Samuel Tjandrawinata's Blog

The Case for Social Enterprises and the United Nations

Posted by in Innovation, Social Entrepreneurship

Whether it is to maintain peace throughout the world, or act as a platform to better the living standards of the poor, the United Nations (UN) has certainly made progress towards global economic progress. In my opinion, there are two major reasons why we still need social enterprises like the Arc Initiative even if the UN was fully funded. 1. UN’s various social service provisions are constrained within a specific community When I think about the UN, the first thing that comes to my mind is its development programme. For…read more

Nov.10
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Alibaba’s Global Expansion: A Response to Mathilde Ho’s Blog Post

Posted by 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

Nov.08
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Corporate culture: what you can do with offices

Posted by in Innovation

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

Nov.07
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RE: ‘Act Like an Entrepreneur Inside Your Organization’

Posted by in Innovation

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

Nov.05
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