In a recently read blog,which introduced how a water company named Sarvajal supplies water in India.Maybe it’s hard to imagine what our life would be without clean water,but the truth is:many people in the world are still in short of basic life necessaries like clean food & water or electricity.And that’s what social entrepreneurs are aiming to diminish with their impacts.

Social entrepreneurship can improve people’s life quality.For example,Sarvajal built first filtration plant in Delhi,that means people around Delhi can finally access to cleaner water and thus stay away from diseases caused by dirty water.

What’s more,social entrepreneurship can impact people mentally.By saying this,I mean social entrepreneurship can offer chances of education.Like what we’ve seen in class,Sauder launched an entrepreneurship program to hold workshops and other activities to help people who don’t have the chance learning business concepts and applying them into practice.

References:

• The Economist Blog: “Water for all” Mar.20 2013 (embedded)
• Image: http://blog.thechangeheroes.com/how-social-entrepreneurship-leads-to-purposeful-living/

Why not start your own business instead of being hired by someone else?More and more startup founders have emerged in these years and some have achieved remarkable success in business,like Facebook and Twitter.However,before starting a startup,one must realize the risks and necessaries for starting new business.

A startup founder,according to Paul,must have some creative startup ideas.The founder needs to be a visionary who can predict how things might be different in the future,long term success is more crucial.

The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: They’re something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing.

——–Paul Graham

Secondly,a startup founder shall also be rational and persistent enough to overcome every challenge.Everything is hard at the beginning,some people may choose to give up during the darkest,although the risk of starting and smoothly running a new business is high,if founders can bear it,they shall survive and thrive.

Lastly,do NOT adhere too much to rules,for example:what I’ve mentioned above.Adventurousness also plays an important role during the process of creating new things.

References:

• Class reading material:“How to Get Startup Ideas” Nov.2012 http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html
• BBC News: “Top tips for starting your own business” Jan.18 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16595152
• BBC News: “Weili Dai: Basketball taught me to be a team player” Nov.14 2013 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24941413
• Image: http://startuptoday.co.uk/business-1/how-to-setup-your-own-company/

A few days ago,I planned to buy myself a Kindle,so I went to Amazon.ca,after I read through some comments,I found that some buyers were complaining about the price：Kindle charges higher in Canada than in the US.Actually the price gap problem has been disturbing Canadian for a long time.Say,some people in Vancouver will drive to Seattle on the weekends to purchase some groceries and to get some gas.Although the journey may take them a few hours they still think it’s worth going since they can save some money.

Why does the cost of living in Canada is usually higher than that in the US?Personally I think it’s because Canada is a big country but it has smaller population,therefore it has less firms and labors,the transportation cost will be higher.Secondly,tax plays an important role.Taxes account for a large proportion of government income,if government could reduce the imports tax,the prices of commodities in Canada would decrease.Anyway,it will be a long-period process since the price gap is not built in one day.

References:

• CBC News: “Canada-U.S. price gap report calls for import tax cut” Feb 06,2013 http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-u-s-price-gap-report-calls-for-import-tax-cut-1.1306285
• CBC News embedded Video “US-Canada prices study” http://www.cbc.ca/player/Embedded-Only/News/ID/2332620344/
• Image: CBC News embedded video

Amazon has always been recognized as the largest online retailer.Recently,in order to expand its business,it started to sell groceries online in Canada,we can see from the Amazon.ca website that they provide various products like natural&organic foods,beverage,snacks etc.However,the founder and CEO of Amazon.com:Jeff Bezos always thought of Amazon a technology company other than a retailer.There was a time when the price of Amazon stock went down to single digits,in stead of giving up,Bezos chose to innovate.That’s how Kindle and Amazon web&cloud services came out.

Amazon is expanding its business step by step,and the main strategy Amazon is using is differentiation.Amazon started with selling books online,then it began to expand and built its online shopping model,since the launch of Kindle,e-books were outselling hardcovers for the first time in its history.These achievements make customers more loyal to Amazon and also help to strengthen its brand power,although Walmart also sells groceries online and makes the shipment free,who will be the final winner remains to be seen.

