As technology advances, our desires, expectations and integration of artificial intelligence into our daily lives also increases as we become more dependent and seek for the convenience that computers provide. Consumers cannot forecast what the new technological breakthrough would entitle. While they don’t solve any issues of the consumer’s current lifestyle, they instead create a new demand of products as they generate a want that the consumer didn’t previously know they wanted in their life.

One of these innovative creations include the series of self-driving technology. But the risk of fully relying on technology and making the act of human intervention completely redundant includes the blind reliance of programs which carry unknown algorithmic bugs and errors. An example of an incident involving ‘smart cars’ was seen where a self-driving shuttle bus crashed during it’s first day of service in Las Vegas.

But contrary to initial thoughts, professionals argue that these incidents are at the fault of the human error within the situation, in this case, the fault of the lorry driver whom was also involved in the accident who reportedly drove at slow speed. But despite this claim from technological professionals, I argue that these incidences of accidents, while they may not be at the primary fault of the actual product of transportation, can cause for the reputational security of the automated item to drop as customers feel less secure about a service they already had doubts in beforehand due to the uneasiness that comes with innovation. So although the fault was not catalyzed by the business themselves, this is a form of indirect marketing that is unbeneficial for the business, because as we learnt in class before, everything communicates.

On the other hand, some may choose to impetuously trust in the capabilities of the programmed product until reaching a reproachable situation. Using an approach explained by a blog by Linda Bailey, another ironic safety hazard for the consumer is the false sense of security from purchasing a product of automation as “drivers think they can tune out and the car will do the work”. In the context of the value proposition canvas, as consumers put full reliance on the product of automated cars which acts as their pain reliever to their pain of having to drive, they forget that it is still a product with possible error, despite the proposed value proposition of being ‘self-dependent’.

As a result, I would like to ask if the convenience given by automated technology be able to compensate for the health and safety of the consumer? Especially as this technology is still in the developing process, would human-made products ever be sufficiently developed to withstand the responsibility of human-life?

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Harvey Weinstein, film mogul, co-founder of the Miramax Films Corporation, The Weinstein Company, and the man whose films received more than 300 Oscar nominations while winning 81. Harvey Weinstein, the man who exploited his influence on Hollywood by sexually harassing prominent actresses, including those of Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd to just state a few within his extensive list of victims. While the New York local may have a highly adorned resume, embellished to the state in which he was once addressed as “God“, as the famous saying goes, “you’re only as strong as your weakest link”.

As documented in Steven Sam’s blog (my Comm101 classmate), he details that “if a company has a human aspect to it, then a consumer is more willing to learn more about the company”. This therefore displays the creation of an engagement that customers can grasp onto to create an emotional and somewhat personal attachment with, therefore helping the business become more memorable in the perception of the customer (a big advantage that every business strives to successfully gain).

Although marketing is often associated with the category of commerce, it is also applicable in the context of everybody’s general lifestyle via the term ‘reputation’ as people hypothetically market themselves to others on a daily basis, therefore causing an explicit link between the business concept and the general public.

As we learnt in class, “it is critical to note that marketing happens without intent. Everything communications”. In the context of Harvey Weinstein, his failure to recognise this link and correlation between his actions and possible repercussions caused for him to be expelled from The Academy of Motion Picture and Sciences (the organization behind the Oscars), stating they “voted well in excess of the required two-thirds majority”.

This harsh reality was also experienced by Travis Kalanick, founder of the transport company Uber, as “shareholder revolt made it untenable for him to stay on at the company”, with a major catalyst of this revolt being similar to that of Harvey Weinstein’s situation as Uber utilizes and exercises unethical business approaches, e.g. the sexual harassment of female employees and the disparity of treatment between the executives of the business versus those lower down in the company’s hierarchy.

As Uber is a company (versus the issue with Harvey Weinstein), we can logistically witness the effects of having a negative reputation despite having a product that effectively satisfies the value proposition block of the business model canvas (solving the customers problem of transportation). In financial terms, it is documented that Uber lost approximately $3 billion last year, therefore explicitly showing the mass effect of having bad marketing, whether intended or not.

