shuhong chen's blog

http://littleskylark.com/blog/ingvar-kamprad-ikea-will-never-ipo/    

Most of people once thought that the dream of entrepreneurs was to bring their companies into NASDAQ for IPO, so the unwillingness that showed by Ikea to gather investment through stock market surprised me a lot. I have found the idea by Ingvar Kamprad is unique and interesting. I searched on the Internet, and I have found that some Japanese companies belonging to Tech industry and medium-sized companies in the USA also abandoned the chance for IPO. The most representative company is Ikea. In my opinion, IPO actually utilizes the separation of equity and management. Company will operate smoothly despite the frequent change of owner under the advantages of separation. The reason for gathering cash through public is that sometimes a project is so costly that needs the concentration of investment from citizens. In return for this, people get profits through the investment. However, Ikea’s decision is not irrational. If a company issue shares, the shareholders will claim for quicker and more benefits, which will put much pressure to the managers, forcing them to change the long term objective to short term pursue. Another point is that if Ikea becomes a listed company, about 30% of profits will be issued to every investor. If Ikea does not go for IPO, The amount of cash can become cash for emergency when cash flow becomes intense. Whether to or not to go for IPO has its advantages and disadvantages. It depends on whether the main operation and objective of the company will change after the decision. If a company finds it help create profits for a short term and brand value in a long term after a decision, then follow the decision. If not, abandon it.

http://3dprint.com/23941/spain-hp-3d-print-investment/

Whenever a new technology is first introduced into business world, the company that owns the patent has the advantage of monopoly, and the competition forms after the technology is copied. In conclusion, technology is the source of the production. It creates new consumption hot spot and motivates the formation of a new competitive market.

The example of development of 2D printers illustrates the truth. 2D printers and photocopiers were once huge investments and just owning one gave your business a competitive advantage. However, as the prices of the printers started dropping, competition heated up. Now even little shops offer printing and photocopy services. 3D printers will go through a similar cycle.

Spain’s support for HP’s 3D printing development is an action to promote development of new technology. The 3D printing can be applied in manufacturing, medication, construction and so on. The application of the technology have a broad prospect in business and society. Governments’ subsidization in 3D printing field help enterprises implement Corporate-Social-Responsibility with the technology.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/timdu/2014/10/19/does-overseas-purchasing-make-considerable-profit/

Since 2010, online retailers have transformed the holiday, also known as “Double 11,” into an online shopping carnival similar to America’s Cyber Monday. The carnival is actually held by Tmall, formerly Taobao Mall, is a Chinese-language website for business-to-consumer (B2C) online retail. After the slogan “Are you ready for the Double 11” released, thousands of hundreds of consumers, especially shopaholics, began their crazy purchasing. According to data last year, the Double 11 promotion on Tmall and Taobao attracted 147 million unique visitors and 30 million users to purchase, and the number of transactions hit 100 million. This year the number is expected to grow.

Alibaba and its branch company Taobao, the forerunner of e-commerce, occupy great percentage of the market of online shopping, improve the consumers’ shopping experience and motivate the development of diversified economy.

After introducing Tmall, Taobao and the company’s contribution to the development of business, I will show my point of views about Tim du’s blog. The title and Taobao’s new plan are quite attracting, by the way. In the blog, zhenting Du showed his idea that whether foreign students should sell via agency depends on the quantity of goods sold. I agree with the opinion and want to make some supplementary specification.

When foreign students choose to sell goods themselves, they have two major problems. First comes the brand, and the second one is distribution channel. The two factors, no brand and inefficient distribution, lead to narrow consumer segments. Zhenting gave suggestions from the perspective of quantity, while I will give suggestion about what kind of goods to sell. According to data and market research, the price of luxury has huge differences between countries. The price of Relox Watch in China is over five times as much as that in Canada because China’s tariff is high. If you buy a Relox watch if Canada for $10000(￥53000), you can sell to your consumers in China for 80 thousand-100 thousand RMB because market price for the watch in China is about 150 thousand. One consumer, you will get the profit of 50 thousand RMB(nearly $10000).

My opinion is that Foreign students can maximize profits by choosing the right goods to sell.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/who-gains-most-from-hong-kong-shanghai-through-train-2014-11-09

The China Securities Regulatory Commission’s decision to permit stock market access between the mainland and Hong Kong is likely to have a far-reaching impact on Shanghai and Hong Kong. Under the proposed plan, investors from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong can freely invest in stocks listed in the reciprocal cities.

I consider the decision as a progress in china’s economy, which goes from “closed” to “open”. Here the open means the financial market. After the Chinese reform, China’s economy overall is becoming global through foreign investments and cooperation between countries, and what is more, the flow of production factors further improve the globalization. However, the financial market remains “closed”. The stock connect is remarkable because financial market begins to open up.

In addition, the stock connect, in my opinion, increases the internationalization of RMB. The RMB will not only flow around the world’s financial market, but it will be potential to become Reserve Currency in the future.

The Stock Connect will further have a great impact on the flow and balance of world’s capital and China’s A-share market will become active after years of depression.

http://www.talkmarkets.com/content/us-markets/dollars-ride-is-about-to-end?post=50460&utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=referral

Abenomics represents the economic policies that shinzo Abe’s administration implements. The purpose of such policies is to relieve the current deflation and active market. The three “arrows” of his policy are fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms. Each of them is aimed at boosting Japan’s net export and fueling this export-oriented economy. In my opinion, though increase in GDP showed some effects of Abe’s policies, the effect so far has little impact. 

