The first impression of all enterprises for the public is that maximizing the profits as well as personal interests. However, there are also a part of enterprises called “social enterprise” which are the orgainzations that apply commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being, rather than maximizing profits for external shareholders.

Those enterprises offer more job opportunities to the vulnerable groups in the society, such as disabled people, the workers with low-levels of education and middle-aged women etc. Just like Salem Kassahun do, who owns Salem’s Ethiopia, a craft boutique in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Her business was built to showcase the work of indigenous craftspeople and acts as both a tourist destination and producer of authentic local goods. She trains more marginalized indigenous women across Ethiopia in the art of basket making to meet the increasing demand of her products as well as provide more employment. With the help of social enterprises, unemployment rate can be reduced a lot. It not only promotes the development of a country, but also reduces the subsidies provided to the low-income citizens and decrease much spending of the government every year.

The Arc Initiative in Sauder offers an exchange of business skills and knowledge to empower entrepreneurs in developing countries such as South Africa, Ethiopia and Colombia. It should be encouraged to all sauder students because of its social benefits. What we should do is to maximize the social value and know how to make the profits we will earned in the future be more efficient.

Reserences:

Collaborative Social Enterprise Brand —Written on August 12, 2011 by Richard Patey in Social Enterprise

wikipidia: social enterprise

The Arc Initiative

Can fair trade boutique expend without alienating customers?

Link to Jing Xu’s blog: http://blogs.ubc.ca/jing7/

From the following comparison of net income in 2013 among Alibaba, eBay and Amazon, we can know that Alibaba has become the leader of e-business industry. Customer flow of Alibaba after 2012 had a continuous increase and which would over that of Amazon soon. In terms of Gross merchandise volume, Alibaba also had a fast growth and tended to go beyond eBay. For free cash flow, in 2013, the number of Alibaba has already exceeded that of Amazon with a dramatic rise in the period of 3 years. Therefore, I agree with the opinion of Jing: “Alibaba has the true potential for long-run growth.” according to the statistic proof.

However even though there is a vast development of Alibaba these years, its stock market lists a risky prospect after Alibaba going public in the USA. Internal management is the biggest problem of this company. The insiders hold all the cards and shareholders will have zero rights to change management of influence strategy, it is a big risk. In addition, the evaluation of IPO is too high ($68 each share) so that the share price is predicted to decrease in the future. Also, other competitors like JD must try its best to compete with Alibaba, and it is hard for it to keep high rate of growth after going public. As a result, the value of this company would be reduced in the future.

References:

Alibaba IPO shows foreign investors able to skirt restrictions  —by Charles Clover in Beijing, May 7, 2014 2:46pm

Alibaba’s stock market listing a risky prospect as insiders hold all the cards  —Posted by Nils Pratley, Thursday 18 September 2014 21.06

Link to Winnie Woo’s Blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/winniewoo/

In the blog, Winnie review “Branding” from psychology aspect, and he said that branding is not so much important if the products do not satisfy needs of customers because buyers would control their desire and not buy which is highly advertised.

I partially agree with this opinion, but I think the importance of branding can not be ignored. Majority of strong and successful brand do hard work on branding, which is one of the essential factors of their success. Regarding yourself as a customer who is choosing to buy a cup of coffee from various cafe, if the external factors keep the same, Tim Horton’s and Starbucks should be the fist choice for most people. It is the power of branding, and it is the reason why companies spend a large part of expense on advertising. Branding can make people choose to buy the one which is in the individual potential consciousness. Also, nobody is willing to buy something you never heard about. However, to be the leader brand of an industry, the quality of goods must keep as good as what the company advertised. Business ethics is the key factor of sustainable development.

Reference:

fierce web design –branding

Link:

Business Blogs: Do You Fear A Job or Career Change Posted on October 23, 2014 .

This blog states one common phenomenon: majority of modern people fear to be fired and resist career change. I think this topic is interesting and valuable to be discussed.

One saying is mentioned in the blog: “Fortune favours the bold”, “Fortune favours the brave”, “Fortune helps the brave”, and “Fortune favours the strong” – Wikipedia. The blogger thinks that the brave and successful people always like to work in different environment as well as meet different challenges because they can achieve much job experience. Also, I really love what the blogger said: “if you don’t accept the change and continue in the job or career you don’t like or is clearly on a highway to nowhere – what will be the outcome – and that is probably more risky than proactively accepting change.” In addition, after knowing about the entrepreneurial experiences for sauder alumni, I summarized that most of them have much working experience in various companies before starting up their own business. Therefore, career change is encouraged for young people.

