Nydia Gunawan's Blog

The famous fast-food restaurant McDonald’s that we know has been offering meals with high calorie concentration and unhealthy fats, finally offers healthier meals!

McDonald’s have actually been evolving and growing for years, having innovations and modifications for their menus. McDonald’s has been trying to add more fruits and vegetables to the food they serve. This idea to offer healthier meals becomes an opportunity for McDonalds to accelerate their growth and evolution and to improve the brand’s image.

The idea includes substituting french fries in meals into fruits or vegetables to how customers imagine healthier meals should be. It is also hoped that this evolution would motivate children to eat healthy foods, low fat meals, etc.

McDonald’s works together with Alliance for A Healthier Generation as a part of the process. McDonald’s aims to become the solution to the problem of unhealthy diet and obesity due to unhealthy meals, despite the fear of changing the image of fast food restaurant they have had for years.

With this, McDonald’s may be able to fix its brand image in terms of healthy diet. Consumers may see McDonalds differently than they did before, in a more positive perspective of the restaurant. Parents would probably be less worried about taking their children to McDonald’s as the kids see the yellow M.

“McDonald’s Finally Offers Healthier Meals.” CNNMoney. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/09/27/n-mcdonalds-healthier-meals-ceo.cnnmoney/index.html?iid=S_Taboola>.

Last Thursday, November 7th, 2013, five Wal-Mart workers were arrested while protesting for higher wages in Los Angeles, three of which are current employees and two former.

The group organizing the protest, including clergy members and community organizers had been staging a two-day strike, asking Wal-Mart for higher pay, better benefits and hours as well as their rights to speak up without retaliation. On average, the hourly wage for Wal-Mart employees is about $12 per hour. Employees are asking for livable wages, knowing Wal-Mart’s almost $500 billion of sales and billions of profits.

In the other hand, Wal-Mart feels that they are proud of the opportunity it provides its workers. They believe that the main concern is not the minimum wage but the mobility, in accordance to workers abilities and opportunities to advance. If Wal-Mart were to rise wages they may have to rise prices, a step which Wal-Mart would not want to take at all.

As a consequence, workers have continued to walk off work, claiming that they cannot survive on Wal-Mart’s wages and get retaliated against for speaking out. This is an example of a consequence of insufficiency of effective work force organization; employees are not feeling happy about working at the company, which then causes long run negative consequences to the company itself, Wal-Mart, in terms of productivity, working conditions and labor investment costs.

Current, Wal-Mart Spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan Said That the Company Knows of Three, and Two Former Employees Who Were Arrested. “Five Wal-Mart Workers Arrested.” CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 08 Nov. 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/08/news/companies/walmart-protestors-arrested/index.html?iid=HP_River>.

Oasis Disc Manufacturing’s founder and president Micah Solomon wants his employees to “do whatever it takes to keep a good customer from going away in a huff”. His mission is to keep the business strong over the long run by building customer loyalty.

Oasis Disc Manufacturing is a lucrative niche CDs and DVDs manufacturer for customers ranging from musicians to filmmakers and others. A few years ago he overheard one of his best employees arguing with a client on the phone about who who was going to pay a $10 FedEx shipping fee. His employee’s aim was just to save money for Solomon.

Solomon realizes the ways in order to build customer loyalty is to create a culture of saying yes. Emphasize that you want it and keep reiterating that. Employees have to make sure that their main priority is to make sure that customers have a great experience. This helps the employees also not to get sidetracked on their duties. Solomon emphasizes to his employees to treat the customers the way they want to be treated and ask them to show customers that they value their feedback for ideas and suggestions.

Solomon thinks that providing costly employee refreshments such as subsidized massages for tired employees are too costly for small businesses trying to make payroll. Instead he believes that in order to create the culture where employees are able to provide good customer service and build customer loyalty, they have to be able to form a solid culture on how to make the workspace friendlier and will make every one of the employees feel contented – the culture of saying yes.

Manufacturing, Micah Solomon Was Confident His Employees at Oasis Disc. “Want Loyal Customers? Build a “culture of Saying Yes”” CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 01 Nov. 2013. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/01/smallbusiness/loyal-customers/index.html?iid=SF_SB_River>.

Amazon partners with the US Postal Service and now provides seven-days delivery service. It is also reported that in 2014, customers will be able to have Sunday deliveries with no shipping costs.

The company observes how online shopping continues to increase. Also, the Postal Service is happy to offer shippers like Amazon the option of having packages delivered on Sundays, with the same quality of service. In making the decision to have an everyday delivery service, Amazon and Postal service both looked at the favorable demand and consumption for online shopping and therefore, immense need for delivery services.

