One of the Canada business network blog called “Keep your business age-friendly by listening to customers”, I find out it is true to always remember to listen to you customers, because only customers’ feed backs will tell you what people want and what they need, if the owner can know what consumers want, they will be able to improve their business, also listen to consumers will let them to feel you are respecting to them, consumers will comfortable to shop here. This is also can build good relationships with consumers, you can monitor social media to hear what people are saying about your business, and increase positive publicity to their company and its brand.

This blog also mention about companies’ owner also need to listen to their employees, because they work in their store and they spend more time with consumers, they know what consumers’ want, for doing this with employees can increase the relationship between owner and employees, everyone wants to work for a fair and respectful company, when you listen to them, they will feel they have rights to suggest owner what to do, and they will feel comfortable work for you. Also no matter what consumers’ age, owners should listen to them, and if it was a positive experience that met their needs, they are more likely to keep coming back.

I am interesting in this blog is because I think customer relationship is very important for a company, a successful company should listen to consumers, therefore this blog might be helpful for some small business.

Reference:

http://www.canadabusiness.ca/eng/blog/entry/4336/

I recently read Shiyun Liu’s Economist predicts long, painful housing correction blog. I learned about nowadays, housing became to biggest problem in the world, the housing price is actually higher than people’s income rate, this means people cannot afford to buy a house in their country.

From this chart we can know that housing price is raising trend from 1997, and from 2007 to 2009, the price was increased a lot, from those years, Canadians cannot afford to buy houses, but people who immigrated from other countries are the big buyers in Canada, because Canada is a immigrate country, lots of people come from other countries and they want to buy house when they arrive here, but houses are limited, therefore they have to increase the housing price and then Canadians cannot buy houses because their income is actually lower than the housing price. When people cannot afford to buy a house they have to rent a house to live, when more people want to rent houses, the rent price will be higher, and have shortage in the market.

This chart is about house rent price and income price, as we can see that the income price is lower than the rent price, therefore people might can afford to rent a house in the future.

But the good new is that David Madani, Canada Economist with Capital Economics in Toronto has been bearish on the Canadian housing market since 2011. He believes Canada is in for a prolonged and painful correction that could see prices fall by as much as 25 percent.

Reference:

Canadian Current Housing Market

I am recently read Xiaoyan Qiao’s blog on China Celebrated Single’s Day With Record-Breaking Sales for Internet Retailers. As we can know November 11^th in Canada is remember day, but in China, November 11^th is signal day, some online shopping companies like Alibaba start a promotion to attract consumer’s eyes, the promotion is that all the stuff they sale online is cheaper than before, some of them did almost 80% off, this is a big temptation for everyone, some people even stay up late and want to be the first one who buy the product, because once all the people buying products at the same time, you won’t able to open the site, the website is jammed. In preparation for Singles’ Day, Alibaba added extra servers and enhanced logistics to deal with the expected surge in demand. E-commerce shopping companies like Alibaba built anticipation for 11/11 by letting consumers put items into online shopping carts before the sales actually began. Tmall said five million customers had already selected more than 40 items each by Sunday evening. Some people even pay extra money to someone who can buy what they want online for them, because they can’t buy it at that day for some reason. Some people just so crazy about online shopping, and we can see that online shopping already became to major alternatives for consumers to purchase products, people prefer to lay on their bed, clicker on their laptop to do online shopping rather than go out and line up to buy what they need. It is reported that Websites under Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. reported more than 35 billion Yuan ($5.75 billion) in sales on Nov. 11, some people even do online shopping over seas, and therefore Internet commerce is a new trend in China. Nowadays almost every company have their website for online shopping, hence for traditional business should really think about how to attract consumer’s attention and make them want to go to your actual store. This obviously is war between online shopping and traditional shopping.

Since 11/11 was very successful, some store owner decided to have “double 12” day promotion on Dec.12th.

Reference:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/business/international/online-shopping-marathon-zooms-off-the-blocks-in-china.html?_r=0

China Celebrated Single’s Day With Record-Breaking Sales for Internet Retailers.