Take monetary easing. The Japanese yen has devalued by nearly 30 percent since Abe took office, but the prices of Japan’s export products are still not competitive in international markets. Many industries have moved abroad due to expensive labor costs, and they will not be brought back simply due to Abe’s stimulus policies. In this case, the aim to stimulate export is of little effect.

As for consumers, the expectation of rise in price of goods will surely motivate consumers to purchase and household to invest when the interest rate is low. However, consumers will be anxious about devaluation of their income caused by inflation, therefore, they will tend to have tight-budget. I remain skeptical about the impact on consumption and investment.

In addition, when the time for the US to end QE nears, Abe’s monetary easing seems to lower foreign investors’ confidence on JPY. The financial market will keep going down.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/sunjie/2014/10/05/my-comment-on-unplugged-and-unproductive/

I strongly agree with the opinion that online and mobile services will reduce the cost while increase the convenience for consumers. Nowadays, business has achieved modernization, and the trend of E-commerce has become the mainstream. Following the stream is the choice of majority. Online and mobile selling decreases the cost of rent and provides more information about consumers’ preferences. As for consumers, they can purchase goods anywhere in a lower price.

However, should every firm in any industry observe the tendency?  I disagree. The cost of rent is lowered, but how about the cost of distribution? In some countries, the wages for delivery is fairly high. In addition, the information about products online is vague and sometimes misleading. For example, when people buy shoes or food, they would choose to buy at specialty shop and markets.

In another aspect, some services, such as massage, haircut, can not be provided through internet. Firms should choose the strategy according to their types of products and the cost structure.

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/07/26/Tsilhqotin-With-Gloves/

After combining the information from Wikipedia and from reading materials, I have some opinions about why the bias exists between aboriginal people and other settlers. The first reason is that government will provide a certain amount of alimony to first nation people, and the subsidization comes from the tax. White settlers are unwilling to pay great amount of tax to and they think that most first nation people who does not pay tax for real estate and medical insurances of some provinces are sluggish, contributing little to the development of economy. The aboriginal people have negative attitude towards white settlers because they are limited in the “reserved area”.

In terms of the effect the first nations issues will have on economy, I consider the effect mainly on labor. Canada has the problem of shortage of labor, so government encourages immigrating and  spends huge amount of time and money on training the immigrants. However, many immigrates do not supply satisfactory service because of differences in culture and religion, and some immigrates prefer investing real estate rather than improve the development of industry.

The aboriginal people here, are human resources that worth investing. Over a half of population are young people for first nation people, and these people have highly sense of responsibility to protect environment and similar cultural background. If government transfer the money spent on immigrates’ training to aboriginal people for their professional skills, it can solve the problem of labor shortage and reduce immigration.

http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ubc/reader.action?docID=10187339&page=171

Whether ethnics exists in business or not remains controversial. After reading the passage about business ethnics, I have a new understanding about ethnics. I partly agree with some ideas in the passage. The company as a whole should maximize stakeholders’ benefits in order for them to implement their responsibility for the society. For a company or enterprise itself, ethnics is vague. Fast food is a good example. Though fast food has a huge market around the world, some consumers in Asian countries are crazy about KFC, Burger King, and etc. These enterprises produce unhealthy food which is not problem of hygiene but the food is of low nutrition. Fast food is high in fat and protein, which may cause obesity. The harm to consumers is in a long term. Considering the ethnics, the existence of fast food companies is unethical. Thus, there might be some ideas that business ethnics does not exist.

However, this is not the case. Actually, ethnics exist in all the companies, no matter what kind of industry the company belongs. For fast food firms, they can improve their food to make it healthier, for instance, diet coke. What is more, the firms can donate money to public institutions to create value for society. The traditional negative value or discrimination can be changed by more contribution to consumers and society.

I think business ethnics is important.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/wczhu/

How the crypto-currency could become the internet of money

I partly agree with Wenchuan about his opinion on the prospect of bitcoin. People’s perception of value is important, but currency, as a special goods that represent universal equivalent, should be goods whose value is fixed. In addition, currency should be under control of government in order to keep the economy move smoothly and to maintain order of the market.

Another problem about bitcoin is that its amount is limited. Though inflation can be avoided, but problem of deflation is obvious and severe. If a currency cannot reach the standard of production, the currency cannot become currency.

I do not think bitcoin can become currency.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/timdu/

I agree with Tim about the disadvantages he mentioned in terms of SpaceX’s decision that employees should seek problems to solve. It cannot be denied that the assignment of task should be in the charge of experienced and decisive managers to avoid disorder. However, sometimes employees can come up with creative ideas and some wise clerks will consider problems in different ways to get rid of fixed model. Creation is the source of productivity. Besides, though employers are more judicious, their thoughts and strength are limited, compared to collective power.

In my opinion, the employers can enforce rewards and punishment to avoid chaos and encourage active participation in solving problems. For people who have showed feasible and profitable schemes about an assignment, employers reward them with extra salary while for people who left work undone, employers just deduct their wages.