rebecca yang

I came across Keenan’s blog and Anthony’s blog post about Snapchat, a disappearing photo messaging app, which has been extraordinarily popular with 3 million users in 2 years, rejected a 3-billion-dollar offer from Facebook. Despite the fact that Facebook has been positioned as the dominant social-networking app, it’s still concerned about threats from other companies, especially after the decrease in its share price recently.

It’s not unusual to hear Facebook’s intention to buy off a social-networking app that is likely to threaten some of services it offers; Facebook bought Instagram for 1 million about a year ago. Although Keenan advocates Facebook’s intentions of buying the novel app to decrease the competition and establish its status in the social-networking market, my analysis shows that it’s neither sustainable nor practical way to buy all the existing photo sharing and message apps such as Line and Whatsapp and even the next 20 emerging community services in the future. Instead of investing a great percentage of the capital into other apps, Facebook should concentrate on building up its own strengthens by updating its own social-networking app such as poke and online messages services. I understand Facebook’s concerns about the threats from other companies, but one of the most effective ways of tackling with the external issues is to solve the inherent problems by highlighting its strengths and eliminating the weaknesses. It’s necessary to have a dominant strategy regardless of others.

Sources:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/11/13/facebook-wouldve-bought-snapchat-for-3-billion-in-cash-heres-why/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/13/facebook-snapchat-3-billion_n_4268859.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/12/28/facebook-pokes-a-bomb-succeeds-only-at-making-snapchat-more-popular/

I recently read Alison’s blog post about Tim Horton’s proposal to expand of their products into vending machines, which will be an entirely new distribution channel to approach the customers. I agree that creative strategies are significant for a company to differentiate itself from other competitors. More importantly, a novel idea also has a great potential to boost up its profits.

Rogers, a Canadian communications and media company, demonstrates a good example of how to generate a new revenue stream by operating a shopping channel. Although Rogers hasn’t released any financial information about the shopping channel, the fact that its sales went up by 6 % from last year to 812 millions even during US economic recession indicates the success of the company’s television channel paring up with website sales. In addition to telecommunication base, Rogers one of the most important revenue streams, media assets should be another area for Rogers to focus on, and it has done a good job on running the shopping channel. It has substantially increased the sales by bringing the celebrities who are associated with the products to the TV show. It’s interesting to see how a communications company successfully takes over an online shopping website and branches out to other markets while its conventional television networks are encountering competitive advertising market. Capitalizing on its substantial influence over a variety of medias, Rogers has the upper to market and advertise its own shopping channel. One thing for sure is that thinking outside the box provides Rogers more opportunities to explore the market.

Here’s a link to its online shopping website:

http://www.theshoppingchannel.com/?s_kwcid=TC|14868|shopping%20channel||S|p|29919895380&gclid=CN2P05nQ6roCFQdyQgodaQYABA

Sources:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/the-shopping-channel/article14143467/?from=14151732

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/retail-therapy-rogers-cranks-up-shopping-tv/article14151732/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/video/20130913theglobeandmailguylaurence-rogers-720p-3000kbpsmp4/article14280126/

At the same time that Microsoft abandon the old system that compels mangers to rate their employees on a curve and punish or even fire the low-end employees, Yahoo is debating whether it should adopt this ranking system

In order for the most efficient and economic business model, it’s seemingly reasonable for Yahoo to embrace this “Game of Thrones” in the office. Apparently, this new policy enables Yahoo to lower the cost moderately by getting rid of the least motivated workers who contribute less than the payment they receive. In addition, a competitive environment will be established, where everyone is driven to work harder by the extrinsic motivation such as money, rather than intrinsic factors such as his or her own passion and self-actualization, which are more likely to yield to a more outstanding results.

(Here’s Ted Talk about extrinsic motivations fail in some ways The puzzle of motivation)

Hence, every coin has two sides, mechanically rating the employees’ performances on a curve, which is mostly determined by the manger’s observations and opinions, is arbitrary and defective. In other words, employees will easily shift their focus from their duties to some negative political behaviors. For instance, some of the employees try to ingratiate themselves with the mangers and backstab their colleagues in order to save their jobs. As the research operated by the Institute of Corporate Productivity shows that the number of companies using a forced ranking system is constantly shrinking in these two years.

All-in-all, human resources plays a key role in the success of the company. Therefore, Yahoo should be cautious about the stack ranking idea and analyze the benefits and drawbacks of this new policy before the implementation in the organization.

Sources:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-13/microsoft-kills-its-hated-stack-rankings-dot-does-anyone-do-employee-reviews-right

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-12/yahoos-latest-hr-disaster-ranking-workers-on-a-curve#r=read

http://cdn2.tnwcdn.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/05/Yahoo-logo-657×245.jpg

The TV and films online streaming services Netflix has witnessed the global subscribers number surge over 40 million and a huge profit jump. I am also one of the millions loyal customers for Netflix. A question occurs to me that what makes Netflix so prevalent with a huge and devoted customer base. I realize Netflix’s huge database, as well as its effective manipulation and integration of information and business considerably contribute to this remarkable progress.

