JetBlue: Entrepreneurial Company

Posted on November 16, 2010 by nikichiriac

One example of an entrepreneurial company is JetBlue Airways. Started in 1999 by David Neeleman and originally named “New Air” the company went by the slogan “we’re going to bring humanity back to air travel.” It aimed at providing cheap airline tickets to customers (undercutting other airlines’ fares by an average of 65%). JetBlue new innovated idea also had risks involved, including the possibility of failing to withstand competition from existing major airlines. Regardless, of this and another threats however, Jet Blue was able to grow rapidly and by the first year filled a higher percentage of seats (79.9%) than any other US carrier. Furthermore, in 2000 it reported $100 million in revenues but no annual profit. Regardless of this the company expanded so quickly that by July 2001 JetBlue gained control of its own terminal at JFK. The amount and speed of this company’s wealth creation in such a short time is an indication of it deserving the title “entrepreneurial company”. 

Information compiled from : http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/38/JetBlue-Airways-Corporation.html

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Outsourcing Call Centers to India

Posted on November 1, 2010 by nikichiriac

 

Over the past couple of years many global corporations have began to outsource their call centers to India. Some reasons behind this include their large and educated workforce, specialized call centers and infrastructure, the time zone advantage, and incredibly low prices. Although the decision to outsource calls to India may be cost beneficial there are many implications which the company must consider before making this decision.

When I call, call centers and ask for help or information about a certain product I expect to be able to communicate properly with the person on the other line. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. I am sure many customers become aggravated when talking to call representatives and I am also sure many employees suffer high stress environments due to this as well. The way to resolve this problem is only by making sure that people working at call centers answer calls more quickly and refrain from using a script. Scripts make it more difficult for people to communicate with one another. Furthermore, it would be very helpful if the people hired did not have a significant accent. Many customers find it annoying when they talk to someone on the phone and notice they cannot speak English properly. Nevertheless, it seems impossible to hire only those who have a perfect accent since it would not only be discrimination, but impossible to find that many people to work for the company. Therefore, it seems like a good idea to outsource some calls to India since the call centers will most likely have the same level of stress of American call centers.

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RIM’s Playbook vs Tomorrow’s iPad

Posted on October 25, 2010 by nikichiriac

Since Apple’s launch of the iPad in April 2010 many companies have been playing catch-up to the corporate giant. Apple’s initial step has allowed other companies such as RIM to forecast more clearly the demand for the Android tablets. Seeing the huge lineups and demand that existed for the iPad other companies have based their operations strategy on the iPad’s demand. What makes RIM’s PlayBook so different from the iPad is that it stands to take market share from Apple in the business world. IT control and monitoring of BlackBerries via BES has been a crown jewel of RIM’s business model and a major selling point to enterprises since it ensures device and data security. This point of differentiation is key to RIM if they will attempt to take over market share from Apple. The choice to target only a certain section of the market is a smart decision since marketing can now focus fully on one specific group of people rather than the entire consumer basis which may prove a less efficient strategy. RIM may seem at a disadvantage momentarily however, since the PlayBook will not be shipping until next year their weakness in relationship to their competition remains to be seen.

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The Starting Point to Gaining a Competitive Advantage

Posted on October 17, 2010 by nikichiriac

Companies are constantly faced with the challenge of achieving a competitive advantage over other businesses. According to Joseph Daniel McCool, writer for Bloomberg Businessweek, gaining an advantage over the competition starts with attracting the right talent to the organization. By this he means that the company must have a great leader, which is competent, committed, and has character.

All great organizations seem to be based on someone who is a great leader yet in class when discussing how to gain a competitive advantage we did not discuss this basic point. To me it somewhat goes without saying that in order for a company to succeed in any goal it must have a great leader directing it. Sure differentiating the company’s product, changing prices, becoming more efficient by cutting costs, and using different channels of distribution are very important aspects which may help in gaining a competitive advantage, but ultimately all these decisions are due to the leader. A company may be able to become efficient without much difficulty, but it will not be able to gain a competitive advantage without an innovative strategy that a great leader chooses to implement.  

Steve Jobs

The epitome of a great leader. “In the past 10 years alone he has radically and lucratively reordered three markets — music, movies, and mobile telephones — and his impact on his original industry, computing, has only grown.”

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Brand Positioning

Posted on October 2, 2010 by nikichiriac

Brand positioning refers to how a product or company is thought of in one’s mind. When researching this question consumers are often asked what is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of this product (done in class), or how would it be described if the product were a person. This is done to ensure a clear view of the brand values that make up the brand personality, just like the values and beliefs that make up a person.

Possibly one of the top companies in terms of brand positioning is Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola has used this affinity between the brand and the consumer to lead to a higher degree of loyalty for the brand. Consumers with this high loyalty will evidently chose Coca-Cola over any other beverage ex. Pepsi, Sprite. Furthermore, they have succeeded in creating the right image for the company. This image that drinking Coca-Cola will lead to friendship, fun, and happiness has been engraved in consumers mind since they first started watching Coca-Cola commercials. Since most people are not aware of the effects these advertisements have had on us we will continue to choose Coca-Cola products since they seem best fit for our expectations. The company has succeeded in placing its brand in the consumers mind where it become memorable.   

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The Largest Ponzi Scheme in History

Posted on September 22, 2010 by nikichiriac

A ponzi scheme refers to a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to investors from their own money or money from subsequent investors, rather than any actual profits earned. In order for such a scheme to work it needs an ever-increasing flow of money from investors.

In March 2009, Bernard Murdoff was arrested for defrauding thousands of investors of billions of dollars, a scheme which had begun in the early 1990’s. He claimed that, “clients receiving trade confirmations and account statements had no way of knowing by reviewing these documents that I had never engaged in the transactions.”

Such a huge scandal and lie leads one to think about how it was possible for Murdoff to lie to so many investors for such a long time. It is evident that what he did was unethical however; the more important issue to learn from this is how to make sure that we notice such schemes in the future and do not forget this scandal as we did with Enron. Ponzi schemes usually prey on a specific community, in this case the Jewish community, where Madoff abused their trust in order to get individual financial gains. Also, it is very important for investors to do their own diligence work before investing and notice when something seems too good to be true. In this case of making sure one does not fall captive to such a scheme being skeptical is always a good call in the business world where some people are only out for themselves.

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Business Ethics Article :

Posted on September 16, 2010 by nikichiriac

Wall Street’s Economic Crimes Against Humanity 

By refusing to consider the consequences of their actions, those who created the financial crisis exemplify the banality of evil

Shoshana Zuboff begins her article by stating that “financiers at AIG were awarded millions in bonuses because their contracts were based on the transactions they completed, not the consequences of those transactions.” These consequences are specifically related to the economic crisis, which some believe was caused by workers of AIG. Shoshana also takes this view and develops the whole article into a comparison between people working on Wall Street and their impact on the start of the economic crisis and a Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann who committed crimes with ever realizing that what he was doing was wrong. In this way she explains to the reader that financial institutions “accepted a reckless system that rewards transactions but rejects responsibility for the consequences of those transactions.”
The main ethical issue she deals with is that workers did not consider whether their actions would lead to good or bad outcomes, but only were concerned about doing their job. In this case this led to misery on a global scale.

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