” If the United Nations was fully funded why would we need the Arc or social enterprise”?

In responding to such a thought-provoking question, it is pertinent to first underscore the underlying implications of the Arc and social enterprise’s existence. I personally believe the interconnections made between business knowledge and innovative entrepreneurs convincingly translates to success in terms of social change, as ideas are brought and amalgamated by individuals passionate to make a difference.

I had to consider whether the extra funding for the United Nations would bring about as great an effect compared to the growing magnitude of the Arc initiative around the world. My conclusion? Social enterprises and the Arc are arguably essential in facilitating the growth of less affluent communities around the world, as this helps foster a more structured and equalized system for business and societal growth. I found that reading the Upward Arc article helped shed light on what differentiates the United Nations with the Arc: the idea of making a bigger impact through the connectivity of developing countries with educative processes, the catalytic effect in supporting government funding with shared knowledge, and the encompassing spread of innovative ideas are aspects the United Nations can never touch on to such an immersive extent.

“Everyone can make a difference” may seem like a generic, tried-and-true phrase, but with Arc, this statement may no longer be just conjecture.

Reading Jason’s blog post on paternity leave in the workplace has really made me appreciate how fast the business environment is evolving, not just in terms of technology or sustainability, but in HR management as well. Like Jason, I definitely believe that Ernst & Young is strategically promoting inter-employee-employer relationships by encouraging flexibility within the employees’ lives. Consequently, these paternity leave opportunities and the familial atmosphere fostered by company values should serve to increase overall productivity and corporate loyalty.

We fervently discussed in-class about the creation of a distinct corporate culture, using Zappos as an exemplar, but Ernst & Young has shown that by bureaucratically adapting working policies, a person-based motivational culture is undoubtedly formed. I would argue that other firms can easily emulate these morale-boosting practices through simple procedures like integrating performance-related pay (extrinsically-based) or by taking a leaf out of Handy’s Shamrock organization model and intrinsically allowing more part-time shifts.

Conversely, I thought of Facebook and Apple’s recent, radical HR-initiative of offering female employees $20,000 to “freeze their eggs”, hoping to promote workplace gender equality by limiting maternal leave. Although creative, I heavily disagree with this implementation because as Ernst & Young have shown, employee empowerment through sustainable (and ethical!) policies is the way to go. These particular firms essentially must ask themselves: what are we implicating to all stakeholders by readjusting the HR structure in this way?

While reflecting on my existing blog posts, I realized that I missed out on a very intriguing field; the realm of operations!

Thus, when glancing over Honda’s decision to invest $857-million on a new Ontario plant, I found it more interesting to examine the issue through the lens of an operations manager, instead of just a conventional financial-cost based analysis. Honda’s investment suggests that they’re hoping to maximize productive capacity and efficiency, most likely to aid mass outsourcing of manufactured units. Professor Mahesh  referenced the operations manager’s role of forecasting and variability in-class, and in my opinion, these concepts become highly essential to the future implications of purchasing the new plant, as possible ramifications Honda could consider include: the expected returns of this heavy capital expenditure, methods to mitigate sunk costs, or even the added integration of new distribution channels.

I then put two-and-two together, synthesizing the inherent importance of a functional supply chain, which Honda must develop to effectively support its operations. Another excerpt I found from Canadian Manufacturing Press claims that collaboration and innovation are key in fostering supply chain evolution, which I absolutely agree with. The intertwinement of key supplier relationships (model canvas!) and infrastructure expansion should allow Honda favourable opportunities for growth.

After all, what’s a factory without its network of distributors?

Ever since the in-class revelation that BTM was a rather new, unestablished idea in the business world, it got me thinking: to what extent are firms utilizing technology systems to aid their processes, in operations or marketing, for example? A rather provocative assertion from this article suggested that future organizational flexibility with technology translates to “sustainability”, which in my opinion is such a paradigm shift when thinking back to creating shared value. There seems to be an implicit juxtaposition between sustainability in the Triple Bottom Line from a CSV point-of-view, and interestingly, achieving sustainability through strategic technology management.

However, the article goes on to describe “Retailpay”, a new app that allows managers to access records and databases on their smartphones. To me, this has so many implications on streamlining and expediting what normally would be perpetuating managerial tasks, such as sales and inventory management, market trend analysis, or even performance monitoring of employees.

I feel as if redefining the word “sustainability”, just like in  Philip Vergragt’s illustrious sustainable technology paper, is essential to understand BTM’s impact in the workplace; here, sustainability is about the maximization of efficiency and expansion of entrepreneurial (and intrapreneurial) networks, allowing businesses to relay value propositions more effectively onto consumers (i.e. shared value!).

Ultimately, it looks like BTM may happily become the new green in the global business biosphere.