Payment has never been as exciting as before. Shortly after Apple has launched its newest tech-savvy application Apple Pay in October 20, 1 million credit cards are registered in merely 3 days. However, retailers including Rite Aid and CVS started to drop their support and plan to create their own payment system.

Market or Product-Oriented?

Apple’s aim to make customers’ lives easier and simpler might have been achieved, but the BIG question lies in whether they are able to maintain this success and create a shared value. As a customer myself, I do want to get through the line and pay quickly. Nevertheless, privacy and security are my major concerns too. Apple’s iCloud has recently been hacked, so how are we supposed to regain our trust in Apple?

Revamping Value Proposition

Furthermore, in a retailer’s point of view, I would install Apple Pay in my store if it can generate extra benefits by putting loyalty in it and get repeat business, but unfortunately Apply doesn’t provide this. It’s not built to support merchant loyalty programs. Thus, how can Apple attract retailers to support this innovation?

I believe that Apple must reconsider whether this service creates a good enough value proposition for a sustainable innovation. It might seem ‘cool’ at first, yet how long will this product last before it reaches the end of product saturation?

BC Hydro’s $8-billion Site C hydroelectric megaproject has faced an ongoing dispute with First Nations chiefs, as the project is likely to create adverse effects on fishing opportunities and practices for the First Nations.

Threat to BC Hydro’s Key Activities

As an electric utility company, one of BC Hydro’s key activities is to distribute electricity to customers in British Columbia, and the only way they can expand is by constructing more power plants and hydroelectric dams.

Unfortunately, despite of the growing demand from Victoria’s residents, the project conflicts with First Nation’s constitutions acts. Thus, the company is facing a great predicament to satisfy customers’ demands but at the same time comply with the laws.

This social and political pressure puts the company at risk to make the right choice. An erroneous decision can dampen BC Hydro’s corporate image and even charge penalty if the company is unaware of the exact rules and regulations.

To Continue or Not to Continue 

With the ongoing stakeholder conflict between BC Hydro’s managers and First Nations chiefs, it would be difficult to resolve by themselves. The opposing groups can invite an arbitrator to negotiate faster and more fairly. This should be done as soon as possible because time costs money. BC Hydro must immediately satisfy its customers’ demand to build a positive customer relationship.

Drawing from Vanessa’s Olive Garden post, I was engrossed by the restaurant’s unusual focus strategy that is seemingly not working. Yes, it is true that Olive Garden is a well-known Italian restaurant recognised for its nutritious pastas, aiming at health-conscious families. However, its most recent promotion of $100 for 7 weeks of past does not seem to match to its ‘health’ aim.

Counting Calories

Whilst Vanessa argued that Olive Garden’s “everything refillable” strategy might not work due to its pressure on the restaurant’s inventory and table turnover, I inferred that Olive Garden has unfortunately failed in implementing its focus strategy. The restaurants tries to concentrate on a narrow market segment with its unique promotional services – where else can you find an unlimited pasta Italian restaurant?

Nevertheless, this promotion contradicts with the restaurant’s brand image of a ‘healthier-choice’ family restaurant. I mean, why would anyone gorge on carbs on an attempt to get healthy?

Breaking the Buzz 

Well, turns out although this promotion raises many questions and skepticism, Olive Garden has successfully gained customers’ reactions. “If the primary object is to get your money’s worth, it has nothing to do with good nutrition.” Olive Garden might have lost a portion of its health-conscious customers, but they have also gained new customers who give up ‘health’ for getting their money’s worth.

This might only be the restaurant’s short-term marketing strategy, but is it going to have a larger impact on its target market than it initially intended?

Burger King’s Satisfries, the newly innovated, healthier french fries that contain 20% fewer calories and 25% less fat than its classic fries, has been recently taken off menus in less than a year after they made their debut in September 2013.

Failed Positioning

Whilst Panera Bread and Chipotle Mexican succeeded to capture a health-conscious market as substitutes for Burger King and MacDonalds, BK once again unsuccessfully tinkered with its fries to cater an additional target market in an attempt to increase sales.

Burger King has been widely known as a fast-food chain, thus providing a cheap and tasty range of unhealthy food. Parallel to Ries and Trout’s view on positioning, BK’s customers have faced information overload with the presence of a myriad fast-food competitors including MacDonalds, KFC, Subway, Domino’s.

It is difficult to change consumers’ perspectives of a brand once it is formed. Health-conscious consumers would not even enter a BK store, and BK’s current consumers, who tend to be more ignorant about healthy eating, would not exchange for its iconic french fries.

“French fries are an indulgence, just like ice-cream” 

Some might claim that first-mover advantage is the most successful to get into the mind of customers. Yet, in reality, consumers’ perception is extremely hard to alter. French fries has been embedded in people’s mind as an indulgence. The big question is, will fast-food chains ever be able to expand to the growing niche market of health-conscious consumers?