Heidi Leung

Reading this article gave me a completely insight for increasing revenue for a company. They talked about how Kraft tripled their revenue after focusing on a few areas rather than mindlessly expanding. It discussed and brought to my mind a few interesting ideas that I have to consider before just recommending “sell different products” on my future business cases.

Kraft did this by introducing the 5-10-10. They focused on 5 strong categories, 10 power brands and 10 key markets.

I think that this strategy worked really well because Kraft is a big company, so they have a lot of different products that are very widely spread out and by focusing their money on the ones that are the most popular, most important, and has the most potential, they were able to increase sales and make their brand name stronger in some categories.

However, this strategy will not work for all companies. I view this strategy as organizing your desktop and putting files in the right folders. For Kraft, they had so many files and folders that it cluttered their desktop and slowed down the growth for their company. Therefore, this strategy will only work for companies like Kraft who are big and sells a lot of different products.

Sources: Article, Image

As I was looking for articles to read and talk about, I stumbled across this blog post that talks about using social media to generate sales. It appears that nowadays, everyone is on social media. Children, teenagers, adults, parents, grandparents all have some sort of exposure to social media. To attract a wider range of customers, it is convenient, effective, and affordable to advertise on social media.

This blog talks about the things you should do while advertising on social media. Although it is easy to just up a website with all your company’s information on it, it is much more effective to add more effort and make this channel of advertisement so much more customer friendly and attractive.

Social media isn’t always a bad thing. I think one of the most important things that promoting on the internet can benefit a company is that companies can directly and publicly answer consumers’ concerns and questions, upgrading the image of the business while making customers happy. You are able to personalize your business to fit your customer’s needs, making your business much more “human” (some companies nowadays sound like robots). Using social media platforms to promote your business is an affordable way to help small businesses grow and expand.

Sources: Blog, Image, Image, Image

In Jonathan Lim’s blog post, he pointed out a consumer behavior that is very common, connecting price and quality.

Why do people prefer to buy more expensive products instead of the cheaper products when the product they buy is the exact same thing? As a young adult, I do see some of the pros that makes consumers want to buy the more expensive product.

1. Quality guarantee: more expensive  products, like Hunter boots, provides a quality warranty for a certain amount of time.
2. Brand name: Consumers enjoy being recognized for being about to afford a higher-end product.
3. Assuming more expensive means that the company uses more high quality materials.

There’s a mile long list for why consumers prefer the more expensive products. In my opinion, I believe that you will need to get to know the company better before making a decision on which product to buy. I’ve seen a case before where both the expensive brand and the cheaper brand bought their products from the same manufacturer, only to package them differently. As an consumer, it is important to understand what exactly you are buying, instead of the unrealistic public image that the product seems to be.

Sources: Blog post, Image

If the United Nations was fully funded, would we still need the Arc? Would we need social entrepreneurship?

My answer is yes. If the United Nations had unlimited funds and blindly gave money to countries in the world, it would only help countries temporarily and in the short amount of time. In order to help a country, it is important to help them stand up on their feet and grow, which is where the Arc and social entrepreneurship comes into place.

The Arc helps companies in these companies improve, evolve and grow in the business area. I believe that nothing is richer than the sharing of knowledge and experience. With the Arc, while these students are able to apply their knowledge from the classroom into a real-life working environment, but they’re also able to share these information with these businesses in the country.

It is amazing how these global connections can benefit both sides of the relation. While business are able to be introduced to new and innovative ideas brought by UBC students, these students are also about to bring back precious experiences that can be applied to their future activities.

Sources: Image

Three months ago, all Facebook users wanting to use the messaging feature of the Facebook app on their phones had to download a Facebook messaging app. Many users, including me, were confused and annoyed at Facebook forcing us to download an app we didn’t want to download.

This article finally reveals why Facebook had to do this. They wanted the users to enjoy a better experience while using their messenger. Asking users to install a whole new app is very risky, as you can potentially lose a lot of users and they might move on to another product. However, because Facebook is one of the most popular websites, and it has such a wide variety of users, this action will not impact them much. Facebook is one of the main apps that smartphone users downloads. It connects them to their family, friends, and others easily and conveniently.

