Fresh and Easy Buzz’s blogspot blog on Homeplus provides an amazing example of how innovative ideas combined with technology can translate into a great deal of gain for both companies and consumers.

A few years ago, the South Korean grocery outlet Homeplus was the second largest grocery retailer in Korea. Trailing behind E-Mart, the largest grocery retailer in Korea, Homeplus could not close the gap between itself and its chief rival through conventional means chiefly due to the fact that E-Mart’s grocery outlets outnumbered Homeplus stores 7:5.

A few year later, Homeplus has now overtaken E-Mart as the premier grocery outlet company in South Korea through the use of an experimental method of selling groceries online using QR code labelled shopping centers in subway stations.

By utilizing these quick and on-the-go methods of shopping combined with the fact that Koreans are the fourteenth hardest working people in the world and therefore despise wasting time shopping for groceries, Homeplus was able to secure a portion of the grocery market that had previously been unexplored.

Sometimes its not the best business plan or product that decides the success of the business. It can be as simple as one idea that can determine the difference between first and second.

There seems to be a recurring theme among many of the successful entrepreneurs in the 21st century. From Zuckerburg to Dorsey, many entrepreneurs have made millions creating computer software or SMS for the internet.

Drew Houston’s company Dropbox is such an example of 21st century IT success. Dropbox utilizes cloud technology to store data on servers and allows its users to synchronize their data from one electronic device to another.

Dropbox utilizes a freemium subscription plan, allowing a small portion of its services to be used for free (which provides the company word of mouth advertising), while providing a monthly subscription based service at several prices for different storage options.

The Dropbox app was released in 2008 and is now valued at more than 1 billion dollars. Like many IT based companies, the risk associated with the business was high due to the start up costs, saturated market, numerous competition and just the sheer nature of the programming business.

The innovative method of data storage and transfer has led to an explosive growth for Dropbox. While the business venture was risky, the risks paid off as Dropbox has now become one of the leaders of IT entrepreneurship.

Steven Shergill’s blog on Denmark’s implementation of the fat tax really opened my eyes to a creative, innovative way  the government can control the behaviors of its citizens while at the same time generating much needed revenue.

Some declare that the fat tax won’t affect the purchase of fatty foods, but economics begs to differ.

While the hypothesis that individuals who crave cake will buy said item at a slightly increased costs is some what true, the opportunity cost of eating cake has now increase and therefore people will substitute away from these goods into a cheaper alternative.

Personally, I agree with Steven’s recommendation of Americans adopting this tax. About 33.8% of Americans adults and 17% of children are obese. With the financial debt that America’s incurred, it could help the nation’s rate of debt recovery by implementing “fat taxes.”

The American government also has the option to help end obesity by subsidizing healthier food options. While this would inhibit any kind of debt recovery, it gives the government a way to tackle a legitimate social issue that is plaguing America.

This tax could make a healthier and richer America.

My comm 101 section 103 classmate Piper Hoekstra’s blog post: We are the 53% described the emergence of a new radical movement opposing the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The message between the OWS and the 53% present two different schools of thoughts that relate Piper’s blog with my Buffet’s Law blog post in terms of class warfare.

On one side of the spectrum we have the 53%ers who believe that many of the OWS members are responsible for their own failures and  the improvement of one’s life in the US can be achieved through hard work.

On the other side of the spectrum are the OWS members who believe that it is impossible to succeed in America with the rich receiving so many advantages from their wealth.

Even within the 99% of Americans ranging from the poor to the high middle class, there is a disconnect on the actions that need to be taken.

On the one hand, increasing taxation on the rich is the first step to equalizing the wealth gap in America. On the other hand, you don’t want to tax so much that the wealthy lose the will to work hard at what’s made them so successful.

Glad I’m not Obama

The general consensus in the marketing industry has been to cater to the needs of the customers. To accomplish such a task, a company must understand what those needs are through research. This research has always centered around the three pillars of marketing: the cultural, social and personal factors that encompass a market.

Ironically, now scientific research is telling us that another pillar may need to be added to the researching scheme: the pillar of neuroscience. Sands Research Company recently conducted an experiment during Superbowl commercials. They hooked up EEG (electroencephalography) to test patients’ brains and recorded the reactions these patients had to certain commercials.

Through this research, Sands Research Was able to rank the most interesting and attention grabbing Superbowl ads.

If scientist can identify the most interesting segments of commercials, break down the components and understand why a commercial was so engaging, marketing research could utilize the information to create the most interesting and attention grabbing commercial for their own product.

