Walmart is the worlds largest retailer and largest private sector employer in the USA. The company has, on numerous occasions, been forced to pay millions of dollars to the American government for violating air and water pollution legislation. This obviously harmed the image of the global retailer, with the media alleging that 8 percent of customers had stopped shopping at Walmart as a result of its neglect of the environment.

other pressure groups, such as labor unions and religious organizations, have criticized Walmart’s unethical business practices which have led to annual staff turnover rates of around 70 percent in some stores. Walmart has also been taken to court for not paying employees for overtime, forcing them to work without proper rest breaks and discriminating against female workers in matters regarding pay and promotion.

All these happened about 3 years back and the main reason for Walmart not having a social responsible business behavior was due to Stakeholder conflict. The shareholders never cared about the CSR of the business and just wanted to maximize its dividends. However, from that point on wards, Walmart is trying to achieve their long term CSR goal. This can be seen from their newly Global Responsible report that are currently posted in the media.

It is seen that Walmart is improving their brand image by becoming more ethical environmentally. This may be very expensive in the short term, but in the long term it will make the business more profitable.

For the complete report, click here: http://corporate.walmart.com/global-responsibility/environment-sustainability/global-responsibility-report

What exactly is disruptive innovation? there are many ways to describe this term but Professor Klaitan from the video tells us that Disruptive innovation is not just a breakthrough innovation, in fact it innovates a product that is historically so expensive and make it affordable to the common mass.

lets look at a specific industry to understand this definition better. lets look at the innovation that has been happening in the automobile industry! 20-30 years before, cars were just targeted to the upper class section of the society. The most interesting question is, why? It is so due to the high cost of production. The car manufacturer used to not be able to enjoy economies of scale and as a result, the production cost for each car was relatively high. However, now days, we see that cars is “almost” targeted to everyone. This claim just means that, we can at least see one car in each family. Again, why so? This is because of the disruptive innovation that has been going on in the automobile industry. The production cost of each car has relatively gone down due to the new sophisticated technology used to manufactured these cars.

To conclude, disruptive innovation has indeed brought a major change to the human life’s, especially in making goods more affordable to the common mass. On the other hand, it has led to a downfall to certain industries and caused massive structural unemployment in those industries. Hence, the extent to which disruptive innovation is encouraged should be considered.

I read Digveer’s analysis on the modern workforce changing business patterns, and I personally think that he has done a great job in analyzing the current corporate scenario.

He made all his points clear and one thing that just made me so eager to comment on his blog was that he said that; “now days it doesn’t matter where you get the work done as long as you get it done!” yes, true to an extent, but i also feel that the workplace adds a value to the quality of work that is being done by the employee. for an example, an employee may choose to flexi- work for his/her conveniences, but I am pretty sure that the quality of work done outside his workplace wont be as good as compared to the work he does within the workplace. A few studies have also commented that flexible working pattern is good for a business. On the other hand, it is also very good for a business to have a flexible workforce as workers get to work in their conveniences and business doesn’t have to pay alot of wages to keep them when they aren’t in need.

It is also stated in the Charles handy shamrock theory that in order for a business to have a successful workforce it should have the three key elements; 1)core workforce, 2)Flex workers, 3)Freelance contractors.

Having said these, I personally feel that Digveer have understood the concept of modern workforce and its implications to businesses.

To read Digveers blog post on changing workforce patterns, please click here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/digveersingh/2014/09/23/how-the-modern-workforce-is-changing-business-culture/

In my opinion, this decision by the supreme court has alot of advantages and disadvantages to  businesses in BC and the native first nations.

According to me, the first nations needs to have several rights over the land as they were the first ones to have discover that land. Going back to the blog question, how is this decision by the supreme court going to affect businesses in the vicinity? Lets consider the following example. Let’s say that a business is interested in starting up its factories in the protected first nation land. Are we going to allow that business to start operating or we are not going to allow the business to operate in that
particular vicinity? In one way it is beneficial to the government as the government can make generate revenue from that company, but on the other hand, it is a disadvantage for the group of first nations as the standard of living of people living there will be affected, or even if they don’t live there, they are dependent on the resources which are obtained from that land.

This is considered to be a vale of judgement and perspectives. If the government is in need of revenue, then it may allow
the business to operate (Hence, breaking the Tsilhqot’in Decision), however, if the business is considerate and ethical enough, it wont even consider operating in the protected first nation lands.

This is how, this decision is going to affect businesses in general!

For more information about the Tsilhqot’in Decision Changes Business in BC, click the link

What makes this car so special?

The car is called as Asterion LPI 910-4. LPI stands for “longitudinale posteriore ibrido,” a reference to the location of the 610-horsepower V10 and the hybrid drivetrain. 910-4 refers to the all-wheel-drive configuration and the 910 total horsepower, 300 of which comes from the electric motors. The car can either operate with the full 910 horses in gas, or in a pure electric.

As we all know that hybrid cars are still relatively rare in the performance segment, although they’re gaining acceptance: Ferrari’s LaFerrari and McLaren’s P1 have both climbed on the hybrid train. the question to be asked here is what makes Lamborghini unique with the Asterion. one of the most interesting feature of this car is Carbon dioxide emission reduction which was prominently mentioned in the car’s press release, and its excellent performance in a pure-electric driving range of  about 50km/hr (31 miles/hr). It is almost impossible to see production in exactly this form, but it’s very good to see the company trying their level best to be more environmental friendly. This product will only be successful if the company uses a good and innovative marketing strategy.

Due to the excellent performance, the company says that it will call this car “Minotaur” which means half man, half bull. get it?

Most importantly, will Lamborghini be successful in launching its new car despite the rough hybrid market?

The Answer to this question is not going to be known until the launch of this car in the market! However, we can say that the sales of Hybrid cars such as The Prius is going to be affected.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uDS3-BPxlI

to watch the full showcase; Click on the following link!

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/1/6882107/lamborghini-asterion-plug-in-hybrid-with-910-horsepower