( photo taken from this site)

According to the The Vancouver Sun’s article, BC hydro’s 8-billion Site C hydroelectric megaproject is urged to be rejected by the government since first nation argues that “flooding valley would impair their rights to fish, hunt and use the area for ceremonial purposes”.

• Apply the “PESTLE analysis

In terms of political and legal conditions, Cite C will definitely face more obstacles in the long-term due to its interest of conflict with first nations whose rights are protected by the government. To build the business canvas of BC hydro, the “Key Resources” and “Revenue Stream” have to consider the effect of imparity of the first nations. Despite the guaranteed buyer power due to the increasing electricity demand in BC, the supplier power ought to be more emphasized to carry out this hydroelectric project.

• Other Costs

Besides fixed costs and variable costs, the other costs should be thought over carefully in this situation. To be more precise, the opportunity cost, which is nevertheless an unreal cost, must not be ignored when analysing this business plan. The second best choice to do with the valley located in the area of first nation may be exploited to tourism potential that can make profits and protecting the original environment and lives of first nations in the meantime.

Personally, I think more alternatives such as “wind, solar and geothermal power” mentioned in the article should be considered by the government and BC hydro in order to reach a harmonious agreement.

(image taken from this site)

According to the article by Chuck Jones, Apple’s share of the smartphone market in differently countries around the world has simultaneously fallen over the past three years. In this post, I will try to analyse the internal and external factors which cause this decreasing share.

• Internal

Despite the continuous release of new products, Apple’s product features recently didn’t seem to satisfy the customers’ expectation as they used to. In another word, lack of unprecedented innovation deprived iPhone’s attractiveness to the customers. Furthermore, the reports of bent iPhone6 also worried the potential customers. To make things worse, iPhone 6 will not be available in China where a lot of “iFans” anticipated for a long time until October 17^th. Nevertheless the hunger marketing strategy had been well received in China over the past years, the late release in China will definitely disappoint the customers in China and prevent some of them from waiting for it.

• External

Undoubtedly, the increasing competitiveness of the Android rivals like Samsung and Huawei have inevitably threatened market share of iPhone. With more reasonable prices and guaranteed quality, iPhone is no longer the only and the best choice to the smartphone customers.

• Recommendation

Considering the positioning of a leader, I recommend Apple to embrace the changes in the market. To obtain more share in the Asian market, they should do more researches about the different customer segments in Asia to figure out their requests such as reasonable prices and customized functions, rather than “just increasing the screen sizes and changing the colours.”

In conclusion, Apple should make more efforts to reverse its market share losses in not only China and Japan but countries all over the world.

( image taken from this site )

Some beer brewers in the U.S. recently side with EPA to finalize a proposal for new guidelines which clarifies the water bodies under its jurisdiction. However, some farmers insist on the opposite because they think the new regulations will bring about new costly permits.

• Conflict of interests of different stakeholders

As the ingredient suppliers and producers in the beer industry, both brewers and farmers are the stakeholders of the business. From my point of view, the reason why they hold different opinions over the water regulation is that they both pursue their own interests. In other word, concern for lack of clean water to generate quality beer outweighs the brewers’ concern for environmental protection. This is a counterexample to the Stakeholder Theory that it’s really difficult to maximize every stakeholder’s profit simultaneously.

• Envision the future

Since the proposal is supported by not only beer brewers but also environmentalist, I personally suspect it will be finalized in the future. As a result, the farmers will probably spend more effort and money filtering the agricultural waste water. The brewers, in the meanwhile, will inevitably be charged more. Eventually, the farmers and the brews will split the increasing costs together, which means shoulder the social responsibility together.