Nowadays, the innovation of the society and whole world somehow do cover our eyes to discover that there are still many people who are suffering from the starving and struggling to survive.  The social entrepreneurs are the society change agents, creators that devote to help those who need just a small amount of money to survive. In Africa,  the situation of poverty is a big deal. Though many countries donate money, products, water, etc. to Africa every year, the efficient way to help them is to empower them to be economically self-sufficient. And social entrepreneurs are putting their attention to provide the poor with “fishing” instead of just a “fish”.

They noticed that it was common to see uneducated people and the homeless on the street, and most of them were having nothing to do. However, they have desire to learn, to survive by themselves and to make their lives meaningful. So the social entrepreneurs are her to provide money to organize and educate  them. There are also many the uncompleted, simple and crude buildings needed to be constructed. Therefore, social entrepreneurs also train them to be engineers and make them earn their own lives by renovating these houses. They show how to change their lives by education and give them hope by providing funds to educate them with practical knowledge. Therefore, they can do constructions or have chance to start their own business instead of relying on the help. Social entrepreneurs also provide medical help to them and train people about knowledge in medical industry. Today, many universities offer social entrepreneurship courses to teach students how they works and how they will change the world.

Sources:

http://skollworldforum.org/about/what-is-social-entrepreneurship/

Image: http://www.irismin.org/gallery/gal/March%202007/IMG_0360.jpg

According to Mark Graham’s blog, Starbucks’s tax issue becomes a popular topic that people would like to discuss. Starbucks as one of the most popular US coffee supplier only paid $8.6m UK tax in the past 14 years, which really “surprise” everyone. In his article, Mark points that there is no prove can suggest that Starbucks did something illegal, what they essentially do is transferring money between itself and just paying their fair share tax without cooperate tax. Starbucks have a huge impact in the coffee market, which means if they continue pay less tax on their profit, local small coffee company will have a tough time compete with this international large company.

Similar to Mark’s perspective, I would say, as a successful business company which is defined as business ethics, Starbucks can not only concerns the profit of shareholders, but also stakeholders. According to the article, though Starbucks pay less tax than other coffee brand, but the quality of its coffee is even less than other coffee brands. Starbucks do successfully run an international company and achieve the reputation from almost all over the world, even cause the monopoly within the market, in a long-term consideration, it still need to improve their products to meet the requirement of customers. Last but not least, UK government should consummate the tax policy to prevent the cutthroat competition within business industry. Situations like Starbucks company will bring damage to local coffee brands if continue using tax policy.

Sources:

Mark Graham’s blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/markgraham/2014/09/09/starbucks-and-their-creative-tax-plan/

External sources: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-19967397

Images:

http://m.c.lnkd.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/5/005/06a/169/0ca7435.jpg

Starbucks and their Creative Tax Plan

In Jeremy Chan’s article, he discusses the aerospace market’s current situation and analyzes two main companies which monopoly the whole market. Both two producers try to increase their dependancy due to the increasing outsources in order to get more profit. However, it dramatically increases the  pressure of supply chain producer to these companies. Under this situation, more and  more companies consider consolidate their supply chain which means merged small companies whose finance is independent.

Similar to what Jeremy Chan mentioned in his article, The key to maintain steady economic growth is operation. Wise operation can really help the plane makers to run company in a benign condition. As many factories are suffered from the stress of the supply chain, consolidation of them can be a efficient way to better meet the demand, which can make the supply chain more robust. Also, with more and more complicated planes continue being designed, plane makers are looking for some firms that provide components far more closely including sending inspectors to their factories. The attempt they seek to find the long relationship with more believable firms is to keep pace with the incredible demand from consumers and keep gain profit from the trade-off as well. And I also notice that if two largest plane makers compete under such a monopoly market, the best way for them to do business is setting a long term operation plan to figure the supply issue which can create a steady chain for company itself.

