Yearly Archives: 2010

Barefoot College is a social enterprise that educates illiterate women in India to become doctors, architects, and other professions.  Its founder, Roy Bunker, believes strongly about education and the impact it will bring. He also believes in the fundamental skills that the elders bring is an important aspect that should not be ignored.

 The students from his college are able to construct buildings and design water diviners even without a professional’s involvement. They attribute this to the sharing of knowledge and learning new skills from each other. The college solely relies on solar power, which is also a skill that Bunker is trying to teach to his students, in which they are able to bring this skill back into the city and apply it there.

This is an social enterprise because its main purpose is to help people in rural India to obtain the skills to help improve the standard of living. Bunker is a social entrepreneur because he is a person who strongly believes, and is passionate, in change and improvement on people’s lives.

information from http://www.barefootcollege.org/

Zappos, a highly sucessful company, displays properties of that of an entrepreneurial company.

First of all, they created a new method in which they were able to provide products and services that no company has done before. And it is because of this innovation they are able to generate great amount of revenue and keeping their cost low. 

Second of all, they were able to capture a much larger market since they were a Internet based organization. Because of being sucessful in this area, their speed of wealth creation was substantially quick.

Third of all the company structure, itself, is a noteworthy factor. The way of organizing the people, and their culture is a big risk. In a laid back environment there is always a possibility that employee may not fulfill their responsibilities to the best of their abilities, however, Zappos created an atmosphere that was pleasing to the employees which generated high job satisfaction leading to great productivity.

This post is basically applying the concepts that I’ve learned in class using MacDonald’s as an example.

MacDonald’s is a fast food restaurant with high rivalry. However, it has been a successful business because it is able to maintain the position of first in the fast food category. Although there are many other competitors among the fast food restaurants, MacDonald’s is the first at providing food at a cheap and convenient locations. Therefore, in summary, its point of parity is a fast food restaurant and its point of difference is that it is quick and cheap and there are many branches located throughout the world. If I had to do a very brief SWOT analysis on it, I would say its strength is that it has a strong brand name, convenient locations, and cheap food. Weakness is obesity is becoming a problem, need to find create more healthy foods. People are more health conscience therefore MacDonald’s is finding lowering sales. Opportunities-if Mcdonalds is able to create more healthy foods at the same price, it will have a major potential to grow even more. Threats – increasing competition. If I had to make a value proposition for MacDonald’s it would go like this -> To people who want affordable, fast food. McDonalds is a fast food that has affordable foods that many convenient locations to buy from.

With over half of all North Americans using the Internet as a primary source of entertainment as well as information, would it be beneficial for companies to develop their own pages online? In order words – is it essential?

Certainly, the majority of companies have a company web page dedicated to their goods or services. What’s the importance of this? Well, seeing how the majority of the people living in North America depend on the Internet to find information, getting the company’s web page on the web will enable the company to gain that much more potential customers. If you think about it, nobody ever looks in a the Yellow Pages anymore for phone numbers or addresses, everybody relies on the Internet via phones, laptops, and desktop computers.

In conclusion, yes it is necessary to have a company page online. It would provide information for potential customers. But creating a new web page would also mean hiring a person to create it, which also means spending money. One could think creating a web page is a strategy. In the long run it will help people identify who and what the company does and create a positive image for the company

Burger King has started to expand its market into Russia where its major competitor McDonald’s has already set foot in 20 years ago. This is a big risk as McDonald’s has already 240 restaurants in Moscow alone. The strengththat Burger King posses over McDonald’s would be bringing something new. Even though the prices in Burger King are slightly higher than McDonald’s, it is still considerably cheap in respect to other restaurants. However, like all the fast food chain restaurants, it will have to compete with McDonald’s which is not an easy task to do. Burger King making the decision to ultimately expand into the Russian Market also means that their research team has found that it is worth them to spend billions of dollar on establishing the brand name and opening branches all across the country. Not only does McDonald’s poses a big threat, other fast food restaurant looking ot expand into the Russian market is as well. Dunkin’ Donuts, one of the largest restaurant known for serving coffee and donuts are also planning onto expanding their market into Russia as well. In order for Burger King to succeed they must first be able to gain a good first impression and be able to provide good services that will keep customers loyal to them.

http://newsblaze.com/story/2010012114113100001.bw/topstory.html

Shoppers Drug Mart is currently trying to offer more banking options to its customers. By mainly selling prescription drugs, and other over the counter drugs, Shoppers Drug Mart has limited products to offer customers. In order to be successful, it will have to gain many customers in a very competitive market. With Loblaw and Canadian Tire already offering banking services to people, Shoppers will need to find a way to attract customers. The question is does Shoppers have the system and money to accomplish this? Security will be a main issue that will rise up. Will they need to invent/ create a better safer system that customers will feel more secured about? What about locations? Brands? Other banks? These are all questions Shoppers will need to consider. One of the reasons as to why Shoppers is heading into this direction is because they are losing money on selling pharmacy items only. Shoppers originally already offered a credit card through a joint operation with MBNA before adding more services in the finance area. This means that Shoppers probably have analyzed and decided that it will gain more revenue by adding this service and has predicted that more than enough customers will be attracted to the offer. As this is not a minor decision, Shopper will need to make sure that their analysis and prediction will be correct or else the consequences will be severe.

 With more people “glued” onto the Internet, the Internet has truly become a place where people can connect with others. Businesses can take advantage of this opportunity and “connect” with their customers. Having successful social media will allow one company to excel greatly. Advertisements on the side of popular Internet places, such as facebook, will allow many people to come in contact with the store. Presently, newspaper advertisements are obsolete. Not many people are relying on newspaper to provide them with new, instead gadgets such as the itouch and smart phones will allow a person to connect to the Internet and receive the same information for free. Television advertisements are also more costly, therefore advertisements on websites may be one of the cost effective ways to capture people’s attention about the store/ company. Many large companies are turning to social media to help gain customers. Disney, for example, launched a website for its customers to upload their picture and allow other people to see it. Although Disney will have to spend money on this website, however, it will help gain customers. People seeing other people’s picture may motivate them to “go try” the rides for themselves hence Disney earning more revenue. With more people than ever, blogging and actively participating in social network sites such as facebook, hotmail, and twitter, business can take advantage and make people recognize themselves there.

In the newspaper The Province, an article with the title Mongolia Aims to Tap Coal as New Cash Cowwas featured in the September 15, 2010 edition. This article explains how the there is a large coal reserve located south of the Gobi Dessert. The amount located there “could be Mongolia’s black gold” and “Mongolia could earn up to $600 million”. After discovering this area, ” the government [has] began accepting bids from mining firms.” In this article, since the revenue from the coal is so great, the government has been overlooking the effects that mining from this area has on the land. The Gobi Dessert is has been scientifically proven to be growing at an alarming rate, yet the government has chosen to ignore this fact and continue to mine. The threat of desertification is present, however the government neglected this fact and decides to mine in that area.

Picture of a coal mining area in United States http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/09/majority_of_american_public.php

I definitely do not think it’s unethical to charge different prices for the same product. If people are to lazy to do their own research as to where the product is less expensive and are willing to buy the product at a certain price, then yes, it is ethical to charge different prices for the same product. I feel that prices should depend on the location at which the product is sold.  For example,  if the product is sold in a wealthy neighborhood and people can afford to buy it at that price then selling the product doesn’t cause a problem plus it would help the company to earn more revenue.  However, if the same product is sold at a less wealthy location then it would be putting more financial stress on the people, who already have trouble managing their financial issues.

The concept of charging differently for different people is known as Price Discrimination

http://www.econmodel.com/classic/discount.htm