However, which kind of employee that a company actually need? Experienced people or the one who is modest to learn everything? Honestly, I’m not sure. I think that young people do need to change a few different jobs to accumulate work experience. But, staying in a company for such a long time is more likely for a person to study the core value of a company. That is the reason to illustrate why most people choose to work in 2 to 5 companies insead of more than 10  when the professor asked in a Commerce 101 class.

Zappos is one of the world’s largest online shoe stores. It is not supervised that it has a fast growth because its special operation and management are so successful.

Zappos has three priorities: customer service, culture, and employee training and development. Zappos’ director of business development and brand marketing said that “I read about how Zappos is focused on customer service. It isn’t. It’s focused on company culture, which leads to customer service. We don’t talk about customer service; we allow it to happen on its own by having the right people.” 

This company has perfect consumer services, such as a 365-return policy with free shipping, all days consumer phone lines, live online help, consumer product ratings etc. Even though these kinds of policies account for high costs of total revenue every year, it would improve the brand loyalty of customers and most of them will choose to buy shoes on “Zappos.com” instead  of the other websites like Amazon. Consumer relationship is one of the most essential  competitive advantages of a company, so Zappos has already been more successful than its competitors.

Organizational Culture and Human Resources Management is also an important part of Zappos. Britnee B., an employee since 2008, wrote, “Every day when I come to work, I am overwhelmed with the genuine smiles and happy spirits of my Zappos family.” Being an employee of Zappos, there are so many subsidies offered to them, such as free meals, snacks and drinks, 100% free medical insurance, regular parties, free-style offices allowed etc. Therefore, CSR would be improved and its workforce has high motivation to provide high quality consumer services.

In conclusion, I think the core ideas of Zappos are that “treat employees as consumers” and “treat consumers as God”.

References:

Pictures:

The dragon fly effect

Leadership Cafe

Book Review: Delivering Happiness by Zappos’s Tony Hsieh

10 Steps to Zappos’s Success

strategy+business: At Zappos, Culture Pays

Words:

Book Review: Delivering Happiness by Zappos’s Tony Hsieh

strategy+business: At Zappos, Culture Pays

Aside from the internal factors affect the success of a company or an industry, there are also several external factors like political, Economic, Social and Technological factors would in relation to the business situation and determine the performance of a business in the long run.

Forestory Company is one of the essential business that needs to cooperate with the First Nation Partners. “The forests of our lands and Territories have been at the environmental, economic, social and cultural heart of First Nations communities for thousands of years. Based on their title and rights, First Nations have managed the forests, made use of all the resources provided by it, and shared the forest resources in ways that allowed it to constantly regenerate.” So, in order to operate this bussines successfully, the company should build the friendly relations and cooperation with aboriginal peoples. Fortunately, the government is always seeking to find the tunnels and strategies to improve government relations with native people. “B.C. Premier urges cooperation, not more litigation, as government and natives reach ‘new fork in road'” It is what the government wants to do right now. As an important external opportunity, some forestory company benefit from it. For example, in March 2004, Tembec was ranked the number one forestry company in Canada, according to Report on Business Magazine’s CSR rankings.

References:

1. Understanding Pest Analysis with Definitions and Examples  From PESTLEANALYSIS December 31, 2013

2. Corporate Social Responsibility  From Industry of Canada

3. BC FIRST NATIONS FORESTRY & LAND STEWARDSHIP ACTION PLAN PREPARING FOR TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE | MAY 2008

4. B.C. Premier urges cooperation, not more litigation, as government and natives reach ‘new fork in road’ By Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun September 12, 2014

Microsoft always has much loyal customers not only it is the world’s largest software maker measured by revenues and the world’s most valuable companies, it is also has high value of its brand.

Firstly, it is suitable for all levels of customers, like businessman, students even for the older. It is easy for eveyone to operate. So, all kinds of people can be its target customers. Also, customers gain a lot when using the microsoft. It can help costomers to save much money because most of the software are free, so they do not need to spend much money on software. Then, it can be installed on many computers, such as HP, Dell, Lenovo and so on.  Finally, security is the most essential factor for most customers to choose it, like Fingerprint Identification.

