China’s Communist Party announced an new practice on Nov. 15th, 2013, which may have the probability of changing the lifestyle of Chinese family. The new announcement states that a couple can have their second child only if one of them is the only child in his or her family. This new announcement is predicted as an open door to the future relaxation on the child policy in China.

The poster of the linked blog may hold the perspective that this new policy will not be able to help China avert the demographic collapse. However, I think this policy has the ability to change the future structure of Chinese working market as well as solve the aging issue. One-child policy gradually decreases the future working forces in China and the aging issue is aggravated simultaneously due to the departure of the only young working force in the family.

What is more important is that alongside the relaxation on child policy in China, the improvement of infant education and implementing guarantee in pension system should also be taken into account.

Link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2013/11/17/chinas-one-child-change-doesnt-avert-demographic-collapse/

A video of CNN’s reporting:

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/world/2013/11/18/pkg-mckenzie-china-only-children.cnn&iref=allsearch&video_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2Fsearch%2F%3Fquery%3DChina%26x%3D0%26y%3D0%26primaryType%3Dmixed%26sortBy%3Drelevance%26intl%3Dfalse

When Whole Foods Market opened its new 59,000-square-foot store in New York City’s Columbus Circle, eager shoppers were literally lined up around the block waiting to get in. The customer loyalty of Whole Foods is quite alarming. However, it is also apparent to see why Whole Foods has the possession of passionate customers if we look at the the relationship between the employees and Whole Foods, which can be also called as employee loyalty.

It is widely accepted by the leaders of Whole Foods that the satisfied employees have the best performance which has the direct relationship with company growth. The Whole Foods team members have a fair amount of control over their store stocks. In addition, the democratic discipline of compensation also diminishes the dissatisfaction of the employees. Top executives earn no more than 14 times the average pay of team members in the retail stores. The company has instituted a policy of showing appreciation for colleagues, which promotes the healthy relationship between employees as well as trust. Plus other practices Whole Foods company takes, the employees all share the value of the company which is that not only serving organic food, but also caring our community and environment.

The satisfaction of employees highly guarantees the performance of the whole team, which will eventually maintain the customer loyalty.

Link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/jingyijia/2013/11/13/pike-place-fish-market-tour/

Jingyi Jia states out a fact that a strong and positive organizational culture helps forming the great commitment to the group and the integration of the organization, which I completely agree with her. Also, I have few more points regarding to what a strong and positive organizational culture can bring to a organization.

Firstly, a culture of a company provides stability to that organization. “Make the world a better place” is one of the shared values of staffs in the fish market, therefore every employees works with a positive attitude, little or no conflicts happen there. Additionally, a culture helps employees make the sense of the organization. The employees at the market enjoy working there and have a strong sense of belonging. Furthermore, a culture acts like a social glue which helps hold the organization together.

A video about the fish market:

Link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/xinzheli/2013/11/11/a-charitable-chocolate/

The Divine chocolate company makes me think of another social enterprise which is also an success—- “Old Skool Cafe”. Old Skool Cafe is located in San Francisco, it is a food service industry based employment skills development program. In addition to the workforce development, mentoring and counseling services and well as referral services are provided to the clients. The cafe is run entirely by youth, most of them are from urban and at-risk communities. Good food, fantastic music and warm service keep customers coming back.

Look at the story of Old Skool Cafe:

Report on CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/16/us/cnnheroes-goines-old-skool/index.html

As the founder of Vista Jet Thomas Flohr said, personal ownership of a private jet nowadays is seemed as an uneconomical investment, Vista Jet makes an innovation in the personal aviation service, plane-to-rent which the customers pay by flight hours. Apparently, the target segment for this company are quite narrow, which are affluent groups and business companies. Meanwhile, two options, “Your Program” and “Your on Demand”, are recommended to the target audiences. With the certain customer groups and sample business plans, Vista Jet deserves its reward of “fastest-growing private jet company” by specializing in these fields:

1. Guarantee the high-quality of flight service either internal or external by covering personal details such like the customer’s  favor of wine and car of delivery

