Single’s Day is a holiday in China simply celebrating the life of single people. Recently, not only has it become the nation’s largest online shopping day but also the world’s, statistically.

Alibaba, which is Chinese e-commerce company providing consumer to consumer and business to business sales services has sold 5.9 billion dollars of merchandise this Singles Day benefitting massively from the holiday. Sales also came outside Mainland, including Hong Kong, US and even Brazil and Russia. In addition the company’s stock surged 75 percent in NYSE.

Alibaba is looking to further market its services to Malaysia and Singapore. Alibaba’s is showing a drastic growth in it’s operations and is soon to overtake other major companies to become the largest sale service provider in the world.

Link to image and article:

<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-10/alibaba-adds-brands-to-drive-promotion-that-dwarfs-cyber.html>

The proposed move will add employment in the city of Canada as well as widen the Japanese company’s operation and increase it’s net profits. According to the article, about 4,000 jobs may be added.

Jerry Chenkin, who is the president and CEO of Honda Canada says “We are deeply proud to be the lead plant for the next generation of Honda Civic, a designation that reflects the incredible efforts of Honda associates over the past quarter century to produce products of the highest quality for our customers in Canada and around the world”. 

Not only is this a positive move for the firm but it also strengthens the relations between Canadian and Japanese economy.

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/autos/honda-to-invest-857m-in-ontario-car-plant-1.2089649#ixzz3IkFzBs2b

Link to the article and image:

<http://www.ctvnews.ca/autos/honda-to-invest-857m-in-ontario-car-plant-1.2089649>

Pizza Hut is planning to reboot itself for a completely new generation following declining sales for the past 2 years. It is said to be the biggest “re-construction” of the brand in it’s 52 year of operation. The decline in sales could be attributed to changes in consumer preferences or due to staleness of the old-classical logo’s and slogan’s. It could also be due to changing demographics as the younger generation of 21st century expects something different to consume and utilize.

According to the article, the company is looking forward to adding “11 new pizza recipes, 10 new crust flavors, six new sauces, five new toppings, four new flavor-pack drizzles, a new logo, new uniforms and, yes, even a new pizza box.”

I believe the company is spending larger amount of its budget on marketing as they want to further continue operating at high profits. The video also states that Pizza Hut isn’t the only company and there’s many that are currently going through the same phase. The reason why many of the firms in food industries are re-branding. The reason according to the video from the article is because firms are looking to appeal towards younger audience. Though, I am not completely sure about the end result, I do have to agree with the people in the video as well as the writer in that its a risky business decision.

Link to article and video:

<http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/11/10/pizza-hut-fast-food-restaurants-pizza-skinny-slice-pizza/18641525/>

Link to image:

<http://www.wcvb.com/money/pizza-hut-testing-skinny-slice/28118758>

A few weeks ago, I had learned about the importance Corporate Social Responsibility of a company wherein the company needs to regulate and lead itself to become a socially, economically as well as environmentally ethical entity. I had also learned about the importance the correlation of CSR and reputation of business and how negative company records may affect the it’s general appearance.

Earlier today I had read a professional blog by Ashley Keeler about the recent scandal involving minors choking on Happy Meals toys in McDonalds. This case was nothing new to me as I have heard multiple similar controversies happening in the past involving children eating miniature sized objects not meant to be eaten (famous example being Kinder Surprise). However, what I did realize was this was going to damage the company’s image and perception and employee and customer satisfaction (as they are both included in Social tab of CSR given the Triple Bottom Line).

Link to image and article:

<http://consumerist.com/2014/11/10/mcdonalds-recalls-happy-meal-toy-for-choking-hazard-after-two-children-cough-up-pieces/>

Other sources involving similar incidents:

<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/cabbage-patch-doll-eats-girls-hair-1316481.html>

I have recently read Nigel’s article on HTC which in itself was based on another blog by Danny Jung discussing the current situation of Blackberry and Lenevo.
Nigel brought up the point that HTC’s main source of failure came from the company’s inability to “recognize consumer gains and pains”.

In fact, reading recent news articles, HTC stocks has indeed plummeted “90% since 2011”. The article linked aboce by Bloomberg also states HTC was competing with bigger rivals such as Apple and Samsung in the smartphone market. However, what it also points to is its failure came instead from its weakness in design and engineering rather than its recognition of “consumer preferences”.

Personally, I believe that both equality and lack of consumer insight led to HTC’s failing sales and eventual plummeting. From this, we can learn the importance of research and development in operations.

Link to image:

<http://www.htc.com/managed-assets/shared/desktop/smartphones/htc-desire-510/en_US/A11_3V_White_S.png>

Link to Bloomberg article:

<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-27/htc-to-sell-back-stake-in-beats-headphone-maker-for-265-million.html>

Link to Nigel’s blog:

<https://blogs.ubc.ca/cctsaur/2014/11/04/htc-what-happened/>

I have recently read Kelly Hu’s blog on falling unemployment rates in United States and how that may signal the rise of economic growth in the nation. Though I do agree with her view on falling jobless rate leading to levels of income and GDP, I believe she hasn’t mentioned the biggest problem this can pose in the future. This relates to the Phillips Curve wherein a change in rates of unemployment of a country will have an inverse change in rates of inflation of that country. Kelly should’ve also mentioned that a decrease in unemployment rates in US could lead to inflation of dollar ($) since they both functions as long term economic tradeoffs. Higher price levels can thus lead to lower value of money and decreased purchasing power of money.

In addition, inflation also leads to uncertainties in the future about investments and savings. Because companies focus more on profit and less on products they will decide to raise the price levels of their individual goods. This is however given that economy functions at low rate of unemployment. In order for the economy grow, not only do we require low jobless rates but also low levels of inflation.

Link related to the image: <http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2014/1107/657649-us-jobs-figures/>

Other articles related to the ongoing event: Solid Job Gains Belie Economic Unease <http://online.wsj.com/articles/jobs-report-economy-adds-214000-jobs-1415367269>