Nike is the leading brand in sportswear, and that for years now.

What makes Nike so special, and why would people rather buy their products than Adidas, Puma, etc ?

Nike shares the point of parity with its competitors to sell sportswear equipment . But what matters in the case of Nike is the points of difference .

What is important about Nike`s strategy first of all is its presence in all sports. we see Nike in football, basketball , tennis ,etc. this allows the brand to expand its audience. If you take the case of Asics for example , eventhough a growing sportswear company, is only focused on running shoes, therefore limiting its market target opportunities.

Nike also has this point of difference in technology . Nike has come up with a lot of innovative sportswear. NikeID is one of characteristics that builds Nike`s point of difference : with Nike ID , the customer  can change the color of the “swoosh” , the overlay , the tongue of the shoes, etc’

Another proof that Nike knows how to combine sport and technology is the Nike+Ipod which is a device which measures and records the distance and pace of a walk or run. Its a small transmitter tuck in a shoe and connected with a receiver plugged in the Ipod of the athlete .

Sources :

http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/diet-fitness/information/nike-ipod.htm

www.nike.com

http://www.nike.com/us/en_us/c/nikeid

(http://www.wired.com/business/2013/11/facebook-snapchat/)

I found this article really interesting because it shows relations because fast growing and already huge companies.

Snapchat keeps on expanding, the article talks about “around 350 million photo uploads per day”, showing how this little 20-person company has grown in only 3 years .

Facebook on the other side, is a settled company, with more than a billion users around the world and huge revenues. Facebook already bought Instagram when it felt that it could be a huge-profit generator.             

We see there how relatively small businesses are being surrounded by huge companies as soon as they start to grow .

It`s also interesting to see how Snapchat refused a $ 3 billion offer from Facebook, probably a proposition they never thought they would get a few years back then.

But Snapchat`s reaction is not common, usually small businesses get swallowed by big companies, who rather than leaving the company develop and maybe become a serious competitor, prefer spending millions/billions .

(https://blogs.ubc.ca/namdo/2013/11/12/intense-leadership-style/)

I read this interesting article that Nam linked to his post .

However, I do not agree with Nam and the article in general . Yelling can be seen as a “manly” feature, showing passion and high expectations, as Nam noticed .

But for me, it`s not the best way to get the most of an employee. People don`t react the same way to yellings, and it is often that yellings don`t have such a positive effect .An employee that gets screamed at by his boss is usually intimidated or even scared. It can make him feel uncomfortable, and affect his productivity the other way around : as he feels threatened, his work can be negatively affected .

Using the example of Alex Ferguson is a bit too simplistic : a football coach doesn`t have the same relation a boss has with his employees. A football manager is closer to his players, whilst the manager of a company can not sacrifice his time talking individually to every single employees of the company, and doesn`t have a strong relationship with them .

Rather than screaming at them to get their attention , managers should try and exerce referent power to their employees, treat them with respect and stay ethical .

A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being, rather than maximising profits for external shareholders.

Nowadays, social entreprises are more and more present. We will here talk about BetterWorldBooks.

This for-profit organization was created in 2002 by three student of Notre-Dame Business School. Following the path of multiple social enterprise, who give one product to people in need whenever a product is bought, BWB does it with books ( One for One concept ) .

As soon as a customer buys a books, another one is donated to a non-profit literacy program. This highlights the key role of social enterprises in making the world a better place to live in. This company generates profit on one hand and manages to help fight illiteracy on the other .

But BWB does even more than this : the company also donates about seven percent of its net revenue to libraries and nonprofit literacy programs. To date, the company has donated over $15 million under this program. add to that the 10,000,000 books donated.

BetterWorldBooks is a successful company that manages to keep in mind that not everyone can afford its products and knows about the power of books , who can help people out of poverty and have a proper education.

Source :

http://www.betterworldbooks.com

http://www.bcorporation.net/community/better-world-books

George is one of the most successful Sauder Alumni .

For this businessman , the passion for entrepreneurship grew really fast , as he started his first project while studying at UBC . As he even said, he was so eager to start his own business(es) that he dropped out of college , during his last year !

Everything started with Sandwich Tree , of chain of restaurants he created with comrades that grew fast and had about 100 franchises across Canada before it all came crashing down in the recession of the early ’80s.

However, this wasn`t enough to crush Geroge`s ambitions, on the contrary this first taste of entrepreneurship motivated him even more .

As the years passed, George was involved in more and more businesses, one of which was Blenz Coffee. He was former President of Blenz Coffee from 2007 to 2012, using his expertise to grow the franchise to more than 100 locations around the world.

Conscious of the potential of Internet, Geore Moen quickly took advantge of social medias, and still does as much as possible in order to increase his influence. He is one of the most followed Canadian business man on Twitter, with more than 120,000 followers.

Source :

http://www.georgemoen.com

https://twitter.com/georgemoen

Airbus , the huge aircraft manufacturing subsidiary of EADS, a European aerospace company. Based in Blagnac, France, a suburb of Toulouse has made a huge step these last days .

Eventhough it`s market share is huge ( about 50% , shared with Boeing ) , it will soon increase rapidly . Why ? Because Japan Airlines , a major civil aviation company has ordered 31 A350  Airbus et 25 optional additional. The bill is big = about 11 billion dollars .

