One of the big problems associated with African countries is the international aid given to these countries. These aids are only causing harm than assistance to these countries. One of the methods that the United Nation tries to help African countries is providing money aid, which has no effect on the economies. On the other hand, what the Arc and social enterprises are trying to accomplish is exactly what these countries need: the chance to run a business and how to run a business.

Many social entrepreneurs’ value proposition is to provide money to run a business for those who don’t have the money for start-ups. These entrepreneurs provide the opportunities for them to make a living and possibly successful. Similarly, the main objective for the Arc is to provide business education and insights to those who are running a business.

I think the outcome from the Arc and social enterprises is more effective than what the United Nation has accomplished. One of the reasons is because I think that what the Arc and social enterprises are doing is more tailored to the needs for these African countries. These countries need to develop their own economies instead of being provided with money. The Arc and the social enterprises are slowly helping people in Africa to build businesses and acquire business knowledge. This method is more beneficial in the long run as supposed to just donating money.

Microsoft has been one of the top 3 most valued companies in USA consistently. How has Microsoft managed its employees in such way that every employee is motivated and is willing to dedicate themselves to excellence? Microsoft chooses an unorthodox method to manage its employees. Microsoft gives away its share to employees as bonuses each year which has a vesting period of 5 years, and Microsoft gives its employees a 10% discount to buy Microsoft’s stock.

I think that this is a great way to extract the best performance out of the employees on a daily basis. It is very hard to have everyone producing at a high level especially for a company scale like Microsoft. Now that most employees have become a shareholder in the company, their incentive to work harder and sacrifice for the company increases because they want Microsoft to exceed, and the value of their shares would increase. This thought would even motivate the lower work status workers because their mentality would change to “I can contribute as well” rather than “whatever”. Furthermore, Microsoft doesn’t have to give up extra assets or cash to motivate its employees because Microsoft uses its share. Therefore, there is no concern over increasing expense to motivating employees.

There are many ways to unite the employees so that they all work at a high level. Microsoft chooses to create more incentive for hard work by rewarding employees with shares of the company, but a comparatively smaller company like Zappo chooses to create a family like environment for the employees. However, whatever gets the job done is the method to use.

http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/it/benefits.aspx

A week before February 2^nd, Tim Cook donated 100 million, 50 million to Stanford’s Hospital and 50 million to Product Red, according to The Verge.  According to this article, the predecessor of Apple Steve Jobs did not support “giving away” or donating money. However, the current CEO Tim Cook has walked away from Steve Jobs’ philosophy regarding to donating money. Tim Cook is more open to donation and giving his employees more benefits.

I think the philosophy Tim Cook chose to follow is beneficial to Apple. Apple is now very established within the smartphone and tablet industry. Its market share is still very impressive after leading it for many years, and its products have been consistently well received among consumers in the world. Therefore, one way Apple can build an even better relationship with consumers is by creating a shared value with consumers. This shared value Time Cook is trying to share with consumers is showing consumers that they care about the community and their employees. Since apple wasn’t known as a charitable company, Tim Cook can now have this new value within the company and among consumers. Not only does this create a shared value, this improves their reputation as a company. Apple now has the best smartphones and other electronic devices in the industry, and consumers have a great impression on Apple charity work and etc.

This is why Apple continues to be one of the most successful companies in the world.

http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-ceo-tim-cook-donates-100-million-to-charity/

This blog is a response to the Kevin’s blog about the smartphone company Xiaomi’s strategies to sell their smartphone. As Kevin has mentioned in his blog, Xiaomi sold 40,000 units of smartphones in shockingly just 4.5 seconds in India. The main stratedgies Xiaomi uses are cost leadership and focus strategy. Xiaomi sells their smartphone half the price Apple sells the Iphone, and Xiaomi focuses only the Asian market.

