Women and Microcredit. Photo sourced from www.pepbonet.com

Firstly, I believe it is important to define social entrepreneurship and the Arc Initiative. The Skoll World Forum defines social entrepreneurs as “society’s change agents, creators of innovations that disrupt the status quo and transform our world.” The key here is that social entrepreneurs take the initiative instead of passively reacting to events. The Arc Initiative capitalizes on potential and amplifies the impact of individuals in their communities by “Exchanging Skills,” “Building Capacity,” and “Generating Ideas.” These are all long-term development plans that are different from what the UN does. Sauder student Arielle Uwonkunda spoke to Professor Jeff Kroeker “about non-profits that have donated money to Rwanda following the war but didn’t make a lasting impact,” and social entrepreneurship solves this problem that charity did not. Most of the entrepreneurs are locals and they are familiar with the problems in their community and what needs to be done to solve them. In the example of Salem’s Boutique, as a woman living in Ethiopia, Salam Kassahun is more familiar with the specific needs of marginalized women than, for example, UN workers. Arc’s role is to give these entrepreneurs the skills and resources to innovative the best solution, but in the end it is still a grass-root initiative. Social entrepreneurship removes the ‘us vs. them’ complex and inspires from the bottom up, instead of distributing band-aids from the top down.

Sourced from David Murdico’s LinkedIn page.

In the article “3 Traps That Block Corporate Transformation”, Vineet Nayar discusses how companies have modernized their way of achieving success and what I found surprised me.

Nayar points out that the success recipe used to be “Innovative Ideas + Cheaper/Faster/Better Execution + Powerful Leadership”, but the current recipe is “Innovative Ideas + Delivering Unique Experiences + Enabling Leadership.” One example of the original Cheaper/Faster/Better Execution is Dell’s virtual integration, as we learned in Operations. But as information technology advanced and became an industry in its own right, companies do not have to individually invest in their own IT department and can instead outsource and specialize in their actual business. An example of this can be found in the article ‘Google Joins a Heavyweight Competition in Cloud Computing’ where Quentin Hardy introduces companies such as Google and Amazon’s role in providing corporations access to otherwise expensive computing technology. The modern role of IT in business was introduced in Performance Management and BTM, and the changes that outsourcing brought to companies was generalized in the article. I think this shift in the success recipe really clicked for me when I considered the Business Model Canvas. How I interpret the change is that Execution shifted from being a Value Proposition to something such as Key Resources or Activities and in its place, more emphasis was placed on the client-centric contents of the Value Proposition Canvas.

Sourced from Stuart McMillen

We sell resources at their extraction cost rather than their replacement value

We have seen leading businesses spectacularly reinvent their practices, but are told to give concessions to the laggards that resist change.

We maintain perverse government subsidies that contradict and counteract government policy.

We are no longer living off of nature’s interest, we are liquidating its capital.

We must rewrite the values of our economy and incorporate the full cost of decisions.

We must eliminate industrial toxins by design so that containment and disposal are no longer necessary.

The quotations above are a partial transcript of the comic “Part of Nature” by Stuart McMillen. The full comic strip explores the relationship between our physical environment and capitalism and I found some of the claims to be unusual.

Sourced from www.chess-llc.com

The comic focuses on anthropogenic impacts on the environment and the corporate role in environmental degradation. I find it interesting that the artist did not condemn capitalism, or corporations specifically, for creating the problem. Rather, he acknowledges businesses as innovators. In one of the tutorials, a classmate mentioned that businesses are essential in creating sustainability because they have an incredible amount of power and capital to create change. I agree that businesses are much more finely attuned to what consumers prioritize, more so than governments that react to social change very slowly through policies. I think that if businesses can reform operations to eliminate waste every step of the way, it would also create economic and social benefits. Businesses in the long-term would reduce cost and improve living conditions for people who are most directly impacted by pollution and climate change. The idea of the triple bottom line is that we do not have to compromise any of the environmental, social or economical profits for the others. Sustainability is possible and immediately necessary.

A video cover from popular beauty and DIY YouTuber ilikeweylie. Image sourced from www.youtube.com/user/ilikeweylie.

“The average woman spends $15,000 on makeup in her lifetime” according to this infographic on the finance website MintLife Blog.

