In light of Zappo’s corporate culture that was discussed in class, I have found another company, Aldo, that has a strong corporate culture which is similar to that of Zappos. Aldo has three core values they work by: respect, integrity, and love. When hired, workers have to participate in activities to better understand the company and the customers. In the Aldo office, they provide team members with bright, and spacious workplaces filled with artwork to help them foster ideas. Aldo also provides personal wellness programs for the team members such as on-site gym and fitness classes.

Comparing Zappos and Aldo, both companies greatly value their workers and have strong corporate cultures that their employees love working with. They both emphasize on corporate culture for employees to be more productive and attentive with their work, which subsequently helps the company grow. However, unlike Aldo, Zappos seem to have a closer workplace and relations with other workers while Aldo has a specific team that gets the accommodations and programs. Due to the fact that Aldo is a centralized, workers in a retail chain might not be as close with one another, whereas in Zappos, the company is decentralized, so the CEO can communicate with all this employees. In addition, Aldo’s retail chains might be unclear of what the values due to the lack of communication and enforcement of the values. While in the office, there is constant emphasis of the core values.

Image: http://urban-trendz80.blogspot.ca/2010/12/aldo.html

With the world rapidly changing, and the technology world expanding, people start to rely on technology to do work for them. Computer programming is becoming more important to find ways to help businesses search for innovative ways to establish a creative platform on the web. However, not everyone is equipped with knowledge on how to use the technology.

With Digital Inspiration, Amit Agarwal is able to give you tips and tutorials on the usage of software tools, services and web based technology which can ultimately help you with your business. More and more businesses are starting up websites for their companies. This type of platform is crucial to helping businesses grow because it’s and easy and profitable way to have access and to understand what consumers like and attract consumers to buy their product. Websites are surprisingly good at making profit if done in a creative and eye-catching way. For every click to your website, you can earn a certain amount of money. While making profit, websites also acts as a medium for advertising. In Digital Inspiration, Amit Agarwal even gives tips on managing your Gmail account and also how to set up ads on your website. Everyone, not just the tech savvy people, should check out this site and gain some more knowledge in the growing world of computer programming. It is a site that at one point of your life, you’ll need.

Image: https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-frc3/373026_5791561181_136089223_n.jpg

Adding on to Tiffany Chen’s post, “McDonald’s next step in repositioning their brand image, effective?”, I do not recommend McDonald having the option of customizing a burger. Though McDonald’s has been changing from fast food to more healthier choices like fruits and salads, I still believe that McDonald’s is unhealthy just simply due to their image. Their value proposition was that they can produce tasty, cheap, and fast food, and even though they’re going healthy, it’s hard to accept. Even if I were to feel like eating healthy, I wouldn’t go to McDonald’s to get my daily nutritional intake. There are plenty of places out there where you can get a healthy meal in a few minutes.

Additionally with starting the customizable burger option, busy customers who goes to McDonald’s to get a fast meal might have second thoughts, now that it’ll take longer to make. With having the customizable burgers, it’ll take away the original value proposition of producing fast food. From my experience with Subway, it’ll take a fairly longer time to choose what to have in the burger instead of having one specific burger already set for you. It’ll mean that McDonald’s line ups are going to be longer, and that they’ll need to add costs for more workers. McDonald will need to have a point of difference in the “healthy” foods menu if they want to stand amongst other restaurants with customizable burgers.

Image: http://todaysfreestuff.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/McDonald%E2%80%99s-healthy-options-menu.jpg

I disagree with Ha Neul’s post, The Best Cereal Commercials. With the world rapidly changing, children are constantly exposed to advertisements through the television, the internet, and other media. Making children the target customer segment is not a mistake in the advertiser’s part, but a plan to make children into life-long consumers.

Studies have shown that children under the age of eight are unable to critically comprehend televised advertising messages, so they are likely to accept the advertisers’ messages as truthful and accurate. Therefore, even though the cereal is definitely not nutritional and the commercial hints that there are nutritional benefits in the cereal, children are unable to comprehend that the cereal is bad for them.

The problem here is that now more than ever, kids have an influence in the parent’s decision to purchase items, and parents are more willing to buy more for their children. When children nag for what they want for long periods of time, parents will eventually give in and give their children what they want. Also, time-stressed parents can be a factor to the willingness to buy goods for their children. Also, busy parents who feel guilty for not spending enough time with their children will substitute material goods.

In addition to cereal companies trying to promote their product with a point of difference in mind, they are also strategically making advertisements more frequent and more attractive so that it can target the influential children consumers that will be the ones buying their product in the future.

Image: http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/En/News/NewsAndFeatures/Pages/Target-market-children-as-consumers.aspx

It comes as no surprise that Walmart is the largest retailer in the world. Several years ago, Walmart began raising its environmental and social standards. In addition to reducing harmful materials, they planned to raise product safety and quality standards in their supply chains. There were concerns about how well Walmart would do economically, especially with the Great Recession beginning. By bettering the environment, keeping the world sustainable, and improving social responsibility, they are adding additional costs that can hurt the company.

However, that was not the case. By raising their standards, Walmart created shared value. Instead of adding costs, they reconceived products and markets by taking out costs on wasted materials which in turn lowers prices for customers. Walmart also redefined productivity in the value chain by reducing their carbon footprints and costs. With this, workers that help supply Walmart can benefit and do better because they are not working with the harmful chemicals in some products, and they can hire more suppliers that are environmental. Customers will also feel better about buying products at Walmart because they are cheap and eco-friendly.

After 5 years, this campaign is still progressing and it’ll take a longer time until Walmart can fully implement a system that is 100% sustainable.

Image: http://www.solarfeeds.com/wp-content/uploads/walmart-green.jpg

While browsing through Shopper’s Drugmart, I found myself searching the internet for reviews on a specific product.

