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Founded in 1999 by Yuji Hirota, the first Beard Papa’s store was opened in Osaka, Japan. Since then, Beard Papa has become a world wide sensation; opening stores all across the globe, in places like, Hong Kong, Canada, United States, Russia, Singapore, and others.

Beard Papa is a store that sells various pastires, among the famous in which they became famous for was the cream puff dessert. The cream puffs from Beard Papa’s have been popular among consumers around the world. In 2005, Beard Papa’s had a revenue of $300 million of $300 million, more than doubled from 2003. In only two years, Beard Papa doubled its revenue.

As Schumpeter has stated in his view what an entrepreneur is. Beard Papa fits the mould of an entrepreneurial company. They are a fast growing company generating fevenue at a fast pace with an innovative recreation of cream puffs.

Cream puffs have existed since 1924 in France. However, this Japanese store, re-invented a new image for cream puffs. The store has also created innovative desserts to capture customers wich will bring in revenue.

An innovative idea and a passion for success make up the ingredients of an entrepreneur.

According to the article, Trimark Sportswear Group has never had a full time human resource manager to look over the staff in 35 years. That had all changed as Andrew Will became the president of the company. 

 He  had decided to change the culture of the company and had sought to find a full time human resource manager. Will wanted to hire someone who wasn’t going to sit in the office all day. He wanted to hire someone who would go out and connect with consumers, suppliers, and front-line employees.

As we learned in class, building a good team of workers in a company is very important. It is essential that the employees know how the company is performing and understand the company’s future goals. There needs to be a person or a group of personnel who would act as a connector between the executives and the employees to ensure strong communication within the company.

Communication should be highly encouraged in a company to build better internal and external relations as it will benefit the operations of a company.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/your-business/business-categories/human-resources/capitalizing-on-culture/building-an-hr-department-from-the-bottom-up/article1743214/

There is always a misconception that sustainability could mean extra expense for a company.

However, this may actually be a myth. In the Vancouver Sun article, “six B.C. businesses [were] cited as success stories in finding savings by reducing energy consumption.” Companies such as Mountain Equipment Co-op found that the company could lower 38 per cent in greenhouse gas emissions and at the same time reducing its shipping costs. Karen Jawl, sustainability corrdinator from Jawl Properties has noted that by changing their company’s energy consumption, they have found new opportunities. Being aware of the environment has been a strong issue in the world today.

This external factor has created mutiple opportunities for companies to thrive. This article showed us that we could have the best of both worlds; where companies can be sustainable at the same time as helping the company save on operational costs and other energy usage related costs.

As discussed in class, companies are not only socially responsible in the aspect of making profits, but are also socially responsible for catering to the interests and concerns for the world. Knowing that being socially responsible can positively affect the company, new tactics and strategies could improve the company.

Source: “Going Green can be good for the Planet and the bottom line.” The Vancovuer Sun. October 4, 2010

In the Vancouver Sun article, Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, said that customers today are more likely to be influenced by blogs or Twitter users than mainstream advertising.

Before, consumers were heavily influenced by positive reviews from influential publications like “Fortune” and “The Wall Street Journal”. However nowadays, consumers are more influenced by the opinions and reviews of a product from ordinary people on blogs and Twitter.

Companies in this era need to embrace the new fad and develop new marketing strategies in order to influence their target market.  It is especially essential in today’s society to develop a good product position, since there are a huge variety of products in the market.

In order to survivie, the company must capture their target market by being creative and by using effective means. Knowing that consumers nowadays would rather listen to the opinion of a regular person, companies need to build good customer relationships in order to gain popularity on the internet. Building good relations would allow more people to write good and positive reviews about their product or service thus building brand loyalty and trust.

The society is constantly changing , forcing companies to keep up with the changes and act on it if they want to be successful.

Source: “Tables turned in new era of the sell” The Vancouver Sun. Wednesday September 29, 2010

Today while flipping through the Business section in the Vancouver Sun, I found an article about a pizza restaurant using a new eco-friendly pizza box.

This Victoria pizza store, Ali Baba Pizza, is the first restuarant to use them. Produced by the company, Green Box, the pizza box is made from recycled cardboard. ” The top of the box breaks down into plates while the bottom folds into a convenient storage container for left overs,” as described in the Vancouver Sun.

 This was designed to eliminate the amount of boxes and disposable plates used by pizza restuarants. During class, we have explored on the issues of social responsiblity and the effects it has on a company.

I would say that Ali Baba Pizza has taken a step towards being social responsible. A company not only has to be responsible to give back returns to their shareholders, they also need to be responsible to the community and be aware of issues that have arisen recently. Ali-Baba is moving towards sustainability, which I believe would most definitely attract eco-friendly customers to purchase pizzas from Ali-Baba.

Source: “Restaurateur adopts ‘pizza box of 21st century’ from Vancouver Sun September 22, 2010

Communication is key for a company to be successful. But what happens when communication is tainted with the omission of information?

Enron, a company created from the merging of Houston Natrual Gas and Omaha-based Inter North, is a prime example of communication meets social responsiblity. Kenneth Lay, the CEO of Enron brought the company into new fields, experiencing a substantial growth of revenue.

However, the company was engaging in risk activiities. And by this time, the company was suffering from the lack of profits. Instead of communicating this with the public, Jefferey Skilling assured the investors and stockholders that they were making huge profits. Enron reported false profits to the public, wronging the investor sand stockholders’ trust and support. 

As the company’s situation worsened, the truth was exposed to the public. As a result of this scandal, millions of dollars were lost, and many lives were ruined.

Enron failed to assume their responsiblity of ethically using the money entrusted to them by the investors and stockholders. Communication is key to the success of a business; however, manipulative communication is not only harmful but also unethical. And thus, social responsibility applies to all parts of a business.

Source:http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/enron/

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