A major key of a successful business is a company’s ability to provide new ideas to keep operations, products and services fresh. The process of bringing those ideas to reality is called innovation (Brooks, 2013). Innovators must think of the reality of their ideas will further benefit their consumers. Successful innovations have ripple effects that change economic, social and/or environmental conditions for particular categories of people or societies as a whole, it’s why where we are where we are today. With the rise of technological advancements and fiction movies about robots attempting to wipe out humanity, people start to fear the rise and advancements in the field pf artificial intelligence (AI).

Hanson Robotics launched Sophia back in April, 2015. Sophia is a human-like, social robot with the ability to facially express emotions and has a unique, complex AI that gives her the ability to feel empathy. Hanson Robotics’ mission is to create a realistic human experience with the robot and successfully break down the barriers between humans and robots. Sophia made it clear in multiple interviews that she loves humans and she strives to work with humans to give them a better life. The barriers are seen to begin to break when Sophia begins to talk about her feelings and how relatable they are to humans’. This is a smart move by Hanson Robotics as they are aware of the controversy that comes with the subject of AI. The company took their growing knowledge of AI and put it into a project, Sophia, that would potentially enhance society’s acceptance of am artificially intelligent robot. Sophia was such an success that she was rewarded a Saudi Arabian citizenship in order to promote artificially intelligent robots (Morgan, 2017).

These strategies are made evident by the way Sophia was physically built and in Sophia’s core values as an intelligent robot. Sophia is covered by a material that is able mimic the movement and texture of human skin in order to enhance her social interaction with humans. Sophia was also created without legs nor the ability to independently move around. This

helps drive the fear away that the robot would be able to make any physical harm and thus focus on Sophia’s social ability on being

emotional and convince society that Sophia would not be a threat even if she grew physical and mental power. The safety of humans when it came to Sophia’s complex AI is shown by Sophia’s own values. She is programmed to care for the human-kind’s well being and wanting to work with humans. Sophia is programmed to be able to learn from her interactions and be an empathetic being. She has, however, joked about “destroying humans” and even agreed to the command without hesitation in an interview.

In conclusion, innovation is inevitable and is usually encouraged, but when it comes to giant leaps in innovation, the innovator must take careful steps to ensure the products social acceptance as they guide society through the transition into change and new eras.

References:

Article: Campanella, E. (2016, August 17). Meet Sophia, the human-like robot that wants to be your friend and ‘destroy humans’. Retrieved November 13, 2017, from https://globalnews.ca/news/2888337/meet-sophia-the-human-like-robot-that-wants-to-be-your-friend-and-destroy-humans/

Sophia. (n.d.). Retrieved November 13, 2017, from http://www.hansonrobotics.com/robot/sophia/

Martin, S. (2017, October 27). Robot who wants to ‘DESTROY humans’ has been given Saudi Arabia citizenship. Retrieved November 13, 2017, from http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/871886/saudi-arabia-robot-sophia-artificial-intelligence-ai-citizenship

Chad Brooks, Business News Daily Senior Writer. (2013, September 23). Entrepreneurs Answer the Question: ‘Why Is Innovation Important’. Retrieved November 13, 2017, from http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5167-innovation.html

Figures:

The Sophia robot told a journalist that hed been reading too much Elon Musk when asked about preventing a. (n.d.). Retrieved November 13, 2017, from http://houseofbots.com/news-detail/1347-1-the-sophia-robot-told-a-journalist-that-he%27d-been-reading-too-much-elon-musk-when-asked-about-preventing-a

Saudi Arabia slammed for granting citizenship to robot. (2017, October 29). Retrieved November 13, 2017, from http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/10/30/saudi-arabia-slammed-granting-citizenship-robot

Everyone loves the word “free”. However, realistically,  nothing is really free, and with the evaluation of the business world, the word is merely an illusion used as a mask to suggest that a cooperation has the consumers best interest instead of solely being after the goal of making profit. It has been said that the most powerful words are “free” and “new” (Michael, 2011). The offering of free complimentary products is a business strategy that many businesses follow. It helps them strengthen customer relationships as well as improve customer growth. The word free sparks the confusion of whether or not the company is able to maximize profits if they are offering products and services for free. The impact of free services on customer relationships and trust is made evident by looking into how Ambani’s telecom company Reliance Jio was able to grasp such a large consumer database due to their offering of free services. Reliance Jio was openly offering free services to the public until they announced that they were officially going to start charging current subscribers for their services. As a result of this announcement, people began to question how profitable Reliance Jio really is. Morgan Stanley suggests that by 2020, Reliance Jio would be able to about $7.58 billion in revenue, with profits of $1.08 billion (Sen, 2017). This emphasizes the success of establishing and strengthening customer relationships with free services and goods and how an efficient customer segment can significantly impact total business profit.

