Tragically indeed, Hurricane Sandy has brought great grief to many families. Moreover, it has also disrupted operational aspects of many Upper East Side businesses.

Lorraine Woellert, a reporter for Bloomberg.com, wrote an article entitled “Industrial Production in U.S. Drops 0.4% on Sandy Effect” about the aftermath of the hurricane. In her article, Woellert analyses the effects of the hurricane. Its evident that operations and productions has slowed down. Railroads were disrupted, motor vehicles production were affected, and thus revenue has taken a hit.

The proceeding step is, nevertheless, to figure how to salvage and amend the lost inventory turnover. Whether it was a substantial impact, whether price should be increased, or whether workers should be laid off, etc. are probably some of the questions that the UES businesses had to question. Although hurricane Sandy impact might not require the latter measures, those are some examples of the vast amount of concerns a company’s operation department should consider when an unpredictable natural disaster comes across.

Usually, there is no alternative besides incurring the damages. Its the reaction, whether positive or negative, to the disasters that distinguish prominent businesses.

Tony J Wang has a blog named “Philosopher 2.0“. In his blog, Wang claims that he graduated from Stanford University in 2007, that he studied philosophy and economics, and that he wrote his honors thesis within the Ethics in Society program. He currently works for Blueprint Research & Design, in which he works for the strategy consulting firm in the field of philanthropy.

In his article “Charity vs Business: The Business Case“, Wang gives insight to investors that seek to invest their wealth and wish to be part of a good impact. He clearly highlights “the million dollar question’ as ‘which one [charity or business] generates more social impact per $”.

He than continues to provide information regarding why:

1 Charity is (Always) Limited
2 Charity is (Often) Inefficient
3 Charity (and Aid) is Often Insulting and Harmful (video in support bellow)

This three points clearly showcase charity under a very disadvantageous light. Although charity might have good intention at heart, its does not always generate more social impact than business.

Lastly, Wang contrast charity to his 4th point, Business (if Successful) Scales. Wang concludes with the notion that due to raising social entrepreneurs, investing in businesses are generally more effective than nonprofits.

Ryan Ho is a fellow classmates in my Business Fundamental course. He also has a blog, ‘Ryan’s Blog‘, in which he also blogs about how our world is intertwined with business concepts.

In his article “Infographics: New Form of Data Representation“, Ho talks about how companies such as Visual.ly provide insight into “fascinating advancement in information display”. He continues to associate this renown approach to technology usage to the business fields of MIS and BTM. It’s clear how using infographics helps a company’s information become drastically more appealing and lasting compared to the old fashioned spreadsheet methods. Ho also insight-fully points out how using infographics could position the keen companies with a point of difference that appeals to the contemporary raise of technological preference.

In another note, the introduction of infographics is an example of a potential entrepreneurial change. A change that serves to innovate the current methods businesses could build a relationship with their customers and the public. It could, in fact, provide a vast range of opportunities. It could provide information that showcase a company’s desires to become more sustainable.

This infographics bellow showcase how Smart Grid are sustainable, through a medium that is economically inexpensive.