“If  the United Nations was fully funded why would we need the Arc or social enterprise?” 

Some people argue that if the United Nations are truly fully funded, then we do not need social entrepreneurs because the government would tackle any problems that arise from people. However, I think no matter how affluent a nation is, the value of social entrepreneurs is still indelible. In fact, Social enterprise is not about money but about how small individual can revolutionise the society.

Unlike concrete operations like governments, social entrepreneurs are individuals arising from the big crowd that tackle problems closely related to people’s daily life. To quote from the video, “social entrepreneurs see opportunities where other people see hopeless failures; They see potentials where other people see tragic consequences; they see a future that the others cannot even begin to imagine.” Social entrepreneurs are pioneers, creators and dreamers who understand the root of people’s problems and know how to effectively solve them with minimized resources. Social entrepreneur like Mahammad Yunus used $27 to 42 persons in a village and started a revolution, eradicating poverty and brought happiness to people. No matter how much money the United Nations have, they cannot buy social entrepreneurs’ ideas.

Social entrepreneurship is also about how business can benefit our community. Unlike some who place individual success prior to contribution to the society, social entrepreneurs started off aiming to improve the society as a whole. As a Sauder student, I consider to contribute to this society as a lifetime goal, and I believe many of my peers share my goal. With the knowledge that I acquired during the four years, I hope I could make changes in the world just like social entrepreneurs do.

The following article is a respond to one of Zi Hao Li’s brilliant blogs.

While reading Leo’s blog, I feel both sorry for the Microsoft and ridiculed by their horrible marketing strategy. When competing with such established and well-accepted competitor iPad, what Microsoft really need to do is to think of the unique features and advantages that only the Surface has.

Personally, I have been hesitating to buy a surface even though I already have an iPad. So why would I buy a surface when iPad is so good and popular that it becomes the synonym for any electronic tablet? What are the advantages owned by the Surface that the iPad does not share? First, for a university student, the Surface is better since it is compatible with PC softwares.  Excel is the best friend for any students studying in commerce. I would like to buy a Surface so that I do not have to carry my heavy laptop every time I go to Comm 290. Also, for engineering students, there are several engineering program that has no iOS version. Second, typing is so much easier on the Surface. When you try to type something on an iPad, a keyboard would pop out and take over the half of your typing window. In this way, I cannot see what I wrote earlier on that page, soI find it really interrupts the flow of my article when I try to write something with my iPad. However, Microsoft Surface has an attached, computer-like keyboard that is easy to use for tackling a writing task.

When you look at the advantages, it is not easy to come up with a proper marketing strategy that maximize the advantages of the Surface over iPad. Instead of spending money to cooperate with NFL, Microsoft should cooperate with universities or companies where tablets are valued for their ability to handle words-related problem. No doubt that when a football game is played, the coach would use the attached keyboard, and so this feature cannot be manifested and the “naked” Surface would look like an iPad. Microsoft can consider cooperating with universities to provide student rent or free Surfaces. For example, for a computer-related class, they could place surfaces beforehand at the front for walk-in student to use. In this way, the students would grow a “habit” about using the Surface and buy it for their own. Also, group effect in university is also important for marketing. I personally want to buy a Surface because I saw what my friend did with it in one of my comm 290 class.

In summary, it is crucial for any company to understand its advantages over its competitor before marketing.

The following article is inspired by a brilliant blog written by Song, Jiguang. https://blogs.ubc.ca/jiguang/2014/10/27/bonusesanatomy/

In last class, we learned about how Zappos uses incentive compensation to boost employees’ morale and  to create a creative working environment.  Offering bonuses such as free snacks in vending machine, parties on every weekends, and high salaries for call services persons, Zappos have a high expense on workers’ wellfare. However, seeing all these bonuses, people cannot help but ask: can these wellfare effectively motivate employees to excel in their workplace? or, the costly bonuses are unnecessary.

