Recently, there is a Japanese pudding brand called “Mvuke Tokyo (MT)” becoming popular in China. The brand is now known as the “The Hermes of the pudding market”.

First, one of the main factors that made it popular is that: the company used premium pricing-strategy for products, and consumers like the brand not only because of its high quality dessert but also because they can use it as a conspicuous consumption good (in pudding market).

Secondly, I think there’s another factor that made MT succeed. The brand takes strong social responsibility. It gives consumers extra credits/points if they return the ceramic cup. This can reduce the production of ceramic cup, which can lower the level of pollution. This helps MT to gain good reputation on being “green”.

However, the tide of luxury pudding is the main factor that made MT popular; this is its Point-of-Difference. And the main promotion strategy is word-of-mouth, so once the tide is over or the consumers’ taste changes, MT will no longer be popular. This shows MT’s products have short product life cycles, which is not benefiting MT in long period. Moreover, since it’s popular now, other pudding businesses may decide to change their marketing strategies, which may make MT less competitive in its market. Also, since MT only has few stores, this may cause inconvenience for its consumers, which gives its rivals a competitive advantage. MT should open more stores and provide more varieties of products as it’s reaching its peak now. In addition, they have located the stores in the famous shopping malls, which require high rental costs. Since MT has already crease the good reputation and increase the awareness, it can start to open more stores in cheaper locations, which can save costs and help on its expansion.

References:

– Pictures:

1) http://bebeoeil.seesaa.net/article/376208755.html

2) http://tweets.seraph.me/search/Mvuke%20Tokyo%E5%B8%83%E6%AD%8C%E4%B8%9C%E4%BA%AC?page=2

Advertisement plays an important in our daily life. For businesses, they need promotion to attract more consumers. Facebook, a below-the-line promotion, is a good promotion channel; because it is not expensive but promote very effectively.

The article has described ten ways to use Facebook to drive in store and online sales. As Internet is becoming more important for us, and Facebook is the no.1 social network, I think Facebook can be a good way to increase awareness. Small businesses would be able to tell everyone about the business without spending a lot of money on advertisement.

However, there are also disadvantages for businesses that only use Facebook as their promotional strategy. If a business’s target customers are the baby boomers, then this would not be a great promotional strategy for the company; because most elders are still not familiar with technology, and they wouldn’t even see the advertisement, which means the promotion is ineffective. Moreover, since communication error may occur when promoting online, consumers may get the wrong information about the business.

In conclusion, I think using Facebook is a good promotional strategy for small business; however, before using it, the business should be clear on its target customer.

Reference:

picture: http://creativemixonline.com/category/advertising/

An online article on Bloomberg on Nov 4^th, 2014 reports that Canadian dollar’s exchange rate to US dollars has dropped to the lowest point in the last five-year period.  The current exchange rate is 0.1 down from the most recent high of 0.97 back in 15/01/2013.

In accordance to the law of demand, Canadian dollars value dropped because there is less demand of Canadian dollars. This is due to the reduced demand of Canadian oil. Canada is one of the biggest oil exporting countries following OPEC, Russian, and Norway. Oil is the major energy source so when the global economy is not strong then the global need for energy is low.

Also the supply side of the oil industry has grown.  New drilling techniques and fracking are producing more oil than ever before.

The combination of less demand and higher supply has reduced current price of oil.  Oil price was 0.54 per barrel on 2014/05/28 and the current price is 0.25 per barrel.

Canadian oil is shale oil more expensive to produce then light sweet and more difficult to refine.  When the market price is high profits can be realized in Canada.  Likewise when the market price is low then Canada oil fields have to sell their oil at little or no profits and cannot stop producing regardless market price, due to the capital in use.

The profitability of the oil fields have helped fuel Canada’s economy and supported the strong CAD.  Now in this period of retraced pricing on the oil market, the Canadian economy and exchange rate will follow. The CAD value can rebound when the oil prices go up.

My analysis is supported by the fact that Russian ruble also dropped. Russia is also a major supporter of crude oil in the world and Russian ruble’s value dropped because of the same reason.  This is along with this the ruble value has protracted due to the issues in the Ukraine.

As a counter to this is that cross border trade could increase as the devaluation of Canadian dollar also influences the international trade between Canada and USA. Since the same amount of US dollars can exchange more Canadian dollars, the exporters will likely get more orders from our neighbor, and thus stimulate Canadian domestic manufacturing business.

