the old-fashioned way of dealing with a large amount of data

Internet data has become a familiar word to people after the beginning of the 21th century. Under this situation, internet data is also crucial to many companies, such as Monster, the famous job recruiting website.
Since Monster is a company based on the internet, the amount of information it receives every day is way beyond imagination, and this is a major challenge to the company. There is not enough time and space to sort all the data, and find out every problem in the system. Also, people had chances to analyze what they think about the company or the market based on the data they know, which is apparently only a corner of the whole picture.
Although internet data brought companies a lot of convenience, such as storing employee data in a cloud drive instead of keeping paper documents, the processing of these data could be more complicated than we think. As business technology management is still a new concept, we can see that although many companies have already used digital data to deal with certain common problems within the business, they still lack the ability to manage them systematically.

microfinance helps break the poverty cycle

The United Nations are known for using their donation and human labor to help reduce poverty around the world. Social entrepreneurship and the Arc seem to do the same thing as the United Nations, but is that true? Are social entrepreneurs and students who participate in the Arc only reducing poverty by donation? The answer is obviously no. This is why even if the United Nations are fully funded, the Arc and social enterprise are still necessary.

Unlike the UN who simply gives out large amount of donations of money or food, social entrepreneurs and members of the Arc tend to use their money and strength to help the poor gain the ability to make money by themselves or improve their businesses, because they know that only giving them money would not help them break the poverty cycle.

Also, the UN have to go through a series of voting and decision making to decide where and how would they use their money, which takes a lot of time. Whereas the Arc and social enterprise take effect in a short period of time, because they do not have too much limitations.

Today, I saw a blog post by my classmate Tianyu Ding which discussed about the decline in attendance of movies. Ever since internet became universal, people began to move from theaters seats to computer chairs. With the help of video websites such as Netflix, buying a theater ticket seems unnecessary in people’s minds. The facts I mentioned above are true, but the movie industry is still making money from billions of people every year, and this situation would not change in recent years.

Chinese filmgoers wearing 3D glasses watch a movie at a cinema

Although it is true that there are more substitutes for watching movies at theaters now, there are still some features which are only available in that dark room where people gather together to enjoy a film. 3D, IMAX and the stunning sound effects are why people still love to go out for a movie. As long as the theater gives a better customer experience than sitting in front of computer screens, I would tend to buy a ticket to a movie I like. It might seem that theaters are not so popular now, but their unique features would still hold the heart of a large amount of movie fans.

Coca Cola and McDonald’s, two of the most well-known brands in the world, are surprisingly suffering from a huge decrease in their profits in their July-to-September quarter. This was a breaking news that I saw at Ziqi Diao’s blog, where the blog itself explained one of the most important reasons for this result.

news articles in China based on the food safety problems of McDonald’s

I must say that I have the same feeling as Ziqi after reading the post. In recent years, Chinese people have become more sensitive about the safeness of food. Now, any food company in China can face bankruptcy if there are scandals about their products, making the nerves of these companies as tense as ever. Thus, it is no surprise that McDonald’s suffered from a dive in profit after the scandal broke out.

As for Coca Cola, I have some supplement comments to make. I’m a supporter of Coca Cola ever since junior high, but as time passes, there are more and more alternative products. Now, I prefer cream soda more than cola. The biggest reason for the drop of profit for Coca Cola is that people tend to feel bored about drinking the same carbonated drink after all these years. If Coca Cola wants to gain more profit, then it better come up with newer products soon.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip (right), president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs

Although not often mentioned by media, First Nation issues in the business world are rather big headaches for many companies. Ever since the Indian Act, aboriginals have been restricted by Canadian laws while having the rights to decide how their land and resources should be used.
For companies such as BC Hydro, the first nations are basically a barrier to further development and expansion, since the aboriginals declare that British Columbia is Indian land, and they refuse the construction of dams.
Even though the Indian Act does preserve aboriginal cultures, it is also true that this act would lower the potential output and social benefit, for resources are underused and a large part of it would be wasted as time passes by. It is known that there are still large uninhabited areas in Canada, so the possibility of further development in economy and business is actually immeasurable.
However, the Indian Act does prevent Canada from over using what it has. I believe the policies set for aboriginal people is one of the reasons of why Canada, unlike many other developed countries, does not use up its natural resources or develop most of the land to build up new cities.

Car renting service is not a new concept to people now, but how about a car renting shop in Sierra Leone? Although hard to imagine, Flash Vehicle Rentals offered cars for rent in this rather chaotic country, which brought great convenience to the locals and much profit for themselves.

The shop owner did not expect such success in the first place, but the fact behind this is that the service they offer barely has any competitors in the field. By service, I mean both the renting service and their special breakdown service. The promise of replacing any of their malfunctioning cars in the country offers what the locals want the most—credit. Flash Vehicle Rentals proofs to people that it is trustworthy, thus in a market where credit is of high cost, they become the final winner. Also, as the repairing fee for cars and the cost of using GPS is rather high, so the high fees charged to the consumers seems more reasonable.

As mentioned in class, being in a high position on a business ladder is uneasy, but if there are few competitors in the market, then the firm would tend to have a higher customer loyalty and thus higher revenue. Flash Vehicle Rentals fits perfectly in this situation. Even though the shop owner himself started this business by chance, his attitude towards the services he offer fits the market need, and so we have this final result of him being in the spotlight.

Cherry flavoured jelly, one of the products of Jell-O

As an 18-year-old girl, I believe many of my peers, like me, remember the name Jell-O. Back when I was in primary school, Jell-O’s jelly was quite popular among my friends, for it gives people a chance to make their own sweets, which was a very new idea at that time.

However, this once popular dessert brand has been forgotten as time passes by, not only because the group of kids who fell for this brand grew up, but also because the company placed the product at a wrong position.

In my own opinion, the biggest mistake that caused this brand to decline is the decision of putting more effort on the adult market. Jell-O, as a dessert brand, is apparently more popular among children rather than adults, since it emphasizes the idea of “food for fun” in the first place. Trying to open the adult market for this product is a good idea, but giving up the maintenance on  lower-aged market is too much of a cost. Apparently, the result of this try gave Jell-O a huge hit, not to mention the low rate of dessert consumption in the recent years. Although Kraft has decided to return to its original target, the losses it endured was imponderable.

Before starting the discussion about the news I picked, I would like to make the concept of “business ethics” clearer. Many believe that being ethical as a business is just simply following the local laws, as well as providing insurance, health-care, and other services which protects the rights and safety of their employees.

However, business ethics is actually not that easy. According to the theories of Milton Friedman, social responsibilities of business, which I consider as a part of business ethics, includes much more than only following laws or offering welfares. It is a way of action where morality is placed before the interest of the business, maximizing the social benefit even if the business earns less.
Of course, most companies still put their own profit at the top of the list, since they believe “money talks” in this era. In Congo, mining companies are using underage labor to fill up their demands for maximizing the production while paying low labor costs. This type of job is not only illegal, but also poisons the workers, since they are exposed to toxic matters every day. This is one of the worst situations where a business neglects its social responsibility, and is putting their employees’ life at risk. As R. Edward Freeman mentions when talking about Stakeholders’ Theory, a business with employees who does not wish to work for it, or a business which violates the local law, is a business in decline. These illegal businesses in Congo might be gaining profit in a short period of time, but running a company without considering business ethics would let them suffer from legal accuses and moral criticizes in the future.

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