When looking through student blogs to find a topic to write on, I stumbled upon one written by Rayan Mansour. In one of the posts he discusses the entrance of Daimler-Benz into the market of electric cars and his opinion on their ability to compete against Tesla. As this topic is of great interest to me, I decided to share my thoughts and this way add to the conversation.

First of all, it is stated in the blog that Tesla’s unique selling point is “being able to provide stylish and powerful sports cars that ha[ve] a favorable impact on the environment”, which is going to be ruined by Mercedes. I strongly disagree with most of this statement as Tesla moved on from producing sport cars a long time ago when stopped the production of Roadster in 2012.

Company’s main website page simply highlights their main points of difference: “Longest Range. Active Safety. Quickest Production Car on Earth.” Nobody wants to get stuck in the middle of the road without having anywhere to charge their car and Tesla addressed that with their improved batteries like no other company on the market plus doubled the amount of their charging stations. These steps made electric cars something way more practical than other previously existed models offered by different brands.

I could address other two PODs that they listed safety and speed of the vehicle, but I decided to stop and just ask myself what company would I think about when considering buying an electric car. Of course it was Tesla. It was not for any specific reason except that Tesla feels like an expert in the field, like the company that understands the future. They created a similar reputation as Apple did in the market of smartphones by making their brand name the top point of difference from competitors.

It is silly to think that Tesla’s value proposition is just simply a car, they are selling an idea that is way beyond that, they are selling technology of the greater future. Their stock shows it better than any words looking like a tech one and nothing like a typical automaker.

Companies like Daimler-Benz trying to compete with Tesla at this point need to be cautious and not underestimate the power of the its name. In the eyes of consumers they are car manufactures of the past and therefore need to prove that they can also be ahead of the game.

Words: 412

References:

https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-04-04/in-defense-of-detroit-motor-city

https://www.tesla.com/en_CA

https://image.slidesharecdn.com/inventingthefuturewithteslamotors-151114182823-lva1-app6891/95/inventing-the-future-how-tesla-motors-is-bringing-the-future-forward-2-638.jpg?cb=1458673121

https://blogs.ubc.ca/rmansour/

Nowadays it is pretty much impossible to imagine a company that does not use technology in one way or another. From communications inside of the company to social media advertisements and online shops, it has become like second nature.

I consider myself a conservative person who is scared of change, including technological innovations. However, I came to a realization that nowadays business executives cannot allow themselves to not have at least some kind of technology knowledge. It helps companies to solve customers’ problems quickly and easily, gain a competitive advantage, not miss out on opportunities in a rapidly evolving world, and create a more efficient work environment within the company.

Technology helps with the most common customer pain – lack of time. When considering customer pains and gains to form a good value proposition, it is easy to notice that all customers want their problems to be solved easily and quickly. This is exactly why most of the currently successful companies are the ones that have easy to use apps and websites. In his blog, Bob Egan highlights this idea by saying, “Those that can deliver superior customer service through tailored, high functioning next-gen digital experiences will pull ahead with a financially aware and loyal consumer base.”

Companies that only focus on having a quality product or service while not engaging with technology sign themselves up for failure. For example, this week I ordered a Google speaker which was advertised right before a YouTube video that I was watching, instead of a possibly higher quality one that I just simply had not heard of.

Technology is key for staying relevant in today’s world. Industries are evolving and changing with technology at the core of these changes, and so disregarding it is the same as losing new opportunities. People that are in charge of looking into the future of the company cannot afford this loss. Chander Chawla too argues this in his blog claiming, “The video game industry is much bigger than Hollywood today and LA lost on this huge opportunity because executives were not comfortable with technology.”

I have always been interested in a business managerial role and chose to get a combined degree of business and computer science by considering the reality of the modern world. In addition to the reasons above, my deciding factor was how much more efficient and successful company can be when management and IT department speak the same language. I saw this in action watching my parents hold long meetings with programmers just to understand the problem that they were dealing with.

I hope that soon more people will realize the importance of technology in business and in the near future computer science will become a mandatory course for business students, at least on the basic level.

Words: 450

References:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobegan/2017/10/27/fintech-innovation-is-driving-increased-customer-engagement-knowledge-and-loyalty/#50c1163f2fd1

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chanderchawla/2017/10/27/pitching-your-tech-startup-to-hollywood-a-silicon-valley-founders-perspective/#d81eaa0223f2

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobegan/2017/10/27/fintech-innovation-is-driving-increased-customer-engagement-knowledge-and-loyalty/#50c1163f2fd1

This year brought us two major product launches from two tech giants Google and Apple. While one presented the iPhone 8, 8 plus, and X, the other is not falling behind with its release of the Pixel 2 and 2 XL. Both of the companies are competing with each other by trying to add more impressive features and making greater improvements in order to get our attention and win our preference.

It is important to notice a main difference between Apple and Google in the market of devices. Apple is known for having some of the most loyal customers in the industry. It might be a bit of a stretch to call it loyalty because they managed to make it very difficult for customers to switch from their iPhones to android substitutes. This was achieved through various means, like addiction to constant model updates, easy sharing of information with other Apple devices and the overcomplicated process of transporting personal data onto a new non-apple phone. One way or another, Apple managed to keep many of their customers in the loyalty loop of the consumer decision journey we talked about in class. This loyalty loop is what keeps making it so challenging for companies like Google to compete with them.