A writer Leo Kelion explains how Netflix turns a threat of copyright infringement into an opportunity to obtain information about which is the most popular show so that it will launch more new shows online that are more potentially appeal to the public instead of wasting time and resources uploading films that only very few subscribers are interested in. In this way, though Netflix doesn’t create the database itself, it capitalizes on the valuable information from outside resources and dramatically increases efficiency of the company.

One of the new features allowing customers to create multiple profiles for one account is another example that displays Netflix’s efficient operation of the massive amount of information and its awareness of the first-hand customer feedback. It’s been requested by numerous subscribers for the multiple profiles because it creates confusion in “My Preference” when another family member logs in the same account and watches completely different kind of movies. As a result, customers find it more pleasurable and convenient to retain their own profiles while still sharing their accounts with other family members. I believe that Netflix will continue to thrive in the future due to its massive amount of subscribers’ information and exceptional business technology management skill.

Resources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24621047

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24108673

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tech-news/netflix-gets-more-personal-with-multiple-profiles-per-account/article13545295/

When hearing social conscious responsibility, a lot of companies instantly link it with higher cost and lower profits. However, this is not always the case. Instead, United Parcel Service of America.Inc, an American global package delivery company demonstrates an excellent example of how to boost up the profits as well as being environmentally responsible through new operating methods and enhanced efficient process. Since 2004, with the aid of the engineering department, UPS has come up with numerous new routes for the driver to avoid as many left turns as possible, until there are only right turns in their delivery routes, which seems irrelevant to either social responsibility or generating more profits. However, the only right-turn policy has surprisingly resulted in saving 10 million gallons of gas and reducing carbon emission by 100,000 metric tons due to the shorter waiting time, lower fuel consumption and increased safety.

(Here’s a video clip to explain how the right-turn policy facilitates the traffics, eventually resulting in incremental efficiency.)

Why UPS trucks only turn left

Many companies are under the illusion that sustainability is pointed against profit because it takes time and capital to innovate new technologies, which are designed to address only the environmental and societal issues. However, they don’t realize that their companies are established and affected by the environment such as natural resources and water use. It’s crucial for the companies to abandon the traditional view of business model and look at business through a new lens where long-term benefit outweighs the instant profits.

Sources:

http://www.pressroom.ups.com/Fact+Sheets/Saving+Fuel%3A+UPS+Saves+Fuel+and+Reduces+Emissions+the+%22Right%22+Way+by+Avoiding+Left+Turns

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-20/ups-makes-no-left-turns-in-quest-to-deliver-sustainability-q-a.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/ups-efficiency-secret-our-trucks-never-turn-left-2011-3

Nike, the American multinational cooperation which is mostly engaged in footwear and apparel has recently introduced a Nike+ FuelBand, which shares the point of parity, allowing users to measure their workouts. However, what makes this product stand out among all the fitness trackers such as Fitbit is its point of differences. Firstly, FuelBand provides a universal way measure all kind of activities including yoga and bicycling which are not able to be tracked by other tracking wrist bands. Secondly, in order to encourage the health conscious consumers to stay active, the company has added hourly reminder asking you to move around for five minutes. This also enhances the nike’s value proposition by adding more features and attributes to the existing products.

In addition to presenting its point of differences, Nike company also devised a brilliant way to retain and expand the customer base. One of the most exciting news for Nike are Apple, which dominants the US smartphones industry with an increase to 43% market share in 2013, said that its new iPhone would have sensors to allow people keep track of their Fuel points. Partnership with Apple not only enables nike to retain its customer but also expand its customer base by taking advantage of the popularity of new iPhone. As more people measure the activities in Fuel points and the more dependence people have developed on them, the less possibilities for the customers to switch into other fitness trackers due to the confusion of different units,which always gets the consumer to come back to Nike’s products. Therefore, in order for the universal Fuel points, Nike is also trying to partner up with more companies especially the well-established.

Source:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-15/sorry-nike-youre-a-tech-company-now#r=nav-f-story

http://www.nike.com/ca/en_ca/c/nikeplus-fuelband?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.ca%2F

Subway,started as an ordinary submarine sandwich shop by a student who is motivated to make some money and pay off his substantial amount of tuition fee for medical education.Currently there are 40394 Subway outlets around the world, impressively exceeds the number of Mcdonald’s worldwide outlets, which has been positioned as one of most famous and successful fast food restaurants. How did Subway create this miracles and and went top of the fast food chain ladder?  Here are some couple examples demonstrating how quickly Subway has adapted to the change in the market and offer customers more values with same price as other fast food stores.

– Introduction of a variety of heart-heathy meals which have less calories and sodiums, positioning itself as the first fast food restaurant to earn the American Heart Association.

-Promotions for its 5dollars footlong sandwiches cater for its target segment —  health-couscous customers but in low budget.

-Launch the egg white bread sandwich that is lower than 200 calories each

– Resign the soft drinks cup and napkin, presenting a “greener” look of the meal.

The changes above suggests how quickly Subway has reacted to the market and successfully positioned itself as ” the healthier, the fresher and the better” in the fast food chain by highlighting its points-of-differences. At the same time, subway still does an excellent job of maintaining and improving its point-of-parity such as convenience and reasonable price.

