Hans' Blog

Blackberry has just announced that RIM will offer free voice calls through WIFI with BBM. They will initiate this service in the new Blackberry 10 that will be coming out in the near future. With the new addition of free voice calls through WIFI, BBM will be able to offer another service that is causing certain users from switching to the growing android market or iPhones. BBM has always been the point of difference  that is allowing RIM to stay competitive against other phones.

In my opinion, this is a smart choice for Blackberry as it tries to use Blackberry 10 in order to regain its customers. With this new service, Blackberry will be able to come out of their recent depression caused by the expansion of smartphones. However, Blackberry will soon fall short again, in my opinion, because of app developers that will create alternate versions of this service on smartphones and iPhones. Only time will tell if Blackberry will become a lead competitor in this industry again.

References : http://www.thestar.com/living/technology/article/1288154–rim-offers-free-voice-calls-over-wi-fi-with-bbm

This article stuck me because of all the changes that Translink is making to its system. Another change will be initiated started January 2013 when Translink raise the price of transiting from a minimum of $2.25 for adults to $2.75 for adults that are travelling one zone.

With this, monthly fare cards with also rise. As a UBC student, I personally do not have to purchase these fare cards because of the UPass; however I can see this as being a problem for many other transiting people. Back in beginning of 2010, monthly fare cards were only at $99 until it changed to $110 in April 2010. This price stayed like that until this recent change where fare cards will now be $124. Throughout these years, there is a 25% increase in price. Translink stated that they are increasing the prices because of the level of inflation; however, I do not believe that inflation can go up to 25%.

In my opinion, the most just way for Translink is to quickly constructing fare gates and have it begin to function. The new Compass card will allow consumers to pay for the distance that they travel, rather than zones that they travel between. As of now, a person travelling from Vancouver to Burnaby by crossing one bridge pays more than a person travelling from Horseshoe Bay to Deep Cove because of zones differences. By initiating the Compass Card, all problems will be solved and there will be a fair way in allocating prices for each passenger.

Reference : http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/11/13/bc-translink-fare-increase.html

Entering the popular TV show, Shark Tank, an entrepreneur is seeking an investment for their product or service in return for equity in their company. Last week, a talented entrepreneur entered the Shark Tank, seeking an initial investment of $90000 in return for 5% of his company. He entered with a product called Platetopper, with its main goal to securely acts as a plate topper using suctioning techniques. His product got the interest of the sharks, with two of the sharks offering $1,000,000 for 25% equity in the company, allowing his company to have a valuation of $4,000,000. However, after hearing these offers, he readjust his adjusted value to $750,000 for 5% equity, initiating a value of $15 million for his company. His arrogance annoyed the sharks, causing them to opt out of the business.

In my opinion, a successful entrepreneur has to be smart. To avoid similar problems, that entrepreneur should not have been too greedy and accept the offers that he could have gotten. By pushing away offers and being arrogant, he lost all the offers that he could have gotten. Even though an entrepreneur should take risks, they need to know when it is a good time to halt those risks and be satisfied with their earnings.

Reference : http://www.examiner.com/article/san-francisco-inventor-of-platetopper-scoops-up-shark-tank-funding

Stanley wrote a blog about how a woman in San Jose received a hefty phone bill that proved to be incorrect later. I agree with Stanley that this is unacceptable for the business as it can directly impact the consumers’ behavior towards the bill and the company. However, this is not the only company that inaccurately charges overly expensive phone bills to consumers. Today, many phone companies have hidden charges that consumers aren’t informed about until they received their phone bill. Companies are being sly in their bill charging methods in order to maximize their own profits, with is ethically unacceptable.  As consumers, we should know what we are being charged for and why we’re being charged.

Luckily, this San Jose changed the bill for the consumer so that she receives the right amount. Some phone companies these days would not accept their incorrect mistakes, leading to a damage in the relationship between the company and the consumer. Not only will this upset consumers, it will also lead to legal issues that the companies will have to face. However, these legal issues usually do not happen because companies often find a way to overcome these complaints and charge extra to the consumers.

This behavior done by phone companies needs to be halted as it is unethically wrong.

Source : Phone Bill Too High

While going through classmates’ blogs, I stumbled upon Hugh’s blog about Best Buy being used as a showroom for Amazon. In my opinion, it is true that many consumers are looking into online purchases rather than going into stores to purchase their items. Personally, what I do is that I would go into stores to have a first hand view of the product that I am interested, and then buy it online because of the cheaper price.  This process is not beneficial for stores such as Best Buy because consumers are using the stores as like a showroom for their purchases online later on. I agree with Best Buy’s plan to match any price that is online. Not only will this regain their customers  it will be providing competition for online retailers. Consumers will not purchase online anymore because the prices will be the same in store compared to online. Moreover, by purchasing at the stores, consumers will be able to obtain their product immediately.

The only problem with this plan is that Best Buy will need a list of online competitors that it will match prices with. This is because certain online retailers will be able to offer prices that are so low that Best Buy would lose money if they compete with them. There should be a list of retailers that Best Buy will compete with based on the validity of the prices that the online retailers are selling their products at. With this, Best Buy will have no problem competing and regaining their customers.

A little more than half a year ago, the Conservative Party of Canada officially announced the discontinuation of the pennies. This was done because of the fact that the Canadian government is losing more than producing money than earning.  Through the external blog post, Pennies be Gone,  the blogger agreed with the decision to remove pennies from circulating in Canada. He stated that he would have to spend two dollars to purchase wrappers to insert his extra pennies in order to deposit it in the bank. However, he stated that it costs 200 pennies to purchase those wrappers, a cost that should be unnecessary.

