Karen King

So here I am looking for an external business blog to fulfill my commerce blog requirement for 10% of my grade and I stumble across gold on the Harvard Business Review Blog.

Here are my takeaways based on the characteristics of Chinese consumers:

1) Brand conscious and Price sensitive (seemingly paradoxical)

Solution: Develop brands and products that signal status (goods which can be observed by the public) vs. goods which are used in private

2) Lack of trust in Chinese consumers in Chinese Businesses

Solution: It seems to me that Chinese people have a skewed perception that western civilization is characterized by complete honesty and fair-play, a concept supported by its capitalist nature. Might I also add that it’s difficult for Chinese businesses to play fair if no one else in the environment follows the rules – why should you single your business out to suffer the rightful consequences if no one else is being subjected to them? Hence the numerous scams in China. This vicious cycle doesn’t exist in western civilization because of heavy government regulation: protecting the rights of citizens to own things they produce and buy as well as property rights. In this case, government intervention in the form of reinforcement of laws result in better market outcomes.

If I were to solve this problem in its first stages, I would literally establish a company based in North America targeting markets in China. The only purpose of setting up the enterprise in the US, for the sake of this argument, is to play up to the belief that western companies are so-called “trustworthy”.

3) Investments in Children’s Education

Solution: Since Chinese parents become penny-pinchers on themselves (on average) and big-handed spenders on their kids, it only makes sense to develop products catered toward enriching the lives of their kids – through education which is the most popular.

I heard some very creative ideas in COMM 101 today from my peers who pitched their unique marketable idea in an entrepreneurship exercise. In this post, I’m going to examine in detail the idea that interested me most and project how this idea could take off by using the themes from the Lean Start-Up. As mentioned in Victoria Yang’s blog, the Lean-Start-up is suited to aspiring entrepreneurs because it involves less risk of failure, more flexibility which is easier to achieve in smaller organizations, and just generally searching for a suitable business plan which does not have to be pre-defined. The idea I’m most interested in developing is an app tentatively named: UBC Events. This idea for a smartphone app would collectively display all the current and upcoming events being held or affiliated with UBC along with RVSP and information on how to attend. This app could a pain killer or a vitamin – it serves to eradicate the problem of people who can’t always get enough (if any) information to attend an event they’d be interested in if word never reached them, or it could be enhancing an organized way of being aware of all the recreational activities to connect more social circles in UBC. I’m positive that this idea has great potential as the target market would be the majority of UBC students who own a smartphone (so, almost everyone).

If I were an entrepreneur, I would work with a few buddies closely in the early stages of developing this program to make sure the app is developed as we envisioned – perhaps we could all take up learning programming during our leisure time. In fact, having heard from many classmates through a show of hands after we pitched the idea of this app to peers, they seemed very eager in using a potential app like this and are willing to make a one time payment for using the service when they buy the app. This brief exercise mimics real market research in the Lean Start-Up because it focuses on getting continuous customer feedback on what they’d like to see in the product through its development stages.

Zappos – a 4-million inventory online shoe retailer has reached amazing sales levels. However, this outside success originates from the core of the business and their impressive company culture which leave its employees saying: WOW. I admire Zappos for being able to grasp one of the fundamentals of customer service – that the attitude employees have towards their job will be presented to the customers through communications, specifically phone centres.

What really dazzled me are the measures Zappos has taken to ensure that their employees enjoy their job to the fullest. What with medical and healthcare benefits completely covered, regular company retreats, and even free food offered in the workplace cafeteria, I’m sure that Zappos employees have huge incentives to give maximized levels of productivity through effort back to the company.

That being said, I believe the most unique workings behind the company culture would have to be the employees’ familiarity with CEO Tony Hsieh.

I think it’s incredible that, as an employee at Zappos, I could literally works ‘next’ to the CEO. I mean honestly, he’s working from a workplace cubicle rather than an office behind glass doors. This method clearly enhances the employees relationship with Zappos as it tears away extreme formalities where employees are intimidated by the CEO. This way, employees could express their thoughts toward the bettering of the company directly to the CEO and viable opinions and recommendations could get implemented sooner with increased flexibility. Furthermore, this action promotes team play and encourages employees to participate and contribute to company culture. The benefits work both ways. Mr.Hsieh can observe the conditions of his company hands-on and see exactly how his employees work while playing a part in the lives of employees. Personally, I think it’s very welcoming for the CEO to work in close proximity with workers and that’s definitely a deciding factor in people’s choices of companies to work for.

In our latest class, rewarding employee contributions and cultivating a strong company culture has been an intriguing discussion. Among the companies brought up was: 3M – and more interestingly, their emphasis on employee innovation. It’s always encouraged that companies listen to their employees and maximize their potential by tasking them with the jobs that brings out the most productivity based on assessments of employees’ skills. 3M raises the bar on encouraging employee innovation by making it an actual requirement.

