I asked myself this question when I came across a blog called “HR should care about corporate social responsibility” by Brian Kreissl.
From what I learned in class, Corporate Social Behaviour means that a company will consider the social, environmental, economic aspects of the world and try to improve the planet instead of harming it. Having Corporate Social responsibility in a company means that the company can gain a “good reputation” which can potentially increase their customer base.

This blog post written by Kreissl explains how HR can also play a big part in companies that are perhaps struggling with Corporate Social Responsibility. By getting involved with CSR, workers that specialize in HR can work beyond their field and plan strategic methods for the company to improve its reputation. Normally, the HR conducts the ethics side of the company and sets the rules and deals with communication problems with their employees. I find this interesting, as I am taking Organizational Behaviour this term and I am learning quite a bit on the behaviours of employees and the higher-ups when reacting to different types of activities assigned to them. I am really amazed at how the different sides of business all relate to each other and how it can be applied in the real world!

image from: http://www.iccsr.org/images/researchicon.jpg

Upon reading my COMM101 classmate’s blogs, I came across Stephanie’s post “Mingo: the Newest Addition to the Social Media Family?”. I found this interesting because in today’s society, many business organizations rely on the usage of social networking, in order to communicate with their co-workers and clients.

This networking app for the iPhone and Androids allow for an easier method to connect with people. The intentions for this app is to provide ways for anyone who wants to connect with their friends and know about any events that may be happening in their city. This application is written by Edward, a student from the Sauder school of Business. He is the founder of a company that specializes in mobile application development, which is called Peoplesapp Network Group Inc..

I remember when we had guest speakers in our Comm101 class. I found this class particularly interesting, because anyone  can become an entrepreneur. In order to become a successful entrepreneur, one must take risks and think beyond the box. I agree with Stephanie that taking the first step is truly the hardest part in becoming an entrepreneur. Perhaps, the difficulty for some people in taking the first step is because they fear the idea of “risk”.

Image from:  http://mingoapp.net/tera/company.php

Appnovation Technologies, a vancouver based company that provides consulting service on software and apps, and also develops websites. When learning about BTM (Business technology Management) and MIS (Management Information Systems), our guest speaker introduced this company to us. He told us how if there is a new “innovative idea” out there, we should take it, or else it will be taken away. I thought Appnovation  Technologies was an interesting company, since it is my first time hearing about it and it does certainly gives a unique type of consulting service to their customers.

Yesterday,  I participated in a case competition which was a case on Appnovation Technologies. There were several interesting facts that I learnt about this company. Asides from being very successful in the past few years, it has a centralized and flat organizational structure and a very good financial good rate. When I first heard about this company I didn’t strike to me much; however, after reading a case on it and learning more about what the company does, I found it to be very interesting and that it relates really well to what we learnt in class the other day. If this company interests you too, here is an interesting article on how they established their executive team!

Article: http://news.yahoo.com/appnovation-establishes-executive-leadership-team-071552679.html

image:  http://www.coriumsoft.com/images/stories/partenaires_librex/appnovation.jpg

UBS AG, one of the largest banks in Switzerland is planning to lay off around 10 000 workers. In other words, the bank is planning to cut 16% of it’s workers, in order to maintain a higher revenue. The bank’s revenue has been shrinking recently and with “rising capital requirements”, the Swiss bank has no choice but to cut down and minimize its costs. This article made me ponder about the current state of the world economy. As housing fees, service and goods fees continue to rise, people demand a hire income and wage which some companies have trouble increasing because they are not making enough income or revenue. 

What other possible costs could be affecting this Swiss bank to cut 16-percent of its workers? Well, the financial crisis hit the bank hard; not only is the bank suffering due to the financial crisis, but it also loss “billions of dollars” in trading, scandals and management issues. On a positive not, the Swiss bank has been withdrawing from risky activities and has a new executive management that should improve the current situation of the bank. Is there another way the bank could possibly improve its current position?

image from: http://www.californiasecuritiesfraudlawyerblog.com/ubspic.jpg

After reading Andrew Huang’s blog post CUPE strike – Will it affect us, students?, based on this article. it brought to my attention that students in general will never not be affected by strikes. Graduating from high school last year, when the teachers went on strike, it was extremely difficult as a student to become active in the school community. I agree with Andrew in that the possible outcome from this strike will create an increase in costs for nearly all universities across British Columbia.

During the CUPE 116 (Canadian Union of Public Employees) first day of strike, I did not realize that I crossed the picket line. In fact, I did not know that there was a strike until I saw the Union workers carrying signs and walking outside of the SUB. It is evident that the demand for an increase in the cost for living, job security and pensions are needs for the all of the workers in each University. I also agree with Andrew that if the university does agree to provide the workers with what they laid out, ultimately it will be the students that will be subsidizing the costs to meet the workers’ needs.

