Monthly Archives: November 2014

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