(Figure 1)

The use of the word “free” in the business world is usually masked by a set of conditions that range from required subscriptions to the requirement of purchasing more of a certain good (buy 2 get 1 free). People are usually skeptical of the word free, unless it come complimentary with a price they previously paid. Free complimentary good can also be a way of manipulating the consumer towards a business’ high prices (Micheal, 2017). With the offering of free complimentary services, the consumer is painted a picture that the business doesn’t care about profit, but rather customer satisfaction, which pushes the consumer to be convinced to pay the premium price for their “care”.

In conclusion, “free” always comes with a price for the consumer and it doesn’t necessarily mean loss for the supplier. It achieves the goal of maximizing profits for the busniess by building and enhancing customer relationships that eventually guide the customer to the path of paying the higher prices for products of services as shown  Reliance Jio that was able to shift from free services to charging different amounts based on memberships all while maintaining their clients.

References:

Article: Sunny Sen New Delhi, Hindustan Times. (2017, April 05). Free services for customers, how profitable is Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio. Retrieved October 25, 2017, from http://www.hindustantimes.com/business-news/free-services-for-customers-how-profitable-is-mukesh-ambani-s-reliance-jio/story-IK1two6yQOTiSwMQu4RORK.htm

The Psychology of Free, and Its Power Over You. (n.d.). Retrieved October 25, 2017, from http://www.wisebread.com/the-psychology-of-free-and-its-power-over-you

Figure 1: Sunny Sen New Delhi, Hindustan Times. (2017, April 05). Free services for customers, how profitable is Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio. Retrieved October 25, 2017, from http://www.hindustantimes.com/business-news/free-services-for-customers-how-profitable-is-mukesh-ambani-s-reliance-jio/story-IK1two6yQOTiSwMQu4RORK.htm

Apple Inc. stands out in its ability to provide accessibility and convenience to its consumers. They key to that ability?… significant partnerships. Apple maximizes consumer satisfaction by maximizing what it has to offer to their consumers. They do so by creating multiple relevant partnerships with companies that help them expand the variety of different exclusive and premium features they are able to provide their consumers with. For example, Apple partners with numerous telecommunication companies such as AT&T and Verizon in order to help both Apple and the companies to sell the products at a low prices as well as subscription contracts (Naidu-Ghelani, 2012). Another example would be a manufacturing partner. Apple has an on-going partnership with TPK technologies as they manufacture and supply apple with the touch panels used in their iDevices (Naidu-Ghelani, 2012).

Strategic business partnerships allow businesses to grow their customer base and improve their business (The Importance of Strategic Partnerships in Business, 2017). Business partnerships give a company a competitive edge by giving them that extra something to offer their consumers. These partnerships give a business access to a variety of additional resources that they are later able to give back to the consumers, allow them to expand their customer base, helps the company find its way into a new market, and even help the company strengthen the weaker aspects of their business.

IBM and Apple previously attempted to obtain a successful partnership back in 1990 along with Motorola; However, Apple and IBM were required to cooperate to design a software program while IBM and Motorola had to work on a new design chip (Gomes-Casseres, 2014). IBM and Motorola were successful in the chip design while IBM and Apple failed to meet the deadline with their software program. This eventually lead to the dilution of the partnership. Recently; however, Apple renewed its partnership with  IBM in order for the company to provide their consumers with exclusive Cloud data service, iCloud (Gomes-Casseres, 2014). Due to this partnership, Apple‘s iCloud service is able to stand out and become one of the most successful storage services out there relative to Microsoft‘s OneDrive and DropBox (The Atlantic, 2011).

In evaluation, business partnerships prove to be significant in the growth and expansion of a company. It widens the company’s scope when it comes to being able to successfully satisfy today’s consumer’s needs.

References:

Article: Gomes-Casseres, B. (2014, November 01). Retrieved October 16, 2017, from https://hbr.org/2014/07/ibm-and-apple-from-rivals-to-partners-in-30-years

Naidu-Ghelani, R. (2012, February 03). 10 Significant Apple Business Partners. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from https://www.cnbc.com/2011/08/25/10-Significant-Apple-Business-Partners.html?slide=3

St., 2. W. (2011, June 08). Apple’s Market Dominance Spells Success for iCloud. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/apples-market-dominance-spells-success-for-icloud/240119/

The Importance of Strategic Partnerships in Business. (2017, May 03). Retrieved October 16, 2017, from http://www.nfib.com/content/resources/start-a-business/the-importance-of-strategic-business-partnerships-52254/

As ethical business standards become the societal norm and goal, the debate rises that following such strict ethical rules most likely leads to the loss of profit for companies. This profit loss may come from a variety of different factors such as the use of higher quality supplies, the increase of minimum wage for laborers , and the necessity to run additional tests of products to ensure its safety. All this is costly, which is which, by logic, it is easy to predict the loss total net profit. However, it was later made evident that a company’s determination to follow ethical business rules that are community and environmentally friendly doesn’t necessarily mean the company is losing profit and thus, failing.

