Mehrad's Blog

This amateur boxing club began operating in a local rec center in North Vancouver with one instructor, Dave Brett, who is also the company’s manager and owner. After building support for a few years from member in the community, Griffins expanded to a 6500 square foot location in 2003.

Dave Brett took a great risk when he decided to expand his facilities. He, along with the help of family members and close friends, provided over 60% of the funding required to start up the business. The rest, of course, came from a loan from the bank. These expenses needed to cover the major renovations that were necessary for the facility along with the development of staff and equipment. Dave Brett was able to create a boxing club that was unique to the community in that it provided a variety of different programs that could be related to anyone who wanted to become active, learn a new skill, or just have fun. He developed an innovative and patented “Glove System” that differentiated him from any other competitive boxing club. 

Within less than five years, Griffins became a million dollar company and has received wide acclaim from critics. Dave was nominated for Business Person of the Year in 2008 and 2009. Griffins received the News Reader’s Choice Award Best Boxing Gym (2006) and the Innovation Award (2006).

Griffins was able to reach out to its targets in the community and was able to position itself as a new and different boxing club. Along with his innovative Glove System, high risks involving company start-ups, and the substantial wealth Dave and Griffins has received, this company can genuinely be classified as an entrepreneurship that has accomplished great success.

Link to Griffins’s Website:

http://www.griffinsboxing.com/default.html

In a recent article, Sir Richard Branson, founder and leader of the Virgin Group stated how people are a business’s most important asset.

Richard Branson operates many companies in many different genres of business. These include Virgin Mobile to Virgin Airlines and many others in between. After having the many years of experience in the world of business and founding tremendous success, he believes none of it would be possible without the company’s employees.

Branson ensures the highest quality of employee character by offering unique methods of training along with proper employee treatment. By being a very personal leader to his employees, he is able to transfer his level of energy and charisma to the employees in order for them to develop the personality standards that Branson and the Virgin Group stand for. One way he does this is by giving every single employee his cell phone number so they are able to personally contact him if they needed help and to ensure the employees that Virgin management is there for them.

Branson also stresses how one can’t always be right when looking to hire certain people that initially seem to fit the personality criteria that would be suitable for the company. In such situations, it is important to act decisively and swiftly to ensure the problem does not continue. These type of decision making skills can be applied to all aspects of business mangament. When people are in certain roles that decisions must be made, they must -like Richard Branson- act swiftly so the company can fully benefit and prosper and not be negatively affected.

The employees and managers that make up any company are key to any business’s success. A company with enthusiastic, determined, and effective workers is on a path of prosperity and profit. The best kind of employees are the most valuable asset and as Richard Branson states: ” a key part of building a successful business is people, people, people.”

Link to the article:

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/after_hours/opinions/article.jsp?content=20101108_10003_10003&page=1

If you thought The Beatles were popular, think again (RIP John Lennon and happy 70th birthday). For the last few years the world has been experiencing rapid changes that were unheard of even 10 years ago. The impact of social media is changing the world we live and advancements are being made by the second.

What is happening?

Facebook and Twitter have taken over the world. They way we look at the world and the way the world is functioning revolves around the realm of social media. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen DeGeneres have more followers on Twitter than the combined population of Ireland, Norway, and Panama. Scary stuff. The fact that half the material we are learning in university will be outdated in a few years is a mind-bender of epic proportions. I am now posting one of the 200,000,000 plus blog posts existing in the world today, meaning all these posts are contributing their valuable/worthless opinions online about the world we live in. 

What does it mean?

How we  experience the world is changing and is moving in a direction that can be predicted by anyone at the moment. In fact, with the social media, we can say that the world is experiencing us. The information we are interested in is no longer needed to be pursued by the everyday consumer. Instead, it finds its way into our lives and we embrace it with open arms. And the way it finds us is through the computer, our laptops, smartphones, and who knows what device will be thought of in the near future.

It is safe to assume that at this rate we might surpass our social media capacity intake. Who knows what technology will come up with next. Will we be ready for it? We have been up to now. I guess we will all have to wait and see.

Social Media:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

Enbridge oil company plans to build a new pipeline off the US Gulf Coast after it recently had two oil spills, one in Michigan followed by one in Chicago. By doing this they will be able to generate 350,000 barrels of light oil per day, thus increasing the supply of oil and in turn bringing down its equilibrium price. Furthermore, the company is planning to invest into the Asian markets with its $5.5 billion Northern Gateway proposal, which will connect oilsands to tankers along the West Coast.

