Hannah's Comm 101 Blog

An article was posted yesterday in the Financial Post discussing how social entrepreneurship is the answer to all the occupy Wall Street protester’s concerns. The protesters denounce big business and wonder at how the wealthy came to be so powerful. Social entrepreneurship takes big business and uses it for the common good. It actually takes the methods of the protester’s enemies, but uses those methods to solve the problems that big businesses have created. Social enterprise is pro-big business, however it uses social improvement as a driving force rather than money.

I think social entrepreneurship is the world’s future. According to the article, within the next ten years two thirds of today’s business owners will retire, opening up vast opportunities for the next generation. With the Middle East revolution and great recession, the past couple years has seen a great amount of chaos and disorder. This is the time for everyone to break the social order and make clear the people’s unhappiness, but not long from now will be a time when all those issues must be solved. Social entrepreneurship is where the real change will come and it is my generation that will be doing business with the world’s welfare constantly in mind.

In a post by Yi-Wen Huang titled “China No Longer the World’s Factory”, he discussed how quality of life is on the rise in China and cheap labor will soon be not so cheap anymore. Many companies in Japan are moving their manufacturing facilities back to their home country. Interestingly enough, as the world sees labor demand move away from China, more and more of Canada’s economic opportunities are moving towards Asia.  Canadian Prime Minister Harper and American President Obama just emerged from the Asian Pacific Co-operation forum with an even closer relationship with Chinese President Hu Jintao and a promising future for the Pacific Trade Pact.

With Europe in full blown crisis mode the only other economies that North America can look towards to pull out of the recession are South America and Asia Pacific. The U.S. is in such a state of hopelessness that the previous fears of China overtaking them as the world leader are far out the door now. China is the beacon of light in these troubled times, offering many trade and investment opportunities. The qualities of these opportunities are changing though. They are moving to higher levels of trade above outsourcing manufacturing facilities towards investment flowing into North America in areas such as real estate.

Inside of a Tim Hortons before renovation

In a recent article from the Glob and Mail titled “Going For a Latte or Espresso…at Tim’s” the Canadian coffee and doughnut chain, Tim Hortons, announces its plan to redesign their stores. It will be adding bench seating, wireless internet connection, softer lighting and a new floor layout. The goal is to get customers to spend more time in the stores and as a result spend more money. Come December Tim Hortons will also be launch some new drinks including lattes and mochas.

The whole redesign seems like a move towards a Starbucks-like ambiance that I think will do Tim’s a lot of good. At this moment Tim Hortons stores are associated with Wendy’s and fastfood; not exactly a coffee drinkers stereotypical setting. It is like what Joel Primus talked about in class today. A brand is the way that product makes you feel. Unless a customer wants to feel like a sexy modern man, they will not buy Naked briefs. Tim Hortons is trying to change the way their customers feel when they enter a store. A warmer ambiance will make customers feel more welcome and comfortable, making them want to stay a little longer. They are changing their brand to fit a coffee drinkers desired feelings.

On October 31, 2011 CBC posted an article that brought a lot of attention to Canada’s worthless mining watchdog agency that is supposed to be keeping companies accountable for their overseas businesses dealings. The problem is the investigations conducted by the agency are all voluntary and any company can refuse to participate. In Terry Lee’s blog post

Logo of Excellon Resources Inc., a mining company that refused investigation into allegations of human rights violations in their Mexican mine

he discusses the reputation loss that the mining companies will experiece if they continue to refuse investigation of human rights allegations.

I agree with Terry in that refusing investigation looks extremely fishy and stakeholders will not want that stench of human rights violations around. Further more, with the huge wave of social responsibility happening, I think in the near future stakeholders will be pushing for the mining companies to be asking for investigation. There is so much transparency these days that companies will be pressured into cleaning up their act. Once their act is cleaned up, then they will want some way to confirm their legitimacy. I predict that Canada’s mining watchdog agency will soon be in high demand by mining companies to deem their business practices valid. This idea is very similar to my previous blog post on 1% for the people, but in that case it was companies wanting their environmental practices validated.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin 2007

Since being first incorporated in 1998, Google has not stopped pushing the boundaries of what “just a search engine” can do. Of all the companies in the world I cannot think of a better company that embodies the definition of entrepreneurship.  It started out as just a small company founded by two Stanford Phd students. Now, the brand has grown to be worth $153.3 billion. The speed with which Google took over the search engine industry is astounding. After being incorporated for only five years, Google went public with an IPO of $85 a share. gaining a market capitalization worth more than $23 billion.Google has become such an integral part of the internet and doing research that the name has even became an official verb.

The greatest thing about Google is the amount of innovation that is constantly being pumped out of their “Googleplex”  office in California. They offer amazing services for free that many people don’t even know about: International internet calling, internet sharing of Powerpoint, text messaging to cellphones that can then be forwarded to your own cell phone, Google earth. Even now that Google is a massive company it still has that entrepreneurial spirit coursing through its wires.

