Rebekka Zuckermann Kristiansen's Blog

If you were to observe the current state of affairs in the world of trading goods and services on the local level – going downtown to get a new outfit or a new record or maybe even something fancy like a new car – and then imagine what that would be like without our massive access to information online. What would the world look like?

First of all, if there is no Amazon, the stores would be a lot more busy – you’d have a whole bunch of people “just looking around”, the occasional neurotic shopper that cannot stand lines, lound voices or children within a 5 meter radius, the annoying people who know they want something – they just don’t know what that is yet. (But no, you cannot ask the salesperson a question because these people also need their undivided attention while they apathetically look for stuff they aparently need.)

Secondly, we would have too much noise to ever enjoy anything related to shopping. Depression would go through the roof and we would all be miserable, because lets face it, the marketing provided by the internet does make it easier for the consumers to filter what they ultimately want to purchase. The internet also allows consumers to purchase efficiently and privately, further increasing any technologially advanced business’ ability to sell their goods. The internet (and thus Amazon, etc) does hold a number of positive aspects for business, so maybe dont shoot it down the next time Amazon sends you a “suggestions based on your recent purchases” list, even though we all know Amazon never really understands what we want.

What was that? Feminism in business? Powerful women in executive positions? Now that it is mandatory for me to express my opinions to the world (thanks Comm 101), I might as well go all out and provide the millionth feministic perspective on business, while reflecting on another blog named Women on Business (this is going to be great).

I’m going to say this straight up front: I am not that much of a feminist. Personal opinions aside, I stumbled upon this post about the 4 key characteristics of successful female entrepeneurs: Not surprisingly, they are driven, intelligent, big dreamers and they make things happen. Just like every other entrepreneur.

Still, although the characteristics are similar in men and women, the resources directed at these two groups are not. According to  Women on Business and the Small Business Administration, the big dreams of women are rarely funded while the big dreams of men often are. A consisten lack of venture capital funding for female entrepreneurs indicates a bad system – the funding is there but it is not there for all good ideas. If we are ever going to move into the 21st century, the reasoning responsible for this imbalance needs to end.

Yes, it is true. The almightly almost holy entity named Starbucks once upon a time launched their heavenly coffee shops in Israel only to shut down again a little while later. Why did this fairytale not work out you ask? Because Starbucks was lacking a grounded idea of their own situation.

Starbucks – The One And Only

An article in Haaretz (an Israeli news-agency) explains how Starbucks, in not realizing that they were entering a country with a deep-grounded coffee culture, failed at charming the critical Israeli coffee-drinkers. Firstly, the market research was insufficient. Secondly (and most importantly) the overconfidence coming from being a successful company co-operating with a local successful company (Delek Israel Fuel Company – I know, a fuel company – big shock this didn’t work out) lulled Starbucks into thinking that they could easily break into the Israeli market.

This situation sheds light on a larger-scale issue: The collision between globalization and local culture. From one side, an international brand must be standardized to succeed, something IKEA has displayed in abundance. Then again, many businesses employ a “glocalization” strategy – a mix of international standards and local flavour, clearly lacking in the example of Starbucs vs. Israel.

Following the Comm 101  lecture featuring Janice Cheam, Energy Aware‘s founder and CEO, a bit of a discussion ensued among my friends – is society wrong in consistently viewing the average business as inconsiderate of the surroundings? Yes of course, the stereotype is generally wrong – as most stereotypes tend to be – and as social enterprise is entering the arena, what will happen to the profit-maximizing business world of today? I’m not directly linking Janice Cheam’s visiting lecture to social enterprise, but I find that her approachable nature showed us a different profile of a CEO.

Social Enterprise – Cooperation

In terms of social enterprise, where the goal is to apply business thinking to ultimately increase social (human or environmental) prosperity rather than increase shareholder profit, it’s a stretch to state that many businesses are fulfilling the requirements to be such an enterprise. To be a social entrepeneur there are many requirements, and different sources, like our class’ preparation read of J. Gregory Dees take on social enterpeneurship, state different “criteria”. Though if every now and then a company has a CEO like Janice Chem, we may begin to wonder if not a shift is occurring in the business world today – is a social concience being born?

As a tourist-going-on-Vancouverite I have seen many small independent shops and services around Vancouver (that is, whenever I find the magic, mysterious and rare time to get off campus). I can’t help but wonder to myself if these shops will ever stick around when they’re surrounded by large retail chains? After reading Julia Amelio’s blog post about Canada being a “Be Your Own Boss” nation, I must say it seems more that likely that these small businesses arising from the issue of that “BC has a small industry with many large firms, making it hard for newcomers to … get a job” will eventually yield as the more resourceful price takers outcompete the charming yet pricey indie shop on the corner, rendering BC to be like everywhere else – filled with noisy department stores.

Kitsilano, Vancouver

Coming from a nation (Norway) that has already experienced major growth (as Canada also has), and more precisely an area where indie shops have opened and inevitably closed time and time again, suffocating in between three malls all within a 6 km radius, I have to say that I can only imagine a future Vancouver with less of these lovely interesting stores (though still a charming city, surely).

As I go through withdrawal, I could do anything for another piece of that Norwegian milk chocolate I brought to Canada (that I ran out of about 27 hours ago). As I read Elyssa‘s blog post about chocolate (In my current state, I would absolutely buy this fictional new chocolate/sugarshock) I think about how an aisle at the supermarket actually could end up looking like the entire world’s inventory of chocolate was moved into that one location.

