Author: mbowen

Just like facebook and twitter, going green is considered trendy in the business world. Companies are at a disadvantage if they don’t promote their environmental initiatives because going green is great for company PR. The public wants to know that the companies they are supporting are environmentally responsible and most companies have entire campaigns and website pages dedicated to their sustainability efforts.

Not only does it improve the public’s perception of the company, but becoming more environmentally friendly also cuts company costs in the long run. By designing more energy efficient office buildings and by simply turning off lights, companies can become more cost-effective. For companies that don’t specialize in innovation, there are even organizations, such as Global Green and the US Green Building Council, which specialize in helping companies become more environmentally friendly.

With all the benefits that being environmentally friendly provides, companies have no excuse for not increasing their green awareness. This widespread green initiative has forced companies to develop innovative production technology that reduce company emissions and packaging. A greener economy is in our future and it is to each company’s benefit to become more environmentally responsible.

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/feb2008/id20080211_204672_page_3.htm

Through the calculation of my carbon footprint, I have realized there is a lot more I could be doing to help the environment.  At 2.652 tonnes of CO2 per year, my carbon footprint is relatively low, but I know that there are areas in which I can improve. I live out of province, so there is not much I can do to decrease my long distance travel, which accounts for 27.5%. I walk or bike everywhere on campus, and when I get the chance to venture out, I always use the bus.

I live in residence, and can’t control the carbon produced by the majority of the appliances I use, but I can help UBC to become more aware of how residences can decrease their carbon emissions and become more environmentally conscious.

While Place Vanier has an efficienct compost and recycling system, the UBC campus can work harder to provide locally grown and organic food. I recently attended a 100 mile dinner planned and cooked by a group of students in the Place Vanier, where every ingredient was grown within 100 miles. The food was delicious, and proved that it is possible to eat tasty, local food! Since food accounts for over 60% of my footprint, I believe this is an area in which the Vanier cafeteria can greatly improve.

Go beyond and calculate your own carbon footprint: http://www.go-beyond.ca/index

McDonald’s is making its first wide spread renovations since the introduction of play places in the 1980’s. What is the reason for this change? McDonald’s is targeting a new market segment, the young adult. McDonald’s has come up with a new strategy to market to this new demographic: a new interior design for all of its restaurants. After recognizing the success of Starbuck’s café style design on this demographic, McDonald’s has decided to add lounge chairs, a more muted colour palette and even plasma TVs.

The McDonald’s brand name is powerful, but it is associated with kids, plastic toys and cheap, fast food. It will be difficult to change its image in the eyes of its consumers. With a recent shift in consumer preferences towards more healthy food, it was inevitable that McDonald’s would have to change it’s advertising. However, targeting a new market segment entirely is a risky strategy.  This change will obviously affect its attraction for kids, who have been McDonald’s loyal consumers for years.

View a slideshow of McDonald’s new design:
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/05/mcdonalds/index_01.htm

When we hear the brand Product (RED), we think of Bono, charity, and helping the AIDS cause. Many companies, such as Starbucks converse, gap and Apple have jumped on the RED bandwagon due to the brand’s success. But do these companies want to support the cause, or do they have different motives? Product (RED) has had one of the most influential cause campaigns in the past few years due to its alliance with AIDS, which proves that goodwill sells.

With so many companies supporting one charity or another, it’s hard to tell which companies are social enterprises, and which are exploiting their association with a charity to make a profit. Both want to advertise their   brand’s product, but social enterprises are non-profit organizations that want to promote their initiative rather than use their association with a charity to market their product.

There is nothing wrong with companies that give a portion of their profits to goodwill, but is it ethical for companies to use charities as a marketing strategy, when only a small portion of their profits are donated? It would be much better to donate entirely to that charity rather than purchase a product that is only going to contribute 1% of its proceeds.

http://adage.com/goodworks/post?article_id=142037

With so many people dreaming of starting their own business, is it possible for just anyone to become a successful entrepreneur? Being an entrepreneur requires taking risks, being persistent and having extreme ambition. While anyone can try to start their own company, those who tend to succeed have a few common characteristics.

Entrepreneurs have to be motivated. Those who end up making money will go to extreme lengths to see their projects succeed. Starting a company is difficult, and most often entrepreneurs do not see profit quickly. Having a competitive personality in this case would help an entrepreneur continue to work hard even when they haven’t yet been rewarded for their efforts.

Entrepreneurs need to have innovative ideas and the ability to predict outcomes. Identifying a new opportunity to make a profit takes innovation and creativity. They have to determine whether a project will fail before they test it out and must think outside the box for new strategies to make money.