I disagree with one of the comments Kevin made regarding to the negativity of the cost leader strategy. I think that Xiaomi needs to continue focusing on this strategy because this is what attracts people to buy their products. If they set their products just as expensive as an Iphone, their products will lose its appeal because there’s no difference between Xiaomi’s smartphone and an Iphone. People would prefer an Iphone than Xiaomi if the prices are the same. Therefore, Xiaomi needs to keep its products’ price low to compete. Also, keeping the price low, Xiaomi can appeal to a much larger market in Asia because the majority of people in China are not that wealthy. Thus, they need to substitute to something cheaper, and the smartphone that comes to people’s mind will be Xiaomi. Furthermore, I think focusing only in the Asia market is better because the competition is too great outside as there are Apple, Samsung, Sony, and etc. Also, the market in Asia is huge due to the high population.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/kevinlisheungchi/2014/10/04/60000-redmi-1s-phones-go-out-of-stock-in-13-9-seconds-says-xiaomi/

In response to Wenchuan’s blog regarding to the brand name of a company and the reputation of a company, I completely agree with him that the brand name and the reputation of a company plays a big role in the success of the company selling its products.

When a company has established its brand name among consumers, and has position its product on top of the ladder, the company clearly has an edge over other companies in the same industry. The reason behind it is because the consumers have already viewed the product as “the one”. Consumers have subconsciously chosen the product, and therefore have a bias against other products with the same functionality before even trying.

Furthermore, the reputation of the company is just as important as its brand name. Because our world has become more accessible, and consumers can easily acquire information from the Internet, consumers are more aware of the negativity of the company. Therefore, in order to maintain a competitive advantage and the positioning of the company, the company must maintain its reputation in order to maintain its trust the consumer has for them.

A company cannot thrive with only achieving either a great brand image or a good reputation. Consumers won’t buy products that they don’t know even if the company has a good reputation. Similarly, consumers won’t buy products that has negative reputation even if the product is great. Therefore, a company needs to create a  good business reputation and position itself.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/wczhu/2014/10/05/what-are-brands-for/

One of the questions entrepreneurs must ask themselves before starting a business is do they have the passion in running the business they plan to start. What happens when an entrepreneur does not have the passion running his or her business? The business will probably not be very successful. This is because the drive to work and succeed is lacking. Thus, he or she will be less motivated to work diligently or willing to sacrifice for the business.

The passion for the work is further emphasized by the Sauder Alumni, Paul Gill, Paul Davidescu, and Jennifer Martin who came to our lecture. Paul Gill remarked that if one does not have the drive to work, he or she will not succeed because starting up a business is very time consuming and challenging. Furthermore, the beginning of the business is very challenging and is full of obstacles along the way. This can be testified by Jennifer and Paul Gill. Paul Gill persevered through periods where he had to drive around Lower Mainland for stores to sell his product, and he had to give out product for free in the beginning. Similarly, Jennifer had to fight through periods where she had to work with a broken hip.

Those Sauder Alumni are the best examples that passion is a key factor to success. None of them would be able to have their own successful business if they didn’t have the passion.

http://www.incomediary.com/real-life-entrepreneur-success-secrets

When Enbridge proposed to build an oil pipeline, Enbridge knew they would have a tough time dealing and negotiating with aboriginal groups and their precious land. Many aboriginal groups have publicly opposed the Northern Gateway Project, including the Nak’azdi group. Enbridge planned to build pipeline through the heart of the Nak’azdi territory and 5 other First Nation Groups. This pipeline of Enbridge not only will take up the land of the Nak’azdi groups, it will also affect the population of the sockeye salmons that are a huge part of the Nak’azdi culture and tradition.

Now because the rights the aboriginal goods have regarding to their lands and culture, Enbridge will have to have the majority of agreements to build the pipeline on their land from the aboriginal groups. One way Enbridge did to obtain the agreement from some of the First Nations groups is agreeing to an equity sharing with the groups. This reduce in revenue will have a huge impact on revenue stream for the business model as some of the earning will be shared. From the strong opposition Nak’azdi group and some other ones are displaying, Enbridge will have to do more before Enbridge will acquire the agreement from these groups. This may bring disruption to the cost structure of the business because some of these negotiation might cause more than expected. Furthermore, if Enbridge fails to convince these opposing First Nation groups, all the money spent on the project prior would be a waste.

