The United Nations is a global leader, helping those in need achieve the proper economic stand point they need survive, whether they are lacking sufficient funding or instability. United Nations help to reform policies, tackle corruption and begin build a sense of community and peace between the world’s nations.

With this being said, the United Nations often have difficult time keeping the peace between our nations sane after their work is ‘complete’. Meaning, United Nations required heavy funding to keep UN workers situated and to help people to adapt to their nation’s changes, they are the fundamentals to the countries’ economic success. Being fully funded does not necessarily mean that this job can be accomplished, realistically, it is up to programs such as the Social Enterprise and Arc Initiative to help maintain composure and deal with small deals that may arise.

An example of how these programs help can be seen in an article about Salem, an Ethiopian business owner who gained valuable assets from learning more about how to expand her business and meet the needs and wants of those visiting Ethiopia, which in turns helps to better the Ethiopian poor economy.

Programs such as the two mentioned above help citizens to learn the basic fundamentals of business and strategically helps them to self sustain themselves and empower each other to learn and push through poverty.

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This HBR Blogpost by Amy Gallo caught my attention. From working previously in the customer service industry, I have often be told to not only get new people into the store, but to retain customers,

“make them want to come back again and again!”

I’m often told. Bottom line from the above article is: keeping the right customers are valuable, better known as “churn rate”

Churn rate is the measure of the percentage of customers who end up with a relationship with the company in a specific time period. (Monthly, Quarterly, Annually)

How do companies use the churn rate to maximize their profits?

Main objective: Asking why customers end the relationship with the company. Understanding what has happened in the last period and to predict what might happen next; what they need to change in order to keep customers.

Common Mistakes:

1. Taking the rate as a given rather than as an opportunity
2. Looking at the churn rate as a number rather than as an indicator for behavioural change
3. Marketers believing in a ‘magic’ number
4. Not seeing that high churn rate is the result of poor customer acquisition efforts

I think that often, businesses often overlook the importance of retaining customers, but in turns look to gain new or potential customers. Businesses should refocus and focus on keeping clients happy and wanting to come back every time. (Customer loyalty, word of mouth, life-time value, no acquisition costs)

This article by Businessnewsdaily and it’s research with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business touches on the very controversial topic of why consumers should not equate cost with quality.

Summary of significant points found in article:

1.) Since consumers think that because at low prices, the quality is consistently low they make the assumption that high priced goods are of high quality. This being the first mistake.

2.) Assume automatically that low priced goods indicate a worst quality, which may not necessarily be true.

3.) Learn this by experiencing price and quality relationship one at a time over a period of time and having access to information about products and their prices simultaneously.

My opinion: The relationship between both price and the quality that’s attached with said price is very hard to perfect, if possible. I think that people should not automatically assume that due to a lower cost, the product will not be at par with a similar product of a higher cost. This assumption often leads consumers to over pay for a certain type of product. I think the data that was received from surveying multiple groups of consumers, can be used to theadvantage of both parties: consumers and businesses.

Take Away: Consumers should buy with experience and businesses should price their products at a reasonable price, referring back to quality of production.