Video regarding the job action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6-2T3INQyc

– from Andrew Huang’s blog

– image from : http://cdn.ubyssey.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/wpid-CUPE_20121004_kai-jacobson.jpg

Almost everyone in B.C. knows about the closing-down of Zellers, the store that has been struggling to earn more fans and profits for the past several years. In this article, “With a healthy dose of humour, Zellers says goodbye” by Susan Krashinsky, Zellers attempts different ways of marketing in order to attract more consumers into their store. Thanks to their coupons and digital promotions, Zellers made $8-million in sales! Although they probably didn’t have enough profits to help them cover the costs for making new and improved ad campaigns and websites, this company was driven to use social media, such as Facebook, and other ways to attract more customers.

The costs of advertisement do not come cheap, and with  the profits that Zellers made in the past years, they did not have a choice but to move away from their old ways of marketing to advertising on social media. Their revenue problems could possibly be linked to how their campaign has been done in the past. The advertisements on social media were not as costly and they were able to attract more consumers! Perhaps other companies should start considering whether or not advertising should also be done on social media.

images from:
http://beta.images.theglobeandmail.com/73e/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/article4590421.ece/ALTERNATES/w620/persuasion-zeddy05rb1.JPG

Last week, we had a class were we were given a one day lesson on what Finance really is. I got the feel of what I will be learning next year in my Intro to Finance class and I realized that it isn’t just simply math. I also found it interesting how Finance and Accounting (which is my intended specialization)

One of the key concepts that I captured during the class was the TIME VALUE OF MONEY. The lecture was really mainly about that concept, but even I, who love working with numbers, struggled with this idea! This concept explains how (for example) $100 today will not have the same value as $100 in the future and the reason for this is because the value is affected by the folllowing: inflation, opportunity cost, and purchasing power.

An example that we related to in class, was one of our readings on Facebook. Rob explained to us in more depth about how Facebook overestimated their value which is one of the reasons why their stocks fell by a large amount after the first few weeks. It is interesting how the time value of money is everywhere in the business world and is perhaps one of the most important concepts that we should know in our business careers.

images from:

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-prn1/174834_20531316728_3694083_n.jpg
http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-prn1/174834_20531316728_3694083_n.jpg

Recently, in class I learnt what a business plan is and how to potentially write one up (with of course, A LOT of practice). Unfortunately, I am still a bit unsure of how to do so since I have only been introduced to it once; however, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to understand it a lot more later on after doing more case studies and practices.

http://www.candocareersolutions.ca/business-plan-writer.jpg

Business plans are more traditional and provides more details for the business that we are analyzing. These plans should answer questions that are: specific and to the point. For example, the questions asked could be about value proposition, plans, profits and revenues of the company, or their competition. When writing a business plan, I learnt that we should think of the key parts which include the intentions for a company when they have plans to expand, make money, etc..

For our prep, we read this article called Writing your own Business Plan which explains what a Business plan is in more depth. From reading this article, it did feel as if I had to absorb a lot of new information with which I found was difficult to take in. On the bright side, reading this article did help me understand more about the Business Plan after reading it a few more times.

http://business-plans-simplified.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/apt_machine_feb_1_01_7.gif

http://www.blogto.com/upload/240107_bikramyoga.jpg

While researching for my first Case study, I learnt many new and interesting points about LuluLemon. To be honest, I am not a fan of their products; however, after reading and learning more about this brand and reading this article, I understand why people would continuously support them.

LLL offers their customers good customer service and their products are of high quality as well. This company has “expanded to 137 in the past decade” after its first store that opened in 1998. Although LLL has lots of fans, they also have a lot of competition who copy their products, especially their pants. Now LLL is “suing Calvin Klein Inc. for patent infringement.” I am amazed at how they began as a small shop in Vancouver and is now one of the leading yoga apparel brands in the world. LLL will be opening a new showroom in Hong Kong soon, and they also plan “to open 35 corporate-owned stores.” Perhaps LLL does not need to diversify their line yet, as they are planning to expand their stores worldwide; however, I  do feel that they should also try targeting other clothing styles such as casual clothes. I thought the Case study we did, opened my mind to how companies work internally and how they analyse themselves to work on their faults and weaknesses.

Upon an article that I stumbled across, I found that bullying occurs not only in schools, but also in workplaces. One may think that bullying is almost impossible to exist in a workplace because of course, many workers should know the unwritten rule of “business ethics.” According to “Bully Adults in the Workplace: What to do” by Babara Mannino, a studied showed that “14% [of the respondents] say they felt bullied by their immediate supervisor.” Sometimes bosses feel that they need to control their workers; however, controlling could possibly lead to the problem of bullying. In a workplace with good ethical skills, the higher ups who are responsible for the lower division would be strict and stern, but also reasonable and respectful. By abusing authority as explained in this article, people  tend to humiliate others “through unwarranted criticism” as opposed to giving them useful advice and constructive criticism. Perhaps employees are not the only ones that are required to learn workplace ethics; their higher ups and supervisors should also be careful about their behaviour in the workplace as it could potentially be misunderstood as bullying.