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This entry is based on Cathy Du’s blog called:”WHY IS TESLA SO POPULAR?”

Cathy’s blog inspired me to explore more on the factors leading to Tesla’s success. She explained the key reasons why this company is a market leader, and how it fit into the consumer’s needs and wants.

I would like to explore more on how it survive and then success among extreme and fierce competitions like TOYOTA and Ford……especially when it was a start-up.

“The last successful American car startup was founded 111 years ago. It’s called Ford.” It was amazing for Tesla to establish its market standing so quickly under the competition.

Tesla Motors Revenue

Why? I think it’s because this reason:

Being up-to-date and innovative.  In this high-tech vehicle industry, R&D is one of the most important factors deciding the future of the organization. Tesla did pretty well on this area: they are the pioneers of electric cars, who is keeping advancing the electric-car technology, and bring it to the consumers. It is Tesla’s core unique selling point and PoD, that’s why it differentiate its brand from the well-established competitors.

We learned from COMM101 that it is hard to become No.1 if there is already a market leader in the industry. Tesla is smart about this, it use its points of differences to stand out!

“LinkedIn took a step today to build up its presence in China, and China’s Uber rival Didi Kuaidi took a step to make more inroads into the U.S. tech industry: the two companies have signed a deal to form a strategic partnership covering product integration, technology, recruitment, and brand development.”

This news brought me passion to investigate into the merger or strategic alliance between Chinese and U.S. company. I think the mergers or alliances between companies in this two powerful countries are really exiting to both countries. It is quite different from forming a monopoly because the organizations which agreed to merge or signed a strategic alliance are from different but related industries.

Just like this recent news, the business-related social network company decided to cooperate with the mobile platform taxi-calling application company DIDI(Chinese version of Uber), which will benefit both of them. For DIDI, the passenger(consumer) could connect with driver and rate them, in this way DIDI does not need to audit its driver because the rating system already does the job! For linkedin, apparently this strategic alliance is helping it build more memberships. As a result, DIDI could maintain its market leadership, against its US rival Uber, and linkedin could gain more market share in Chinese social networking market, against Facebook.

So, in conclusion, It is basically good for company to form the merger or strategic alliance. The “synergy” effect will work!

After going through my classmate Trang lee’s blog, something interesting caught my attention.  The blog discussed the most appropriate channel downsizing. “People may interpret the same message differently depending on the way it was communicated and it is extremely important for an employer to find an appropriate communication channel and to maintain a balance between directness and compassion when delivering the bad news to employees.” the blog concluded. Doubtlessly, it is important for us to choose the correct channel when we are trying to delivery message.

In the movie Up in the air, Keener makes several mistakes throughout the film due to her lack of communication skills. Firstly, when she is asked to accompany Bingham in downsizing, she is very nervous and unable to be genuine. With tunnel vision, Natalie follows the downsizing procedures and techniques without understanding the deeper meaning of why certain words and gestures are used. For example, they are supposed to talk about the benefits of being unemployed such as the freedom to chase your dreams or start a new career path while maintaining a calm and relaxed body language. Keener’s anxious demeanor and lack of control lead an employee to proclaim that she will commit suicide and eventually, she does. A more experienced person like Bingham would have known what to say and how to act to avoid severe situations like this one. He understands the importance of being genuine, truthful, and even vulnerable in interpersonal communication. In a more personal scenario, Keener aggressively tells Ryan that he needs to be closer to his unofficial girlfriend Alex. When Ryan refuses to take her advice, Natalie becomes furious and leaves. Natalie has very little knowledge of the whole situation because she does not know Alex or what their relationship entails. Eventually, Ryan does take her advice but ends up heartbroken because Alex is already married and did not want anything serious. Keener used her trusting relationship with Bingham to convince him of her own opinion and it ended badly.

Motivation is important because it provides the drive for people to accomplish their goals, maintain their responsibilities or solve problems. Motivation relates to the drive to do something. Motivation drives us to study new things, and motivation encourages us to try again when we fail. 

In solving one teamwork task, I gave my opinions concerning the refugee problem in Europe, which were not possible to be realized considering the practical conditions at that time. The group leader said to me, “Jason, your ideas are great, although some of them are not very realistic at the moment. It’s good that you are willing to think hard to solve the problem, and we look forward to hearing from you more opinions like this in the future.” I felt inspired by what he said despite the fact that he disagreed with me, and my confidence grew a lot after this incident. I was able to air my opinions to solve similar open-ended questions with more active thinking efforts. It is very important to a team that its members are able to accept both disagreements and approvals from others rationally, which is also an essential quality for one to become the core of the team.  

