ahead because of it’s instrumental ability to boost the entire Canadian economy. Yet there are forces that stand in the way of this multi-billion dollar economic powerhouse: the Native-American coalition hell-bent on keeping Enbridge off of their ancestral land.

Over the past years, and certainly into late 2015, Enbridge and the Canadian government have been working tirelessly to slowly win over and sign on the 40-plus Native bands that have land affected by the pipeline. These bands are necessary for the pipeline’s success as they are creators of key trends.

Specifically, Native-American bands like the Nak’azdli affect Enbridge’s regulatory, societal and cultural trends. They force the giant corporation to step gently and safeguard the environment as well as take decisive steps to prevent spillage and maintain the cultural significance of the land. Even with these concessions, and how Enbrige is more than willing to share in the profits of the pipeline, bands like the Nak’azdli are still vehemently opposed to the pipeline.

I believe this position to be hypocritical. The Naz’azdli and every other Native band are reliant on gas stations and fossil fuels for power and employment, yet cry foul when it does not suit them perfectly.

Though the Naz’azdli’s position influences the pipeline’s development and design in a way that is undoubtably positive for the environment, I strongly believe that for the good of not only their economy, but that of all of Canada, that they should accept that they have made a critical difference as a external factor on Enbridge’s business model and take a financial cut, shake hands, stand in a neat row and help convince other reluctant Native bands that sometimes minimal sacrifices must be made so that 33 million individual’s economy can benefit.

Source:http://blogs.ubc.ca/adamseston

Adam Seston’s blog post from early September illustrates how it is necessary for a business to be responsible to the community for it to even survive in today’s markets, let alone flourish and prosper. He is absolutely correct.

I also believe that this outlook is absolutely inefficient and overly idealistic.

Sure, it’s great that companies have excellent PR, and that they know how to hold hands with minorities and community leaders, but frankly, if I am a shareholder in a business, their responsibility to me is not to be the friendliest, most eco-sensitive, community-orientated firm of the day that everyone loves. A company that I have put my faith and financial capital into should spend it’s every moment creating innovative, efficient, effective and long term ways to make me, the shareholder, money.

In the days of John Pierpont Morgan, banker and financier in 1920’s Wall Street, there were practically no rules. Firms fought tooth and claw for every percent of market share, and a lot of people got hurt by this blatant disregard for ethics. But oh boy, did they make money. Their profit margins were legendary, and the investor that were lucky enough to hitch onto firms like Standard Oil or J.P Morgan in the early days emerged fabulously rewarded for their confidence.

I’m not calling for a return to the doggy-dog world of of the Roaring 20’s, I am asking a simple question: have we gone too soft? Have our emotions impeded a firm’s ability to get a bit of moral dirt under it’s nails to keep itself afloat and keep us earning our just dividends? Only the future will tell.

Rolls-Royce Motor Company has a storied history of selling the most exclusive vehicles to the most wealthy patrons on the planet. Their marketing strategy is simple: for your willingness to part with incredible sums of money, we are willing to supply you with every and any possible amenity and option in your sedan of choice.

This differentiation focused strategy has kept Rolls afloat for over a century. Yet up-and-comers in the quarter of a million dollar and up segment of vehicles like Mercedes-Benz’s S65 AMG are making investors in the Spirit of Ecstasy sweat. In class, we learned that market strategy and operating systems must be constantly re-analyzed and adapted to stay ahead of the competition.

Such is not the case for Rolls-Royce. 2014 has been RR’s most successful year in it’s history. Demand for their vehicles has skyrocketed. Brands that supply exclusive services are exempt from needs to change and innovate, because it will cost them their differentiation. Rolls is case and point. A hand made vehicle that takes months to craft would strike any businessperson as remarkably inefficient. Why, they would ask, would a company like Rolls Royce not streamline their operating systems to build more cars to the same level of quality in a year? The answer is simple. Rolls-Royce is an exclusive brand, and the more cars it sells, the marginally less exclusive they become, and the weaker their unique ability to differentiate themselves diminishes. RR’s executive branch knows this. They don’t live by the common “innovate to succeed” strategy. They exemplify the storied phrase: If it ain’t broke… don’t fix it.

Source:

http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/generic.shtml

Sources:http://hbr.org/1998/03/the-power-of-virtual-integration-an-interview-with-dell-computers-michael-dell/ar/1

For profit corporations have one main goal: making more money than they spend. There are many conventional ways of doing this, namely increasing sales and increasing the profitability of the goods sold. But I have learned that innovative companies are streamlining their Operation related costs to save themselves, and indirectly the consumer, money.

The computer company Dell, for example, has refined the personal computer industry’s dominant business model. Their process of Virtual Integration strikes me as insightful and innovative. Besides the clear financial advantage of cutting out the middle man, I believe Virtual Integration stands out because of its particular ethical repercussions.

Now one might ask: “What on earth is particularly ethical about making more money?”

The answer comes in two parts: Primarily, it reduces the price consumers have to pay. This forces other corporate competitors to lower their prices to complement Dell’s in order to maintain their relative market shares, thus supporting the idea of a “perfect market” in which competitors selling a nigh identical product all compete fiercely for a buyer’s capital.

Secondly, it fosters innovation amongst suppliers. If Dell, for example, isn’t satisfied with a current supplier’s product, and has no backlog of inventory to deal with, it can simply switch suppliers. This loss of a critical partner for the supplier will drive them to innovate and trigger a faster development of technology in order to maintain profit. It keeps the industry on the bleeding edge, which is good for everyone.

In all, I believe if a company can find an innovative and generally beneficial way to increase profit while reducing costs for the consumer as well as promoting innovation in multiple sectors, its a win-win for everyone involved.