Not long ago, many of the poor in rural, third world countries had dreams of starting their own business which were shattered by financial concerns. Today, these dreams could be achieved by a method called Micro finance innovated by Muhammad Yunus. The spawn of micro finance has spread rapidly in the recent years, which has lead to a social enterprise called Mercy Corps. In India, there are over 110 million people living on less than $2 dollars but only 50 million people can be served by the 50,000 micro finance institutions. Mercy Corps decided to tackle this problem by buying a failing Balinese bank and reopening for the exclusive use of micro finance only. This can create a large impact because it cuts the costs and inefficiencies for micro finance institutions which in essence will create an incentive to join Mercy Corps in serving the poor.

The CEO of Mercy Corps, Neal Keny-Guyer, is a true social entrepreneur. His corporation includes all five characteristics of a social enterprise: ambition, mission driven, strategic, resourceful, and results oriented. The new bank will be able to not only expand micro finance, but also influence the rest of the world to initiate on tasks not for themselves, but for others also.

From reading my colleague Ariel Liu’s blog, I have decided to share my opinion on the standpoint and future for the renowned Pink Berry. The healthy frozen yogurt shop has recently opened up near my residence and it is a place where many adolescents enjoy catching up. I have tried it a few times and the flavour and taste is closely associated to other frozen yogurts; nothing but ordinary. The frozen yogurt Pink Berry is an overprice dessert which is nothing special; Pinkberry includes toppings which can be easily obtained through the supermarket but when purchasing the exact same toppings with the frozen yogurt, prices are inflated extremely high. It is indeed a healthy dessert, but why pay so much to be healthy? If someone insisted on staying healthy, they should stay away from frozen yogurts and just eat fruits.

Pink berry is currently increasing in popularity but for how long? To answer Miss Liu’s question, we would need to understand consumer behaviour and why they actually stick with such an expensive choice. People may view pinkberry as a healthy dessert but who would continue to spend their money on an overpriced product? In my opinion, Pink Berry is indeed a fad but only “time will tell” if my opinion holds true.

(Sources:Miss Liu, Pinkberry Article, Pinkberry Picture)

Last Friday on October 5th, Foxconn’s (world’s largest contract maker of electronics) employees began to strike causing potential harm to the leading electronic corporation Apple. The company Apple has recently released their newest innovation Iphone 5, but already the process of assembling the smart phone is at slack. With three to four thousand employees striking at Zhenzhou complex in central China, the Smartphone’s production has declined drastically; in other words, “paralyzed.” Apparently, the employees are unhappy with the strict demands on product quality, controversy and scandals within the organization, and demands to work during holidays.

This is a perfect example of why the stakeholder theory should be used following Freeman’s idea and not Friedman’s. The company Foxconn has dug its own hole by not listening to employee’s, resulting in a strike consisting of thousands of people.  A major issue was workers were not trained appropriately for assembling high quality products but were none the less punished. If the company had good relations with the workers (following freeman’s theory), the company would not have been hit with such a large impact during the peak season for producing electronic products. Foxconn wishes to produce at the lowest cost but has not questioned its own actions when trying to accomplish this goal. In the end, if the stakeholders are unhappy, the company will be impaired.

(Sources: Friedman, Freeman,Vancouver Sun,Foxconn Image)