Monthly Archives: November 2013

Impacts of social entrepreneurship

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purposeful living

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.

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Necessaries for starting a startup

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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.

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Why commodities charge higher in Canada than in the US?

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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.

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Amazon’s business strategy

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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.

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How high-tech flyers fall fast

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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.

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Starbucks being criticized for higher coffee price in China

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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.

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