References:

• CBC News: “The Everything Store documents life inside Amazon.com” Nov 13.2013 http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/the-everything-store-documents-life-inside-amazon-com-1.2425513
• The Globe And Mail: “Six ways Amazon expanded its online retail empire” Oct.31 2013 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/us-business/six-ways-amazon-expanded-its-online-retail-empire/article15179730/
• Image: http://sarahsfav.es/2013/07/02/amazon-19th-bday/

As the Blackberry announced that it would cut more work force since it had been suffering loss and losing its advantages in the smartphone market,we realized that one more big tech company have to quit the lead actor.But no matter how they make effort to pull the company back to the previously growing trail,the ending often seems to be frustrating and these high-tech flyers just keep falling.And Ericsson and Motorola also suffered the same awkward situation.

One possible reason which may lead to this ending is that these companies did not find the most suitable value proposition for themselves,which Grace also mentioned in her blog.Due to the rapid developments in technology nowadays,it’s hard to attract customers with old dull ones,tech companies need to create new values of their products to make their products differentiated,say,Blackberry could preserve their business phone theme and improve some features.

What‘s more,these high-tech flyers need to spend more time researching changes in the customers’ preferences.Arrogance and obstinacy are like an invisible killer.These companies can start with the creation of an information management system to gather,analyze data,which executives can use to generate strategies.

References:

• The New York Times “BlackBerry to Cut 40% of Work Force After Big Loss” Sep.20 2013 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/21/technology/blackberry-plans-to-cut-4500-jobs.html
• The Sydney Morning Herald: “Nokia: a lesson in how high-tech flyers can fall fast” Nov.11 2013 http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/nokia-a-lesson-in-how-hightech-flyers-can-fall-fast-20131111-hv2in.html
• Grace Hsueh’s Blog: “The Fall of BlackBerry” Nov.11 2013 (embedded&commented)
• Image: http://oswinrycbaroswald.tumblr.com/post/64631934422/randomshippergurl-sherlock-holmes-violin
  

Recently,Starbucks is reported to charge higher prices for coffee in China than it does in other countries.Some people think Starbucks are kind of selling its brand rather than selling coffee,they also feel it unfair to be treated differently compared with customers in other countries.But another group of people are convinced that the higher price somehow reflects the high tax and logistic cost in the China market,which I think is true since the same thing happened to Apple,Nestle and other foreign brands,they had to suffer the high cost of logistics,thus they are forced to price higher.

However,as for the essential reason that Starbucks sets a higher price in China,I think it takes advantage of Chinese customers’ impressions on foreign brands: foreign brands are always better than those domestic ones,this has been mentioned by Fiona in her blog.For example,many Chinese think it’s a luxury to eat Haagen-Dazs ice-cream,therefore,they also think consuming foreign-brand products differentiates people,these products can somehow raise people’s social status or reflect wealth because they charge higher.But in North America,these brands are ordinary ones which everybody can afford.That is to say,there is something wrong with the positioning of Starbucks,it exaggerates its brand power in China to some extent.

References:

• BBC News: “Starbucks under fire in China over its coffee pricing policies” Oct.21 2013 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24619544
• ChinaIRN: “Reasons why Starbucks charges higher price in China” Oct.8 2013 http://www.chinairn.com/news/20131008/083745512.html
• Yuanfeng Zhang’s blog:“Haagen-Dazs, luxury in China?” Oct.7 2013 (embedded&commented)
• Image: http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2009/11/25/Will-China-Embrace-Starbucks-Growth.aspx

Part of the US government has closed when the deal on a new budget was not approved by the Congress.China,who is always regarded as the largest creditor to the America government,also raises its voice that US authorities needs to “take decisive and credible steps to avoid a default on its Treasury bonds”.

This shutdown made many employees within the government jobless.Some services are temporary unavailable now,which cause inconveniences to citizens all around the country.But don’t you think it’s proper time for the government to reconsider its economic policies?Why is Uncle Sam in trouble again when he almost recovers from the financial crisis? Let’s throw a light on how the government economic policies work.When US is short of money,it tends to sell China more bonds and cuts the interest rates to increases the assets.However,the debt never seems to decrease so US goes on selling bonds and cutting the interest rate and finally gets into a vicious circle.The overload liabilities outnumber the assets,therefore it collapsed.Although the market tends to reach an equilibrium automatically,it may take a long time due to the excess demand of investments,thus,US needs to reallocate the resources to get to that equilibrium point.

