Category: COMM 101

The firm was founded by Byung Chul Lee in 1938 with little seed money after the failure of his business due to the war between China and Japan. Since then, Samsung has grown rapidly and today, the company is the wealthiest company in South Korea.  Samsung is innovative, risk taking, and wealthy. The company introduces better, advanced electronic gadgets very often and they are loved by people all over the world. Also, it provides a wide variety of products including TV, cellphones, cameras, laptops, and many more.  I see a lot of people using Samsung cellphones and laptops at my school in Canada. Recently, it’s come up with Galaxy S, which is a smart cellphone, and modifications to it are kept getting made, so there are many different versions of the phone available. It has taken risks to enter new markets such as Europe and North America. Fortunately, it has been a huge success in the new markets.

BOO! Today was Halloween. Unfortunately, I didn’t go trick-or-treating or to a party. However, I went to a Halloween dance last Thursday, so I got to dress up as a pirate. It was really difficult to find what to dress up as. Most of them were too expensive, revealing skin, or boring. I wanted to find something cute, fun, and affordable. I wasn’t planning on dressing up and I went shopping on the last minute, so I didn’t have much choice.

If I had known about Illusive Skull sooner, I would have had a successful Halloween costume for once. This store reminded me of Zappos we discussed in class; it tries to make customers happy. The owner makes suggestions within people’s budget unlike many sellers that try to sell expensive items. It has just about everything.  Also, short notices are no problems. Click here for the article!

I’ve learned to think in a business perspective in class and realized that I’ve forgotten myself as a customer. However, it all comes down to reading customers’ mind if you want your business to be prosperous. We are customers as well after all.

I am not a huge shopper, but I enjoy shopping clothes.  I go shopping about four times a year and Urban Outfitters is one of the places that I always go to whenever I go shopping. There are tons of brands at the mall, but Urban Outfitter stores always seem crowded. It offers fashionable clothes at reasonable prices and accepts Student Price Card, so they get even cheaper.

Despite the economic recession, Urban Outfitters has shown remarkable growth in the past few years. How is this possible? One article accounts its ability to keep the inventory low and the turnover rate quick the key role in the growth. Its average days outstanding for inventory in 2009  was 56.4, which was more than five days lower than that of Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Americal Eagle. Shoppers are likely to see new products every time they go into an Urban Outfitter store because it gets stocked every 56 days or so, which is very quick for average shoppers including myself. It also means that they have few unwanted clothes, so they don’t have to keep offering lower and lower prices. The fashion industry is fast-moving and consumers seek for new styles very often, so companies have to introduce new products frequently, which keeps the inventory low and turnover rate quick.

There aren’t many Wal-Mart store in Canada compared to other stores, so I never thought it was that much of a threat to other stores. Come to think of it, I go to Wal-Mart quite often and it has items that other stores don’t offer.

Anyway, Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, is trying to get even bigger according to “Wal-Mart in talks to buy South Africa’s Massmart.”

It is very risky because Africa’s economy is not expected to grow at this moment. It is doubtful that the company will be able to maintain growth by launching in Africa because it is such a poor continent, so there will not be much consumption and demand. Wal-Mart will have to offer something new to customers. In doing so, it’ll need to build factories for new product lines and shipping and storage will cost extra money as well. Operation will be difficult because of the geographical characteristics; supplying electricity for stores will be challenging.

Former success in China, Mexico, and Brazil has given hope to Wal-Mart it seems. Wal-Mart needs to remind itself the circumstances of Africa.

A company without a Facebook, Twitter, or Youtube account is hardly imaginable.

These three icons are very commonly seen in almost all websites.

We discussed how social media are used in businesses but did not talk about their possible drawbacks and characteristics.

I found a news article called “Why companies watch your every Facebook, Youtube, Twitter Move.” As the title indicates, it talks about why companies are watching internet users, impact of social media, and what companies should do with social media.

Personally, I trust people’s words when told in person rather than when informed through the internet by unknown people. This article says the otherwise. Information gets spread really quickly through the internet and it has a huge impact.

The writer of the article says,

“Consumers are spending their attention on social media,” he says, but firms don’t know how to repay them properly. “There’s no manual for that yet.”

Social media are dynamic, and today’s Twitter may be tomorrow’s forgotten website. “Don’t assume that what works today will work tomorrow,” says Tom Austin at Gartner. “Your model has to be continually adapted.”

Almost every company has those icons on their websites. When you actually follow or “like” their pages, there aren’t anything useful or interesting information going on. When they do have promotions, there are multiple steps involved and their credibility is very low since they are in a virtual context. It is true that it is easy to checkout what companies are about through the internet, but it is about time they moved it further so that they could make customers’ attention worth it.

