Strengthens: It has established a good reputation, with excellent products and services,  in the global coffee market, It has a certain brand awareness and builds up brand loyalty. All  the individual store follows a fixed style, atmosphere and adhere to provide customers  with the “third space” concept. Employees have consensus corporate mission, and the  firm has good moral values and social responsibility. It also has a comprehensive staff  training system.

Weaknesses: Insufficient innovation. Most of it (about 3/4) cafe stores are still located in  the north American domestic market. Targeted at high level consumer groups–drink prices are relatively high, and unable to fully afford by all level of consumers in the  society. Highly dependence on the competitive advantage obtaining from retail coffee.

Opportunities: It can establish business cooperation with other marginalized product  companies. For example, cooperating with other manufacturer’s brand of food and  beverages. Building up the  brand chain model, to create a new product portfolio and  new services to adapt to the new market. The company has the opportunity to expand  global business. (New markets: such as India and the Pacific Rim countries)

Threats: Starbucks coffee beans, dairy products and other raw materials costs rise.  Starbucks’ success has led many competitors counterfeiting their brands to enter the  market. The company is experiencing blindly global market expansion. A large number  of prepaid cards are released on the market, uncertain market factors may bring to the  company financial crisis.

Taobao “Double-Eleven”(11.11) shopping carnival total transaction amount is up to￥ 35.019 billion(about $5.9 billion). Cyber Monday (about US$1.5 billion in 2012) is far behind.

Taobao is the online shopping website, like ebay an Amazon, which provides a platform for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to open online retail stores that mainly cater to consumers in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Double eleven, November 11, because of the four consecutive “1”, this day has been designated as “Singles Day” in China. Taobao took this date as a gimmick and carried out a carnival Shopping Festival which means holding very big sales on the website. The sales of last year’s “Double-Eleven” was 19.1 billion, and the number has increased 83% this year. Taobao successfully achieved a remarkable record in China, even in the world, and made customers buying without thinking.

However, while the consumers are exciting about the benefit they get from those big sales, the truth is that the sellers are the one who really benefit. The delivery industry has been challenged as a huge volume of products are sitting in the storages and waiting to be sent out. Consumers have to wait long time for their goods and the qualities of those products are not guaranteed. Last year, some parents brought fake big brands’ inferior diapers in the shopping festival, and made their babies suffered.

In my perspective, the huge success that Taobao achieved is highly contributed by the good advertising and business value preposition. Taobao successfully targeted the consumers and stimulated their desire to buy. The qualities of Taobao products need more regulations to stop from being not ethical.

U.S. Black Friday Versus Chinese Double-Eleven Day：http://technode.com/2012/11/30/u-s-black-friday-versus-chinese-double-eleven-day/

Samsung, a Korean synonymous with success. From sixty years ago a kimchi noodles manufacturers, transformed into a huge electronics brand which garnered 13% of Korean exports. The lessons we can learn from the rise must be very valuable.Samsung today’s success can be attributed to the advantages of vertical integration, industrial design capabilities, R & D capabilities, brand influence and government support.

When Chinese enterprises were still pursuing technology and brand, the competitiveness of Samsung Electronics has gone beyond technology and brand on top, built up industrial vertical integration advantages. Samsung Electronics Samsung Group owns the world’s largest shipments of components and electronic devices. They Company is also the most complex institutional structure multinational organizations. In order to be ahead of whether in the semiconductor industry or LCD panel industry, the company spent about 15 years to accumulate the technologies and learn techniques.

However in my opinion, the most important drive to its success is its Human Resources Development Center, called “Changjo Kwan”. Every year, more than 50,000 employees in Samsung will be trained from days to several months at Changjo Kwan and similar institutions. During this period, they will be taught the idea of Samsung, therefore the employees are loyal to the company. Considering the humble learning and the good management of human resources we can easily find out why Samsung became a very strong company in the industry.

How Samsung Became World’s No. 1 Smartphone Maker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-JEYGqYTjk

September 23, People’s Bank of China issued a 5 yuan commemorative coins. First day of issue, it was snapped up by the public and collectors . Instead of considering how much those commemorative coins can appreciate, people are having a concern of the increasing inflation.

This commemorative coins were issued at a time when the domestic is experiencing a high inflation rate, and this five yuan coins can be used normal currency; many people will it link up with bubble economy. Some people believe that the issue of the commemorative coins is a secret way how the government try to issue more currency therefor the price level is going to skyrocket.

However in my perspective, there is not certain correlation between the issue of commemorative coins and the rising inflation. Generally speaking, having both coins and paper currency is to make payments and changes more convenient, and the purpose of increasing use the coins is mainly to avoid the loss during the high frequent usage of small denomination notes, especially in humid countries. In addition, when experiencing an inflation, prices are generally high, therefore small money like coins are used less frequently. People have low possibilities to carry relatively small currency, so the coin is usually kind of less useful during high inflation .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz8wXU06PoA

“Welcome to the city of Erdos, the city of future.” Al Jazeera English Channel reported Erdos, a city in the province of Inner Mongolia, as a “ghost town” in November 2009. The Government planned to let the new town in Erdos–Kangbashen become the city’s administrative center, and become the new home of 1 million people. However the buildings built by government money, stands empty.

Erdos owns China’s one sixth of coal reserves and a third of natural gas reserves. For past eight years, Erdos’s domestics GDP (gross domestic product) growth reached high level of 25%, the double of national GDP growth rate.

One of the important drives for the construction of the new city is to attract the wealth created by the abundant coal resources. It is interesting that in some economists’’ points of view that the “ghost city” is actually a good example of how a resource-rich region in recent years successfully dispose of the huge amount of wealth instead of a symbol of China’s real estate bubble. The people earned a lot of wealth will tend to put their money into the real estate, like buying the houses, as an investment.

However some people considered the construction of the new city is purely a boost of GDP. The government tried to be impressed and gain reputation by raising the GDP through spending more on building a city that nobody wants to live in. The new city was claimed unreality as it is 30 km away from the old city though the government explained the reason why the location was chose was because of considering the water shortage within that area.

Recently the government is trying solve the problem in Kangbashen by moving the Government and 51 departments directly under the authority as well as the elderly, civil servants, farmers and herdsmen and industrial workers into that area.

CHINA’S EMPTY CITIES WAITING FOR 2012-2014.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtolbcVBQmg

Chinese Ghost Cities – 60 Minutes Report：

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InqAzvX6UrI

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China Central Television held the 2013 Chinese 315 gala to expose the business ethic issues and prevent the exploitation of consumers’ right. We all know that it is the firms’ responsibilities to keep their customs’ privacy. However NETEASE which owns a large amount of users in China was found to spy on mailbox users’ privacy to send advertisements. NETEASE classifies their users through analyzing the personal emails; therefore they can accurately sending ads to the users. For example a person may have some mails about stock market transaction, and then NETEASE will classify him as financial people and send him commercial and financial ads.

The reason why NETEASE violated business ethics is because the firm prioritized its personal interest. The firm did not respect the right of consumers and ignored the social benefits. There is no doubt that the reputation of the firm had been significantly damaged and thousands of users were decided to quit using NETEASE mailbox and the other functions.

In my point of view, the lack of government regulation also led to this issue. Google was punished by FTC for more than 2 million US dollar for tracking users’ surfing habits last year. Chinese government should also not only expose the violation of business but also putting actual punishment to discipline the firms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IsW3AkOISM