According to Jiguang, the value of the bonuses depends on the type of one company. In his opinion, companies that rely on innovations need such bonuses to provide a creative working environment. I partly agree with his opinion but also think the labor market matters, too.

As discussed in class, a company needs to provide high bonuses for employees that considered as “scarce” in labor market. Why? first, the cost of free snacks is nothing compared to the opportunity costs to find a new scarce employee and the cost of training him. Also, the risks of losing a excellent personnel is always high when one company’s competitor can offer more for him.

I agree with Jiguang’s idea that the type of company determine the importance of bonus but think that the type is not merely on the value proposition of the company. Anatomy values more than bonuses in a self-owned company. “A meaningful job” is defined in the tipping point written by Malcom Gladwell as anatomy, high returns and intellectual rewarding. The sense of working and getting reward for oneself is the best incentive in self-owned company. Punishment works for the best when the job is relatively easy and has abundant supplies in labor market. Punishment keeps every worker works hard even in the easy job and also provide “fresh blood” to that company.

In summary, in addition to Jiguang’s idea that a company should motivate its employees according to its value and spirit, I think a company should also consider different perspective such as the labor market, the general type of the company, and the scale of its employee.

They call him Neutron Jack. They call him the toughest boss. Fortune magazine calls him “The manager of the century”. In his twenty-year career General Electric, Jack Welch rejected conventional wisdom and turned an aging behemoth of a corporation into a lean, mean engine of growth and corporate innovation.

“Manage better by manage less” is the key point to Jack Welch’s success. Instead of the direct management style that is preferred by most of the companies, Jack Welch revolutionized management a less formal, creative, and flexible management style that minimized bureaucracy, boosted efficiency and created simplification.

Delayer bureaucracy is one key strategy that Jack Welch energized General Electric. Redundant bureaucracy and complicated response system was the big enemy of General Electric, lagging it from the other competitors. By getting rid of the bureaucracy in G.E, Jack Welch broke the boundaries, allowing a free flows of people, insights, and decisions. By doing so, Jack Welch effectively engaged everyone into the team, creating a more enthusiastic working atmosphere that also has more freedom and more responsibility.

However, after learning the last class, I think Welch’s innovation also have advantages in the company’s future globalisation focus. In an increasingly multicultural, global world, GE need to be decentralised in its globalisation focus. However, right now General Electric is too homogeneous, too masculine and too “American”. Welch’s managerial style is good for decentralising  because its flat responsive system allows local-market reports customer feedbacks at the first time and implement improvement to different department efficiently.

During one of my commerce classes in Henry Angus Building, I glanced the attending students and I discovered a fun fact: most of the students are girls! They talked to their friends sitting beside them about the shopping of last weekend; They were light or heavy makeups; They were yoga pants or skirts, all looking like shining stars in the business world of the future.

As one of the girls, I know that there are challenges for women to survive in this man-dominant world. Saying man-dominant may be a little bit exaggerate, however, it would be hard to imagine that the board members are all women, instead of men in their middle ages. In fact, women in the top C-level jobs are stuck in 15%-16%, not even close to 50% and the number is no longer growing. With the world and our culture becoming more and more acceptable to women, I wonder why women only compose so little percentage of the top workforce.

In my opinion, there are several reasons. First, women face traditional domestic tasks. The burden of maintaining a family happy, clean and organised falls mainly upon on women’s shoulders. One of my mother’s friends, a MIT graduate, becomes a housewife with 3 kids after 5 years of marriage. Once married, women become less ambitious in workplace, longer for a stable, less demanding job to enable them spend more time with their family.

Moreover, under constant reinforcement from the world, female becomes unconfident in their capability.They assume they cannot become high achievers like men do because their family and friends tell them so. Especially when the status of a woman and her likability is negatively correlated. In a study, people hate their female bosses more than they hate their male bosses. The ambition and vigour of a woman in workplace strongly contracts how people perceive women in the past. Conservative people expect women to only become a gentle wife and a good mother, but refrain from those female bosses. So female get this kind of information thus resigned in pursuing status.

