http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3441-employee-shopping-presents-employer-risks.html

This article states that the workplace environment isn’t safe for online transactions, given statistics show that ninety percent of U.S. employees who use the internet at work feel that their privacy is at risk. This statistic is proven to show little to no effect on the consumer’s choice to purchase goods online. Purchasing goods online may be a threat to the company because their information may be leaked, which may lead to competitors using information against them.

Since it’s holiday season, people are expected to shop online even more, there is an astounding average of nine hours online at work shopping. This turns out into not only a privacy threat but also a threat of employees wasting time. “Enterprises will lose $15,000 or more in productivity as a result of employee shopping online at work”, this number may be significantly decreased if restrictions were set, but this will interfere with employee job satisfaction, which is also a bad outcome. In my opinion, employee shopping must be controlled, employees should have their own spare time rather than working time to shop online.

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/07/not_everyone_should_be_a_socia.html

Lara Galinsky is a senior vice president of echoing green, echoing green is a nonprofit organization that funds new social entrepreneurs, the organization supports new social entrepreneurs into the right direction. Lara Galinsky’s blog describes how being a social entrepreneur is extremely difficult. Being a social entrepreneur isn’t a job for anyone, it requires a strong base, volunteers, initial funding, artists, etc.

One factor that makes me believe that being a social entrepreneur is hard because it takes a lot of effort starting up a social enterprise, and that such hard work leads to little to no profit to the entrepreneur. It takes a true mindset to ignore the fact that the individual could be making a profit with his/her time spent on the organization. Lara states that “If everyone wants to stat a new organization, who is going to do all the work?”, because there are too many people who want to be a social entrepreneur, but too little wanting to do the ‘dirty work’. In my opinion, being the entrepreneur and doing the ‘dirty work’ is doing the same thing, for the same cause.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-tools/top-tens/ten-ways-to-build-rock-solid-relationships-with-customers/article5085636/

This article describes how to create a solid relationship with customers, although some of these points seem to be obvious, it is crucial to learn techniques into mastering these tips. Having a good relationship between business is one of the most important factors into being successful. I believe that in a business, communication is more important than the actual business idea. Relationships with customers not only keeps them coming, but also creates a diversity of networking capabilities that will benefit the company in the short and long run.

The article states ten tips regarding , language, customer segmentation, increase involvement, encourage behavior, building friends, have higher frequency, ascending customer loyalty, build trust, building connection, and publish newsletters. In my opinion, customer segmentation is most important, a successful businessman must know how to be able to speak with any customers, to talk to each customer uniquely and know how to personalize the relationship. This is the basis to all the other tips, it’s the connection that is built that gives the customer a sense of importance.

Warby Parker’s One-For-One Model

This commonly used “one for one” strategy used by Toms and Warby Parker is often successful because the product itself is attractive. This “continuous cycle” creates cash flow which allows social entrepreneurs to gradually expand and keep their business running. I believe that Warby Parker purposely used the criticism against Tom’s Shoes to their advantage, they built their plan to what seems to be doing more than tom’s shoes.

On this “one for one” model, it gives the company an opportunity to increase capital, companies have already ventured to expanding to eyewear, giving a pair of glasses to someone that needs it per purchase. In today’s (nov.15/12) lecture, i learned that social entrepreneurs play a vital role in every part of the world, everyone benefits from social entrepreneurs, rather than only just the ones that are in need.

In my opinion, this strategy only works if the product is demanded by consumers, the social good provided has little influences on consumers, the successfulness of this method heavily relies on the product and how the message is marketted.