Applicability, practicality, compatibility, security are the greatest value of microsoft, and even for the competitors like Mac cannot not beyond it in the short run.

Positioning is used as a communication tool to reach target customers in a crowded marketplace.           ——- By Al Ries and Jack Trout

LG is introducing a new “It’s all possible” brand positioning that will set next to its “Life’s Good” strapline across all future marketing activity, which has been designed to bring more warmth to the brand and “make people smile”. Mackay says: “This is more about sugar coating the ‘Life’s Good’ positioning and bringing it to the front by partnering it with messages about making you smile with the possibilities of tech. It’s all about making life easier and more enjoyable – you’ll notice that even out logo is smiling at you.”

This strategy changes the traditional impression for the customers to the electronics market. For other electronic brands, they talked more about their technology. Actually, their products do not meet the customers’ needs or create the greatest satisfaction. LG introduced this new brand positioning improves the customer relationship, and it is the most important aim for product positioning. However, the LG company should spend more afford as well as money on the propaganda. They can focus on the advertisement after the new product positioning was introduced. As a result, it will attract more people to be the loyal customers to this brand.

References:

1.  Positioning  —— as popularized by Al Ries and Jack Trout

2.  LG rolls out new positioning to add ‘warmth’ to the brand  ——-Fri, 2 Aug 2013 | By Lara O’Reilly

    Coca-Cola company, founded in 1892, which is the lagrest beverage companies in the world. The Pepsi company is created and developed in 1893, Pepsi-Cola  Made with Real Sugar” as of 2014. So the Pepsi Cola’s consumers are younger than Coca-Cola, and the new generation preferer to drink Pepsi-Cola. The more sweet taste and more creative advertisements all attract the young generation to choose Pepsi. As seen the advertisement video for the Pepsi-Cola, it used this kind of consumer preference to let the young generation chose the Pepsi-Cola rather than Coca-Cola. It is a kind of market positioning. However, in order to attract the young people, the Coca-Cola company is trying to change its market position. So, it creates more fashionable, creative advertisements nowadays, followed by inviting some more popular celebrities to be the spokesperson.

However, Pepsi-Cola cannot catch up the Coca-Cola until now. The biggest difference of market strategy between them is that Coca-Cola always tries to develop its overseas market while Pepsi company does not, its main market always focus on the U.S.

On the other hand, these two biggest beverage companies have a common threat: more and more people persue healthy lifestyles with the improvement of the living standard. As a result, they are not willing to buy those unhealthy carbonated drinks, and the share of carbonated drinks would continuously decrease.

In the future, these two companies should have more corporations to improve the food value , and change the product position of cola to a healthy product.

References:

Figure 1 “Coke or Pepsi?”  By JAMIE WAYNE

Figure 2  “Coke vs. Pepsi: the new cola wars”  CNN Money

“Cola War”   Wikipedia

“Battle of the brands: Pepsi vs Coke Advertisements”  By Hongkiat Lim. Filed in Inspiration

Ethics are briefly about what is right and wrong or good and bad. Business Ethics is a term often used to refer to ethical or unethical behaviors by employees of commercial organizations.

On 15th March, 2011, CCTV reported that Henan MengZhou etc Pig farm using “lean meat powder” to rise pig, and these toxic pork into ShuangHui (which is a famous pork brand in China). Also, some researches indicated that “lean meat powder” would generate hazards, cause people poisoning and lead to long term consumption variable, induce chromosomal and malignant tumor and so on. After eating those “toxic pork”, at least 70 people have fallen in ill in China.

What is more, swill oil was used in many small restaurants in China. It is bad for human health and may cause cancer. According to the report, the swill-oil business is extremely profitable, and the profit is almost 200%! That is why many businessmen love it.

According to the following examples, for those shortsighted companies, they just considered to increase their profits and ignored the business ethics. However, they did not know that these immoral behaviors could lead to serious consequences afterwards. As a result, most of these companies bankrupted or lost the confidence among consumers. Just like Milton Friedman said, ” Business managers should not break the law or engage in fraud or deception. ” They should maximize profits for shareholders, while following certain social customs.