Saewon

During the class, we discussed about which one to choose, power or money. There were even number of choosing either one. If I have to make the decision, I will choose money. I agree that power gives you lots of privilege and gives you right to control what other people do. However, in my personal opinion, I would take money. If people do not have power, as long as they have money, they can buy the power or bribe the people who have power to use power for the rich people.

If we take a look at the structure of a company, people who know how to play with money, usually finance guys, goes to top position, such as Chief Executive Officer. Also, in the United States government, the president changes every four years and get a chance to serve extra four more year if he/she wins the election. During those years, the president become the most influential person in the world. However, if we see person like Alan Greenspan, he has been with the government and close with the past presidents influencing  their decisions. This is the case if you have money, you can control people who have power.

According to the article, Apple has announced that it increase budget on its supply chain. There are a lot of companies using unique and innovative supply chains; examples will be Dell and Zara. Dell has found a way to easily deliver customized products. Zara enabled t0 make clothing  and get to consumers really quickly. What is so expected from Apple’s decision is the company always has been a leader and a frontier. The things are

• Combining MP3 function with phones, I-Phones
• Green lights on Mac Air when the camera in on
• Their product’s design
• Software and hardware  optimization
• Tablet, I-Pad

January 1st, 1999, the Euro was formed with 17 European countries support. Since then countries that are associated with and using Euro currency enjoyed its prosperous days, becoming one of the most valuable currency in the world with United States Dollar and British Pounds. However, after the fall of Greece and crisis on European economy, I think it is time for them to break up and go their way.

I am not saying that they should not help each other and only focus on success of own countries. I mean is that it is time for them to leave the Euro and go back to their own currency. When the countries were trying to grow, it was a great idea to support each other by making one unified government, in this case European Union. However, once they have made to that point where they are one of the wealthiest and leading countries, it is really touch to manage the organization with many unique figures or countries since it is impossible to set same exact policies to the entire partisan.

In order for the EU to overcome this chaotic periods, it is time for them to go their own way.

In my opinion, this is a really smart promotion by Coca Cola. Without paying so much money and effort, it is able to build its image as sustainable company and company that actually think and care about the world. Whatever its real intention is, I believe that raising awareness for polar bear will help a lot.

Also it well tides into what Coca Cola has done so far. Every Christmas season, it had polar bear on its label and advertisement. It shows customers that it is not something random, rather it is something that it has kept its eyes on.

I believe corporations should incorporate this strategy more. Instead of randomly coming up with an issue and act like they are supporting, it will be better for corporate’s image and for our community to gradually increase the awareness of the issue. Coca-Cola has done great job regarding what I am suggesting. During every holiday season, we are familiar with seeing polar bears on Coca-Cola’s TV advertisements. This year it has taken it to different level. Whereas some companies just randomly choose an issue, promote for a year or so and then move on to next project.

It has been a month since there has been a protest in Wall Street. According to one of the protestors in the video, he quoted that “very small number of people has lots of things and a lot of people have nothing”. What I have gained so far is that people are mad with the fact that rich people gets richer and middle-class/poor people are struggling to get out of their sector.

People believe this inequality came from the tax system. If people invest money to different companies or buy up the shares, they have to pay less tax. Using that system, the rich are gaining more money without paying less tax. Even though the whole structure seems unfair to less fortunate people, the protest is coming from a feeling of self-reproach of people who have less.

Since there is an equal opportunity for every people to invest money and have same privilege, I do not think the system is unfair. I agree with the fact that it is structured for richer people. However, not everyone could be the leader and 1% of people act as leaders in the world. I believe that the rich is raising people’s living standards.

Last week there has been system outage for Research in Motion, Canadian company known for blackberry and PlayBook. Blackberry users had trouble getting and sending messages, and its famous messenger, BBM, did not work. Because of its security and ability to communicate, Blackberry had significant market share among businessmen and companies. Now that it was experienced system failure, for couple of months, a lot of customers will switch to either Android or I-Phone.