In summary, closing the gender gap needs efforts from both women and the world.

The problem of BC Hydro is controversial. When managing to build a megawatt hydroelectric plant generating station on the Peace River in northeastern British Columbia to contribute a clean electric solution for growing population , BC Hydro invades the land of First Nation and inevitably destroy farmland, fish rights and wildlife habitat.

According to PESTEL analysis, BC Hydro is now facing political, technological and environmental factors that will affect the performance and activities of its business in the long-term.

First, political factor is obvious when it comes to the legal factors concerning with land usage conflict between a company and aboriginal people. Since Canada was created in 1867, the federal government has been in charge of aboriginal affairs. The Indian Act, which was enacted in 1876 and has since been amended, allows the government to control most aspects of aboriginal life: Indian status, land, resources, wills, education, band administration and so on. For over 100 years, The Indian Act has been continuely amended in order to ensure First Nation’s rights and economic development of other citizens. So for any slight modify in legal regulation, there would be a ineligible impact on BC Hydro’s stations that build on First Nation’s land. This external instability would be a constant concern for BC Hydro’s future development.

Second, technology limits BC Hydro to build hydroelectric stations without causing so much damages on land. Imagine if there was a technological innovation that allows BC Hydro to build station without disturbing the life of aboriginal people, it would be a win-win solution to contribute both sides.

Last, though BC hydro dedicates itself for building clean hydroelectric plant that decreases the future environmental costs, it unavoidably damages environment while building stations. The dam would flood a vast area of 83 kilometres. Liz Logan of the Fort Nelson First Nation said: “It’s our church, it’s our store, it’s our school. We have elders’ gatherings there annually”. Switch perspective to aboriginal people, I certainly would not want concrete monster ravages the land that raised my people for generations. So, while BC hydro affects on environment, it also has business ethical problem to ponder.

First Nation chiefs to stage Site C showdown
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/First+Nation+chiefs+stage+Site+showdown/10215965/story.html#ixzz3FRarZ5am

Background: The Indian Act

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

Social media, such as facebook, instagram, snapchat, ect. now composes a great part of modern social life. In stead of spending time to make face-to-face connect with other people, we now can easily “poke” them on social media page. Besides connecting friends, social media can also be a great way to build relationship with customers.

Instagram is cool way to connect with your socially engaged consumers. There are 130 million active users on Instagram every month, and every day 1 billion photos are liked. Use the app right, and you could have an instant viral marketing success. Use it wrong, and your efforts on this young site could be a big empty fail. Using hashtag is a important skills to make your instagram account stand out. It’s a big way of how users can find you through their mobile Instagram searches. Many brands, such as H&M, ZARA, are now host photo competition on instagram by using specific hashtags. This tactic both promotes your contest, gets customers to actively involved in brand value proposition, and gives your consumers a distinct tag to connect with others participants and other unexpected cool thing that may deepen your brand value.

Also, to build a successful marketing instagram, you also have Share followers photos on your social sites. Show your customers you appreciate them by acknowledging their cool photos, and share them with your Facebook fan or Twitter followers. By doing so, a company is no longer a distant brand that exists only when customer trying to reach it, but it becomes a intimate friend with customer.

In class, we learned that shortening inventory days is important for matching demand with supply. For the companies who are unable to take advantages in short inventory, social media could be a great way to get feedback from their customer in time and build a positive to make customer actively understand a company’s value and soul.

People lining up to buy Iphone6

When I was in high school back in mainland China, it was a peer pressure to have an Iphone. I had 40 classmates and 36 of them were using Iphone, and a large part of them even update their Iphone according to yearly base. Having heard of the news of Iphone6 will be released in September, 2014, my friends and I devoted ourselves in radical discussion of its new functions and its “improved” appearance. Young people in China love Apple and Iphone and purchasing power in China is higher than that of western country.

So the reason for apple delay release of Iphone6 in mainland China has always puzzling me. I think many disadvantages and risks could emerge from this simple move.

