As a business, one of their main goals is to cut costs and to maximize profits. But how far is one willing to go to cut costs to the minimum?

Looking into China, one of the world’s fastest growing countries, one might think that they would be innovative and smart in ways they save money. And trust me, they are.

Working in the restaurant business, one is no stranger to reusing cooking oil, as it is a cost efficient way to cut costs, as you can skim and purify cooking oil. However, many restaurants in China have been experimenting with reusing sewer oil. Literally.

Workers collecting used, cooking oil from the sewers

Actual cooking oil, scooped up from the sewers, to bring back on your dinner table. This sewer oil has traces of carcinogens, and definitely will make the consumer sick. Bon Appetite!

It is also hard for the government to control this illegal cooking oil business, as it is hard to trace food and what oil has been used.

That being said, are the Chinese just heartless, not caring about what their customers digest? Are they willing to break all ethics, just to save a few bucks?

Left is the iPhone 5S, Right is the iPhone 5C

So, recently Apple has unveiled their newest versions of their flagship product, the iPhone. The new version are the iPhone 5S, and iPhone 5C. Now, loyal consumers realize this is completely different to Apple’s normal strategy. Every year, they would release a newer version of the previous iPhone, however, this year, they released two new version, discontinuing the previous iPhone 5.

But why?

Why would they release 2 smartphones, essentially being competitors to one another, and not only release one, more expensive kind?

Apple’s marketing strategy is no stranger to out of the box thinking. Previously, past competitors such as Sony Ericsson would release completely different phones, instead of rereleasing an updated version of a previous phone. But with Apple’s strategy of releasing updated version of past phones, this allows consumers who have had their old iPhone, feel old and outdated.

The difference this year is that with the two different types of iPhone, they are essentially targeting different niche markets. One for a younger generation, who likes vibrant colours (5C) and one for an older, sophisticated generation (5S). This allows for a different approach to consumers when selecting a new phone, while staying loyal to the Apple brand.

If you were to go to your local Asian restaurant, you might be familiar with the clear bottle with a green cap, filled with bright red sauce inside. Now what might that be?

The authentic Sriracha sauce! This sauce definitely gives a bang for its buck. Now, millions of people have seen and tasted Sriracha, but how many have actually seen advertising for it? Well, Sriracha has definitely become a world wide phenomenon, ranging from appearing in restaurants all around the world, to appearing on iPhone cases! How did one small company make headlines?

The taste.

The owner, David Tran, believes that if people like the product, there will be no need to marketing, as people will still buy the product, regardless of marketing. To date, they sell more than 10 million bottles every year, making them one of the most successful companies that does not advertise at all.

This is interesting as it opens a new light on how companies can or can’t be successful. Isn’t Tran’s words true that, if the product is good, there is no need to market it? Should we not fix something that isn’t broken?

Reading Kella Chan’s article on Netflix spying on illegal downloading websites really intrigued me.

With Netflix being one of the biggest video streaming websites around, what do they have the need for looking on torrenting websites?

With Kella’s insight, it really brought to my attention how strategic companies are getting with their business plans. As Netflix scours the net for the hottest shows, they’ll know which shows to add to their collection.

Along with Netflix, other companies have been doing out of the box marketing as well as campaigning. With the Olympics coming underway in Moscow, the campaigning was interesting nonetheless. To promote the Olympics, passengers of the rail can purchase a ticket by doing 30 squats. It really shows how for a business or event to be successful, hype has to be created for word to get around. As campaigning gets more and more out of the box, people are more interested.

With Netflix’s strategy for receiving information in a different manner, it definitely shows that Netflix is a company growing and innovating.

In response to Colin Lam’s blog post on Herschel Backpacks…

How did Herschel became world renowned for their backpacks? To the untrained eye, they’re just an ordinary backpack to hold books for school. However, the backpack has evolved into a fashion staple.

Now, one may think I’m going to be talking about fashion, but no, this is no fashion blog (Although I may or may not have one.) This is about how business get to make money.

It is common knowledge that in order for a business to make money, they must sell their products. However, what Herschel has done was common to many, but few executed correctly. Herschel has managed to create a brand image; a lifestyle, dedicated to a certain niche market. If you look anywhere on the UBC campus at any time, there will be at least a dozen students carrying the Herschel logo.

Herschel managed to reinvent the backpack, and also, knock away competitors such as Jansport. By keeping up with the current trends, Herschel has become a staple to any school.

In this day of age, when big company’s failure are evident through stock’s dropping, their CEO’s get the boot.

So why is this not the case for HP’s CEO Meg Whitman?

HP has definitely been in a rut for the past few years due to previous CEO’s downfalls (cough Mark Hurd cough) but how is it that Meg Whitman has been to blame? She was named the “Most Underachieving CEO of 2012” by Bloomberg, but why so?

Whitman has been picking up the slack of previous CEO’s, that she could not focus on moving the company forward, when they were so behind. With Whitman being constantly being slandered by the media as underachieving, HP’s reputation consistently goes down.

That being said, we should allow Whitman to start anew in 2013. She currently is bring HP up from the ashes and turning around the company.

What’s in store for HP’s future in the near future? Only time will tell.

 Many of us in these days of times has a Facebook account amongst our other social media platforms. Whether we use Facebook to talk to our friends from High School, to play Candy Crush (which, I’m STILL stuck on level 30), or for other reasons, Facebook allows us to connect to people in  which we wouldn’t have been able to before. There are a multitude of ‘pages’ on the site for us to ‘like’, including many charity pages such as UNICEF, and many like its kind.

Now, these charities are smart to utilize social media as a part of marketing, as it reaches a much broader audience compared to television programming nowadays. However, a research done by Sauder PhD Student Kirk Kristofferson shows that “Charities incorrectly assume that connecting with people through social media always leads to more meaningful support”.

The study shows that as Facebook allows people to easily ‘help’ a charity just with a click of a button, it is turning people into ‘slacktivist’, where people believe they are helping, but in reality, they are not. People are less inclined to donate to charities as they believe their simple like has sufficed.

Referenced through this article.