The Volkswagen commercial had the most positive response from viewers.

While Sauder and Science students may not be the closest, there is now a reason for us to unify: to make interesting commercials.

Imagine you have a million dollars that you want to invest in a company in China. The company’s stock prices are in the single dollar digits, and the company grew 30% since last year. The only catch in investing in this company is that you have to do it blind without reputable facts.

There is currently a concern about the accounting in China from the US. America’s inability to gain access to audit reports done in China for Chinese companies listed on the NASDAQ has the SEC in a pickle. The job of the SEC in this case is to protect the investment interests of American businesses. However, with the lack of access to audits from Chinese companies, they can’t distinguish trustworthy investment opportunities from fraud.

This article directly relates to the accounting we’ve talked about in two classes. Without verifying a company’s history, there is no way one can confirm the present, or predict the future of a company.While some may say that accounting may be a boring professions composed of mundane number crunchers, we see in this article it has powers of epic proportions, being able to save investors from fraud and misinformation.

With the introduction of IT to the world of business, many companies have been able to streamline their ventures. Another such revolution presents itself in our midst in the form of Cloud technology. Cloud technology is a subscription based service which allows a company to retain its computation, storage, data access, and software capabilities while eliminating the need for physical servers, networking experts, and software.

A company that is flying sky high with the clouds is Gulf Air. Cloud services now encompass the company’s ability to provide customer end services like internet booking, online payments, customer support and etc. Not only that, Gulf Air now receives data from the Cloud system that it’s subscribed to, meaning that Gulf Air doesn’t have to invest in expensive data licenses.

The implications of cloud technology is jaw dropping. Smaller businesses will now be able to compete in terms of data management with bigger companies. Certain types of data will now be accessible for free, meaning innovations stemming from those ideas will come faster. While security issues remain with cloud, the benefits in streamlining and cost reduction outweigh the cons.

Just another way technology is making businesses fly.

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America has slowly been suffocating financially under the stress of the doggie collar the Chinese have placed around its neck. China, the second largest trading partner of the US has been undervaluing its own currency to keep the price of American imports high, and Chinese exports low.

America is striking back with the introduction of legislation that would impose higher duties on Chinese products to counteract the devalued Yuan. While supporters of this legislation state that an appreciation in the Yuan would foster more jobs in America and reduce debt, the opposition states that China may stop trading with the US altogether and jobs would not be created because other low cost manufacturing countries would take China’s place.

The problem with this legislation is: it is too little too late. China has been devaluing their Yuan for quite awhile now, buying up American dollars to slow the decrease in value of American currency. The US should’ve acted quicker when they weren’t drowning in debt. Now the American economy is too reliant on its trade with China and Chinese loans to effectively counter with a retaliatory economic policy.

It’s a classic situation of damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

The best form of advertisement is through the tonsils of customers. This old (modified) proverb has evolved and manifested itself into today’s world of business. Many businesses, especially small local businesses, depend on the internet as a source of advertisement through customer reviews, and ratings. However, the Darwinian nature of the market has bred bastard businesses willing to pay for false customers reviews to increase their recognition through the internet.

Business owners suggest that their actions are only righting wrongs as very few customers, even if they are content with their product, are willing to post reviews online for a company. Almost up to 30% of a products review could be fake, having been repeatedly posted by the same person being paid by unethical business owners for internet marketing.

Quite frankly, fake internet reviews are a form of fraud and should be dealt with through the court of law. The consumers of today would be livid had they found these types of false advertisements through more traditional types of mediums like the TV, or the newspaper. However, it is the veil of the anonymity of the internet that is allowing  nefarious tricksters to get away with their crimes.

Warren Buffett’s law, formulated based on Warren Buffett’s disgust at the fact he a lower tax rate than his secretary, struck a chord with the American public, and is now being used as a launch platform for the Democratic party’s attempt at tax reform.

The idea of tax reform is a topic that has divided Americans for centuries. Buffett’s law would introduce a minimum tax rate to all people in America with an annual income greater than $1000000. These millionaires would be taxed at a rate at least as much as the middle class citizens who make less, but often have to pay more in percentage than their ne’er-do-well millionaire counterparts (Below is a ne’er-do-well millionaire).

Buffett’s law seems to be a viable solution to the debt crisis in America. Applying heavier taxes on the rich, especially those who can circumvent the taxes through loopholes, is not only a great way to generate more taxes, but could equalize the playing field for all citizens of America. However, like any kind of political debate, the republicans will argue that Buffett’s law is creating a class war, where as democrats will see this as one of the few ways to recover from the recession.