Samuel Tjandrawinata's Blog | Not another UBC Blogs site

Alibaba’s Global Expansion: A Response to Mathilde Ho’s Blog Post

Posted by Samuel Tjandrawinata in Competition, Growth, Innovation, Strategy

The debrief In her blog post “Rise of Alibaba”, my friend Mathilde Ho relates Alibaba’s tremendous success in China’s e-commerce market with its diversified revenue streams. She argues that for Alibaba to successfully enter international markets such as the United States, the company needs to target a niche market because its business generality is not sustainable in the long-term. My thoughts and opinions In relation to McKinsey & Co’s traditional funnel metaphor, it is clear that e-commerce is increasing the speed of the consumer decision journey faster than ever. Although bringing…read more

Corporate culture: what you can do with offices

I feel lucky that Sauder’s BCom Student Lounge has a coffee vending machine. Most employees feel lucky if their office has a snack bar. But they will be jealous when they step into Google offices. Employees get to zoom down tube slides and walk at a treadmill desk while getting work done. Better yet, engineers get to design their own workstation. Oh, and there’s no need to show you’re working – yes, you won’t get fired. Here’s my take: 1. Voluntary work and innovation Google’s corporate culture stands in contrast to the corporate culture of…read more

RE: ‘Act Like an Entrepreneur Inside Your Organization’

What are the strengths of working for a big corporation? For me, it would be the variety of resources and wide network I can take advantage of. But moving up the tall hierarchical structure of a big would require not only hard work and exceptional performance, but also entrepreneurial behaviour. A Harvard Business Review (HBR) blog underscoring the importance for big companies to get more entrepreneurial behavior from its employees captures my view. Below are three steps, each of which is followed by my personal response, for employees to act as…read more

Commentary: ‘An Ethical Dimension of Corporate Sustainability’

I have had differing views on the purpose of a corporation – first, one month ago as I blogged about business ethics, and then as I read Mark Kramer and Michael Porter’s article about creating ‘shared value’. Grace Cheng’s blog post on Tiffany and Co’s corporate social responsibility strategy captures my view that businesses can create societal benefits and simultaneously drive productivity and growth. Here are some of my comments: Profit maximization. I agree with Grace that growing competitive pressure saturate global markets and consequently, businesses have been narrowly focusing…read more

Two Lessons from GoPro

What could you do if you know that the market for digital cameras has matured? Develop the world’s most versatile camera for extreme action photography. At first sight, this may seem odd, but that’s what Nicholas Woodman did with GoPro. There’s no doubt that developing a small high-performance camera is an innovative idea. Yet, to turn such an idea into reality and influence customer decisions is the real challenge. My research suggests two important lessons businesses can learn from GoPro’s marketing approach. A BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY: When I evaluate what I want in a…read more

Taseko Mines’ trapped expansion

The case as to why First Nations declared a large area of a proposed New Prosperity mine at Fish Lake as a tribal park is clear. The Tsilqhot’in National Government exists to promote and stimulate the socioeconomic wellbeing of the Tsilqhot’in people through legal acts. The ultimate goal: to “protect and preserve the Tsilqhot’in cultural tradition, land and resources”. So, the question is, what happens to the $1.1-billion New Prosperity copper gold-project? Here are some of my thoughts about Tsilqhot’in’s declarations. Macroeconomic Forces vs. Key Trends On the one hand,…read more

Blackberry Passport: Is Squareness Enough?

It was the first smartphone to feature a Internet-based PIN instant messenger. And it was the device that put businessmen in awe when its small red lamp blinked, notifying an incoming email. But when Apple released its iPhone and began to dominate the smartphone market; Blackberry struggled to keep its relevance. Last Wednesday (24/9), Blackberry is again a trendsetter – or at least, trying to be one. CEO John Chen released the Canadian company’s newest smartphone: the Blackberry Passport. The device caught my eye because it does not look anything…read more

Why iPhones are always the next big thing

I first used the original iPhone in grade 7. I’m loving my iPhone 5. And I’m going to love the iPhone 6. The question to ask here is: just how much do I—and you—need the iPhone 6? Here are a few thoughts I took into consideration. I don’t need it, I want it. When I opened iPhone 6’s homepage, this phrase caught my attention: “it’s better in every way”. Yes, it has a smooth metal surface and a new Retina HD display. And yes, the iPhone 6 is…read more

Starbucks’ First Coffee Farm: Ethics or Expansion?

Photo courtesy of Starbucks Coffee Company To a business, customers are one of the most valuable assets. Investors go in only if they know that there is a market demand for the product. Still, in an increasingly competitive business environment, is high profits alone enough to drive business value? Milton Friedman’s answer is yes. My answer is yes…and no. Take Starbucks as an example. The largest coffeehouse company recently purchased a farm in Costa Rica. For one thing, the 240-hectare farm will “support growers and their families” and allow Starbucks…read more