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

Because of the political reasons, Japanese airplane market is fully dominated by American companies until recently, European company Air Bus announced a $9.5 billion order from Japan Airlines for 31 A350 wide-body jets and overtook his major competitor—Boeing in Japanese market.

So why Boeing lost its market? One reason might be that Boing had trouble with its most popular plane—the 787 models as they cannot solve the publicized battery problem and have to delay the deliver date. In this case, Boeing lost their points of parity for a plane—a plane needs to work safely. And as a result they lost their market share in Japan.

This deal is a milestone for the Airbus’s effect to explore Japan’s market, because the other airplane company also  plan to add Airbus’s plane to their list. In order to avoid more lost in Japanese as well as the world market, Boeing needs to achieve the points of parity first, and then establish new points of different in their plane, for example the new 777 model, which will have a giant wing made of carbon composites and the lighter 787 model which can cut the fuel cost by 20%. Only in this way can Boeing stop losing their market share.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/business/international/jal-orders-9-5-billion-worth-of-airbus-jets.html?ref=international&_r=0

Blackberry, which used to be the dominated player in smartphone’s industry, is now in deep trouble. As we all know, Apple is the first brand to enter full-touchscreen smartphone market, it helps them to be easier remembered by the customers. For the blackberry, things becomes challenging because they have to enter the new market and convinced customers with better features and successful marketing strategy. Obviously, blackberry failed to do that.

As its market share shrinks rapidly and its new products do not meet customers’ expectation, the company’s key partner, Rogers will no longer keep their new product in stock. In other words, with blackberry’s frustrating performance in recent years, even the local Canadian wireless telephone company begins to lose confidence and patience to their hometown partner. The no-stock decision shows that, in the past blackberry’s smartphone must be stocked quite a long time by Rogers, which in turn added extra cost for them. Although the spokesman emphasize that Rogers are not their only partner, it is hard to deny that other wireless telephone companies face similar problems.

What we can learn from blackberry is that, one company should always be sensitive to the emerging new technology, or they will be left far behind in the new competition, although they are at leading position right now.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/as-blackberry-struggles-it-sets-a-date-for-its-latest-device-in-canada/article14676924/

A recent survey of the price of Starbucks unveil atruth that the company charge 26% higher in Beijing (4.81$) compared withthe same product they provided in London (3.82$). As a global company, Starbucks get their ingredient from South America. The transportation fee to deliver ingredient from South America to China and Britain are relatively no difference. On the other hand, the total expenditure to hire employees in China is no higher than those in Britain. Then why the price in China is higher?

The reason behind this phenomenon, I believe is the value proposition. For European and American costumers, coffee is just commodity, in other words the target market are literally every citizenship. However, about 10 years ago, when Starbucks first come into China’s market, its relative high price means they positioning their brand for high-income citizens. Compared with other kinds of daily drinks in China, such as tea and other coffee brands, the biggest point of difference of Starbucks coffee is its high quality and the western lifestyle they stand for. So, as a result Starbucks set a high price for China’s consumer in order to meet their perception of this brand. This may explain the high price of Starbucks in China.

http://www.theatlantic.com/china//2013/09/why-is-starbucks-so-expensive-in-china/279394/

Foxconn, known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co in Taiwan, is the world’s largest maker of computer components and assembles products for Apple, including the iPhone, Sony, HP and Nokia. The company is in the spotlight after suicides and labor unrest at its massive Chinese plants.

The Foxconn suicides occurred between January and November 2010 when eighteen Foxconn employees attempted suicide with fourteen deaths. The suicides drew media attention, and employment practices at Foxconn, a large contract manufacture, were investigated by several of its customers including Apple and HP.  Although the number of workplace suicides at the company was large in absolute terms, the rate is still low when compared to the rest of China.

According to the stakeholder theory, the successful business should crate value to customers, employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders. As we can see from the facts above, most the employees ,now in China, work in poor condition and great pressure . And the rate of suicide is just the reflection of this facts.

The cause of this situation is that, most of the Corporation executive neglect which is called the business ethic. Corporation executive should realize that business is not just about making profits, it is their responsibility to we obey laws and rules and respect the basic rights of the employees simultaneously.