Month: October 2012

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.

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.