People also post on their social media about how they received packages on Sundays. This allows Amazon to be advertised through word of mouth by social media. With this, customers may expect to receive their packages on Sundays, having no hesitation to order things online at any day of the week.

World News. “Amazon Partners With US Postal Service for Sunday Delivery.”ABC News. ABC News Network, n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. <http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/amazon-partners-us-postal-service-sunday-deliveries/story?id=20851453>.

Smoke’s Poutinerie was started in November 2008, serving variations of the dish of french fries, cheese curds and gravy. The founder of the Toronto-based pottering invested $400,000 to launch the fast-food chain. However, not a dime of the money he invested went towards advertising.

To get the word out, Ryan Smolkin, the founder of Smoke’s Poutinerie uses one of the most effective, and free, marketing medium: the social media. He uses Facebook to advertise the company as it first opened and began to also use Twitter after some months.

Smolkin started by spending nights sending Facebook invites to friends of friends from the company’s account. Soon, customers started doing the friending themselves and the company gained a thousand of Facebook friends and followers. People start inviting their friend of friends, spreading Smoke’s Pouterine through simply word of mouth.

The business now is doing better than the founder could have imagined as he continues to build the poutinerie’s presence online. Smolkin even hired a social media coordinator to control the majority of posts on the company’s page. They choose things to put up on the social media that customers would like to see and care about. By doing that, Smolkin gives them reasons to come back and bring their friends.

Chain, The Founder of Toronto-based Smoke’s Poutinerie Had $400,000 to Launch His Fast-food. “Smoke’s Poutinerie Lures Customers through Facebook.”CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 08 Nov. 2013. Web. 9 Nov. 2013. <http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/08/smallbusiness/smolkin-smokes-poutinerie-marketing/index.html?iid=A_SB_News>.

In response to blog entry by Harnoor Gill “Too Fat for Lululemon“. I agree with his argument about this issue and I wish to elaborate on this news about the (dis)connection between customer relationship, of what is demanded by Lululemon’s customer segments, with Lululemon’s value proposition through their products.

Thursday, Nov 7th, Lululemon founder and chairman Chip Wilson blamed the company’s customers for the retailer’s product issues. He argues that some women bodies actually do not work for Lululemon products.

One example is the Full-on Luon pants, a generation of pants which took two years to develop and was launched in July with positive reviews. Through this product Lululemon hoped that it will remind guests of its ability to make great products, however, Lululemon yet faces another round of complaints.

The SVP of Design and Creation of Lululemon comments that Lululemon’s size range does not harmonize with North American standards. Lululemon purposely avoid vanity sizing and suggests their pants to be the “denim of the yoga world”, which means that the styles are very much dependent on the customers’ body shapes, sizes as well as their athletic activities.

Lululemon is very confident in their design approach; to market their products, they inform store guests about their products’ materials and fabric as well as their specific uses. There exist a confrontation between Lululemon’s brand image through their products being fitted for specific bodily sizes and uses, and their customer’s complaints on how the designs are too sheer; this conveys the disconnection between customers and their knowledge of what is offered by Lululemon through the products, portraying the absence of effective customer communication and relationship.

“Lululemon’s Failure to Communicate.” Fortune Management Career Blog RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Nov. 2013. <http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/08/lululemon-chip-wilson/?iid=A_L_News>.

I was reading an article by Gracia Chua “Gone are the Fruity Days” about Apple’s brand recognition, through its value propositions they offer through their products as well as its innovations. She argues that their recent product innovations of iPhone 5c’s may have diminishes Apple’s brand cache, an argument which I agree. What about Samsung, Apple’s main rival in the technological industry? Innovation seems to work for Samsung. But does it really?

Aside being one of the leading brands in the smartphone market, Samsung determines itself to be the first in making everything, not only smartphones – wrist watches!

With a simplistic design and industrial look, the smartwatch comes as a ‘companion device’ with Samsung smartphones, Galaxy Note and its other devices, with a lot of apps and features almost similar to the smartphones.

It is projected that 36 million smartwatches are going to shipped by 2018, and the industry says credit suisse will be $15 billion.

However, looking at society’s demand towards the significance of watches in their daily lives, would the smartwatch catch on?
People have put into habit of looking at their phones to look at the time, and do almost everything possible with their smartphones. Checking time with watches may be considered to be a habit of only small group of people. Additionally, people are almost always constantly on their phones.