While there are common traits, every entrepreneur is unique, with a different set of skills, personality traits and experience. As long as you have a passion for and are dedicated to starting your company, you have a chance at success. Knowing what makes a successful entrepreneur, it helps to identify and focus on strengths and improve on weaknesses.

http://www.morebusiness.com/getting_started/primer/d943458887.brc

The Kindle has gained enormous success since its debut on Amazon.com. Novel readers around the world jumped at the opportunity to buy a product that could store many books in one place. Unfortunately for kindle, a new product has arrived that may threaten to eradicate every brand of e-reader, and that product is the ipad.

The ipad is sleek and shiny, an attractive characteristic of all apple products. It has many features that the kindle does not, such as the ability to store pictures and the ability to connect to the Internet. Many forecasters believe that once the ipad is introduced, demand for the kindle, which provides the same main function, but has less applications and a weaker aesthetic, will decline substantially.

However, the ipad is more than twice as expensive as the cheapest version of the kindle, is an inconvenient size and with a monthly data plan and frequently purchased apps, will continue to cost more over time. While the kindle is directly marketed to be an e-reader, the ipad seems to be a bit lost between an e-reader, an ipod touch and a lap-top. The ipad is in a category of its own, which may be hard for apple to market. Even I have a hard time understanding exactly what the ipad does or why I should buy it! I believe that kindle will continue to do well financially, due to its simplicity.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/01/28/ipad-vs-kindle-who-wins/tab/article/

The question these days isn’t what businesses have to gain from joining social media, but when they can get started. It seems that companies, whether already large or just starting out, believe that social media is an innovative and explosive way to advertise. What these companies don’t realize is that social media can actually cause more damage than good if they are not prepared.

First of all, tools like facebook and twitter are great at generating buzz, but ultimately don’t have much content consumers can rely on. Facebook and twitter are great at directing a consumer towards a certain website, but a brand’s online presence must already have been established in order for social media to have an effect.

Another pitfall of using social media is that negative and false comments about brands can spread quickly. On social media websites, consumers are given the option to publish their own content. This means they can comment, argue, suggest and share their honest opinions, making companies more vulnerable to public slander. Social media is fast paced, and if companies can’t react to negative feedback quickly, they may not survive the cutthroat online world. Social media can give companies the exposure they want, but it may not always be positive. An effective social media strategy to deal with damage control must be developed by a company before they start up an account on facebook or twitter.

Have you ever wondered why all the latest trends pop up in Zara as soon as you see them in a magazine? Have you ever wondered how Zara has become so successful with little advertising? The answer is simple. Zara has mastered the supply chain. Many companies struggle in their supply chain management, but Zara has come up with an efficient solution to common supply chain challenges.

One of the biggest challenges in the supply chain is predicting consumer demand. This is no big deal for Zara, who has overcome this challenge by developing an effective IT system, which sends consumer feedback to the design team almost immediately after a product is purchased. Zara doesn’t have to predict what their customers will be wearing next week because their feedback system does the work for them.

Zara employees count inventory frequently to determine which designs are selling and which are not and conveys this information directly to the designers. Based on this feedback, designers are able to alter products during the selling season, which is almost impossible for other clothing retailers. With its growing sales, Zara has proven that knowing what your customers want is more important than any magazine advertisement.

As the Olympics draw closer, the residents of British Columbia are expecting an economic boom. Early on during Olympic preparation, residents read in local newspapers that tourism would sky rocket and local businesses would thrive as athletes and spectators poured into the province during the games. Residents started to get on board with the games, believing that their taxes would stay relatively the same.

Unfortunately, what residents didn’t realize was that the news corporations are extremely biased due to their financial relationship with the Olympic games. Local newspapers, such as the Vancouver Sun, and news channels, such as NBC, make heaps of money off of the positive exposure they give to the Olympics, and this relationship causes their articles on the subject to be one-sided. Now residents are starting to realize the financial implications of hosting the Olympic Games as taxes and the cost of running local businesses continue to increase Is it ethical for news corporations and Olympic sponsors to make a profit while taxpayers foot the bill?

News corporations have the responsibility to tell the truth. I believe that it is unethical for these businesses to hide information from readers in order to make more money, especially if the readers are financially burdened as a result.

http://bx.businessweek.com/vancouver-2010-olympics/view url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.olyblog.com%2Ff%2F08%2F2010SolutionF06192008.shtml

Hello reader! I am extremely excited to be a part of this new COMM 101 course so I can learn more about what business actually is. I always have opinions on the articles and topics we discuss in class, and I’m happy to be able to share them.

Thanks for visiting my blog!