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

Although the United Nations is more or less fully funded and a huge organization it is still necessary to have programs like the ARC and social enterprise.

The United Nations works on peacekeeping, peace building, conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance. So mainly a lot of their aim is to prevent conflicts from happening and being active once disaster occurs. They are the first helping contact of a lot of social issues and provide things like aid to those in need.

This is great and certainly needed but programs like the ARC and social enterprise have a different intentions and outcomes. They focus on the recovery of people and development of businesses in less fortunate places after the events have happened. This rebuilding process is different in the sense that they focus on business development and is more localized compared to the UN. Furthermore, the impact of ARC and social enterprise is more delayed and takes time to yield results compared to the immediate assistance the UN provides.

ARC and social enterprise look at building towards a better future through developing people’s skills. By teaching them business fundamentals and allowing them to apply it to their own goals concludes in improving the overall efficiency of the society and quality of goods and services in the region. A good way to look at it would be the UN is the past and present and social enterprise is the future. Both are equally as important and vulnerable to failure if carried out wrongly.

References:

http://www.un.org/en/

Original link: http://business.financialpost.com/2014/11/06/telus-winning-the-battle-to-attract-new-customers-and-keep-existing-ones/?__lsa=c953-850a

This article talks about Telus in the wireless market and how with the recent quarterly reports is shown to be a leader in customer retention and attracting new customers. The other big players of the wireless market Rogers and Bell did not have as promising results despite Rogers being the current largest wireless provider in Canada.

Through my personal analysis of all three companies by first-hand experience, it was very evident that Telus of the three companies had the friendliest customer service. Customer service and organizational culture is so important in the wireless market. Customers are constantly looking to upgrade their software, and run into problems. Wireless has become so readily available that customer segments of all age groups are being tapped. Hence, the older and less tech-savvy segment require this friendly, and helpful customer service.

Being an ex-Rogers user I experienced a lack of information on their website, difficulties navigating through their help lines and inefficient automated hotline services. This ultimately made me switch to Bell and emphasizes how customer services like call centres and front desk staff may not be the core of the business, however, it is important to invest thoroughly in the area as it reflects the company as a whole.

Like discussed in class 19, there are so many benefits in creating a company with a positive culture. Telus is doing this right and aside from this is persistently looking to improve their wireless systems to make them easy to use and affordable.

If Rogers wants to remain the top firm it needs to reassess its company culture and invest into customer relations as well as improving the wireless systems.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/saving/article-2823396/Twice-money-stolen-banks-accounts-banks-admit-MPs-warned.html

The article talks about how MPs found that twice as much money is being stolen from bank accounts than what is reported by banks themselves. This is a business ethical issue as concealing information about stolen funds is ethically unjust to the public.

Banks for hundreds if not thousands of years have been the primary place for society to store their savings. The easy to understand interest rates given and security of major banking firms make it the primary place for the public to invest their money. However, after this scandal it highlights that the customer’s money isn’t necessarily safe and it is not ethical for the banks to hide this information.

With gold spiralling to a new low in the past four years and the instable economy making shares, and bonds risky, leaves society clueless to where to store their earnings if the banks can’t be trusted. Banks operate under the assumption of trust and loyalty so for this to be breached highlights a major flaw in the firms.

Some may argue that by hiding this information and regaining the money back by other means reflects on no difference to the customers of the bank. In the end of the day they will be earning the expected rate, and their sum of money is considered to be “safe”. To me ignorance is not bliss in this scenario because the values of the bank should be transparency, trust and loyalty. By being unethical in hiding the information they challenge these values and depict to the public that what is happening to customer’s money may not be what is expected.

Banks should step up and take the ethical route in dispensing correct information.

References:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/investing/article-2823868/Gold-spirals-four-year-low-sparking-talk-fall-1-000.html

Original link: http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/09/facebook-to-acquire-instagram-for-1-billion/

Shiv Vashisht’s blog link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/shivvashisht/

It was actually quite staggering to find out that Instagram was worth so much money even in 2012 where the app was although popular, relatively new and upcoming. In recent times everyone has heard of the app from the old to new generation. It serves multiple purposes from passionate photographers showing their art, promoting events through #hashtags, and simply small things like showing your friends what you ate for dinner.

The add-free app really highlights how apps don’t necessarily need to gain revenue through advertising but can generate revenue through its usefulness and community. Facebook has successfully capitalized on this app’s huge customer base by linking it with Facebook. As users update their Instragram photos the photo also has the option to be shared through Facebook. This has the a double effect where Facebook users who see posts of Instagram photos also download that app, vice versa and is exactly what I did.

Shiv is correct in saying that at its launch Instagram under Porter’s generic strategies was a product of differentiation. It emphasized that popularity through differentiation will lead into other firms in building upon similar ideas. I feel that without the success of Instagram other apps such as Snapchat that relies on mainly taking photos would have not been developed. The concept of social media through only photographs seemed strange to me at first because social media sites like Facebook, and MySpace have the option to share photos as well. Hence, making Instagram seem not very useful.

Under my analysis I feel that their key to success came through the blow-up of the #hashtag that links one photo to many others or creates trends like #throwbackthursdays giving people a common topic to post about.