Official sources say that “technical employees are tasked with spending 15% of their time on projects of their own choosing and initiative”. Additionally, they also offer employee grants on promising project ideas voiced through company forums created solely for harvesting innovation. I believe that 3M is straying from conventional methods of cultivating employee innovation by mandating it. Here, they immediately set “innovation” as a criteria for its employees rather than concentrating on novel projects proposed by executives and just setting employees specific tasks to carry out which don’t involve a lot of creativity. What I mean is that the job itself requires “creativity” which is generated on the employee level – as opposed to employees following a company set method to achieving certain goals. This type of requirement really challenges employees to think and take risks which strengthens the connection the employee feels for the job/position. It’s a great deal because employees receive massive financial and social benefits if their inventions begin to take off after being launched in the market. Having opportunities for growth in a job is a key part of employee retention and serves to reduce employee turnover rates. These are valuable traits in the long run as replacing, hiring, and training new employees require further expenses and time, as well as a grace period while the employee begins to familiarize themselves with the job and are not as productive as can be initially. Overall, I applaud 3M’s long standing methodology which maximizes employees’ potential and gives them a chance to share their innovations with the world.

Despite Target’s grand openings, sales have fallen short mainly because Canadian shoppers are not embracing the glorified “one stop shop” American way. US consumers accurately perceive a trip to Target as a shopping gallery meeting all needs which reduces the number of shopping trips made by the individual substantially.

Here I am wondering – will Canadians actually adopt the one-stop-shop lifestyle? It seems that the attitude fits the American image more where fatigued citizens are less motivated to run around doing shopping at many different locations. Who knows? Maybe it could reduce obesity among the population as strolling down aisles pushing carts could count as exercise. That being said, I’ve always seen Canadians as more active citizens embracing the healthy active lifestyle promoted by brands like Lululemon. To them, the one-stop-shop may never be appealing.

Furthermore, I think being accustomed to visiting many different competitors in order to accomplish a shopping trip serves benefits to the consumer. It helps buyers make more informed decisions about their choices as they invest time into looking up the best options. These shoppers are more financially aware than customers who just want to do all their shopping at one outlet to save the trouble. Personally, one of the engaging aspects of shopping is visiting diverse specialty stores each fulfilling a certain buy – for example: I get macaroons from the bakery, clothing, make up and accessories each from different retailers, and a cup of coffee from Starbucks. I don’t fancy the idea of picking up each of these items at a single place and being done with it for the day. The fun is to compare stores and their varied levels of service and feel the satisfaction of knowing I went to specialized stores to spend on quality purchases rather than buying an ‘okay’ level of quality on standardized merchandise.

The third presentation from Alumni Day was Urthecast. They described their business model which included how their revenue streams were organized and their forecast of how they were to fund all the operations through selling customized footage of important events. I thought that some of the assumptions made during the presentation was questionable. For example, why would the government or private enterprises/news stations pay money to acquire photos and videos when its accessible to the public for free? A possible answer would be that the photos are only free for private use but can only be used commercially (news report and ads) through paying a fee to urthecast.com in which they would earn revenues.

          On the other hand, it seems that the target market of the live streaming from space is quite limited. The view from space would not be edited/glorified and thus wouldn’t provide attractive feel-good imagery/videos of our delicate planet which is what interests most people. At the same time, it’s important to address the blandness of seeing predictable landscapes and similar imagery as the cameras orbit the Earth. It just seems like an unconventional habit to observe a camera pictures without any specific target – building on Eric Cho’s blog post giving feedback on urthecast, most people just don’t have that free time or interest.  However, I am open to the possibility of it catching on as a trendy internet hotspot for people to visit whenever they’re casually browsing the net. It may turn out that students are eager to use images taken from space on urthecast.com to compliment their projects when mentioning a particular location/landscape to emphasize their point. That would be a great use of resources and personal creation of primary picture resources which adds value to their project. The success of innovative businesses don’t always follow forecasts and can take unexpected turns – for the better or worse.

This was the first lecture in COMM 101 which had me feeling really connected with the Sauder community. It was an awesome experience to talk to/see successful alumni as a fellow Sauderite rather than in suits at a business meeting. We are all connected by the Sauder experience and I truly felt that I’d rather be no where else but here.