I believe that although this change must have caused a lot of frustration for its users, Facebook is highly relied on and there is little, almost no substitute for this application. Facebook occupies a large portion of the social media market, and as a leading website, these changes in order to improve the service will definitely improve the overall quality of the website in the long run.

Sources: Article, Facebook logo, Messenger logo

The First Nations and Canada has had many disagreements, and while there’s things such as the 1969 White paper to protect the Indians, there are many gray spots that disagreements can continue to occur.

In 2013, BC Hydro has a 7.9 billion Site C dam plan that requires them to negotiate with the First Nations. The dam would flood and ruin wildlife habit and ecosystems. This will greatly affect the First Nations, and BC Hydro hopes to negotiate a compensation for the amount of change it will cost the First Nations.

However, in 2014, “First Nations chiefs to stage Site C showdown“, and this means that they will reject BC Hydro’s plan. If they do end up rejecting the plan and not allowing BC Hydro to come in, this not only means that their plan will be unsuccessful, but also mean that future business plans will also have a high chance of rejection. If the First Nations will no longer take money for compensation and stood their ground on not letting the land be industrialized. Future business plans related to First Nation property may be affected, and this can cause a major external conflict as opportunities of expanding in this area may be impossible.

Sources: First Nations Article, BC Hydro Article, Image

Many of us students work part time. Why? Because there’s flexible hours, and we can easily work a few hours a week so that we can earn some extra cash to go to either our tuition, textbooks, or just as allowance.

But is that the case for all part-time workers? In this Globe and Mail article, it talks about a woman who is working part time to keep up with her basic life necessities and save a little for her retirement. What happens when her employer decide to give her unsteady hours? Sometimes she’ll get 15 hours a week, sometimes 12, sometimes even less!

Employers likes part time workers. It saves them the money that health benefits and plans needs to use for full time workers. Having part time workers helps with their scheduling too. It is easier to have flexible part time workers scheduled throughout the week rather than having full time workers dead set on certain hours of the day.

However, this poses a big impact on workers who’d rather prefer full time jobs with stable hours. These part time workers depend on this job to make a living, while employers have the right to randomly cut these employee’s hours just because it doesn’t fit with the shop’s schedules. I think that something should be done to ensure that part time workers also have the right to have a certain amount of hours per week, so that people like Ms. Hasselhoff, and many other workers like her have a guaranteed amount of income for a part time worker.

Sources: Article,

Although laws have be implemented to prevent the disabled from being discriminated in the work forces, it is inevitable that they will get judged when working, mostly because of their granted exceptions when working. For example, less responsibility, better working hours, etc.

In this article from the Globe and Mail,  a worker recently disclosed their disability, and noticed that their manager has been acting differently around them. Even though their manager did not do anything to affect their work, they noticed that their manager’s attitude towards them has changed. The manager seem to have looked down on them even though they haven’t been doing anything wrong. The manager has been making negative comments about their performance after they knew that the employee has a disability.

Why is it so hard to treat disabled workers the same as normal workers? I understand that sometimes you will have to work around the employee’s disability, like giving them more flexible hours, but does that mean that the employee has a easier job? Does that mean that the employee is working any less harder than any other employees in the company? I think that managers should look at an employee’s performance on neutral grounds based on their actual level of performance instead of already having a judgement on their performance beforehand. All employees should be treated fairly based on what they can do, not what they cannot do.

Sources: Article, Image

Nathan Lo’s blog

My comment:

Nintendo has been part of mine, and I assume many others of the same generation’s lives. As more innovative technology is introduced, Nintendo has been struggling to keep up with the younger generations’ higher demands of newer technology that Nintendo used to be able to provide. Although I’m not a huge gamer, I’ve noticed that Nintendo’s products have been getting less and less attention because of its lack of new ideas. I remember when I was younger and Nintendo came out with the DS, everyone was rushing to buy one. However, even though they are coming out with new versions of it, the idea of the DS is now old and not very attention-grabbing.

Personally, I think that Nintendo needs to step out of their comfort zone and stop building on their already developed technology. They need to come up with newer products that will catch the public’s attention, something that is different from what all the other gaming companies’ products. Although they are behind now, I believe that because their brand name is still well-known, it will not be hard for Nintendo to step up their game and win back their customers.

Sources: Image, Blog post