But what is even more impressive is that Japan Airlines used to be a great Boeing customer ( 80% of Japan airplane market ) but due to the delay of Boeing to provide its 787 Dreamliner , Japan Airlines decided to trust Airbus .

This draws a general painting of the market : in order to keep your leadership and customers ,you have to fullfill their expectations because you will always have someone else ready to catch the opportunity .

Here Boeing thought that they could rely on their leadership position in the market , to maybe concentrate on other customers or seize new opportunities , but it lost a very valuable partnership .

Sources :

http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/International/2013/10/07/002-airbus-commande-japan-airlines.shtml

http://www.airbus.com/tools/airbusfor/analysts/

The Tobin Tax is a tax named after its inventor , James Tobin ( a Nobel Laureat ) in 1972 .

The main idea was at first to tax every currency transactions in order to counter short run speculations around currencies , that usually lead to unfair competition .

However , in our days , the tax idea was modified . It is not the currency fluctuations that would be taxed but financial transactions (stocks, derivatives (including the famous’ credit default swaps “, CDS) and high frequency . The percentage of this tax is only about 0,1% , but when we know the huge amount of capital circulating , it does represent a lot .

The Tobin Tax would , for the countries part of the project , be the same . The small percentage collected would then be handed to the IMF . Knowing the importance of the IMF in the world economy , especially its help to poorer countries , it could be of a great use . It would therefore assist development in those countries , without the direct intervention of the government .

The Tobin Tax has faced many critics , and this is why it still hasn`t been officially operating , eventhough some countries did sign ( 11 countries in Europe ).

Sources :

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/01/why-tobin-tax-is-bad-idea-sweedens.html#Zqu38XTGuaTWplmI.99

http://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/2013/01/22/20002-20130122ARTFIG00537-une-taxe-tobin-dans-onze-pays-europeens.php

The Madoff Scandal is probably the most `important` financial scandal of all time .

Bernard Madoff is American. He started his life as a life-guard and finished as the former non-executive Chairman of the NASDAQ stock market . He aloo founded the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC in 1960 , a top market maker in Wall Street.

Not the profile of a criminal . However , it is this man that organized a massive robbery .

Madoff was a charismatic , popular and apparently `ethical` individual . To start his swindle , Madoff joined several country clubs , looking for very rich investors , eager to have more money.

He offered a simple alternative . He received through his company the different funds , promising that he would turn those funds to good account . He used the capital to invest in different hedge funds . Madoff knew that these investors were not `worried` about their money , they won`t ask for it until a long time .

But in reality , he used a simple pyramidal scheme, known as the System of Ponzi : he used the money gave by the next investors to fake a very interesting profit ( say you put 100 , you got 115 because he used a part of the investor after you ).

But with the economic crisis , investors asked for the withdrawal of their investments . Of course Madoff couldn`t since he kept for him a huge part of those investments .

On June 29, 2009, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison, the maximum allowed.

Sources :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52nYNE9DYYQ ( short explanation of the Madoff Scandal )

http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2008/12/19/comprendre-l-affaire-madoff_1133354_3234.html

( https://blogs.ubc.ca/hanxuanwang/2013/09/12/the-increasing-suicides-rates-of-workers/)

In this article, Huanxuan informs us about a sad wave of suicides in the Foxconn company, who is an original design manufacturer and its clients include major American, European, and Japanese electronics and information technology companies.

I completly agree with Huanxuan when he says that business sometimes tend to be only driven by profits, forgetting ethics .

One could think that these kind of events never happen in developed countries.

However, France has been the target of multiple accusations of a period of high suicide rates by workers , from France Telecom company ( now called Orange) , in the telecommunication sector.

In 2010, this company saw fife of its employees commit suicide within fifteen days, raising questions concerning the pressure felt by employees .

One of the employees declared in a letter before commiting suicide that France Telecom was the only reason he commited suicide , due to the constant pressure,overload of work,etc.

I here wanted to talk about this to show that what Huanxuan said about China is also valid in developed countries, where work conditions have the reputation to be better .

Sources :

http://www.lefigaro.fr/emploi/2010/09/10/01010-20100910ARTFIG00551-cinq-suicides-en-quinze-jours-chez-france-telecom.php

ETHICS IN BUSINESS

All businesses are motivated by profits. However, it doesn`t mean that CEOs and managers have to leave aside essential good manners, such as being ethical in their actions.

Recently , a scandal proved that some brands do have ethic issues . The scandal started in England and spread throughout the rest of Europe .

Horse replaced beef .

To be clearer , a large number of products from different brands , such as Findus , a famous french food processing company , contained horse meat . Why is it a scandal ? Because the products indicated BEEF .

Since then , the hunt started to find the responsible . Brands such as Findus denonced another company responsible for this tragic event, Spanghero.

Spanghero is a company , specialized in meat selling . It has a contract with Findus supplier , Tavola de Capellen . When this scandal was revealed , Spanghero payed the price of its unethical process , with sales decreasing by 50%.

In this case, I would say that the one to blame is Findus. This company is the last one who has the product in its hands before the selling of the product. Therefore, it should proceed to meticulous ultimate sanitary checkups .

Moreover, what is shocking in this scandal is the customers that the company betrayed, because they didn`t make the effort to verify the origin of the product, and what is was made off.

Sources :

http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2013/02/18/la-chronologie-du-scandale-findus

http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/societe/20130209.OBS8368/findus-le-scandale-des-lasagnes-au-cheval-secoue-l-europe.html