Review sites aren’t limited to only products, but there are also review sites for restaurants (Urbanspoon) and movies (Rotten Tomatoes). Statistics show that 97% of consumers use these review sites to decide on what to purchase. These reviews will influence their decision on purchasing the item, however, there seems to be debate on the reliability of these review sites. Just about anyone can write a review on any product, and most of the time, I’ll find myself thinking that some of the posts are not reliable because they’re not true or they have bias opinions. Consumers rely on positive word of mouth from people who have used the product or service, but can they rely on the opinions of people who have different preferences? Not only that, there is no reliable source to measure the authenticity of a review. Companies have been caught writing fake reviews on Yelp, and there is no easy way to filter the reviews and tell if the review is a fake or not.

In the end, I believe that the decision boils down to your own judgement, and trying the product for yourself to know if you like it.

Image: http://www.localsearchgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Review-Sites.jpg

Canadian mobile users have disputes on which mobile company has the best and cheapest cell phone plans, and they always end up with three: Rogers, Telus, and Bell. With Rogers’ new service, “Rogers Alerts”, hopefully those disputes will subside. Their new service that is yet to be launched will help spread news about their new promotions while connecting their advertisers to their customers. With phones being the device that people always carry around, this marketing strategy is effective for Rogers to directly interact with customers.

Because there is a low barrier and many substitutes in the Canadian mobile phone market with leading companies like Telus and Bell, customer’s choice is crucial for Rogers. Bell, Telus, and Rogers all have the same value propositions, but what differentiates them are their plans and services. To interact with customers directly, to know the opinions of their target market, and to put customer’s opinions into consideration is a step forward for Rogers, a step ahead of the other top mobile phone companies. Roger’s innovative marketing strategy gives them an advantage to potentially secures customer’s choice that is critical to beat Bell and Telus. Perhaps with more advancement like these, more customers will choose Rogers over Bell and Telus.

Image: http://welcomepackcanada.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Rogers-box-logo.jpg

Last year, Apple announced their new product, the iPhone 5. For this product, Apple released two versions of the phone to market two target groups: iPhone 5C which has a plastic, coloured case for those who are cost-conscious, and the iPhone 5S which has a higher quality metal case, and is for those who want a more luxurious version of the iPhone 5C, but for twice the cost.

With Android phones making more than 70 percent of the over-seas market, Apple uses a combination of cost leadership strategy (producing quality iPhones for a low cost) and differentiation strategy (both iPhones have cutting edge techonology)  to close the gap between them and their competitors (Samsung, Motorola, etc.), and to increase the amount of costumers. Using this strategy, Apple has a competitive advantage against Android phones, and is selling more iPhones than the initial forecast while Android phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy 4, isn’t getting the same amount of demand. This strategy was a huge leap for Apple who had to balance between growth through a gain in interest in iPhone 5C, and profitability through the higher quality iPhone 5S. Fortunately Apple’s end result is favorable. A question that I left with after reading the article is: Will this marketing strategy be in the next product that Apple produces? Or is this strategy going to be temporary?

Image: http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/iphone5-intro.jpg

In 2010, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy when they nearly had $1 billion in debt with $170 million being in liabilities for customers, suppliers, employees, and movie studios. The article that I read said bankruptcy was due to “mounting losses, rising debt and competitors”, but I believe there were more factors behind the bankruptcy. Perhaps the actual problem wasn’t from competitors and technological advancements, but from the company’s internal and external decisions, and Blockbuster’s inability to adapt.

Since the advancement of Netflix and online movie streaming, peoples’ demand to rent out movies is decreasing. The hassle to go out to the store and pick up the movie was not favorable compared to viewing movies with Netflix that has a better value proposition of either video-on-demand services or delivering the DVD right to your doorstep through mail. So why didn’t Blockbuster follow in the footsteps of Netflix? At the same time, Blockbuster had too much retained earnings, opening 6,500 stores across the world. If the company was $1 billion in debt by 2010, wouldn’t Blockbuster’s managerial and financial accountants have noticed the decrease in revenue, and tried to cut expenses instead of investing money on all the fees to run a store, and all the payment for every employee, manager, and distributor? Blockbuster had the resources; however they refused to change their business model to one that included a multi distribution channel to make it more convenient for the customers.

Image:http://www.bitterwallet.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Blockbuster_Video_eps.png

For more than a decade, sweatshops have been a grim issue. Activists protested against multinational corporations such as Disney and Nike for hiring workers from developing countries, and forcing their workers to work up to sixteen hours every day without being paid overtime. Several enterprises have changed and worked towards improving the working environment, increasing the minimum working age, and raising the salary of the workers. Yet, multinationals continued to hire cheap overseas workers due to consumers having a high demand on their brand name goods.

The only way to end sweatshops is to bring awareness to the consumers and for them to stop purchasing the brand name goods, however, that is a difficult task. In contradiction to R. Edward Freeman’s Stakeholder Theory, he states businesses that have one (financiers mostly in this case) benefiting group out of all the stakeholders is regulated to decline, but that is not the case here. Although unethical, these multinational corporations that use sweatshop workers continue to prosper well through the decades because of factors such as millions of people in developing countries wanting to support their impoverished family, or consumers not wanting to change to sweat-free alternatives because they value trends and brand name goods more. Unless there is an alternative that will equally benefit all the stakeholders, nothing will stop multinationals from ending the use of sweatshop workers.

Source: http://www.economist.com/node/187886
Video:

• http://videos.howstuffworks.com/planet-green/38670-blood-sweat-t-shirts-tracing-clothes-to-the-source-video.htm
• http://videos.howstuffworks.com/planet-green/38671-blood-sweat-t-shirts-60-rupeess-video.htm