Freia Melkesjokolade – Norway’s very own milk chocolate. Possibly the best chocolate there is out there.

In terms of the application of Porter’s Five Forces, perhaps even though an analysis of a market before entering it indicates that the market is already saturated, many producers decide to enter the market regardless. As Barry Schwartz explains in this TED talk video from 1:38 (yes this was originally posted by Gateman for Econ 101 – but seriously, it’s an interesting TED talk), an almost indefinite number of combinations can be applied to many everyday commodities, leaving the consumer more stunned than satisfied. Why do new products keep popping up when according to Porter they shouldn’t even try? And how do they survive the competition? I can come up with two ideas, mainly that there may be more forces to be considered, and that as the producers invent new consumer needs, the niches become more and more detailed, leaving eternally new areas of available markets. In stead of going to the supermarket for a bar of chocolate, we go to the supermarket to consider 25+ different kinds of chocolate, only to (probably) be disappointed by the result of our choice.

Every year the summer comes around to everybody’s joy, and with summer comes a great many number of choices; Where do I travel this summer? What do I invest in this season? What festivals do I go to? All these choices are defined by their differences, but when it comes to travel destinations or festival options, are there really any? If I choose to attend Latitude, Roskilde, Lollapalooza or Coachella, what will the variance be – how can one festival stand out in a crowd of hundreds, even within the same genre? The same major bands will tour the same festivals, and they will all be eco-friendly and full of beers and happy people. What are the points of difference that make the few festivals (that avoid bankruptcy) succeed?

Latitude, according to The Economist, is a multi-arts festival and therefore outstanding. And perhaps this new approach to a music festival as a rounded perspective-festival provides a form of failsafe in terms of generating revenue. Regardless, I think the festival market is an example of one that has been flooded with competition to the point where there are simply too many choices. The only way out is to decrease the options – perhaps through bankruptcy or merging.

Looking for a reason for why I still love that heavy black vinyl, I’ve gone through many an internet article searching for an explanation to why the impractical and non-digital can survive in this day and age. The vinyl record is sometimes perceived as the dinosaur of music, but according to The Economist, today sales of vinyls are actually increasing.

Statistics for US vinyl record sales

Now why is this? Is it just because of the “coolness factor”? It can’t singlehandedly be due to the very iconic tradition of placing a record on a turntable, but perhaps a combination of factors that together make up an actually practical alternative to CDs. For example, as the vinyl industry has renewed itself, they have added codes for downloading their songs from the internet, leaving illegal downloading unnecessary. This proves to be a good example of how a “brand” that initially claims a specific market can renew itself to compete with modern technology. The vinyl industry maintains the points of parity with downloadable songs, while keeping their points of difference, mainly the atmosphere of the vinyl record. To me as a consumer the vinyl record does not only stay updated, but it becomes practical, in addition to just really really cool.

The Popularity of 007 Sheds Light on Hollywood-viewers Lack of Film Loyalty

The Economist recently published an article on the popular James Bond industry’s 50 year anniversary highlighting not the immediate question of why the story of the British agent ages so well, but rather why contemporary Hollywood fails to create another equally popular film series. Every now and then we are confronted with a new 007 film, to our (general) excitement, but as we face yet another Shrek film we tend to not be equally pleased as we leave the cinema.

Sure, 007 is originally a fiction series that survived the test of time and readers’ patience as well as outlived its own author, but why do we (the short attention-span viewers today) stick to 007 when Spider Man throws another $200+ million budget film at us? It could be any number of factors, including the stability of the story pattern or the strong British accent we all either love or hate, but it may also be the early brand positioning of 007, first as a fiction series, later as legendary films with cool explosions, that has lead to the loyalty of the viewers for half a century, continually sustaining 007’s legendary image.

James Bond

As you may know, the music industry has been through a lot over the past thirty years, ranging from bad-quality vinyl, to the introduction of the CD, to the recent innovation of streaming, all of which have left todays music industry battered beyond recognition. Now, one has to compete not only with substitutes like other forms of entertainment, but a musician has to compete with himself. The vinyls, the CDs and the Spotify availability of a musicians work will inevitably become competitors in their own way, and an ethical issue recently (re)raised by a norwegian raidiostation refers to this problem and it’s ethical echo: does a producer purposefully decrease the quality of a vinyl to raise the demand for the CD (or the mp3)?

 (picture and article from)

http://p3.no/musikk/juksa-med-vinylen/

If there is truth to this theory, the producers are manipulating the quality to force the hand of the buyer – an obvious ethical issue. Is it the role of the producer to decide what a buyer faces when entering a record store? It appears to me that the vinylrecord-industry is surviving only because the suckers like me who are in love with the retro-nostalgia idea of vinylrecords decide to pay way too much for something that is apparently not even top-of-the-line.

Now on the other side we have the theories stating that vinyl does provide better sound quality, and of course the very intuitive counterargument (also raised in the article) saying that as long as there is demand for a product, one just doesn’t turn down the opportunity to meet that demand.

In the end however, it seems that regardless of how much manipulation is in play, the record stores are closing down by the hundreds. Ultimately it comes down to this: can vinyl records or CDs compete with the internet?