Huawei Co. Ltd. as a big wireless technological company in China had been plan to investment 5G (fifth-generation) technologies in Canada for a new global research and development of new generation wireless technologies, which can bring consumers to have  fast data speeds. Huawei is forecasting 5G wireless networks will be up to 100 times faster than 4G wirelesses. And it allows consumers to download a movie in one second, while Huawei enabling billions on web-connected devices such as cars, refrigerators and medical equipment. Although 5G is still developing but many technology companies also wants to get profit from it, like Ericssion and Samsung. Huawei had been started their research center in Ottawa, Canada, they already began investing in 5G in 2009, Huawei plans to spend another $600-million (U.S.) on its global 5G research by 2018. From 2011, Huawei already invested $80-million on R&D in Ottawa, some of it for 5G, and R&D also partnership with some universities in Canada. It is good to see China and Canada is building more business relationship. This research can bring the world to a new level of techonlogical world.  

Nowadays, lululemon is facing some problem in the market, one of the problems is that their pants can actually see though and the second problem is pants are pilling.

And Lululemon founder Chip Wilson has responded to concerns over the fabric used for some garments by suggesting in an interview with Bloomberg TV that the Vancouver company’s pants just don’t work for all female body types.

His interview made some overweight women felt angry about him, one of the consumer said:” he just didn’t think about the real problem, he can’t just say fat women’ s body can’t wear their products. he need to solve the actual problem.”

When host Trish Regan asked about complaints about pilling of the fabric, Wilson said: “There has always been pilling. The thing is that women will wear seatbelts that don’t work or they’ll wear a purse that doesn’t work or, quite frankly, some women’s bodies just don’t work for it,” Wilson said.

“Even our small sizes would fit an extra large, [but] It’s really about the rubbing through the thighs, how much pressure is there … over a period of time, and how much they use it,” he continued said.

Although Chip Wilson’s interview made so many women angry, but it still can’t stop people buying their products, because Lululemon’s brand already sucessfully spread to everybody, therefore they still have consumers to purchase their products.

From this article we can know brand power is very important for a company, the advertisement must made consumers wants to buy their products, at this point Lululemon did very sucessfully. Lulu lemon

resource:

Interview with Lululemon founder Chip Wilson

http://mobilevideo.cbc.ca/u/pass~fn/1/ls/~g-16×9~http:,,mobilevideo.cbc.ca,/1/ts/~s~__ABR__/1/f/~video_mp4~__LSV__/1/m/t/m/j/p/njtz/cbc01/video.m3u8 

Chinese President Xi Jinping is confident about china’s economic future. China is the second largest economy in the world; they have business connect all around the world. China has long acknowledged it needs to shift away from a growth model that has relied heavily on investment in construction and polluting industries that have fouled its water and choked its skies with smog. President Xi JinPing said:” We are focusing more on improving the quality and efficiency of growth,” said Xi, likening the process to finding one’s way to a “new village.” These years, China is too relaying on investments and contributions, but it actually caused lots of pollutions in the country. China’s air pollution is a big problem, they need to improve their economy while improve the environmental issues. Also Xi said APEC is a big family; China is ready to live in this family with others.

Resource:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/china-s-growth-still-robust-president-xi-jinping-tells-apec-summit-1.1928240

As we can see Asia’s global economy market is growing, therefore according to Chinese news media, China will be introducing a list of skills currently in demand in the country to attractive foreign workers. At the same time, Japan also wants to canvass foreign people to work in their country.

According to China’s Daily, Beijing’s announcement came two years after the city of Shanghai began publishing its own oversea recruitment list. The list wasn’t in a big size, 72 positions that nine state-owned enterprises were looking to fill. The size won’t be as large as Canadian’s program; the national skills list will be published next year, although no other details about the program. Both China and Japan are looking for science, technology, and management field talents, this two countries are both having strong economy, also including southeast countries, like Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and other countries. Those countries are actually very attractive for foreign talent. Because of China’s business market, lots of people want to find their opportunities in China.

 The problem is Canada is facing with other countries competing for the same foreign talents, but Canada still having some strength than other countries.

Resource:

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/China+Japan+entering+global+competition+foreign+workers/9003686/story.html

  Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited Malaysia on Saturday after 17 years later. This time he went to Malaysia because Canada wants to make a business connect with Malaysia, the growth of Southeast Asian middle class is the key driver in the market，Canadians’ companies are put their eyes on southeast countries. Not only Canada, China is doing almost $100 billion dollars a year in trade with Malaysia while Canada is trade put about $3 millions annual. On Saturday, President Xi said he’d like to see that total hit $160 billion a year by 2017.

   Canada- Malaysia are doing some business together like, CAE Inc. is the important one, CAE Inc. is discount airline for Air Asian, the fast growing in region, also have other companies are connect with Malaysia, such as: Talisman Energy, Bombardier Rail, Teknion Furniture and several major financial institutions are among the Canadian firms already cashing in on regional growth. Nowadays, the international business market has been developed a lot; the whole market is a free market, one country can trade their advantages to other countries and get their benefits.

