Month: November 2012

The closure of twinkies will  lead to a large 2 billion dollar worth gap in the market for another large scale cake/bread company to swoop in and start exploiting. Since an iconic food is in its final stages, consumers will want it more than ever because of the products  scarcity and because of the products trendiness (lots of media attention). Twinkies are likely to be hoarded, and then later sold at a much higher price, but not everyone will be able to afford such a high price, thus a new company can start producing the cream filled delights and sell at a cheaper price. If another company did start producing twinkie-esque goods, it will be interesting to see how much of a factor brand loyalty played in the $2,000,000,000 sales.

Bibliography

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20364595

Photo retrieved from: http://grassrootgourmet.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/twinkie.jpg

I read an article about globalization, which is a topic that we haven’t studied in depth in comm101, however it is essential to the business world today. 2.7 million US jobs have been lost to China alone in the past decade as a result of economic globalization and trade liberalization. Companies usually shift their manufacturing operations  overseas to less economically developed countries because of the lower cost of labor, less tax and fewer government regulations, which allows them to keep the cost of production to a minimum, and therefore keep the profit margins high. Although globalization sounds like a good phenomenon, what it actually does is lead to in the host countries is exploitation of workers, depletion of natural resources, environmental damage, LEDC economy’s dependency on Multinational Companies. Globalization also leads to the interdependency of economies, which can result in crisises like the world financial crisis in 2008, which was a result of the American banking crisis; or the food crisis in 2008, which was a result of series of global events, such as: the high price of oil, drought in Australia, Chinese people becoming wealthierand thus eating more meat, increased price of fertilizer, etc.

Bibliography

http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/new-report-27-million-us-jobs-lost-over-last-decade-due-growing-trade-deficit-china

Photo retrieved from:

http://www.globalsherpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/globalization-hands-pic.jpg

I read a blog which advises  small businesses on various topics; it encouraged small businesses to do a SWOT analysis. I believe that the SWOT analysis is a very useful tool, because it helps you clearly organize your ideas. It also helps you view things in a different light, for example, you might not have been able to differentiate between a “threat” and “weakness”. Moving on from SWOTs, small businesses should utilize as many tool as possible, from Porter’s FIve Forces to the fishbone model, because all these tools are so simple to utilize, and they all give such useful information pertaining to a whole host of topics. As we saw in the social enterprise video, a seminar was held for small business owners in South Africa, and eve though the tools seemed basic, the business owners thought that the tools very extremely helpful. These simple tools influenced the way people did business, for example: the woman who graphs green and red columns (revenue and costs) at the end of each month, in order to gage her profitability situation better.

Bibliography

http://sme-blog.com/sme-blog/why-your-small-business-needs-a-swot

Photo retrieved from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/SWOT_en.svg/220px-SWOT_en.svg.png

The subject of  the external blog was entrepreneurship, which made me think back to the 2 guest speakers from last week. Entrepreneurship is a difficult topic to write about, because it is very easy to just say: “identify an unexploited market”, but extremely difficult to actually spot a gap that someone else has missed. My reflections on the topic are that you don’t need to conjure up the next generation of smart phones or cars in order to be a successful entrepreneur, sometimes the gaps in the market are much simpler and less sophisticated, like that Ethiopian woman from the social enterprise lecture, who just sold milk. Thinking of that woman makes me think that being an entrepreneur doesn’t always equate to a tremendous amount of risk and capital.

Bibliography

http://www.smallbusinessbc.ca/post/inventing-101-taking-idea-your-head-and-putting-it-your-hands

Photo retrieved from: http://trabzongg.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Inspired-Entrepreneurship2.jpg

Response to: http://www.smallbusinessbc.ca/post/social-biz-a-refresher-how-use-social-media-build-your-business-brand

The external blog post discusses the basics of how to use social media effectively in our modern age to promote businesses. I believe that evolving marketing strategies is extremely important, as it keeps businesses relevant and up to date. Advertising through social media is extremely beneficial for small businesses, because they can use social media websites for no cost and potentially reach such a large audience. In the past, social media websites might have been considered too unsophisticated or amateur looking, but there is an increasing trend in big companies’ advertisements, which encourage people to carry out things like:: “like our page on facebook”. The number of likes constitutes how popular a brand is. There is also an increasing trend of there being hashtags at the bottom of the screen during tv shows, which is usually a question posed to the audience and the aim is for people to tweet about it, and thus make it appear in the twitter trends, and then more people would see the hashtag and develop awareness about the tv show. I think that this blog post is relevant to comm 101, because comm101 is a testament to evolving to the trends of the Twenty-First Century through pulsepress and blogs.

Just consider the instagram account of a small start bakery…

Bibliography

http://www.smallbusinessbc.ca/post/social-biz-a-refresher-how-use-social-media-build-your-business-brand

Photo received from:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-hHJYryUBm7M/UFfTzE2k_bI/AAAAAAAAn7Y/a7c27Cjj41U/pumpkin-cookies-chocolate-chips%252015.jpg

I read an article pertaining to employees’ level of engagement in companies which implement sustainability initiatives. The article placed a strong emphasis on employees’ need to play a part in the sustainability programs, employees now consider solely working for a ‘green’ company inefficient.

In the article, it stated that companies which implement strong sustainability programs have “55% better morale, 43% more efficient businesses processes, 43% stronger public image, and 38% better employee loyalty”. Looking at these statistics, I questioned whether any potential job applicant would rather be employed by a company with strong Corporate Social Responsibility programs over a company which provides better remuneration but has no or very weak Corporate Social Responsibility programs. However, what I concluded was that making this decision isn’t that difficult anymore because of the widespread CSR initiatives implemented in all industries in this era in which its fashionable to be sustainable. A whole range of diverse companies implement CSR initiatives, from  Starbucks to Goldman Sachs, the only decision job applicants have to make is whether they actually want to be a part of the sustainability program, or just work for a company which appears to have  some sort of sustainibility program.

Bibliography

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/07/business/global-office-csr-volunteer/index.html

Photograph retrieved from: http://sustainabilityninja.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/feature-images/government-industry-sustainability.jpg