Sources:

http://www.subway.com.au/content.asp?

http://www.subway.ca/Menu_And_Nutrition/MenuCategoryItems.aspxCC=CAN&LC=ENG&MenuTypeId=1&MenuId=2#

http://theweek.com/article/index/212902/subway-the-worlds-biggest-restaurant-chain-by-the-numbers

“Our aim is to make any advertisements you see feel as natural to Instagram as the photos and videos many of you already enjoy from your favorite brands.” — Instagram blog post 

One of the most popular photo-sharing app Instagram is bring ads to your news feeds after accumulating its user more than 150 million people and selling to Facebook Inc. for 1 billion dollars. Beginning in the U.S. the next 3 months, users of instagram will start noticing that there will be some random brand pictures and videos that they don’t follow on their newsfeed. However, they are still allowed to close the ads if they dislike the pictures. In other words, in order for the effectiveness and sustainability of the advertisements, the marketing team of Instagram is aiming to make the advertisements as enjoyable and high-quality as many other photos and videos that are favored by numerous users.

what will an Instagram ad look like?  (video)

Although the Facebook change in the term of services sparked some revolts from the users, this is still a great time for Instagram to start making money from the paid advertisements because firstly it has built a solid and strong relationships with the users. One of the major concerns that a lot of social media companies might have about the paid pop-up ads are the users’ complaints and boycotts. However, this will not be an issue for Instagram because it has grown its customer base to a vast amount of people who are literally depending on Instagram to update their lives instantly to their friends who are also loyal users. Personally, I will not stop using instagram when all my friends are the loyal users. More importantly, if the marketing team successfully implements their plan of making the ads less commercial but more like enjoyable picture, which is a brilliant idea of marketing integration without jeopardizing instagram’s awesome factors, the advertisements on newsfeed will be gradually accepted and eventually “blended in” other pictures and videos followed by the users.

Sources: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324577304579059230069305894.html#articleTabs%3Dvideo

http://money.msn.com/technology-investment/blog–instagrams-time-has-come

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-03/facebook-s-instagram-to-add-advertising-amid-revenue-push.html

Apple company has successfully sold 9 millions iPhone5s and iPhone5c in the first weekend after its launch, though once being considered as one of the trailblazers of smartphone industry, Blackberry is cutting 4500 jobs due to the dramatic decline of sales. Although majority of the smartphone companies are striving so hard to avoid the downfalls, Apple surprisingly almost doubled its sales of iPhone compared to last year’s first weekend of iPhone5, which was 5 million units. In addition, the last 12month’s iPhone sales also beat out a number of strong companies such as Microsoft and Procter & Gamble in various fields.

Apple’s continuous successes inevitably lead one to ask what contributors to its achievements. Basically, Apple provides a textbook example of “Customer Relationship” which is the 4^th step of a business model. First of all, Apple did an excellent job on attracting the customers from other smartphone companies by introducing the first iPhone instead of following the conventional Android system though it was risky to launch something novel into the market. Secondly, it also did a good job on retaining its customer in the means of annually producing a better model with longer battery life and other new features, which are exactly what their target consumers have been looking for in a smartphone. In addition, Apple also cooperates with a number of Communication and Media companies such as Rogers and Bells to sell iPhone at a lower price with roughly 2-year contract. Last but not least, one of biggest contributors in impressive progress in the recent iPhone’s sales success is that it has expanded iPhone’s launch towards more countries. In other words, Apple has been progressively expanding its market internationally and its customer base.

Sources :

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-25/listen-up-apple-haters-iphone-sales-eclipse-microsoft-and-amazon#r=discussed

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-23/apple-sold-9-million-iphones-last-weekend-dot-heres-why

Ethical Fashion

In the article “Shoppers face hurdles in finding ethical clothing” by Anne, the ethical fashion raises the shoppers’ awareness of where their clothing is made in.  A recent building collapse in Bangladesh that killed hundreds of garment workers not only stirs peoples’ sympathies but also brings them into thinking that they might need to pay more attentions to where the clothing are from and in what working condition they are made.

Video related:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHRRisIKQkM

To be honest, as a big shopper for clothing, I barely paid attentions to where my shirts are from but the price when I looked at the label. It sounds really apathetic and immoral when consumers indicate that they are not concerned about the working conditions, but its shoppers’ natures to purchase the goods at the lowest price and best quality instead of better working condition for the garment workers. From the companies’ perspective, it’s difficult for them to supervise if the clothing is “ethically made” overseas and they will tend to squeeze their costs on labors in order to maximize the profits, which might eventually jeopardize workers’ benefits. Thus, social responsibility of business lies on all the stakeholders including customers, producers and so on. Ethical fashion is a good start to change the appalling working conditions in Asia because producers can lead the fashion and shoppers will go with the flow. In this way, both of them will eventually come into consensus that “ethically made” shirts are more appealing than some shirts that are made by a 9-year-old boy.

supporting article: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2013-04-30/shoppers-face-hurdles-in-finding-ethical-clothing#p1