The huge environmental wave described in the book Green to Gold has crashed onto the business world over the past few years and has opened up an entirely new market, the business of being environmentally friendly. Corporations who have been manipulating their customers’ wants for years are now becoming the manipulated market. Organizations like 1% For the Planet and The Climate Registry have found that businesses these days are desperate to appear sustainable and have capitalized  on this new factor.

They offer legitimacy to businesses that want their customers to see that they are sustainable, like a big stamp of approval. Businesses are capable enough to make their practices sustainable themselves, but now that’s not enough. Being “officially” sustainable comes at a price.

Businesses like 1% For the Planet are genius. Customers want to see sustainable practices within organizations, organizations want the stamp of approval to show customers, and the new businesses provide that by charging a small fee for their name to be flaunted. It is like buying a t-shirt that says Chanel on it. Organizations want that name to show people.

It is just one more  way to use the environment to the human race’s advantage, but this time it’s doing good rather than harm!

The next modern word entering the dictionary, after google, is “Netflixed.” To be Netflixed is to disrupt a previously successful business model, at least it is according to Saul Kaplan’s article for CNN. Netflix’s model of paying a monthly flat-fee for unlimited mail-in movie rentals was extremely successful, until they changed.

A business model has become a key factor in selling a product. It needs to fit the product and allow consumers to get exactly what they want. In class Mahesh outlined this with the direct buy business model for Dell. Netflix beat out Blockbuster because it had a model that was more efficient and allowed customers to tailor their own product. Customers are able to pick how many movies they want and choose from a variety that goes beyond what is just held on video stores’ shelves. Blockbuster’s retail model worked for them for a while, but as soon as Netflix’s better model came in they were toast.

Together, Blockbuster and Netflix show that companies can’t just have the right model, but also need to know how to change their model. Blockbuster didn’t change and it hurt them big time. Netflix did change, but chose the wrong model to change into. It’s all about having the perfect model for the customers.

Releases November 15

Before the release of the iPad or Kindle, Apple and Amazon were unlikely competitors; according to business blogger Joe Castaldo, they still are. In his blog post, “Lighting a Fire Under Netflix” he discusses how Amazon’s new product, the Kindle Fire, won’t even compete against the Apple iPad 2 along with Amazon’s likelihood of buying Netflix.

The new Kindle Fire has many points of difference that set it apart in the tablet market along with the necessary points of parities. It has all the key functions of a tablet, but it’s much more. The Fire directs users to Amazon.com and its enormous “web walmart,” is less than half the price of the Apple iPad at $199, and  with Amazon Prime users can get around 11,000 streaming videoes and TV shows. Amazon has created huge selling points that will definitely set the Fire apart in the market’s mind. Also, if Castaldo is right and Amazon is going to buy Netflix, then it will attract even more users by providing Netflix’s entire service through their tablet. Netflix subscribers will flock to the Fire. Amazon has separated its product from the iPad  and will soon overthrow the tablet tyrant.

After today’s discussion on the Euro crisis, it got me thinking about if my dream of travelling to Europe would be affected.In the EU’s economic downturn tourism is actually an area that they can count on. It is one part of their economy that cannot be outsourced and does not fluctuate in international markets.

It occured to me that Europe could be thought of as a brand. Countries market themselves by displaying pictures of famous tourist sites and have a very strong symbol, their flag. The Euro crisis could be affecting the “brand” of Europe. If European cities are a kind of product and Europe is the brand, then this whole affair is taking a tole on their reputation. Like the incident that IKEA had with its controversial management styles in their US facory, people may be deterred from traveling to Europe because they don’t agree with Europe’s “management style.” Also, the impression of a bad economy could be perceived as a more expensive vacation, even if it’s completely false.

I still want to go to Europe, but it will be interesting to see if the EU’s efforts towards improving tourism will be enough to save their “brand.”

I found a really interesting article about technology that most of us use everyday, Apple products. It discusses a mobile app that was banned from Apple’s app store just hours after it was released because it showed “the uglier side of electronics production.”

The game has the player as an animated character and takes them through real world situations like the violent colten mining in the Congo and the high suicide occurence in the iphone production factories in China.

This article brought up interesting questions like “do businesses have an obligation to make sure their products are made in a safe manner?”, “Should they care about the conditions for workers that make their products?” and “by buying materials from places like the Congo are they supporting the violence that surrounds the coltan trade?”

The article does say that Apple ensures “the highest standards of social responsibility wherever our products are made,” but obviously it is not enough because reports are still coming out about their controversial business partners. It is hard for me to say that I will never use an Apple product again since my iphone is my baby, but my eyes are definitely opened to Apple’s controversial ways.