2. Limit the capacity of passengers to provide largest personal room (capacity of passengers ranges from 6 to 16).

3. Providing flexible flight routines and flight hours.

4. Safety guaranteed.

5. Responsible for asset risk and costs of aircraft maintenance.
Bibliography:

VistaJet. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2013

Link:

http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/10/04/n-vistajet-luxury-private-jets.cnnmoney

As the biggest consuming nation of tea, China now becomes the No.2 market for Starbucks who has its mature and stabilized market in U.S. and other western countries. In the end of 2013, there will be 4,000 Starbucks opening to consumers in China and Asian Pacific. How does Starbucks successfully enter the beverage market of China while the tea culture has embedded in the whole nation? Let us see the value proposition that Starbucks uses to reach the Chinese consumers.

Firstly, the target segments of Starbucks in China are youth population, white collars and the high-income groups with the absence of the elders. As the reason of the flavor preference of the youths, coffee products such as Cappuccino, Frapppuccino and Iced Latte are relatively favored since tea has a bitter flavor which may not take their fancy. In addition of white collars and affluent groups, Starbucks provides the social working environment for these target segmentations. Similarly, Starbucks serves coffee products like other coffee shops in China, however, there are many differences that make Starbucks popular in China. The first strategy is to mix western culture and Eastern culture to enhance the image of China and attract people in terms of store decoration design, sells of Chinese-style mugs and addition of tea products. This strategy also estimates the diverse markets of China, different regions have the characteristic cultures and it can be reflected from the internal and external decoration of the store. For instance, the Starbucks in Xian where theTerra-Cotta Warriors were discovered has the elements of Qin density with bronze-made sculpture, paintings of shadow play and mugs with picture of the warriors. Moreover, Starbucks keeps provide high quality products, which is approached by sending well trained baristas to the new stores in order to maintain good brand reputation.

Starbucks apparently analyses Chinese market well, but the diverse target segments and changing market indicate that Starbucks should keep finding unique services in order to maintain current consumers and explore future consumers.

Bibliography (Image):

Report, According To Its Latest Quarterly. “Starbucks Sees Big Growth in China.”CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 26 July 2013. Web. 06 Oct. 2013.

link:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/09/16/starbucks-china-flagship-stores/2820885/

A nearly 1 million dollars of loss reported in second quarter financial summary of 2013 and the drastically descending share price indicate the nowadays downfall and the uncertain future of Blackberry. 

The failure of Blackberry can largely attribute to the conservative policies of the new CEO, Thorsten Heins. The release of IPhone 4S, IPhone 5, Nokia with Windows system and Samsung greatly shows the revolution of the smartphone. Large touchscreen, new  operating system (iSO or Windows 8), voice recognition system and beautiful appearance are all welcomed by the consumers. As the top choice for the secure smartphones, Blackberry was the favorite of government departments, corporation and bank. However, since the revolution of smartphones includes the upgrade of security, Blackberry never held absolute advantage. Moreover, Blackberry continued to focus on the phones with keyboards as they claimed that keyboards were the best for emailing, especially for the business cases. Unlike Blackberry, Apple aims more on the diverse target segments, and meanwhile using voice recognition system to replace typing, which poses a great threat to Blackberry.

An unchanged product will never be favored nowadays. The better alternatives of Blackberry are full of the market, Blackberry is no more attractive for the consumers.

Link:

http://bgr.com/2012/08/10/rim-analysis-blackberry-10-balsillie-lazaridis-153829/

Business ethics reflects the basic purpose of a company, whether it aims to pursue maximum profit of its shareholders and ignore the influences to the other concerns or it is responsible for its employees, customers, and even the whole society. Take China Mobile as an example, it was exposed that China Mobile traded the phone numbers of its users with other companies who used texts or phone-calls to spread commercial advertisements to the public. Millions of the users of Chine Mobile somehow underwent the harassment of text messages and calls that came from unknown numbers, which highly affected the normal communications. An authoritative anti-counterfeiting TV program in China has disclosed the truth of this issue; however, because of the high speed of information dissemination, the rubbish messages now still bother people. It is undisputed that keeping customers’ personal information should be one of the business ethics of a mobile operator. However, China Mobile did not concern its responsibility to the customers and the society. Finally it makes China Mobile to face the crisis of reputation.