That’s a lot of money. When it comes to makeup, I try to decide which products I should splurge or save on and I try to get my money’s worth. My friends and I regularly consult beauty blogs such as www.imabeautygeek.com, beauty review sites such as www.makeupalley.com and YouTube ‘beauty gurus’ and ‘reviewers’ for product research. As Stella Cho mentioned in her post ‘Marketing in a Digital Age’, the latter especially has a huge influence on potentially converted consumers.The appeal of the ‘regular people’, who usually also document their lives through ‘vlogs’, makes their recommendations seemingly more genuine, personal and believable. When a group of YouTubers ‘rave’ about a product at the same time, usually right after a new product release, loyal subscribers are also influenced by the Fear Of Missing Out. One bad review can also deter me from purchasing a product because makeup is something I put on my body.

I know that when I consult these sources to research on the quality of a certain product, I also become distracted by other products that the ‘beauty gurus’ recommend and eventually brand familiarity is instilled in me. That new mascara on the drugstore shelf that vaguely looks familiar? A YouTuber probably mentioned it in her new video. Companies have begun to realize the sway these girls have over the younger demographic, and many have partnered up with the YouTubers to promote new product releases, provide event sponsorship such CoverGirl sending missglamorazzi the 2014 VMA’s, or to simply ask for a product review for more exposure.

With the US beauty industry “estimated to amount to about 62.46 billion U.S. dollars in 2016” (The Statisitcs Portal), beauty companies can be very profitable if they can catch onto the new word-of-mouth way of marketing: YouTube.

‘Zero down-payment’, ‘0% financing’: these banners have become a normal sight in front of auto dealers. But what does this mean for buyers, sellers and the banks?

Although the term was not explicitly used, this article from the Financial Post discussed a great deal the time value of money for buyers, sellers and loaners. If any of us have been considering buying a new car, we would have noticed that many dealerships are advertising longer amortization periods with extremely low interest rates. We learned in class that this means that the value of the money returned to banks is decreasing more and more as we move further into the future. As well, automobiles are a depreciating commodity. If the customer defaults on a loan and the financing term is very long, the collateral that the bank collects will not be worth very much. The question is: what is the break-even between collected interest and depreciation? Hopefully the banks have learned from the last financial crisis.

From the consumer’s POV, ‘0% financing’ seems like a good option because they can keep more cash in the present, and present value is always worth more than future value. On the other hand, some dealers are willing to give greater discounts if you are willing to pay cash up-front than if you choose financing because the present value of the cash will also be greater than the future value of collected payments.

Considering the time value of money is crucial: banks need to be careful about the break-even point and buyers should not always jump immediately to 0% financing.

I remember that on Imagine Day at the pep rally, all of us freshmen and faculty took a moment to acknowledge that we are on traditional and unceded Musqueam and Coast Salish territory. I believe that many of us did not understand what that meant, and at the beginning of The Spark, Victor Guerin explained to us more about the First Nations and what trade meant to his people.

Image taken from www.thetyee.ca

In this Vancouver Sun article, this passage caught my eye:

Both chiefs said their communities are interested in supporting smaller projects in areas such as wind, solar and geothermal power. But they say the valley flooding would impair their rights to fish, hunt and use the area for ceremonial purposes.

I often hear people say that the First Nations are against any development or that they are ‘backwards.’ I think the huge misunderstanding stems from much of what we hear the First Nations are against, but not what they are for. It is time that we take on a more positive perspective on the First Nations as important stakeholders in developmental and infrastructural projects. We cannot simply try to appease or win over groups in projects that did not seriously consider their interests. In the above passage, the chiefs have clearly stated that they support energy projects that are not as intrusive and risky as Site-C. I think the key to sustainable development is to build projects that deliver value to not only the predominantly urban population, but also to the people whose lands and culture will be most directly impacted.

Image taken from www.huawei.com

After I read Jennifer (Baoyi) Chen’s blogpost on Huawei, I felt obliged to add my own two cents. As I write this post, my dad is sitting in another room browsing the Chinese Huawei website, contemplating whether he should ask a friend to bring him an Ascend Mate7 from China.

For the past few weeks, every dinner time is when my dad takes the opportunity to instill in us the virtues of the Android model Mate7. He tells me that the Mate7 has specifications that closely rival those of the iPhone 6 Plus and in some cases even surpass those of the latter. Indeed, the superior camera quality is very attractive to someone who likes to take photos of every cute thing (selfies included). The fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone can also act as a button to take photos. While this is a small detail that my dad and many others do not care much for, I think this is the perfect compromise between the obsolete physical buttons of a bygone era and the thumb-stretching touchscreen phones of today. The battery life for this model is much better than that of the iPhone 6 Plus, so while it cannot claim the qualities of old Nokia bricks, it would certainly reduce the anxiety of many who run around looking for outlets. And perhaps most importantly, the design is elegant and luxurious.