First, by delay the release in mainland China, Apple granted the other competitors a precious chance. There is a news about a teenage boy in China sold his kidney for Iphone5s when it first came to market that shocked people globally. Later, selling kidney for Iphone became a “joke” to sarcastically imply Iphone’s high price and the content about how much people would give up for an Iphone. Before Apple announced the release would be delayed, a large amount of people has already sold their kidneies and gathered the money for Iphone, but now, the money in the hand seem to be burning because there exist other smart phone brand which is as good as Iphone but only of half price of Iphone. So, Apple increased the risk of losing its customer to competitors.

Second, delay release create chance for second-hand over-sea purchase. People in Hong Kong and other countries would grab this chance to make profit by selling Iphone on the Internet, decreasing Apple’s brand authenticity and in-store experience. Moreover, when it released in China, it will not be as tempting as it first released in Semptember.

In modern world, everything is happening so fast that not one single delay is tolerable. I believe the price that Apple will pay for this delay is brutal.

Alibaba might be strange to people outside of China. However, in China, the concentration of Alibaba to Internet is like Nitrogen to the air.

Starting in 1999, a time when internet-based business was a unexplored territory, Alibaba Group focuses on e-commerce businesses, including business-to-business online web portals, online retail and payment services, a shopping search engine and data-centric cloud computing services. Business got further enlarged when it cooperates with Taobao, eBay.com in China, features nearly a billion products and is one of the 20 most-visited websites globally. For every one of the billions deal made on Taobao, Alibaba needs to be used for connecting customer and seller at least 3 times.

Without knowing the background of Alibaba, it might be a shock to hear that on the date of historic initial public offering, Alibaba has earned a market value measured as US$231 billion, an unprecedented record in American history.

What that triggers my interest is, why does Alibaba, a Chinese brand rooted in China, have to be launched in America? And if we look even closer, we would find out that there are 14 Chinese technology companies offered initial public offering globally, and 9 of them were launched into America markets. Moreover, Chinese technology companies were at the leading place in American capitalism market, seizing 4 places in the top ten largest initial public offering.

The answer, later I find out, can be simply put in this way: They can’t. They simply unable to launch into domestic market because it could not coordinates A-share, the main kind of stock regulation in mainland China market, and even cannot in launch at Hong Kong due to violation of certain types of management and needs to corporate government structure.

The fact is disappointing for both Alibaba Group, and vast amount of Chinese investors. For Alibaba, it cannot enjoy Chinese market that contains unlimited potential. For shareholders,being unable to buy shares from such a newly rised company is such a shame.

We all love Apple products. It is not exaggerate to say that every moment of our life is filled with iPhones, iPads and iPods. However, behind the intelligent technology and brilliant innovation, we need to look at the business ethics of Apple.

Between January and November 2010, 18 suicides occurred at Foxconn, the major manufacturer of Apple in China. This news brought attention from the world to the working condition in the Chinese sweatshops. Covered in suicide nets to prevent workers leap to their death, Foxcoon largely employs underaged workers from Chinese countryside with minor payments to do huge amount of work. Previous reports have claimed that some of the workers were doing 24 hours at a time, while others were forced to stand for their entire shifts. Apple, the most advanced technology company, faces abuses from the whole world for the inhuman working conditions it provides in Foxconn.

In my opinion, the tragedy occurs for two reasons. The first reason is the interest-orientated goal for not only Apple, but for most of the major companies in modern world. Bragging big words such as technology improves the whole world, while secretly employ underaged workers with minor payments, companies deepen the division of social classes, creating latent social problems.

The second reason is the long haunted problem of China, which is lack of creativity. As a Chinese, I grew up, being told what to do and what not to. All kinds of formula from chemistry and physics were crammed in my head without exploring any real-life application. All I need to do is write down what I memorised during test. Chinese people value hard work, but we are living in a world where one simple idea lays the foundation of hard work. Without the foundation, sweat and blood lead to nowhere. So in my opinion, better education leads to better life.