If you consider the above while looking at the webpage of Google’s new phone, the Pixel 2, it becomes clear that they are trying to break the Apple loyalty loop and get their customers to switch to their product. As one of their target customers, I can agree that they introduced exactly what I wanted to see in a new phone: better camera, quality night videos, free online storage, quick charge with long lasting battery and even more useful IA assistant. Quick, vivid and simple representations of these key features, all of which are essentially improvements of Apple’s main problems, instantly win your attention, while the last point makes it that much easier to choose to buy their product. It is a link to a simple way of transferring your data from your iPhone to a Pixel, supported by yet another page of reasons to make this switch.If that is not enough, Google posted a video on YouTube in which a beauty blogger style girl shows these steps, repeating “change is good“.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFn2aDkfnrM&feature=youtu.be

In this simple and smart way, Google has made a major step toward breaking Apple’s precious loyalty loop.

While Google definitely came up with an impressive strategy to win over new clients, I cannot help but think about their lack of consumer loyalty, and how they should prevent customers from switching away again with their next purchase.

Words: 439

References:

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-consumer-decision-journey

https://store.google.com/product/pixel_2

https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/7129740?hl=en

https://store.google.com/product/pixel_2_switch

Nowadays, the importance of team building seems to be proven and understood, however surprisingly many companies still manage to underestimate its effects. Moreover, the ones that do try to employ it in their work community often misunderstand the main aspects of successful team building.

Firstly, it needs to be highlighted that the end goal is a strong team that will get tasks done quickly, efficiently and with great quality. After being studied for 2 years out of 180 teams from Google’s Project Aristotle, all the successful teams showed certain common traits. The traits included clearly structured work process and job distribution, personal engagement in achieving the end goal and a feeling of participation in valuable work. However, the last trait, which team building addresses the most, is the feeling of a safe environment where a worker can voice their opinion, create and contribute.

Based on this main objective team activities should be focused on making members feel relaxed, supported and understood. Therefore, in order for each individual to feel comfortable in the team, they need to step out of their own comfort zones all together. Activities that force them to try something new, even extreme, and overcome personal obstacles are the most useful. Moreover, the best way is to go through a slight level of embarrassment together to show that they have nothing to fear and they are in the same boat. This is why there is a tendency to use sports and games as team building activates that are also different from the work environment.

In addition, it is important to understand the size and specificity of a team that needs to be united after the experience. In case of our class project students were split into small groups which did not need to collaborate with each other, which is why we were able to concentrate on the team building inside of our small groups. However, this is rarely the case in real companies, where it is important to separate events for team building of particular groups or departments from the ones for the entire company or branch. When working with bigger groups and separating them into teams it is important to mix members of different departments to avoid future tension and hostility between them in the work process.

Ultimately, remember, “… team building is the most important investment you can make for your people”, so invest in your team.

Words: 401

References:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianscudamore/2016/03/09/why-team-building-is-the-most-important-investment-youll-make/#42f9916d617f

https://www.inc.com/michael-schneider/google-thought-they-knew-how-to-create-the-perfect.html

http://www.wagonslearning.com/highly-efficient-team-building-training-program/

Coming from a country where people almost never heard of social corporate responsibility (CSR) and learning about it now in Canada allows me to look at it a bit differently and sometimes less complexly. I am from Ukraine where consumers barely ever care about companies’ policies, they just try to find the cheapest products while almost none of the companies have any interest in spending their money and time on CSR. Sometimes I still find it hard to believe how important social responsibility became for modern businesses in developed countries and how high are the expectations.

When comparing two Forbs articles about top CSR companies in 2016 and 2017, that were based on reports from Reputation Institute, I noticed Google that had #1 position in 2016 went down to being 3rd. I was pleasantly surprised to find out later in the article that the reason for its drop wasn’t some resent scandal but the fact that other companies put even more effort this year and raised the bar so much higher.

I know that often when talking about CSR people tend to focus on scandals and lawsuits but I enjoy hearing about successful or ambitious projects. LEGO who’s story was covered by Forbs in one of their articles last year is a good example of successful CSR company.  After receiving a media backlash and many accusations for having a partnership with Shell, LEGO started to rebuild its reputation by working with organizations like UNICEF, WWF and launching new programs. They managed to go all the way to position #5 in 2016 and #1 in 2017 of world’s top socially responsible companies.

Photo from LEGO-Group-Responsibility-Highlights-2016.pdf

I couldn’t understand why such a big company would put so much effort in something like social responsibility, but I realized that they get many benefits like customers loyalty, reduction of taxes and even lenience of prosecutors which was mentioned in The Economist article. That’s why companies often get accused of their insincerity and wrong intentions when being socially responsible, which I find ridiculous. People got so deep into their utopian views that they forgot that no matter what businesses are making decisions based on their self interest and just the fact that huge corporations are trying to make an impact is already incredible enough. The charities that they send their money to don’t care what intentions they had as long as they are getting that help and support. 

It is amazing that LEGO Group realizes that they can influence their future customers by trying to make a change like using sustainable materials in their packaging and products, supporting kids creativity and education with awareness of social responsibilities et cetera.