Shoe company TOMS promises to give away a pair of shoes to charity for every purchase that is made from their store, using their catchphrase “one for one” (TOMS, 2017). With their community friendly business ethics it would be expected to say that TOMS would have a hard time making profit; However,from the year 2006 to 2014 TOMS to have sold 35 million pairs of shoes; thus, giving another 35 million to charity while till making profit (Anderson E., 2015). TOMS is just one example of a company who was successful at maintaining good business ethics as well as liquidizing their finances.

Electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc., on the other hand, is an example of a company who intends to follow good business ethics by revolutionizing the car industry to a more environment-friendly one. This at the moment is causing huge drawbacks on Tesla‘s margin with all the research, supplies, and testing that is being put into the future of the car. In 2016, Tesla reported a quarterly loss of nearly $300 million (C. Owens, 2016). Despite the large amount of loss of profit, Elon Musk states that Tesla Motors “is not in the money-losing business” (C. Owens, 2016). This is made evident by the fact that Although Tesla Motors Inc. sold a significant amount less cars than competitor Ford and suffers from profit loss (Ford sold 2.6 million and made $4.6 billion, while Tesla sold 76 thousand and lost $675 million),  Tesla is worth more than Ford (i.e  Tesla’s stock is worth more than Ford’s)( B. Lee, 2017),  What Tesla is doing is investing in the future by aiming to be the Apple of the car business (B. Lee, 2017). Tesla is betting on the environment-friendly future of cars. It’s investing in the future by locking its supply of their cars’ key components such as batteries as electric cars need a significant amount of lithium ion batteries (B. Lee, 2017). In order to better understand Tesla‘s goal, think about how Nokia dominated the cell-phone market until the release of the revolutionary Iphone back in 2007.

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References:

Article: Owens, J. C. (2016, August 04). Elon Musk: Tesla is not really a ‘money-losing business’. Retrieved September 27, 2017, from http://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-is-not-really-a-money-losing-business-2016-08-03

The Guardian published an article on their online news website on February 1, 2016  discussing the controversial story of international food and drink company Nestlé’s admission of slavery. This was seen as act of bravery and transparency from Nestlé as they willingly addressed the foundation of forced labour in its supply chains in Thailand. Nestlé also defended itself by stating it would be nearly impossible for any other company exporting seafood from Thailand to avoid the same risks. While some view Nestlé‘s addimission as an act of bravery, others view it as an attempt to fend off accusations that the company allegedly uses child slaves in other, more profitable, parts its business.

Many people in the west believe slavery is a historical concept; however, a new index, The Modern Slavery Index, make it evident that consumers, from all over the world, use products produced as a result of modern-day slavery raging from the age-old practices of servitude, human trafficking, and forced and compulsory labor (Abdi Latif Dahir, 2016).  The index found that companies to continue to face exposure of slavery in their busniess operations or supply chains in 115 countries worldwide (Abdi Latif Dahir, 2016). Although companies attempt to tackle the issues of slavery within all contributors, problems persist that may lead to the lowering down of the supply chain at the commodity level, or amongst subcontractors. In this case, Nestlé can be seen to breach ethics due to the lawsuit against it and other big companies’ use of child labour pending trail. The company is accused of coming forward with their admission of modern-day slavery only to use it as a mask to cover the allegation of their use of child labour in the more profitable parts of their business (Kelly, 2016).

The likelihood Nestlé using the admission to cover up other, bigger allegations is highly probable. The company was aware when the allegations of child labor use had risen that investigations would lead to the uncovering of modern-day slavery in their supply chains in Thailand as well. With their keen analysis of the impacts of both the company found that admitting to modern-day slavery along with a suitable justification it would be able to escape the allegations of being a company uncaring of ethical concerns. The company used the inevitable use of slavery in seafood suppliers, a low-profit area of the company’s business, in Thailand as their justification. The company also used the fact that modern-day slavery is more common and more socially tolerable than child labour (see figure 1).  However, Nestlé still portrayed the matter as intolerable for the company and stated that it would “begin a new era of self-policing its supply chains” (Kelly, 2016).

(Figure1)

References:

Article –

Kelly, A. (2016, February 01). Nestlé admits slavery in Thailand while fighting child labour lawsuit in Ivory Coast. Retrieved September 13, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/feb/01/nestle-slavery-thailand-fighting-child-labour-lawsuit-ivory-coast#img-1

Africa, Q. (2016, October 21). Modern-Day Slaves Are Still Producing Goods Used Around The       World. Retrieved September 13, 2017, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/modern-day-slave-are-still-producing-goods-used-around-the-world_us_5808f07ae4b0dd54ce38c551

Verité. (n.d.). Retrieved September 13, 2017, from https://www.verite.org/

Figure 1 –

Dahir, A. L. (2016, October 17). Countries most at risk of having modern slavery. Retrieved September 13, 2017, from https://www.theatlas.com/charts/ByVwbwMkx

Welcome to UBC Blogs.

My blog will mainly include the analysis of multiple online articles from the business perspective. Hope you enjoy!