Making money should not be the only goal of a business. We also need to take care of sustainability, which is the combination of environment, economics, and social. To achieve this goal, creation of shared value (CSV) can be applied to this.

Social enterprise is a great way to work on. Different from traditional charity, social enterprise is more than just giving out money. It gains reputation from giving out money to the need. This satisfies the social part, which means to contribute to the society.

When we discussed about Lululemon in class, our group found that the company focuses on six key wastes produced during the production process. This is not seriously restricted by the government. When the company is doing this, it certainly raise the brand image of the company. Also, this is a great example contributing to the environmental part of sustainability.

Building up reliable connection with the suppliers is the economics part of sustainability. A company needs to build up stable relationship with the suppliers to make sure they have a stable product supply to the customers. If a company fail to do this, the brand image will be greatly damaged.

http://www.gablepr.com/clientserviceresults/damage-your-brand-image-the-netflix-way/

http://sustainability.lululemon.com/manufacturing/taking-action/

Obviously, producing own production is too costly. The more efficient way is to buy contents from or build up a partner ship relationship with the production company. Buying contents is not efficient because the shows on Netflix is not going to be famous forever. No one can promise that the old movies will still be an attraction to the public. Meanwhile, we cannot sell it back to the  owner after we buy it when we find out those shows are not as popular as the others. Therefore, partnership with a) youtube and google, or b) abc and nbc are the feasible ways. We already have free access to most of the youtube videos and google. People do not have the intention to pay for watching videos on youtube and google. After all, partnership with abc and nbc becomes the most efficient way.

The company has already paid the production fee and the programmes will not be shown repeatedly on TV. Therefore, the shows will become mostly useless. If Netflix buys the video from abc and nbc, people can now watch the shows that they missed online. This cause a great advantage for both companies and is a win-win situation.

As mentioned in class, Dell earns the highest revenue per employee among all the PC industry in 2004 due to its ability on making quick response to changing customer tastes. Does it work for other companies as well? Ford brings up a good example. It figures out a new way to increase its revenue by doing something similar to what Dell did in 2004: expanding its manufacturing footprint and overhauling its production method in order to increase efficiency and flexibility. After all, the quick response to changing customer tastes is an important element for a company to work better because trends are changing from time to time. If a company is unable to catch up with the trends, customers can immediately notice this and abandon the support on that particular company. In opposite, customers always prefer companies that can catch up with the flow and lead the generation especially for company like Ford that has many strong competitors like Toyota, Honda, and Nissan. Therefore, the changes that Ford plans to make can certainly bring Ford to a brighter future as the whole action will bring Ford a better reputation for being innovative.

Citation:
http://www.bnn.ca/News/2013/10/7/Ford-aims-to-make-its-factories-more-flexible-efficient.aspx
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Dell_Logo.png
http://www.cyberwarnews.info/wp-content/gallery/officialnull/ford_official_logo.jpg

In order to become successful, a company has to have a clear concept of what its target segments are and the targeted customers’ need. A question comes up to my mind. Why does a company need a constant target segments?

As time goes on, trend changes. People have changing demands on goods and services and it is a company’s job to keep track on it. A constant target segment does not mean the company never makes any changes on its products. It is to help building an image for specific, targeted groups of customers.

However, I think the most successful companies should have changing target segments. This will provide a wider customer source and create a positive image of being innovative. Companies usually change their operating directions when they face difficulties but they seldom think of changing target segments constantly. They may have concerns on the cost of buying new equipment but this problem can easily be solved when they consider co-operating with other companies that have good company images. Changing target segments can avoid the problem of being “outdated” and being eliminated by a specific target segment of customers.

http://www.cedia.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/target-dollar-sign-300×223.jpg