Today in Business Fundamentals, we discussed about how businesses could use social media and information technology to earn money. When we were given time to discuss about it, I couldn’t come up with anything. After class, I have done some research on how social media are used. Wow, some companies are really creative in using them. I’m introducing what I found the most creative and interesting.

Kogi BBQ trucks travel around Los Angeles selling tacos and Korean fusion cuisine at cheap prices. If it travels, how do we know when and where to go? This is where social media are used. They tweet and put up their schedule on their website so that people know the time and venue. I found this really clever! The idea of mobile restaurant is unique and economic. It reduces the amount of fixed cost, so they don’t have to sell a large quantity of products to cover the fixed cost. Therefore, there is no need to fight for market share and there is less competition.

They serve Back to School Week – Dorm Food! I wish UBC had something like that.

(Pictures from http://kogibbq.com/2010/10/back-to-school-week-dorm-food/ )

My family is moving to a smaller place at the end of this month since both my sister and  I are living in UBC and my parents are leaving Canada in two years for good. We have had to sell or discard some of our funiture: bookshelves, beds, drawers, and desks. They are in too good conditions, so we’ve decided to sell them. We posted advertisements in craigslist.com and vanchosun.com.

Surprisingly, we got a lot of calls and email asking about the beds and bookshevles and they were sold the day we posted the advertisements. It was a bitter-sweet moment; we were glad that we had less things to carry to the new place, but we were kind of attached to the furniture we had used for almost a decade. We haven’t received any calls or email asking about the desks. We are thinking of donating them if they are not sold by the time we move.

The whole process of selling has been pretty interesting. We feel like doing a business. We carefully thought about words we used for the advertisements and how to attract people. We even have a promotion for the desks because they seem not very attractive to people; we are giving a chair for free if someone buys two desks. Also, we couldn’t just ignore other people trying to sell their belongings. They are our “competitiors.” We checked out their price offers and set our prices lower than theirs. Maybe that was why our furniture was sold quickly. We are thinking of lowering our price for the desks. This thought reminds me of the Lieber case we discussed in class although we don’t really have to think about various costs. All in all, I could experience some aspects of marketing.

I hope they get sold soon so that we don’t have to worry about having to carry them to a small apartment! At the same time, I’ll miss my desk.

Selling some books and a drawer! Contact me if you are interested!

In the first week of my dormitory life, I found out that I had already spent over $500 from my meal plan. I thought, ‘have I eaten that much food already?’ I talked to my friend about it and he told me that $500 was overhead charge.

Then a few days ago, I was having dinner with a friend at our residence dining hall.  Someone behind us dropped a plate and it broke with a clink. My friend, who doesn’t live in a residence, asked me if he had to pay for the broken plate. I actually didn’t know the answer to that. I looked up the residence contract and found the answer there. Each resident pays a non-refundable fee of $60 for equipment.

I wonder why the overhead charge is different for each meal plan; the bigger plan you get, the more you pay for overhead charge. I don’t understand this. It can be assumed that if you eat more, you use more china, cutlury, and so on. However, even if you get the minimum plan, you can always add more dollars and eat as much as someone who has the maximum meal plan, yet you pay less overhead charge. It is a fixed cost in my opinion; the sizes of the meal plans should not determine the cost of overhead charge.

Tennis matches are always fun to watch. They last really long and commercials in the middle of them interrupt the fun of the matches, so I end up not watching until the end. I always wonder where they get all the winners’ prizes, which are worth millions of dollars.  I read an article, which I linked to this article, called Economics of the U.S. Open. It shows where they get their revenue from and how their money is spent. Now I understand why there are so many commercials in between the matches and during the matches. However, I wonder what the effects of the commercials would be. Sponsorship deals are one half of the U.S. Open’s revenue, which means that they pay about $98 million. The fact that there are sponsorship deals every year indicates that sponsors make profits. I would think that they sell a enough number of units of products so that their fixed cost is covered and there is money left. They make so much money! I think they should lower the prices of the tickets. (I hope as a tennis fan.)

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/Nestle-needs-to-give-rainfores/

My friend linked me a video on Youtube about Nestle’s Kit Kat. I was expecting another advertisement that would make me drool. However, it made me want to close my eyes instead.

Nestle has been criticized by people around the globe because of its palm oil suppliers for its products. The palm oil suppliers have been destroying the rainforests in order to manufacture palm oil. It has taken away the habitats of orangutans and the lungs of our planet.

The main ethical issue in this case is that as a well-known company Nestle has not considered the environmental issues caused by its suppliers. The company has to be careful in choosing where its supplies are coming from especially when the main consumers of the products are young children, who have the right to inherit a healthy place to live. In order for Nestle to solve this ethical issue, it needs to contract with better suppliers that can help the company take corporate responsibilities in conserving the environment.