George’s approach to the launch of Apple’s new phone release is quite courageous considering the dominant reputation that was built by Apple in the recent years. It is not questionable that under Steve Jobs command the creators of the world’s most popular gadgets have revolutionized its market but as George stated, in the coming future they may stop being such a dominant force in their market. Since the referenced post was published, Apple released a new gadget that emphasizes the point George is trying to make. The Ipad mini, similarly to the Iphone 5 does not offer the consumer any innovation, which differentiated Apple from the competition. The point made by George that the new gadgets Apple recently put out in the market do not differentiate enough from the previous seems to be repeating itself and as he claimed, it may be crucial for the future of Apple in an industry filled with strong competitors that are constantly releasing new innovative products. Samsung, HTC, Nokia and Microsoft are just some examples of the competition that Apple faces and should encourage them to re-think their strategy, otherwise their shares may keep on dropping.

Although this post is not directly related to any specific news or a current business event, it is in fact extremely important for my interpretation of the business career and my own future. After reading the post ‘I would rather have an army knife’ written by my classmate Clement Lau, I began to question myself in the same way he did; why did I choose to study commerce?

Unlike others I do not know exactly what I want to do, but instead of stressing about my future choices I have realized through out the past months that having a Bcom can be extremely helpful in an infinite number of areas. Similarly to Clement, the lectures and readings we were exposed to in the past months have allowed me to see how significant is the role of a ‘business man’ in fashion (Eg Zara’s uniqueness), social participation (Eg social entrepreneurship), technology (Eg Cell phone market) and even Government (Eg EU crisis). The potential that one person with a business degree has is what encourages me to understand better how business’ actually work so in the future I can connect my Bcom with my personal interests.

Browsing through the WEB i found a very interesting article on SmartPlanet, more specifically on Jennifer Riggins’ blog. The economic crisis that took over the world in the past years was extremely damaging to southern European countries, one of them being Spain. Although the biggest country in the Iberian Peninsula is currently under enormous debt and growing unemployment, the housing market is in very good shape.

What interested me the most about Jennifer Riggin’s post was the fact that despite the chaotic environment and financial difficulties that Spain is going through the housing market is still in very good shape. The main reasons for this success are aspects of the country that no financial turmoil can take away. The constantly good weather and the Spanish culture of respect for the elderly has encouraged many people from Asia and northern Europe to choose Spain as a place to live.

Reading this post we can see that opportunities for business can be found everywhere! In Spain, where people lack jobs and the country lacks capital to support any financial involvement, there is still a market for people like Graham Hunt, “[a] real estate agent and owner of one of the very first Spanish property website”.

Luciani Gomes, a Brazilian journalist, has published in the BBC an article about the growth of entrepreneurs in Brazil since 2002. According to her, the desire to avoid what regular jobs have to offer is diminishing at a fast pace, specially for the youth. “the number of young Brazilians aged between 18 and 24 who took a chance at becoming an entrepreneur rose by 74%”

For many people becoming a successful entrepreneur is a dream. The benefits of running your own business are many but in order to become successful in this area you must go through a lot of difficulties, because starting something from scratch is harder than it seems. Luciani Gomes’ article was extremely encouraging to me since I have recently started my Business studies and wish to go back home to Brazil one day. Finding out the growing popularity of Brazilian’s willing to become entrepreneur’s is very promising to me. This growth allows me to think that in the future I might be able to use my Bcom in a place that is already used to the way in which entrepreneurs build their way up.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18143355

Chelsea’s purchase by the billionaire Roman Abramovich is perhaps the most famous private investment in a football club and marks the beginning of a new era not just for Chelsea but for the sport. When Abramovich first bought Chelsea in 2003 the European press argued that the reason for this involvement was more of a hobby-type of activity then a business action. Many of the top English football clubs are currently in large debts and soon after Abramovich injected extremely large sums of money into Chelsea it was of popular belief that it would be very hard for the Russian investor to see financial statements breaking even and profiting.

Chelsea’s 2011/2012 season ended like no other before for the Blues. The fans of the club watched captain John Terry lift their first European trophy after an intense match against Bayern Munich in their home field. In less than one month from the reaching the highest place an European team can reach, the club released to the press their success outside the field. For the first time in the club’s new era the financial year ended with a 1.4 million pound profit.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/20270934

image: http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/manchester-united-boss-alex-ferguson-1155592

Japan’s largest vehicle maker and the owner of the world’s most popular hybrid car, Toyota, is under current threat to its well deserved reputation. A problem found in the steering wheel of nine different models Toyota has put in the market in 2012 may be crucial to the loss of customer loyalty to the 75 year old card manufacturer. In the year of 2009 Toyota was forced to recall 12 million vehicles and since then they have been trying to regain the consumer’s trust. The current recall may damage even more the already hurt customer base of Toyota. Although Koichi Sugimoto, auto analyst, has said that ‘nobody is perfect’ in a way of diminishing the trouble the recall may cause, the very competitive car industry may enlarge a threat. Hybrid cars have grown in popularity and have changed the current auto scenario. Toyota is no longer the only ‘pro-environment’ manufacturer, which means they are no longer unique. The customer’s trust seems to be affected by the recent recalls and Toyota should aware that any future trouble that they may have with their vehicles could lead to an irreparable damage to the company’s name.