References:

• BBC News:“US shutdown: Barack Obama warns of default danger” 2 October 2013  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24375591
• BBC News:“China tells US to avoid debt crisis for sake of global economy” 7 October 2013  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24426881
• Image: https://dlshowonline.com/us-debt-crisis-outrageous-news-and-a-ta-ta/eliminate-debt-save-money/

Prem Wasta took over Blackberry a few days ago with $4.7 billion bid.Some people may think him nuts because Blackberry didn’t seem to be flourishing these years.The main competitors  like Apple and Samsung are so strong while Blackberry didn’t launch many new creative products,it’s gradually losing its power as a leader in the technology field.However,we can’t see Blackberry as a dying  man.I personally support Wasta,I believe he’ll be the biggest winner in this bet.

When Blackberry was already playing the leader role in the technology field,Apple and Samsung were just like little kids who were still in the growing progress.But customers’ preferences change now and Blackberry needs to make good use of the resources it owns and try to fit the customers’ tastes.Or they can make a revolution to grab customers’ focus back on them by launching more creative products or by advertising.It is the weakness and threaten that slow down the steps of Blackberry.A W-O strategy may help Blackberry to overcome the difficulties.It’s only when it save itself,fixing its internal problems then manage to overcome the external competition whenever there is a chance,that God will finally show up in the company of Nike—the goddess of victory.

References:

• The Globe and Mail “Putting money on a RIM comeback is no safe bet”  Nov. 23 2012 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/putting-money-on-a-rim-comeback-is-no-safe-bet/article5578369/
  
• BBC News “A big bet on BlackBerry — or a smart investment?” Sep.26 2013 http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20130925-big-bet-or-smart-investment
  
• Image: http://www.inc.com/eric-markowitz/start-ups-and-states-bet-on-gambling-boom.html

As the pace of the development in technology,some gadget accessory-makes begin to feel really stressful.There’re more and more competitors in the market,and every time a major brand launched a new product,those accessory-producers have to keep in pace with the speed and start the production of new accessory,or they may be “abandoned” by retails.What’s more,they have to cope with the uncertainty of products’ launch circles.

However,those small accessory-making companies like Knomo and Breffo,both of them are not the leaders in the market but both of them are able to own a turnover of millions of dollars,they managed to succeed by the right positioning for themselves.Ahead of the launch of new devices,Knomo tries to match their products exactly to those new-launched devices.While Breffi guaranteed that everything it sells is made in Btitain and they can beat the prices offers in  China because of the automatic production process.Compared with other competitors there are advantageous positions that will impress customers,which also prove the importance of positioning of a company.But Breffo need to be alert that their brand name being faked may reduce the brand power to some extent.

Reference:

• BBC News “How gadget accessory-makers must battle for orders” 30 September. 2013 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24276222
• Image: http://soshable.com/is-facebook-or-pinterest-winning-on-twitter/win/

Last year, Nokia post a blog titled “An apology is due” apologizing for the faked footage they described in the Lumia 920 smartphone advertisement, in which a man was making a video of his girlfriend using the new smartphone,and they were both riding bicycles.However,this ad was only a representation of OIS(Nokia’s optical image stabilization) only rather than display of the new smartphone.Nokia misled customers in a way.

So here comes a problem of business ethics.We always say customer is the God,but it seems that Nokia didn’t make it.I’m not here to reject Nokia, Nokia has contributed a lot to the whole society and the development of the technology in the past.But now,as the rise of many competitors in the tech field,Nokia is gradually getting down from the peak of tech-area, less creative products than before and somehow worse service than before.

Nokia may be falling now,but what should NOT fall should be those business ethical principles,the company should not only focus on the profit or how to pull itself back to the trail by faking the ads or doing other stuff trying to mislead customers.

Reference:

• BBC News “Nokia apologizes for ‘faked’ Lumia smartphone advert” Sep.6 2012  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19499879
• Image(dramatical version): http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/10/nokia_lumia_twitterstorm_pain/

This is a blog required to post for the class 3:Business Ethics.