Sources:

Jeremy Chan’s blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/jdchan/2014/10/04/the-sky-is-the-limit/

External sources: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21621851-fixing-one-supply-chain-problem-planemakers-may-be-creating-another-good-parts

Images:

http://i1.huffpost.com/gen/1464709/thumbs/n-BOEING-large570.jpg

http://newstop24.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/boeinglogo.jpg

Social media giant Twitter announced that it will open an office in Hk instead of  China next year. Because of the Chinese policy that came out from government in recent years, the social media like Twitter and Facebook were banned to prevent the protest against government. However, for business companies, the potential for asian market is huge, especially in social media market, therefore, Twitter wanted to expand into asian regions like greater China.

According to the SWAT strategy, Twitter sets the office in HK will help them achieve their goals as the opportunities for the external analysis. For example, they acquire to know China social media market deeply through their office in HK in order to better design their network or even specialize for Chinese customers. what’s more, as half of all internet,mobile and social media users worldwide in Asian regions, Twitter see more opportunities through their expansion to HK. Meanwhile, because of the policy that Chinese government enact for social media, Twitter may still confront a tough time to achieve its goals. Government policy become the most tough barrier to get into the mainland, as the external threat dose exist in Asian regions, Twitter company still need to seek to an approach to get into mainland market in China. However, as a large international company all over the world, Twitter already has its branch company in some asian counties like Japan, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul and Sydney, which means their strengths of internal company is huge and well-organized. This can help the company take their advantage of operation to make strategies to get into new market. Similar as india which is the biggest market of Twitter currently, China still have many local social media with the features that suitable for Chinese to use, so Twitter has to take the competition from local brand into consideration as well.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29947422

Image: http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78820000/jpg/_78820933_twitter.jpg

According to the blog, land value tax is an efficient way to regulate the real estate market. Land value tax is a levy on unimproved value of land only, which means the owner of the original land will be taxed on the extra improved or constructed value of land. The economically rent of land will also be taxed. From the perspective of blog’s author, the land value taxation is so great, because the competition within the land market is drastically. According to the law of demand, as the price of products increase, the quantity demand will drop; therefore, the land value taxation can help market keep up running in a benign circulation. When thinking about any tax, economists focus on how it affects decision-making. With the land value tax, all things will not be better off.

Though the LVTs are wonderful, it is rare. One explanation is that it is too difficult to value land separately from what sits on it. There’s not much market and have many barriers. For example, the policy issues. The landowners who face a new tax bill and reduce of sale price would be cost more after tax, which means the demand will fall under this policy. Therefore, the problem is hard to overcome by this situation, because the economists will continue advocating land value tax, and the politicians will continue ignore this issue. However, anyway, the benefit of land value taxation will spread equally to today’s owners and their generations, which means the taxation is good for the economic growth overall.

Sources:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/11/economist-explains-0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax

Image:

http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/2014/10/blogs/economist-explains/20141101_blp508.jpg

Since the foundation of Canada, government enact laws trying to assimilate the first nations in Canada, who is Indian. However, as more and more Indian children was taught by English and forgot their first original language, the popularity of first nation decrease dramatically in recent year.

After the formal apology that made by governor in 2008, the provision of Indian act is enacted to protect their cultural, language, their lifestyle and behaviours. The government has obligations to protect their aboriginal land, interests. However, some aboriginal people denounced it as an ambivalent protection, but simultaneously don’t want give up theses kind of protection, for instance, in tax exemption.

This Indian Act does bring some barriers to local even entire Canada’s business. Through this act, First nations can manage their own business affair, which bring strong competitive to other brands. They have advantage in tax as well; most of their businesses are protected by tax exemption in reserves, which induce an impact on the price of market. Within this business mode in the market, other Canadian companies may experience a tough period to earn money from their trade-off with first nations.

sources:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/background-the-indian-act-1.1056988

Image:

http://i.cbc.ca/1.1593333.1394227073!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_620/li-residential-schools-620.jpg

Amazon’s successful long-term operation contributes to its reputation nowadays. John Rossman, who has written the amazon way about the 14 leadership principles judge amazon’s manage mode from short term perspective and long-run perspective. Through the reading materials, It is obvious that these principles can benefit to most of companies including amazon itself, and it can take a little risk since founded and be outstanding from market competition is because Amazon obeys the principles to value differentiation as much as they can. Though, amazon’s market capitalization monopoly a large part of market, the managing director insists that there will be more trails even with little risks for amazon to become the biggest company, and they have to strive.