          The skype session with Mr.Nolan Watson very eye-opening. I felt like I was really hearing a story from a person rather than a resume listed with past experiences. Mr.Watson was quite humble whilst speaking to his experiences before starting Sandstorm Gold and it was the first time I saw the value of true humility in business. It’s a great factor in connecting with people and gaining helpful relations. He spoke to the difficulties in getting a business started from scratch  – we all knew how challenging it was to get an innovation going but he made me realize the magnitude of efforts needed to make it work in the end. The most important aspect, as stated by himself, was never giving up. Even when all possibilities seemed to have been exhausted and there was no where left to turn, Nolan Watson continued to try and raise the money to seal the deal with perseverance and dedication. This attitude towards business is shared mainly among social entrepreneurs and I feel that Sandstorm Gold could embody an element of creating social value and philanthropy in its future career. Another interesting part was Mr.Watson’s description of his company as: a group of Sauder grads trying to succeed in business. I feel that this really is an extension of the Sauder community and it speaks to the valuable relationships and connections between the students here which can extend well into careers beyond graduation.

Just a few days ago, my friend excitedly informed me that she got a great job compensating $17/hr. I was skeptical about such a glorious prospect simply because: who would want to employ the most inexperienced and least skilled members of the labor force (teenagers) at such a high rate? I asked my friend about the company she worked for. Who owned the company? Where are the stores located? What did her responsibilities entail? Piecing it all together along with a bit of research, I present to you the “Cutco Business Model”. Using its seemingly high pay rate to lure in unsuspecting students, the Vector Marketing teams proceeds to glorifying its company and products through presentations of its high performance knives and cutlery set and its success in the market. The “employees”, hired as independent contractors not bound by the law to be compensated for training hours, are then told in workshops to invest (purchase) in their own Cutco kitchen demo set of knives which they will be using during appointments with clients to display the wondrous cutting power that their knives embody.

This I will say: the knives are high quality, but prices are ridiculously high ($500-$4000). There in lies the beauty of the Cutco business model. Students working for them are told to market the knife sets to their personal network. I know that this leads to a pity party in that friends and family of the student will be supportive/guilt tripped into buying these pricey knife sets which they can ultimately live without after the student spends many hours persuading through demos and speeches alike. I feel that this business model completely disregards the value of personal relationships. Relating to the discussions on shared value, Cutco is doing the exact opposite: it’s trying to maximize profits by taking advantage of unknowing students and their close contacts while staying within the limits of the law. Persuading friends to buy products for the sake of retaining a job will ruin friendships or strain them in the least. I believe this business model is unsustainable as the student will eventually run out of close connections to market the product to – and this is exactly what happens which is why Cutco has to continually recruit new students to join the selling force as students who can’t sustain their selling levels quit. Relating to the discussions on shared value, Cutco is doing the exact opposite: decreasing

I’ve personally been on the craigslist market for nearly a decade today, constantly wondering: How do they make money? Well, craigslist executives actually charge money for apartment and job ads. These are not huge revenue streams because most of the buyers and sellers operating on the site deal with trading goods rather than services and property. So the real question here is: Why is Craigslist so successful in the market for used goods? I’ll attempt to answer this question through my experiences and observations of the site’s workings.

1) Craigslist has been making modest revenues on its site while keeping it ad-free. The site is simply not aesthetically appealing -but that’s okay because the only thing buyers and sellers are interested in are buying and selling. Thus, craigslist doesn’t need to spend huge sums on maintaining their site or designing it to be fashionable. Because of the ad-free feature, buying and selling negotiations and considerations take place efficiently without distraction – another strength of the website.

2) No online payment fees. What I mean by this is Craigslist simply serves as a port of connection between potential buyers and sellers. Much like a retailer, Craigslist pools together many individual sellers of an identical good and links them with the market of interested buyers who then have many options of who to buy the good from. The site is essentially a retailer EXCEPT that it bypasses the actual payment and defers that responsibility back to individual buyers and sellers. This way, it doesn’t have to pay VISA or any other company fees for online purchases. It simply serves as a platform for negotiations to take place and deals are sealed locally through buyers and sellers who reach a mutual agreement on the price.

Barbie is #1 in children’s minds for its unique points of parity and difference. They’ve distinguished themselves by differentiation through their doll’s signature look catered towards every preference in its wide selection and fabulous outfits. They expanded into the movie market and built off of the original Barbie through show-casing its Barbie movies which differentiates its dolls from competition in the industry. Likewise, its collectibles sold and advertised separately such as the Dream House, Ponies, etc. Zooming out to observe the bigger picture, Mattel is extremely successful as a leader in its niche through their “multi-brand” strategy. This entails the introduction and development of multiple brands which don’t compete together in the same niche. An example is that Hot Wheels doesn’t compete with Barbie in the eyes of children. Furthermore, the toys by Mattel are kept up to date which involves creating and stocking up on new dolls to reflect the characters of recently popular movies which is very attractive in the eyes of kids because it brings their movie heroes “to life”. In conclusion, Mattel is accomplished in its field as they have followed various strategies in marketing to maintain their leadership in the market.