“If the United Nations was fully funded why would we need the Arc or social enterprise?”

This was the prompt which we were asked to discuss/reflect upon, but after browsing through the links and readings in the course website, I noticed that there are many layers to the purpose and functions behind social enterprises, organizations and programs such as Arc. For one thing, the UN funding and its allocations in programs serves different purpose than the intended goals designed in programs such as Arc.

Many of the featured Arc entrepreneurs, such Ethiopia’s founder Salem Kassahun and Ecocalzer’s John Jairo Pizaro, have demonstrated great examples of creating shared values through connecting their communities to their business. With these unique and meaningful differentiation strategies, their business models can provide many ideas to Sauder students and spark more insights on how social enterprises can bring both implicit and external benefits.

Rather than “providing help” to a developing country, what the Arc Initiative focuses on is to establish connection between the business communities from completely different parts of the world. Thus, this kind of programs will be a valuable learning experience and an opportunity to broaden one’s vision through real interactions. It is also a great chance for local entrepreneurs to exchange their knowledge and experiences within similar industries.

While most of us complain about low savings interest, imagine how it would feel if all of a sudden we were told that we have to lose money (pay interest to the banks) just so that we can have a “save” place to store our money? This might seem shocking, because we know from the  time value of money concept that a dollar today always worth more than what it will be the future, thus a negative interest rate does not make that much sense in normal circumstances. However, this is exactly what the European Central Bank had imposed earlier this year to encourage people to save less and invest more.

For instance, currently, a depositor with over €500,000 savings in Germany will have to deal an interest rate of. As a result, the bank savings in Germany have significantly declined in recent figures, and many Germans are forced to look for other alternative ways to store or use their money for investment. However, it is interesting to note that rather than investing the money (which many Europeans are still speculating with a lack of confidence) in the market, an alternative solution is to convert their savings into other currencies and deposit their money in banks overseas.

Clearly, we cans see that although governments and central banks try to influence the market by imposing policies that will affect consumer and investors’ behaviours, it may not always turn out as the intended outcome. Nonetheless, economies have their own recurring cycles, which will eventually balance out the rise and falls. Meanwhile, policy-makers can attempt to encourage or discourage economic activities, but the results will vary so they will have to see whether the policy will achieve the desired effects.

Works Cited

Walker, Andrew. “ECB Imposes Negative Interest Rate.” BBC News. BBC, 05 June 2014. Web. 09 Nov. 2014.

“Worse than Nothing.” The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 08 Nov. 2014. Web. 09 Nov. 2014.

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Comment on Lindsey Chung’s post: Wow Air: $99 Flights Across the Atlantic

The post highlighted an interesting story on how a new entrant in the airline industry, Wow Air, is offering unusually low prices for plane tickets across the Atlantic ocean. Although this deal seems almost too good to be true, it is explained in the article that what gave this airline the unique advantage is the geographic location of its headquarter in Iceland, which allows its planes to fuel at the midpoint and thus enabling the company to reduce cost on a large scale.

As Lindsey has pointed out, Wow Air will likely achieve huge success and steal many customers from its average competitors by adopting this cost leadership strategy. What makes me curious is the chain/spin-off effects of the launch of this cheaper option; as an disruptive innovator, this new player has the potential to bring about huge changes within the market, and may even threaten the existing incumbents, including large companies that currently dominates a significant portion of the market share. However, Wow Air should also develop other strategies, and especially to focus on marketing efforts so they can quickly expand so they can have more opportunity to equally compete with the bigger airlines.

Work Cited

Fredman, Roberto A. “Wow Air Launches $99 Fares across Atlantic.”Gloucester Daily Times. The Washington Post, 30 Oct. 2014. Web. 01 Nov. 2014.

The growing popularity of its existing apps as well as web traffic of National Geographic’s official site is signaling that it was a right decision for the magazine to offer different alternative channels to its customers. As highlighted in this article, the decreasing amount of magazine subscription and high demand for fast, convenient updates was the driving factor behind these changes, and so far the organization is receiving positive responses for providing more options involving digital media.

This change, as natural and expected as it seems with the increasing trend, is not only broadening its access channels; in a way, the newer multi-feature/function platform is also opening doors to a different segment of users, and therefore reaches into several niche markets of groups with particular interests and hobbies over the internet.

What I really like about National Geographic’s approach is that rather than replacing its print publications with electronic versions, the newer platforms are actually aiming to deliver users a different experience that adds value on top of what readers get out of the magazine. Described as adding in “new muscles”by Susan Goldberg, the Editor in Chief, National Geographic is confident at attracting more younger audience as well as sustaining what its already good at.

Work Cited

Yu, Roger. “A Faster pace for National Geographic Magazine.” USA Today. Gannett, 02 Nov. 2014. Web. 02 Nov. 2014.