However, even though most critics think there is no positive side, I think a little bit different. Experience huge system failure lets RIM recognizes fault in its system and eventually improving them. Also, even though the majority of opinions out there are negative, it was a great opportunity to tell public about the system. People would like to know about what exactly happened and as they research, they will learn about how RIM’s system is different from any other smart phones operating system.

If RIM could improve its operating system better, better here I mean not copying OS from Android or Apple but maintaining its uniqueness and improving its backup system, it has chance to redeem its reputation as one of the leaders in smart phone market.

Recently, Amazon launched a Kindle Fire, an e-book reader much cheaper but contains less functionality than I-Pad. Kindle Fire is a device allows people to read books, play simple games and play music. It does not have as much functionality as I-Pad but still is a good substitute product. According to critics from the link that I shared below, they put it in a different market as I-Pad.
However, I have a different opinion. Not supporting any gaming or utility functionality does not exclude one from the market that I-Pad is in. Critics even contradict themselves by saying that Kindle Fire has a potential to be like Nintendo Wii, which had soft start in the beginning but later on became one of the leaders in the gaming market, implying that Kindle Fire is in a same market as I-Pad. Two products have same point of parities, which are tablet, MP3 player and e-book functionality. Both Amazon and Apple have their own app stores where customers can purchase music and e-books. Point of difference for Kindle Fire is that it is cheaper. In next couple of months, unless Apple does something, Kindle Fire will gain significant market share.

I think it is not necessary for a company to follow business ethics. The primary goal of a company is to maximize its profit in any method and if it can make profit, even if that method is morally wrong, it should take that chance of earning a lot of profit. However, the reason why my answer was not necessary rather than ‘no’ is because it depends on how a business wants to be remembered.

If a business wants to make money quickly, its only focus should be making money in a short term. However, if a company wants to be more than just a fad and stay for a long period of time, it should not only care about earning profit but also social impact of its each step. In order for companies to make customers loyal to them for a long period of time, coming up with only creative and innovative product is not enough. Customers might like a company’s product for a short period of time but what makes them keep coming to its store its brand value and reputation. In order for a company to achieve that point, product should not be its only concern.

Recently, Google announced that it acquired Motorola, once one of leaders in mobile phone market, for $12.5 billion dollars. This acquisition will give not only Motorola more opportunity but also for consumers. In the article I found, the author expresses his concern about how this whole shifting will be limit consumers choices as Google will care less about other Android phone making companies and only focus on Motorola.

However, I strongly disagree with it, in fact I believe that it will be exactly opposite will happen in a few years. Companies, such as Samsung, HTC and other companies, who relied on Google’s operating system (OS), will now have to come up with their own OS as Google is entering hardware market also. Now that Google is making both software and hardware, it changed from co-operator to competitor. In order for them to gain advantage over Google, Competitors cannot rely on Google’s OS. This will make more options to consumers. If we look at the smartphones coming out these days, it is only design that is different. If companies start to use their unique OS, end-users will have more option to choose from.

Here is a current market share for smart phones.

Hyundai is a Korean car company who has recently gain significant share in global car industry. Before Hyundai expanded its market to global level, it produced one of the luxurious cars in Korea and were famous for quality of its products. However, as the company started to get globally recognized, it started to care less about safety of Korean consumers. For the same type of car, Hyundai

The main problem with Hyundai is that it is discriminating consumers. The company’s representative explained that the reason it differentiated its cars was because of the difference in government regulation. If it was aware of the fact that putting another airbag gives safer environment for passengers, regardless of what the country’s regulation is, air bag should have installed. Its whole action raises ethical problem since this shows that Hyundai really did not think about consumer’s safety but only focused on maximizing their profit.would put airbags on the side for exporting cars but not on the domestic ones. You could question why is extra-air bag such a big deal? According to researches done by Korean car experts, having an airbag on the side decreases the chance of dying from car accident by 37%.