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As of today, it has been confirmed that Microsoft co-founder William Henry Gates III, fondly known as Bill Gates, has switched his cellular device to that of an Android, therefore personally reducing the quantity demanded on his own company’s Windows-powered phones. Although not explicitly stating which model of his competitor’s product range he now uses, Gates still ensures it has “a lot of Microsoft software” on it.

Due to the mass competition in the software and IT industry, the particular needs of customers that Microsoft aimed to meet during the development stages of their phones were already being met by other companies, e.g. Apple and Samsung. This means that the need of customers in having to have a phone because a choice of want as they now have an array of products to choose from to satisfy their ‘need’. But in the context of the technology of phones in the 21st century, because the basic requirement of a phone’s function is met (as they can all proceed to process txt messages and phone calls), this means that in order to create, keep and grow the company’s customer base, you must adhere and entice the ‘wants’ of possible customers to give yourself a unique selling point. To maintain adequate business activity, successful companies may use innovation to produce new products that can create and satisfy new wants for the customers, wants they didn’t know they desired prior to the release of the new product.

To reduce this heavy competition, Microsoft spent $7.2 billion to acquire Nokia in 2014, but despite the effort, Microsoft’s Windows phone operating system still failed to succeed in accounting for more than 1% of the global smartphone sales in the year 2016. From this disconcerting lack of demand and customer interest in their product line of phones and cellular software, the company officially killed off this product range in July of this year. As evidenced, this can be considered to be a direct result of having the company’s fundamental value proposition be weak in terms of having a unique selling point to differentiate from competitors.

In consequence to this, current chief executive Satya Nadella updated the company’s business strategy to fit it’s current consequences and position in the market, as stated by Ian Fogg, analyst at the tech consultancy IHS Markit, “to make Microsoft apps and services widely available on Android and iPhone“. With this new concept, this allows Microsoft to fully facilitate and build on their current strengths, being Microsoft Word, Excel, etc, and additionally, it can allow the alteration of the previous threat of other competitor companies in the IT industry to becoming possible opportunities of key partnerships in the future.

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Recently on the social media platform ‘Reddit’, numerous employees from different franchises of the fast-food giant ‘McDonald’s’ have revealed the inner-secret of their efficient packaging in the post “What did your job want you to hide from customers?” They write explaining that they are trained, or in their words ‘encouraged’, to under-fill their famous fry cartons by first pinching the sides of the paper packaging, then gently sliding the fries into place to create an illusion of having a seemingly full container upon purchase as the fries are propped up and elevated on the indented carton.

From a customer’s perspective, this method of ‘reducing costs’ from the company’s point of view can ironically catalyse customer dissatisfaction and distrust towards the company and their products as we feel victimised in a case of false advertisement in which our expectations of the product are not met. This in turn may lead to a decrease in total sales and resultantly revenue, therefore causing a correlated drop in profits despite the original effort to reduce costs via under-filling their fry cartons (as they can fill more cartons in the future using the saved fries).

But in contrast to the argument regarding customer dissatisfaction, due to the product nature of french-fries typically being an add-on to a full meal combo, the factor of satisfaction may already have been fulfilled as the customer’s incentive for happiness was already met via the meals main dish, which in McDonald’s case is the burger. This means that although there may be a reduction in the quantity of french-fries, the importance of this reduction is minimal as it is seen as an additional benefit in the scope of the customer’s main objective.

But, not only may the customer be affected by this unethical business practice of false advertisement, but on the other side of the cashier, employees may also experience mental and psychological impacts. From working with an business that exercises unethical practices, workers may become unmotivated as they have less pride and drive to work in that particular company. With an unmotivated workforce, this may cause for a drop in productivity and service quality, resulting in a drop in total sales and a decrease of revenue and profit. This makes me question that while the business itself may be practicing unethical behaviour, is making employees follow the company’s unethical methodology and ways another case of unethical behaviour?

So while unethical business practices usually root from companies trying to over-exploit an area within the business, the repercussions of these dishonest behaviours may cause unfavourable and regrettable circumstances that may ultimately cancel out or even overrun any benefits gained from the result of the original unethical business practice.

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