Amazon focus on running long effort on Hachette, because they have to be careful to deal with the publisher, which may implicate additional partner and vendors they have to negotiate with. This kind of relationship with publisher can also guarantee the content producer put their works into customer’s hand directly. The unique way which differentiate amazon with other similar company is that they operate without kind of constraints that hold down so many companies. The tenet of company is believing internal competitions which can both promote the profit in the market and the salary of employees.

Sources:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/examining-the-amazon-way/?_php=true&_type=blogs&ref=business&_r=0

Image:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2014/09/26/technology/26bits-amazonqanda-pic2/26bits-amazonqanda-pic2-tmagArticle-v2.jpg

Blackberry nowadays face a stressful competition within the phone market and just announced another quarterly loss. Since the last quarter blackberry company reflected 50 million drop and a series of severe cutbacks and layoff, the chief of blackberry company plan to switch company’s focus from hardware to the software.

It seems like blackberry company’s low ebb will end soon, but blackberry company still encounter the challenge which is time issues. According to the research, only blackberry 10 system can use their updated connection that without blackberry’s data network. While a large number of blackberry 7 system user can not attain to get the new updated, which number is continuing decline in some developing countries. As iPhones, android phones, windows phones manage and increase their security, blackberry will pay attention to this kind of details.

However, the unique square display with touch sensitive physical keyboard is still focused by company to attract consumers. But it can be doubt that whether this feature can continue bring benefit to blackberry, because it seems like the physical keybaord is no more popular. The blackberry company also want to gain their profit by building more steady relationships with customers, which can be thought as a wise strategy that help blackberry get out of trapped.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/27/business/once-mighty-blackberry-posts-another-quarterly-loss.html?ref=business

Images:

http://www.blackberryos.com/bbos-images/2013/blackberry-hq-zws.jpg

http://www.concept-phones.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/blackberry-windermere-4.jpg

Apple’s big brandname help this company stand out from this competitive phone markets recently. As iPhone 6 and 6 plus have been selling in the market, the apple company announced that they have sold 10 million iPhone for the first week, which even over their record for last year’s iPhone 5. From the announcement provided by apple company,  it is a smart idea that Apple choose to meet the requirement of demand which can be referred as a bigger screen smart phone. Through the given data of Apple, that’s probably one of reasons that why their new products were sold much more than before. According to the analysis, iPhone 6 plus’s demand is stronger than iPhone 6. They have been sold out in most of store, but iPhone 6 still left. Because of the market demand, this is the second time that apple choose to sell 2 phones together, and they operate their market strategies wisely to fit into different situation, which finally create the most value to their own. This year, Apple plans to continue selling the iPhone 5c, and 5S at the same time with 6 and 6 plus, which means the differentiated price can help Apple target on different markets demographically. Its positioning strategy is wise by upgrading the new iPhone, but still sell the old one, which set up the price rank for people who can not afford to buy new phones.

Word cites:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/technology/apple-sells-10-million-new-iphones-in-first-weekend.html?ref=business&_r=0

Image:

http://cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2014/09/iphone_6_iphone_6_plus1.png

Nowadays, people always feel unsafe because they are potentially facing the leak of information at any time. These unsafe elements may come from their banks, companies, even  phone apps. These responsible companies which people commonly use their products or services everyday all have problems with their security system. It is illegal to get business private information without the consent of others to make their own benefit, therefore, this phenomena can be considered as a business ethics issue. As the Internet develops rapidly, people’s private information is no longer be safe if they were put online. The companies that people trust to provide their personal information should take more actions to protect their privacy instead of just ignoring or denying for being hacked. It’s time for companies to give or trust customers’ feedbacks as well as defend themselves from the lose of important data. Last but not least, from business ethic point of view, companies should come out policies and further develop its online defence system to guarantee their customers’ privacy and safety because they are responsible for that. A successful business company should not only consider the shareholders but also all their stakeholders. They should help them gain their profit as well instead of just concerning their own revenue.

Sources:

http://www.scu.edu/r/ethics-center/ethicsblog/business-ethics-news/15517/CYBER-ATTACKS:-Should-Companies-Admit-They’ve-Been-Hacked

Image:

http://www.dogtownmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ios-hack.jpg