In making their decision, Samsung would have to consider the likelihood of society’s demand or if consumers would forgo the product. If later on in 2018, the demand does not give a proportionate rate of return than expected, Samsung would have to face a great deal of $15billion loss. Smartwatch may be a big success if they can somehow persuade non-wearers of watches to become one.

Work Cited:
“Will Smartwatches Be a Hit? -Video.” CNNMoney. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 03 Oct. 2013. <http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2013/09/03/n-soares-uk-smartwatch.cnnmoney>.

US president Barack Obama has proposed a limit to carbon emission on new power plants built in the US as a step to reduce pollution blamed for global warming. He aims focus on climate change and to end the “limitless dumping of carbon pollution” from US power plants. 

The limit for the new gas-fired power plants restricts their carbon dioxide emissions to 450kg or 1,000lb per megawatt hour. And the limit for new coal-fired power plants are to 1,100lb. Regardless, on average, coal plants emit about 1,800lb of carbon dioxide on hourly basis.

The proposal is disputed by the coal industry and congressional Republicans. Even though the plan seems to have been working since April 2012, it is facing steep resistance from the both. The limit proposal would eventually inflict struggle for existing power plants that held accountable for about a third of all US greenhouse gas emission. The costs that the power plants would have to incur to capture their carbon emissions may harm job creation and employment in the industry (In order to meet the standards, coal plants would have to install expensive new carbon capture technology to minimize its emission of carbon dioxide to the air.).

“Obama Proposes Carbon Limits on New US Power Plants.” BBC News. BBC, 20 Sept. 2013. Web. 22 Sept. 2013. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24181341>.

Blackberry is facing a loss of nearly $1billion for the second quarter and has to cut 40% of its global workforce. In addition, Blackberry’s stock is down 26.5% this year. The company is trying to keep itself and its sales afloat as demand for blackberry has been poor.

Reports announced 4,500 jobs cut came about this Friday Sept 20 2013, corroborating the layoff rumors that have been a problem at the smartphone industry. It ascribed to the losses (capital costs) and burden it carries to restructure its business well and re gain increases in its competitiveness in the market.

The operating loss Blackberry is facing is about three times larger than forecasts. One of the key factors contributing to the loss is that the sales of the devices are comparatively poor compared to other smart phones in the market. The demand for the new Blackberry 10 — in which Blackberry has placed so much hope on — is lacking.

The constant bad news on Blackberry may further decrease the demand to its sales. Following trends, the population’s demand for Blackberry smart phones may deteriorate further as everyone stops using it.

Analysts claim that taking the company private would be the best option. There have been rumors that Fairfax Financial Holdings, Blackberry’s largest shareholder, might be interested in taking Blackberry private.

Source: CNN News. “BlackBerry Slashes Staff, Warns of Nearly $1B Loss.” CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 20 Sept. 2013. Web. 22 Sept. 2013. <http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/20/technology/blackberry/index.html?iid=H_T_News>.

Nonetheless, Blackberry is endowed with some profitable patents that may be appealing to potential buyers or partners.

Blackberry’s brand has lost its customer standing as demand for its product has declined. This may negatively affect other business elements starting from Blackberry’s sales to its stocks, revenue and back to damage its brand image. Nevertheless, Blackberry still have a strong reputation in terms of its corporate security.

The Lapindo mudflow in Sidoarjo started in 2006 and is still becoming a problem until today. Aburizal Bakrie, the Founder&CEO of the Bakrie group was held responsible as the damage inflicts citizens living/lived in Sidoarjo, especially around the plant. The mudflow ruined ten of thousands of houses, caused deaths&diseases due to the chemicals it contained. Right now, the mudflow is being progressively handled, but it involves a huge amount of money. It was claimed that government helps by contributing billions of rupiah.

Currently, Bakrie is nominating himself as a candidate for Indonesian President 2014-2018. Indonesians criticized him and expects him to fix this problem completely before jumping towards presidential election.

Stakeholders involved:
– Citizens of Sidoarjo:negatively affected due to ruined houses, deaths&disease.
– Aburizal Bakrie:loss of respect from Indonesians

– Bakrie Group:negative outlooks from the masses
– Government:opportunity cost due to allocating its finances on Lapindo when they can allocate the money towards other aspects. (health-support for victims, infrastructure)
– Potential shareholders
– etc.

Marketing&Financing
– Financing:should be able to allocate their finances and focus more towards fixing the problem completely.
– Marketing:Bakrie may advertise his/their brand and himself by other positive factors (e.g: Bakrie’s successes, in his presidential election advertisement he suggests family closeness/harmony is the key to success).