What is business? Business is about making money, raising fortune, making decisions and so on. These are the outcome of business. The source of setting up a new business is to solve problems. The greater the problem you solve, the more likely you will be successful in business world and make a large amount of money. Thinking in this way, innovation and entrepreneurship are very valuable merits for every businessman and businesswomen. George Moen can be a case in point for our discussion about entrepreneurship. He started his first company—sandwich tree even he was still a student in UBC. Although, George’s company shut down in the recession in 80’s, but he built a business organization immediately. Never let the failure get you down, this is the lesson that we can learn from George’s story.

Innovation is also important for every businessman. However, innovation is not come from nowhere. One should always get ready to learn—new ways to look at the world, new connection among different staff and change in the market. Once you get come up a new idea to solve a problem in the real world, always maintain your passion and courage to pursuer your idea.

The Lakers’ home sellout streak ended at 270 games Tuesday night when the team drew 18,426, just short of the capacity of 18,997. As we all known, NBA League is not only a simple combination of different basketball teams, but also a “business world”. Lakers is no doubt one of the leading companies. But the unsold ticket and the end of their impressive record have shown that its “business” performance is now experiencing a decline.

When customers make a decision, they first make an expectation in their mind and then test it by purchasing the product. This may help us explain the reason behind the decline. With the injury of Kobe and lost of Howard, Lakers is now not as attractive as it was in the last year. Thus, for the audience whose expectation of Laker’s match is to see a play of Kobe or Howard, their expectation cannot be meet now. As a result, a decline in the demand is inevitable. POD theory can also help us explain the reason. In the past, Kobe is the POD of Lakers, but now it is harder for Lakers to keep their customers as they lose their POD.

source

http://www.latimes.com/sports/lakersnow/la-sp-ln-lakers-home-sellout-streak-ends-20131113,0,6426954.story#axzz2kzKNhsN6

An article from Maclean business blog has caught my attention. Twitter’s IPO is no doubt a hot business topic in November . The price of twitter’s share increased from $26 at the beginning to around $50 after a week and that translate into a market valuation of about $27 billion.

But that doesn’t mean twitter doesn’t face any challenge now. The most critical problem of twitter is that it has never made profits in its 7-year long history. Moreover, compared with the most successful social-media in the world—Facebook, twitter’s user base is quite small. This makes it less attractive for other companies to put advertise on twitter as there may be a more effective way to advertise themselves.

I think the author’s analysis is quite reasonable. The fact that its price has skyrocketed shows that the investors are quite confident about twitter’s future. The moment that twitter chooses to give off its IPO is perfect. The main resource of its revenue is come from the advertisement. Although, they never make profits in its history, they had made significant improvement in recent years. And all these positive signals convince investors to hold their shares and thus push the price jump up so quickly. 

An interesting article written by fellow classmate Rohanne Taylor caught my attention. IKEA, known as one of the largest furniture companies in Canada, announces that they will dedicate itself to becoming more environmentally sustainable. “After installing a 46-meggawatt plant in Alberta, IKEA will install a 20-turbine wind farm in Pincher Creek, which will ideally produce 161-gigawatt hours of electricity each year.” Rohanne argues that by making more investment, IKEA will be able to demonstrate their effect to be more corporately socially responsible.

My idea is quite similar with Rohanne’s. A corporate should not be just focus on economic reward. Instead, it is more beneficial for the environment and the society to develop in a sustainable way. By using more environmentally friendly energy, IEKA is now on its way to build a supportive industry cluster. In addition, on the marketing side, IKEA has begun selling solar panels for home used in its British stores since this September. In other words, IKEA is also trying to reconceive its products and markets. As a result, all these strategies enable IKEA to attract more customers and gain more profits since it has shown its effect to take care of the society and the environment

In Anthony Peet’s blog he explains how MacDonald’s has become so globally well known. One main reason, he believes, behind the success of MacDonald is that they reshape the entire global market into to several parts according to the tremendous difference of the demand. “For example in India instead of meat they use chicken with typical food of that specific country as demand in South America isn’t the same as in India.” Another important strategy adopted by MacDonald is that they begin to provide new products such as saladand try to lead a healthier lifestyle as the public now concerns more about their health than just getting something to eat.

I agree with his opinion. As a company in a perfect competitive market, it is important for MacDonald to do a market research and adjust their product kind according to the different needs or change in need. Consumers will make their expectations of the brand when they make a decision. If the company meet consumers’ expectation or even perform better than that, they are more likely to take a leading position in the industry. Obviously, MacDonald’s outstanding market research helps them better prepared for the change in the market.

Postal Service has just stuck a deal with the online retailer giant Amazon to start delivering the company’s packages on Sunday.

This deal will add POD to both two companies. For Postal Service, they are the first delivery company who can provide Sunday delivery. Moreover being the first one in this new area makes it easier for them to be remembered by the public. On the other hand, Amazon also gets benefits from this cooperation. Before this deal has been struck, the deliver days for Amazon’s customers are only from Monday to Saturday, but now everyday becomes deliver day. It takes customers shorter time to get their packages, thus Amazon becomes more preferable for the customers when they need the goods urgently.

Another influence brought by the deal is that the revenue steams and the cost structure of Postal Service have also changed. The first-class contributed most of the revenue and cost in the past. Now, since they start providing Sunday delivery and charge more for this service, there is a great possibility that this service will play an important role in their future business model. With the adjustment of their business model, Postal Service will be able to get back to the right track to make profits again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/business/postal-service-and-amazon-strike-deal.html?ref=business&_r=0