With the increase of more and more diverse social needs, many people are increasingly facing extremely complex situations and environments in their work and study. Under many conditions, individual power alone is not enough for one to completely handle all sorts of complex problems and take practical and effective actions. Therefore, the importance of teamwork has to be emphasized.

The so-called team, is a group of people who are complementary to each other in talents, work in harmony, and hold responsibility for a shared goal. How can we improve our teamwork skills?

1. Foster communicational and presentation ability.

In a highly efficient team, active communication between team members represents a significant link in cooperation. If you are not able to communicate with others, no one will ever understand or support you even if you have great ideas. Therefore, we need to focus on the fostering of good communicational skills by taking every opportunity to train our presentation skills and actively convey our understandings and opinions.

2. Cultivate an active personality.

We should not wait passively to be told on how to act by team members. Rather, we should actively take the initiative to understand what the team wants us to do, what should we do and then make thorough plans to achieve the goal with all-out effort.

3. Develop a sense of responsibility.

In team cooperation, everyone’s performance has to do with the performance of the entire team. Each member of the team is connected with the whole team. Only with responsibility, can an individual do one’s best to best finish his/her own part. In a team, if someone is irresponsible, or would not like to complete his/her own tasks, the entire team will be implicated. Therefore, responsibility represents an indispensable quality in teamwork.

4. Develop a holistic perspective

Teamwork is not the opposite of individuality. Yet individual behaviors have to be in accordance with the actions of the team. A member of a team should have a holistic perspective and give consideration to the needs of the team. A holistic perspective requires team members to help and take care of and cooperate with each other, in order to strive for the goal of the team through joint effort.

Knowing ourselves is the first priority.  We tend to underestimate the importance of knowing ourselves.  How could we realistically set goals, go about life and have successful relationships if we don’t even have a clear understanding of our own?  To know yourself better:

1. Know about your advantages and disadvantages

Record your expected result before getting started on something and compare the actual result or effect with your expectation upon completion. You will find that you can and can’t do well in which aspects, respectively through comparison. By doing so, you can soon discover your own advantages and disadvantages.

2.  Know how you learn and do things

You shall know your way of thinking before knowing the way of doing things.

For example, you might be good at macro and abstract thinking and generalization, while people around you may be skilled in micro but concrete thinking and execution. If you work as a team, it will be a team complemented. You will get twofold results with half the effort in your work and study if having good cooperation and communication with the people who you know are different from you.

3. What motivates you

You need to consider your personal driving force that can be either your value or interest upon knowing your own advantages as well as ways of learning and doing things. What kinds of things are meaningful in your value and what thrills you in your interests. The intersection of both decides your motivation in study and work. Only after you have found out your source of motivation can you have a true direction to move forward.

A perfect start for our day is a cup of coffee. The current trend shows that people are giving more and more importance in our daily life and that aroused my interest in exploring their market strategy.

Unexpectedly, after visiting couple of coffee shops, I found that they have a lot in common in their market Strategy in terms of profitability.

• BRAND&SLOGAN: Brand images is important for establishing a memorable identity within the context of advertising and marketing. Consumers tend to give more weight to products and services connected to a strange brand. The slogan can help to enhance the brand recall and inform their features to customers. For example, Slogan of Tim Hortons is “Always fresh, Always Tim Hortons”. Good brand and slogans will lead to a better reputation.
• DISCOUNT: Many firms put their products on sale, for example, buy one and get one free or buy one and get one 50% off. People will intend to buy one so that they can get one for free, they will feel more economical. By doing this, firms will boost their sales revenue and increase their consumer satisfactions at the same time.
• PRICE: The selling price of Coffee is much higher than what it costs. Coffee is more likely to be essential goods for people nowadays, they can’t live without coffee. The demand elasticity of coffee is very inelastic since people are going to buy it anyways, no matter how much it would cost. As a result, firms can charge a higher price in order to maximize their profit.
•  ADVERTISING: Advertising is very obvious in business, it helps to communicate important information to consumers and it plays a very crucial role in building a strong relationship with consumers. Advertising also increases the sales of a particular product and that will boost revenue. You can also know more about your competitors and plan strategically on how to curb competition. A lot of them are doing advertisements through social medias like FaceBook, Instagram, snap chat, etc.
• DIVERSIFICATION:Since capacity and resources are limited, the firms will try their best to optimize their menu, for example, TimHortons provides burgers, donuts, juice, Timbits in order to satisfy all kinds of consumers. A lot of people are tending to eat healthy these days. If they don’t do that, they will lose tremendous amount of consumers.

