Junnan(Jason) Xu's Blog

According to a report by Ethical Consumer magazine, Monsoon, the fashion retailer, was ranked last year as the most ethical company on the UK high street. The ironic thing is, Monsoon’s internal audits reveal its suppliers use child labour and underpaid workers.

Children were found working at subcontractors’ factories in India and China. Although the subcontractors were fired later, Monsoon still continues to work with the supplier involved. As some of you may know, Monsoon has been a member of the Ethical Trading Initiative for over 10 years. It employs an army of auditors and inspectors to check conditions, so how is it possible to find human rights abuses in their supply chain?

Samantha Maher, a policy coordinator at Labour Behind the Label, says “Most of the ‘ethical’ work done by retailers is little more than window-dressing”. Fashion retailers search the world to look for suppliers who agree to the lowest price possible, accept unreasonable terms of trade and take on all the risks and difficulties of producing clothing for the constantly changing taste of consumers. This cost and risk is inevitably passed down to the people at the bottom: the women and children in large factories.

Ethical trade is not just about satisfying consumers, it’s also about making a difference to the lives of millions of workers behind the scene. It’s time for Monsoon to really start taking action.

References:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/21/monsoon-supply-chain-retail-comment

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/21/monsoon-child-labour-india

Are you taking Gateman’s Econ 101? If you are, then you definitely would not forget this article from his crazy mid-term: “RIM plays catch-up with PlayBook – but with a new ally”.

According to the article, RIM is almost a year behind Apple in the Tablet war. In order to catch up, RIM plans to launch the PlayBook tablet computer next year and the concern for many people is whether it has the ability to become competition for the Ipad. As mentioned in the article, RIM’s is relying on the QNX, an operating system that the company recently bought; to challenge Ipad’s position in the market. Since the system can be applied in various industries, it is expected to be much more advanced than the one Ipad is currently using.

For RIM, the Playbook introduction is just in time since the tablet is starting to become a business staple. As the tablet computer is new technology and its field is still relatively open, it possesses an unlimited potential for development. I believe it has a great market prospect because by the day it is released, there would a huge quantity demanded for it.

Reference: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/rim-plays-catch-up-with-playbook-but-with-a-new-ally/article1731344/?cmpid=rss1

Does this seem familiar to you? Remind you of anything? Yes, it is something extremely similar to what most of you use everyday. Ladies and gentleman, I present you the Chinese version of the Facebook- Renren Network.

Originally named “Xiaonei.net”, Renren Network was created in 2005 by a group of genius graduates from China’s leading universities Tsinghua University and Peking University. When it was first launched , it was thought to be a simplified version of the Face book in Chinese.  Renren Network is hugely popular among college students and is widely considered to be the most powerful student social network service in Mainland China, especially after Facebook was blocked by the Chinese government due to political issues in 2008. According to reports from 2008, “Renren Network” was able to raise a whopping $430 million from financial backers, a fund amount which is even larger than that of the Facebook. The network has caused innovation in the Chinese social network system and has affected the lives of millions of Chinese college students. There is currently no sign of any other social network system that is able to become a threat to its dominance in the huge and fast-growing Chinese market.

Reference:

http://venturebeat.com/2008/04/30/xiaonei-the-facebook-of-china-raises-430m-better-funded-than-facebook/

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/china_facebook_clones.php

One of the greatest mistakes that people make in businesses is ignoring the fact that how personality plays an essential role in it. Remember that when we are doing business, we are dealing with live people with emotions, not objects.

One benefit that personality brings us is that in a market with fierce competition, people will usually remember personality more than they will remember content. My hometown Guangzhou is known for its prosperous and competitive catering industry. With an overwhelming amount of restaurants with delicious food, people usually choose restaurants that they think put more personality over their services. My father, whose opinion can represent the thoughts of many Guangzhou citizens, once said that he would rather go to a restaurant with good service rather than one with just good food. From here we can see how what an important role personality plays in a successful business.

According to John Morgan’s words from the article that I am relating to, personality makes you stand out, and makes you human. Your rivals in business can always copy your product, copy your price, and even copy your website. But the only thing that they cannot copy is YOU. Morgan’s words have brought me huge inspirations (That’s why I am posting a blog about this). In my opinion, as Bcom students it would be extremely important for us to keep in mind how important personality in Business is. It would better if this topic could be discussed in class.

References: http://deanhunt.com/personality-the-business-owners-secret-weapon/

I believe that most people in Comm 101 find the course interesting and useful, but for some particular students like me, sometimes we find the course a little bit hard to keep up with.

As an international student whose first language is not English, sometimes I find it hard to keep up with the tempo of our instructor’s talking due to lack of vocabulary. The amount of information from every class can be a bit overwhelming and for me, in some classes I find it hard to keep up with the process. I do not know if the majority of the international students have the same problem as I do, but I have indeed heard fellow Chinese students complaining about the situation as well. Another problem for me is the lack of confidence. I am still not that use to speaking in front of a large class with more than 100 people and even if sometimes when I want to give my opinion of an issue, I become a bit nervous because I am afraid that I will give a ridiculous answer and embarrass myself.

Despite the troubles that I have in Comm 101, I actually do find the course pretty useful and interesting. This is a course which does provides you insight to the business world and helps you learn about the functionality of the business world in a more practical way. Being exposed to technologies such as iclickers, twitters, and blogs is also a cool thing as well.

 Although I am still having difficulties in the course, I will strive to overcome them and improve myself in class. As a Bcom student, dropping this course would definitely not be a wise decision since it is a solid foundation for one’s future career.

KFC used to be my favorite fast food, but I stopped  eating it after I saw these pictures on the internet:

My first reaction after seeing these pictures was rushing to the bathroom in order to puke. Reports say that the reason that the company, which use to be called  Kentucky Fried Chicken, Inc. , foreshortened its brand name into “KFC” a few years ago is because that the product that they produce can not legally be called the “animal” anymore. The animals that they sell to consumers is actually “genetically engineered mutant chickens”, genetically manipulated organisms with 4 wings or a dozen legs .  The phenomenon above is a clear example in which a company’s profit-making conflicts with business ethics. In order to satisfy the huge population of consumers, KFC has used illegal methods such as genetic engineering to create “chickens” with 4 or more legs in order to make more drumsticks so they can sell them to more consumers and maximize their profits. Keep in mind that the gap between the price and the cost for these creatures is extremely big because these so called chickens take only a few days to breed while natural ones take longer. As a result, you can imagine how large the amount of profit KFC is making by using these creatures to cheat on consumers.  KFC lovers, next time when you pass a KFC restaurant, please think twice before buying yourself a meal there because the product you consume can turn out to be a great confliction to what you expect.

Source:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/fooddrink/a/kfc_chicken_2.htm

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