Reference:

Picture-http://capitaltrustmarkets.com/canadian-dollar-targeting-99-100-yen

First Nation as the external environment can have large impacts on businesses. BC is planning on starting a hydroelectric megaproject in order to solve the oil, gas, and mining issues due to the region’s growing population. However, the megaproject may have to stop because it has the potential of influencing the First Nation.

BC is facing both political and social issues. For the political factor: Canada’s highest court claimed that First Nation is going to win the course; this shows that the court is supporting First Nation, which means the project will be affected (cancelled) because of the political factors. Moreover, for the social factor: First Nation in Canada has showed its disagreement to the megaproject due to its impacts on aborigine’s life and their fishing industry, which can influence the project because First Nation plays an important role in Canadian society. (government takes First Nation’s opposition seriously)

Chiefs from the First Nation said that they support smaller projects, not the hydroelectric megaproject; they have also stated the substitutes such as wind, solar and geothermal power. Since there are a lot of substitutes and this industry is growing rapidly, there’ll be many competitors for sure. This shows the plan can be replaced easily, which will affect the project in a long-term period. In addition, the cost of the megaproject is $8-billion, which is a large investment (large risk TOO). If BC cannot get the capital, then the project will be cancelled.

By looking at the threats explained above, we can understand why the lawyers said this should be a slam-dunk case for the First Nation (its opposition to the megaproject)

References:

• Online business article, [URL: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/First+Nation+chiefs+stage+Site+showdown/10215965/story.html] Peter O’Neil, First Nation chiefs to stage Site C down, Last accessed: 2014-10-06

Wi-Fi has become a necessary need for us nowadays. Marriott, the hotel, has been reported to pay $600,000 fine for blocking customers’ Wi-Fi.

Since Marriott can get extra incomes by providing Wifi service in the conference facilities, it wouldn’t like its consumers to use their personal Internet connection; it decided to block the personal Internet connect. By making this decision, Marriott has reached its objective-making people to pay fees per device. Moreover, the company spokesman claimed that Marriott does this to protect consumers’ privacy, so consumers can also benefit from it.

However, this action will bring more disadvantages than advantages to Marriott. First of all, it will have to pay the fine because its decision, which is a loss. Moreover, since this news has been reported in public; consumers, one of Marriott’s main stakeholders, would likely to care more about costs than security. Marriott would gain bad reputation, which may leads to lower customer loyalty, which will influence its revenues in the long-term period. This action would benefit Marriott’s rivals, and help them to get higher market share and help them to get competitive advantages, which can be a threat to Marriott’s current position. Finally, as FCC said, Marriott’s action has breaking the policies, which is not benefiting Marriott at all.

In conclusion, this unethical move is likely to lead Marriott to lower sales, bad reputation, and less support from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

References: 

• Online business article, [URL: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/marriott-to-pay-600000-fine-for-blocking-customers-wi-fi/article20916267/] Elizabeth Wasserman, Marriott to pay $600,000 fine for blocking customers’ wifi, last accessed: 2014-10-05

Social networking plays an important role in our daily life.  Recently, Facebook, the largest social networking business, has bought WhatsApp (which is one of the largest mobile messaging apps). This action can impact people in different ways.

Here are some good influences: From Facebook’s perspective, this expansion helps Facebook to broaden its market and target customers. This may help Facebook to gain more competitive advantages, which leads to higher market share. As the market leader in social networking market, Facebook has made itself so competitive that its rivals can hardly compare with it. From WhatsApp’s perspective, this action can help promoting the business by using Facebook. Since there’re many competitors in mobile messaging market, this will definitely benefit WhatsApp. Moreover, Facebook is providing $19bn, this allows WhatsApp to make improvement on its app, and spend the money on more expansion plans. From consumers’ perspective, it can bring convenience. Since most people have Facebook nowadays, consumers may gain advantages due to their mergence. And for the social messaging market, this action may help it to increase awareness, which helps attract more consumers.

However, there are also negative impacts. From Facebook’s and WhatsApp’s rivals perspectives, more difficulties are made for them to compete with these two businesses, which also make this market very competitive, which may affect the suppliers and consumers since there’s less competitions. In addition, from the telecom companies’ perspective, they would get less attention from the consumers, which will affect their incomes and consumer numbers. As social networking market is growing rapidly, companies such as Facebook are becoming the strongest threat-substitutes for telecom companies.

Reference:

• Online business article, [URL: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29477447] BBC news, Facebook given green light to buy WhatsApp, Last accessed: 2014-10-05