To sum up, After observing these coffee shops, I understand the importance of market strategy and how to connect theories with actual cases.

Resources:  http://www.slideshare.net/saravananmurugan334/starbucks-marketing-strategy-47319493

https://www.reference.com/business-finance/brand-image-important-774b03f3bd4978b4#

Why Is Advertising Important?

http://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/index.php#!

Word Count: 415

Before the iPhone reached the mobile market in 2007, BlackBerry was the king of the smartphone market. People were addicted to its small screens and physical keyboards and its secure network is favoured by companies and governments as well.  In 2003, after RIM launched its first BlackBerry smart phone, it shares quadruple during that year to nearly$15.

How could such a reputable company quit smart phone arena gradually?  The reasons are various.

• Target consumers are too narrow

BlackBerry was primarily focused on the business side of smartphones, they tend to make their screen smaller and maintain physical keyboard so that it would be more secure and easier for people to check their e-mails and type e-mails with physical keyboard layout. However, they failed to foresee the trend where people prefer to have phones which have bigger screens, virtual keyboards and simple to operate. As a result, they lost tremendous market because of this.

• Lack of apps

BlackBerry has its own operating system called BB. However, since there is not a lot of BB users, many firms refuse to make apps for BB operating system because they can’t get profit from doing it. BB doesn’t even have apps like snapchat, Facebook, Instagram on it. These apps are more likely to be essential demand for most of people these days.

• Reluctant to innovate and change

Smart phone arena is very competitive, other companies like Google, Apple, Android continue to evolve and innovate. They are always trying to provide better service for consumers and that make BlackBerry looks very stagnant in the comparison. Even though they tried to innovate and came up with new devices with bigger screens, virtual keyboards, it is still nearly impossible for them to catch up on apple. Unfortunately, they are too late in the game.

• Delay in the release of their Operating system

BB10 delayed its launch for not just a few weeks but a couple of months, which really challenged the patience limit of its customers. The result is that the features of its new system cannot make up for the consumers’ disappointment.

During the months of delay, Blackberry fired a large number of staff and begged for consumers’ patience. Eventually, it was not surprising that heartbroken Blackberry users abandoned it and embraced Apple and Android phones.

To sum up, when RIM should’ve made a business model canvas before they made decisions. They can have a clear vision of their own weaknesses and advantages that way in order to avoid decline.

References: https://www.google.ca/search?q=blackberry+stock+price+drop&biw=1600&bih=794&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi22OKvkr3PAhVC7WMKHdofAWYQ_AUIBygC&dpr=2#imgrc=_

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/electronics/10329499/The-rise-and-fall-of-BlackBerry.html

http://www.newhua.com/2013/0819/228893.shtml

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-reason-for-the-decline-of-BlackBerry-phones

The Federal Reserve raised its key interest rate on Wednesday from a range of 0% to 0.25% to a range of 0.25% to 0.5%.

The rate hike is a small one, but it will affect millions of Americans, including investors, home buyers and savers. Savers should eventually see a little more interest on their deposits at the bank, but big banks didn’t make any increases Wednesday. Mortgage rates will gradually rise.

After reading this article we can see that government is actually playing a very important role in economy. They can adjust the recessionary gap or inflationary gap but changing the interest rate. If the interest rate is low, people would prefer to save more and post less and that will lead to a decrease of aggregate demand, real GDP will decrease along with it as well. In this way, the recessionary gap will closed. They can close the inflationary gap by decreasing the interest rate as well, once the interest rate is decreased, people would purchase more and save less, aggregate demand will goes down and real GDP will go down. The government can also adjust their monetary value by changing interest rate as well. For example, if interest rate of US dollars increases, the demand for US dollars will boost and the supply of their own currency will boost as well. As a result, the US dollars will have a depreciation compared to their own currency. I can affect the price level as well. 

To conclude, in my own opinion, government is actually playing a very important role and we should let the government take some control over the economy .

Resource:

http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/16/news/economy/federal-reserve-interest-rate-hike/

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