However, with an elimination of pennies creates a problem for consumers and retailers. The new law states that it is necessary to round up or round down to the nearest 5 cents increment. In my opinion, this poses a problem for consumers because consumers may have to pay more when purchasing a product. For example, if the total adds up to $1.13, the consumer will have to pay an extra two cents when rounding up to $1.15. Overtime, the consumer will pay an great amount of extra change for the rounding. Moreover, this poses a problem for retailers, because it will affect cashier balancing for business. If retailers have to round down purchases, they may be short more than $2 at the end of a day of business because of the extra rounding down. Overall, in my opinion, this discontinuation of pennies will create problems in the short term that consumers and retailers will have to try to overcome.

Reference : http://markosun.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/pennies-be-gone/

Throughout the past few months, Samsung and Apple has been participating in a major “phone war” to determine which company with produce the better phone, either the Samsung Galaxy S3 or the IPhone 5. Throughout this battle, each company has been delivering numerous advertisements to the general public to promote their new phones. However, instead of designing advertisements to show the advantages of their phone, Samsung has been designing advertisements to criticize the IPhone 5. For example, Apple has design an advertisement calling IPhone “the next big thing; however, Samsung countered this advertisement by saying that “the next big thing is already here”. Surprisingly, this isn’t the first time that Samsung targeted Apple as they targeted Apple during last years campaign to promote the Samsung Galaxy S2. Last year, Samsung Mobile President Dale Sohn told PCMag, “We’re excited for the opportunity to educate as many consumers as possible about why the Samsung Galaxy S II is the preferred choice for smartphone owners.”.

This battle relates to our class where we learned about relative positioning. I was inspired to do a blog post about this battle after seeing how Pepsi basically did the same thing to Coke by targeting Coke in their advertisements. Through this, we can see that this type to marketing is a common way to target competitors in the same industry.

Reference:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409794,00.asp

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/386181/20120920/samsung-galaxy-s3-vs-insults-iphone-5.htm#.UHNNKk3BdCg

Is the business plan really important for entrepreneurs. According to Bob Dorf, ” new entrepreneurs often focus on the business plan, as they are taught to review during business classes” (Lee, 2012). He states that too many start-ups are spending too much time on business plans even though they cannot predict how well their companies will do. Dorf compared business plans to “cow dungs”, saying that business plans are just fictions and that start-ups will not be able to predict the number of customers that they will have in the future (Lee, 2012). I personally do not agree with Dorf’s statement. A business plan is  the only way that an investor will be able to have an understanding of the future start-up, allowing them to decide if they want to invest in that business. The start-up can easily be presented to investors without business plans, but it will not be as effective. In order for an investors to have a fair decision on investing, he or she must have a clear understanding of the business idea before hearing a presentation. Therefore, even though Dorf’s statement of business plans can be correct to a certain extent, business plans are still a fundamental part of start-ups.

Reference:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nyuentrepreneurschallenge/2012/09/30/throw-out-the-business-plan-bob-dorf/

Few weeks ago, Dollarama released its revenue during the second quarter of the year; it has earned more than $49.8 million dollars during this quarter, which is 32% more than the revenue last year during the same quarter. Dollarama is a Montreal based company which started out selling products at $1.00 each but has now incorporated products that are worth $3.00.  The company started initiating these products during August 2012; surprisingly, the addition of these products did not decrease the sales of the company. As an employee of this company, I would normally expect that as the prices of products rises at a dollar store, the demand for purchasing goods at a dollar store would decease  as consumers expect products to be around $1.00. Moreover, the increase in profit is also increasing the price of stocks for Dollarama. It started out in October 2009 with the price of shares at $20 but has not risen to $70 per share.

In my opinion, Dollarama has shown that even as a dollar store, their revenue can be equally as high as other retail stores. As both an employee and a regular customer of Dollarama, I truly believe that Dollarama has made a statement to their competitors that a low budget company can earn more money than a super store such as Walmart or Loblaws. As a potential investor, it will be a good investment to buy shares of Dollarama as it will continue to rise through the years as it did the past few years.

Sources:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/dollarama-profit-jumps-32-as-sales-increase-margins-improve/article4538423/?cmpid=rss1

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Dollarama+profit+jumps+sales+rise/7230245/story.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/streetwise/dollaramas-growth-is-simply-remarkable/article4541753/

The owner of three Subway restaurants, Anil Dhawan, in British Columbia received the first ever Bad Boss Award for his actions in waving the legal rights of overtime pay of his employees that are working extra hours. Before employees were hired, he made them sign an employee wage agreement where they agree to not having overtime pay.

Clearly, this is an unethical practice that is created by the franchise owner. Not only has he allow himself to receive a horrible reputation as a boss, he is not creating a suitable atmosphere for his employees by not allowing them to receive that pay they should get for working overtime.  In R. Edward Freeman’s video, “What is Stakeholder Theory?”, he tells us to “think about a business whose employees don’t want to be there every day, who aren’t using a hundred percent of their effort and energy and their creativity to make the business better.”  That is exactly what Anil Dhawan did to his employees. Employees play a huge part in a company’s success and business ethics have to be properly followed in order to have employees that want to be there every day, satisfying R. Edward Freeman’s “What is Stakeholder’s Theory?”

More Info :

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2012/04/10/vancouver-subway-owner-named-bad-boss-by-young-workers/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu0BxfHIX3k