Enbridge needs to be very careful with the negotiation with the First Nation groups as these negotiation have the potential to alter the revenue stream and cost structure of the business model. If they are not cautious enough, the expense for starting this project will increase, causing the profit to decrease as well. Also, the aboriginal groups have the right to disallow Enbridge for constructing the pipeline on their soil. Therefore, Enbridge has a very disruptive obstacle in front of them.

U.S automobile companies had been very successful up until the 1970’s. They suffered enormous losses during that period. This is due to their inability to adapt to changes in the economy and the changes in consumers’ taste. They continued with their old values, and neglected new opportunities and threats in the market.

The first sign the U.S automobile companies missed was the oil crisis in 1973. Oil price spiked and small fuel efficient cars from foreign companies took advantage of that while U.S companies were still focusing on fuel consuming trucks and cars. Consumers quickly turned to the fuel efficient cars over the traditional fuel consuming light trucks or passenger cars. Although the U.S companies had responded to this shift in taste but it was too late because they had lost large amount of market share already.

Another major problem the U.S companies did not fix in time was their product quality and their inattentiveness to the safety of their products. As consumers were become more aware of the quality and the safety of the cars they drove, all the defects in the U.S cars were exposed. All these defects resulted in enormous expenses for the automobile companies as they had to recall their products. Moreover, consumers had lost trust to the U.S cars due to these poor qualities.

The massive profit loss resulted in that period proved that companies could not stick with one business plan. The U.S automobile companies’ reluctant to move to more compact cars led them to lose a lot of market shares, and they did not change their value proposition to match the consumers’ need in high quality cars resulted in profit lost, even bankruptcy as well. Therefore, companies need to be more flexible with their business plans in order to be sustainable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_the_United_States

It is well known that Samsung and Apple have a rivalry between the products, especially in the smartphone market. As the seconding leading smartphone industry company, Samsung has been trying to become the leader in the smartphone industry in terms of market shares. Samsung’s ambition is very evident through the aggressive marketing and advertising strategies. In one of the recent commercial, Samsung openly mocks Apple fans. Apple fans have been longing for a bigger screen size and Apple finally announce the “Iphone 6” that has a bigger screen.

Couple years ago, Samsung has already established a new market in the smartphone category called “phablet”- a smartphone that has a big screen. Rather than following “Iphone’s” tradition small screen sized smartphone, Samsung becomes the first company to lead the unoccupied position in the market. This “phablet” of Samsung has been very successful so far.

Just after Apple announced their new flagship smartphone, the “Iphone 6”, Samsung launched commercial that specifically targets at Apple’s new product. In the commercial, Samsung mocks “Iphone 6’s” big screen by stating that every company produces a big screen smartphone. As the pioneer of the “phablet” smartphone, Samsung is essentially letting people know that Apple is not innovative with their products. Samsung wants consumers to know they are the innovative one, and Apple is just imitating Samsung’s products. In conclusion, Samsung was trying to reposition their main competitor in order to become the leading smartphone company.

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/opinion/ritson/how-samsung-took-the-wind-out-of-apples-sails/4011647.article

As a form of protest to the federal government, women of the Gitga’ Nation have woven yarn and stretched it 3.3 km across the Douglas Channel. The majority of First Nations is against this Northern Gateway Project. Yet, the federal government neglects the voice of the people in BC and the First Nation to approve this project.

The main debate regarding the Northern Gateway Project is whether to build the pipeline or not and think ethically or economically. With the approval of this project, many ecosystems could be destroyed and the risk of oil spill will always be looming. On the other hand, this project can create job opportunities and stimulate the economy.

I believe that Enbridge, the company responsible for the pipeline, should make the best decision for the company by building the pipeline. At the same time, the company needs to find a balance between making profit and the responsibilities to the people of Canada. Destroying ecosystems is inevitable once the construction begins. However, what Enbridge can do to compensate is to ensure job opportunities for Canadians.  Businesses should always find a balance between profit and ethics. Making a ton of profit unethically will cause long term problems both socially, politically and economically. For example, the Conservative Party may not win the next election because it has lost the trust of the citizens by approving the pipeline.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/06/21/first_nations_stretch_yarn_across_douglas_channel_to_protest_northern_gateway_approval.html