Monthly Archives: November 2013

What to do when I grow up?

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I don’t know. Some have it all figured out, personally, I don’t know.

Yesterday, I visited DDB with the UBC Marketing Club, and it was phenomenal. Getting to experience the culture, how the different areas of business work together, and the vision of the company, is a huge advantage to actually get a feeling if that’s what you really want to do.

I want to share some of the knowledge I gained by attending this event:

  • Marketing isn’t what it’s used to be. We cannot simply tell a consumer a particular product is the best, because it does’t strike anymore. Now a days, marketing needs to integrate the consumer and build a relationship. Advertising has to be social, and create social value, as we learned in class. Word of mouth has become much more powerful, as we’re more likely to trust our peers rather than a company shedding information about their product on us. For example, their McDonald’s campaign was about letting consumers ask questions about every aspect, which then were being answered to minimize the myths about the global company.
  • Transparency of a company will be much more inviting to consumers. It allows them to build a relationship and let customers be part of their company.
  • DDB’s culture is very dominant. Once you enter, you can feel the looseness, which opens creativity; or the friendliness to foster collaboration.
  • their recruiting process is also very crucial, short and simple, they only hire “nice” people.

 

 

Thirst for curiosity: Why am I doing, what I am doing ?

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@scotthenry has outlined detailed how the hiring process of a company is crucial in order to create an organizational culture, that keeps employees happy. We should also acknowledge the fact how to keep employees in the long-run, through persistent motivation.

WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?

People search the value in what they’re doing. Hence, employees must gain a sense of why they are doing what they are doing. According to the article by Chris Griffiths:

He believes that people follow leaders not because of what they do or how they do it – loyalty comes from people believing in why you do what you do.

Human resource management is not easy, since we all vary so much. An organizational culture though helps to only hire people that share the same values. For example Zappos has a very open relationship between all the members and the company is structure very flat. Some may enjoy having a loose environment, however others prefer it structured and therefore would not want to join the firm.

By creating a cult within the firm, it’s core values are expressed and also the question why is answered, which initiated intrinsic motivation which effectively will serve customers efficiently. If employees are happy, so will be the customer (preferably)!

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Meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

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As environmental threats are building up, such as global warming, we become more conscious about our surrounding, the impact of our actions, and what we really value.

Also, companies are starting to address this issue and are moving from profit oriented enterprises to social responsibility corporations, that base their value proposition around social, economic, and environmental values. Not only are we seeing the change within firms, but also in nations, as India’s Finance Minister announced that 2% of corporate’s profits should be invested into CSR activities, and will be applicable from fiscal 2014-2015 onwards. His argument states that it would have a multiplier effect on “projects such as environment, skill development, water, sanitation, etc.”

What does it mean to be sustainable? 

A cooperation needs to hit the tripple bottom line: social, environmental, and economic, which leads to sustainability. Based on Lululemon, this concept can be easily related to real life. 

Social: Work with factory partners to create programs that are beneficial to the community and provide support and funding
Environmental: Work on reducing shipping emissions by auditing routs
Economic: Contribute to the economy in a ethical manner through their Code of Ethics

These are Canada’s Top 50 Socially Responsible Corporations.

By implementing these core values, the company automatically creates shared value, which means a product that is beneficial to the community and the company.

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Single Day (11.11), the new shopping day?

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Shopping is like eating a cupcake, once you start, you can’t stop. Online-shopping was never my thing, but when it’s caught by bandwagon and it becomes a whole cult, I may reconsider. Especially, when sales are the cherry of the cupcake.

On Single’s Day in China (11.11), within 24hrs $5.75 billion was recorded on its online payment system for Alibaba, China’s biggest online shopping company . Well, doesn’t that show thirst for shopping, or an addiction?

Anthea Low explained in her blog post how Alibaba is preparing for an IPO; adding on, it’s suggested that this may be the biggest for an online company since Facebook Inc. Even though million were created in revenue, the main goal of the ‘official’ holiday by Alibaba is to create publicity. The company is making sure not to skip any steps by first creating value; a value proposition customers can relate to, rather than generating profit. Thus, this would lead to a stronger IPO release, which yet hasn’t been released.

Also, the company wants to focus on operations. Only for this even, 800 000 employees were working to ensure a happy shopping experience for customers, this shows also the allocation of human resources in response to certain events.

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Be innovative, be creative, be an entrepreneur

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“entrepreneur”
A person who organizes, operates,
and assumes the risk of a business venture”
– Cameron Herold
There are endless definitions of an “entrepreneur”, yet this one is easily understood. Some argue that everyone should be an entrepreneur, because they find a solution to problems and innovate them; hence, if everyone would start being creative, we’d be much better off and increase our marginal social benefits.
Well, our world is diverse and we need employees who work on the entrepreneurial business plan, making the idea of everyone being an entrepreneur impossible. Another key factor that differentiates entrepreneurs is their drive of ambition and self-motivation. One must be a risk-taker in order to face the challenges that come across while searching for a business plan, rather than executing it. All aspects of business are involved in a start-up from questioning why customer’s should buy the product (value proposition)  to financials, such as revenue stream and costs.
Furthermore, a lot of work and faith needs to be put into the project/company. There will be failures, but even those are beneficial as they’re part of the learning process. Don’t let that bring you down!
Here is some inspiration to “7 tiny companies that blew up“, or Mophie, a phone-case company now a $200 Million enterprise.
Interested in Entrepreneurship? 100 Best websites for entrepreneurs
TED Talk: Let’s Raise Kids to be Entrepreneurs
“Some of the entrepreneurial traits you got to nurture in kids: attainment, tenacity, leadership, introspection, interdependence, values.”
– Cameron Herold
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Don’t you feel special now?

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Don’t you feel loved when advertising speaks right at you? The things you love right on the homepage, your google search or even email.

Collecting data is a company’s most crucial tool in order to satisfy customer’s needs and wants; this is done through IT and Information Systems. Following the Norman-Longworth-Information ladder companies turn data, collected by Management Information Systems (MIS), to wisdom, applying the collected data for decision making about unique marketing strategies, also called Business Technology Management (BTM). It’s so important, Sauder has a MIS Division, recognized as one of the world’s leading programs.

Many, many companies are using this tactic to build a more personal relationship with their customer; it’s obvious that a firm can’t send an employee to your doorstep to discuss your preferences, however through collecting data, firms are able to have an indirect conversation with you. Have you ever wondered what use your postal code could be to a shop? It may seem nothing to you, but a huge information base to the company, in order to group customers into different categories. Here, Apple gives a detailed outline what information they collect of users.

As mentioned on Poeny Au‘s and Tiana Mea‘s blog post, Pinterest uses this tool particularly to feature similar products that have been liked by the user.

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