So why hasn’t my dad bought one, despite having sung it praises at every dinner? Well for starters, it is not available in Canada. If he decides to buy it, he would have to have a friend in China buy one and deliver it to him. As well, the after-sales services, such as the warranty and repairs, would be a terrible hassle because the product would have to be shipped back to China for any service. Perhaps these fears would be assuaged if my dad could physically touch and examine a sample phone, but that is currently impossible. All he is banking on are the raving reviews online and the Huawei website. As Jennifer said, Huawei is an excellent brand in China and its products are also extremely popular in Asian markets such as Singapore and India. Yet here in Canada, its brand is more closely associated with lower-end models that the Big Three do not offer. I have only heard about this model from my father, who in turn learnt about it through word of mouth and niche Chinese-Canadian websites. To really go global, Huawei has a lot of work to do in terms of overseas branding and distribution channels. Maybe then will it truly rival Apple and Samsung.

Image taken from www.mcdonalds.ca

After the all the publicity of the pending merge of Burger King and Tim Hortons, McDonald’s has dropped another bomb on us: the introduction of its popular coffee to Canadian grocery stores. In this Toronto Star article, McDonald’s Canada’s CEO John Betts explains the company’s strategy behind this move. Some of the main reasons are that:

1) Canada is the largest consumer market for the McCafé.

2) The article cites a Saeco Survey from August 2014 that claims “92 per cent of caffeine fans make their own brew regularly,” so making McCafé accessible to home-brewers can expand the coffee’s consumers.

3) The aforementioned home-brewers usually pick the DIY way to save money as prices for coffee rise, as well as to have the freedom of customizing their drink to their tastes.

I found it interesting how McDonald’s has used the survey to analyze their target segment’s needs, which is exactly what we discussed in class. Note that the three reasons mentioned above are all customer-centric. The company then used the consumers’ ‘pain’ and ‘gain’ to direct the development of their product. While McDonald’s is not the only company to offer coffee on grocery shelves (Starbucks, for example, has already pushed its product into other distributing channels), the move certainly indicates that the fast-food industry is very sensitive to consumer preference. To stay relevant, these ultra-competitive companies must constantly revise their business model as consumers start to shift towards more health-conscious or cost-effective eating habits.

Photo credit to John Tlumacki — Associated Press

Within the recent months, ISIS has captured the daily headlines with activities that the media often portrays as solely religious or political. But we often forget that like any organization, ISIS needs funds to operate. The heavily publicized ransoms are small one-time transactions that cannot be practical in the long-run. In this article, CBC explains how ISIS relies heavily upon captured oil fields to generate income.

Photo credit to Reuters

So why have we not heard more about this? The US government clearly knows about their strategic importance, since they have led air-strikes targeting said oil fields. I think the media refrains from putting too much emphasis on the airstrikes hitting the tangible operations because the effects are still unclear. On one hand, it is undeniable that the oil refineries, which “[generate] between $1 million and $3 million a day of revenue” (CBC) is an important asset to the group. Intuitively, we would think that destroying this major source of revenue would significantly weaken the group. However, ISIS’s other sources of revenue are still unclear, and human rights groups, such as Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, have said that the airstrikes have raised gasoline prices for civilians (CBC). The mixed results from the economic perspective is hardly marketable to the voting population in Western countries, and perhaps that is why we hear more about the political and religious side of the story.

Photo of Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield taken from Ottawa Citizen

In the short video we watched, R. Edward Freeman argues that for a business to succeed, the people managing the business must synthesize and not isolate all the stakeholders’ interests. I found it particularly interesting that Freeman considers “community” as a stakeholder. I thought that Freeman’s perspective is similar to Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer‘s argument that the community’s, or general society’s, interests do not necessarily conflict with, say, the business’s shareholders, because their interests can align. An example of this perspective is Ben & Jerry’s: a profitable ice cream company that also has a reputation for being ethical. In this article, the founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield say that initially the company barely made any profits after they donated a large part of their revenue. However, Ben and Jerry managed to align community’s interests in quality ingredients and sustainable manufacturing with shareholder’s interests in profits after they adopted a new business plan of selling to distributors while also maintaining a clear set of values. In essence, Ben & Jerry’s involvements in campaigns “may have cost [the company] some customers […but] they also deepened Ben & Jerry’s connection to its base.” From this example, I interpret ethical business as a business that does not alienate or pit one shareholder’s interest against another’s, but rather a business that can serve all the shareholders.