Resource：

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/harper-eyes-regional-growth-for-new-business-in-malaysia-1.1913826

Blackberry is facing lots of problems; they have to cut 4，500 jobs, almost quarter of their employees. The reason caused this situation happened was because their BlackBerry Z10 didn’t have a goods market to sell, Felix Salmon, a financial blogger for Reuters, also put it bluntly: “They failed to win the smartphone wars, they have lost the smartphone wars and now they’re toast. It’s as simple as that,” he told CBC’s Lang & O’Leary Exchange. Nowadays, the smartphone market is controlling by Apple and Samsung, BlackBerry could not follow their steps, because those two companies are moving too fast, they keep changing their technology and made their products becomes better, BlackBerry started the smartphone Z10 too late, Apple and Samsung are more attractive than BlackBerry, the reason is because their brand power, both of them having great number of customers willing to buy in Asia, and all round the world, that’s why Apple wants to focus in China’s sales market.

BlackBerry also facing the lawsuit problem, the stakeholders are unhappy with them, because they are having between $930 millions to $960 millions unsold BlackBerry Z10, this is not what they respected before, they thought Z10 will have great future but it didn’t happened, this is not the first time they suited by investors. According to the lawsuit, the write-down announced on Sept. 20 sent stocks reeling, with share price dropping 24 percent, from $10.52 on Sept. 19 to $8.01 on Sept. 25.

Resource:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/blackberry-hit-with-shareholder-lawsuit-1.1913852

http://www.cbc.ca/news/does-blackberry-have-a-future-1.1862945

  Most of the famous clothing brand company are making their products in    developing countries, like China, Bangladesh, India, most of them are sweatshops, the owner of the factory doesn’t care about workers’ safety, and they all work in a bad work condition, people who works there are bearing lots of difficulties, they don’t get legal wages, they don’t get pay for extra working hours, and also the clothing company doesn’t care about it either, the only thing they cares is they are getting their products on time and made in a cheap price.

  In April, the Rana Plaza building collapse killed more than 1,100 people, the government started to banned all the factories in Bangladesh, almost 200 factories closed, but Walmart still buying staff from Bangladesh, only last two factories can make clothing now, Walmart didn’t care about worker’s safety, they don’t care how many people dead from the accident because of the bad work condition, they still buying products from them. The international labor groups have been pressing retailers to sign an agreement to pay for fire and building safety upgrades to Bangladesh factories. So far, several large retailers including H&M, and PVH Corp., which includes Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, they have signed onto the agreement. But Walmart and Gap, have not sign it yet. Instead, they are working on an alternative plan that they say will improve safety faster 2014 but that is not legally binding. Also  one of the factory called Mars, the owner confirmed the customs data and said that the latest shipment went out last month,he said they never had any problems with Walmart or heard about its list of banned factories. He described Mars as a medium-sized garment manufacturer with less than 1,000 workers. From this news, we can know that Walmart doesn’t care about the work conditions for workers, they just want their products are made cheaper, so they can make more money on it, that’s why all the factories are in developing countries, because the labour cost in there is way cheaper than factories in Canada or in Untied States. Walmart forgot their business ethics, their products are cheaper than any other superstores, but all the money are come from exploiting workers, they never cares about how the huge amount of products made by a factory only have 1,000 workers, they have to work more than 16 hours a day and get less pay than other workers in Canada or other countries.

Make prices cheaper than other stores is actually good for the customers, people will save lots of money, therefore they will buy more staff in Walmart rather than others, Walmart also have lots of different products, like clothes, technology, food, etc. they are all cheaper than other stores, this is the reason why they have so many factories. That’s why they are so famous and have over 8,500 stores in 15 countries. But, they always put their own benefit first, and forgot worker’s benefits.

Stakeholders:

customers, factory workers, Walmart designers, stock share holders, owner of the factory

SWOT:

Strength:  cheaper prices

Have more products

convenient

Weakness: Use sweatshops

poor qualities

Opportunity: more Opportunity in developing countries

Have monopolistic advantages

Threat: More people will against them because of the sweatshops

More competition

No more workers will work for them

Resource：

Walmart Accepted Clothing from Banned Bangladesh Factories

Image resource:

http://portside.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/Bangladesh%20Fire.jpg?itok=xCe9oBuz