There are many issues surrounding the development of this new project. Environmentalists are protesting the proposed plan due to its health and environmental risks/hazards. On top of that, the First Nations tribes of BC are also very unenthusiastic, to say the least, about the Gateway proposal. They are argueing that these projects will be going into their native reserve and disturbing their rights; also, they are in agreeance with the environmentalists about the effects it will have on the environment.

It all comes back to the issue of ethics.

The oil companies aren’t much concerned with tribal policies but only with revenue and profit. Is it right to build another project on top of the many they already have and risk endangering many plant and wildlife species that are inhabiting the area? Is it also ethical to disregard the presence of the First Nations and devaluate and disrespect them? And to do this right after two major oil leak accidents.

This situation has the potential for a controversial confrontation between the two sides and it could end up very ugly for one if not both groups. If a compromise does not come into effect, the legal issues could damage everyone involved and neither side will be satisfied at the end.

Attached is the link to the article:

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/headline_news/article.jsp?content=b4743269

Walmart along with Walmart Canada is establishing a new commercial campaign to promote a new slogan and at the same time staying consistent with their old values.
These new commercials portray how everyday people are using the money they have saved by shopping at Walmart in various “touching” scenarios. The purpose of this new campaign is to draw the attention of the consumers into making the connection of shopping at Walmart and having a better lifestyle; but, still staying with their original low prices advertisements.
Since Walmart has positioned themselves beautifully as probably the leading store for “Always Low Prices”, they have decided to expand their portfolio and incorporate another means of positioning with this new campaign.
Critics believe this is risky move from Walmart’s side since their old methods have been working very well and adjusting their point of difference with the added expansion of the “Save Money, Live Better” campaign might not be very successful.
I believe this could only increase Walmart’s revenue. This campaign seems very smart and they have come up with another clever tagline to go along with their existing one. This project has already been launched in the states with good reviews and I have no doubt once it will make its way shortly to the Canadian market that it will be received with high regard by the consumers.

 +       = 

Attached is the link to the article:

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/stocks/article.jsp?content=20090303_10004_10004

The New York based jetBlue Airways has chosen not to merge with Southwest Airlines in an effort to remain independant, hoping to grow more profitable without combining with a bigger company. The CEO of the company stated “growing too fast through an acquisition could jeopardize JetBlue Airways Corp.’s financial stability; and, that grow through merger may be bigger, but they’re also distracted by their own integration issues, and they usually take their eye off the customer. This gives us another opportunity to win by playing our game even better.”
Now I have never heard of jetBlue before until reading the article about their solo stalemate. But how successful can they become by choosing to stay that way and not joining a bigger company?
JetBlue strives to be known as a discount airline, yet when we think about discount North American Airlines, jetBlue does not come into our minds. It seems they have not positioned themselves well enough in the market as what they liked to be known as as well as their competitors such as Southwest Airlines and their subdivisions. Their income is becoming less and less as the bigger airline companies are profiting more and more.
On a different note, we can judge their logo on how appealing it might be compared to the other airline companies. (I have attached the logo) Seems very bland and lacks and significant flashy looks that could arouse the consumer’s interest (if they were ones to be swayed by appealing logos).
What they think is their point of difference (discount airline) is not very well positioned in today’s market. In fact, it is more like a point of parity. If they were to flourish as an independant company, they will need to work on positioning themselves better in the mind of the customers and come up with an original point of difference to make them a stand-out airline company.

Link to the article:
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/headline_news/article.jsp?content=b4669108

In a recent article published on the Business Ethics website, environmentallists and everyday consumers are concerned since they found out that genetically modified (or GM) foods are not properly labelled at their respective place of distribution.

This is an issue, because people have a right to know where their food is coming from and how it is being made. It is as if having products and not having the nutritional fact labels on them; it just wouldn’t be fair to the public. Once the proper knowledge is received by the consumers will then can they decide what is best for themselves, their children, family, etc. Imagine if also cigarettes did not come with their health warnings of lung cancer and other various consequences.

Of course this problem is also occuring in Canada so it is our responsibility to let these farmers and distributers know what we want to eat and not eat.

Attached is the link to the article:

Why Genetically Modified Foods Are Not Labeled in U.S.

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