Harvard Business Journal had an interesting post on corporate social responsibility and business sustainability.
It enlightens the point that business leaders see the relationship between nature and business as separate and not intertwined, which is called a isolated mindset in the article. I agree with the points Jib Ellison and Ram Nidumolu put across that most businesses view the portion of the relationship that can be quantitatively measured and analyzed (e.g. the return of investment on sustainability efforts).

I also agree with the point where they talk about where businesses that are successful in sustainability have an integrated mindset, a mindset which views the quantitative, qualitative and things beyond the legal system in which the business and nature relationship are intertwined together. For example this mindset would look at the value of nature to the indigenous people of the land.

In my opinion businesses should try and create a shared value where they innovate their products, productivity in value chain and build supportive industry clusters to achieve sustainability and expand social and economic value. The triple bottom line tool can be used, however businesses need to go one step further and focus on the both quantitative, qualitative and contextual factors.

James’s blog post is a very interesting one, it sheds some light on the most infamous and popular demerit good, cigarettes. He highlights an idea of cigarette companies (e.g. Phillip Morris) changing production of normal cigarettes to electronic cigarettes. This could work, only in a world where costs do not exist. The dramatic over haul of changing a complete line of production and produce new products will be way too expensive for any company. Even though corporate social responsibility is mentioned by James, cigarette companies are in for the profits and not looking out for consumers’ health problems.

I believe to tackle this issue properly, governments should raise the taxes on cigarettes even higher making them not as appealing. The biggest part however is given to the consumers.
21st century onward, consumers are having more and more choice. If more customers are educated about the negative impacts of smoking cigarettes, and more of them turn to electronic cigarettes made by other companies. The companies that produce cigarettes as of currently will have no choice but to change production to electronic cigarettes to meet consumer demands and earn profits again. Consumer choice is what drives a business to sell the products they are selling.

This post is to reply to Yan Kai Ng’s post, I do agree that the liberation wrapper is a brilliant innovative idea by Freshness Burger that takes into account of the culture and mannerisms of the Japanese women. It allows women of Japan to be temporarily free from the curse of society’s perceived view of elegant and beauty, the “Ochobo” (small mouthed women).

While this is very smart of them, it still doesn’t allow women to eat however and whatever they want! Japanese women will still not be able to eat large food in public besides the burgers at Freshness Burger joints. What does this imply? It means that even though Japan is such an advanced country with its fast technology and pace of life, some aspects of the Japanese culture are (e.g. Ochobo) not advancing to modern times. Due to this some women do not get to fully experience the simple joys of life and the freedom of not being criticized and viewed negatively upon by the public if they diverge from the views of society.

The women of Japan are being secretly discriminated and oppressed by their own culture!

Everyone has played a video game. But what if you could become a professional gamer, who plays games for a living and earns money. That is what Esports is all about, and it all became famous because of Riot Games and their game, League of Legends.

It developed and published the most played PC game as of currently, League of Legends (also known as LoL).Starting off small with only thousands of players then that escalated to millions of players around the globe playing this game in 2013. What made it so popular and like-able? Its their constant updates, which not only improves customer satisfaction but it attracts new customers to the game.

Brandon Beck (CEO of Riot Games)  thought of a way to advertise LoL on a international global scale. He created an international pro league for LoL that will feature salaried professional teams, a 5 million dollar prize pool and broadcasting of all the matches across internet streaming websites (e.g. Twitch, Solomid). This revolutionized Esports and E-athletes (professional gamers); even the US government recognizes professional LoL players are professional athletes.

Who would’ve thought that electronic gaming scene would turn out to be such a profitable market?

You’ve heard of all the famous fast food franchises such as Subway, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Dominos, etc. All these fast food franchises in America are paying their behind the counter employees less than $9 an hour! These employees that are being paid less than the poverty line are the ones that are delivering the food and making the franchise successful.

From this video, this woman called Nancy has been working for McDonalds for over 10 years and she has neither received a promotion or a wage raise. She calls the McDonalds help line to ask for help.

But are these employees worth more? This article shows both sides to this argument. With increase in wages, will it be sustainable for the business? If wages were raised, who’s to say the workers will stop demanding higher wages? The problem is humans have unlimited wants, everyone wants more money when they’re working and still active.

It all comes down to us. It’s we who have to choose whether or not to make a change for the better and focus on helping people who are less fortunate than us.

Sign this petition if you think this is wrong!

Marks and Spencer identified India as their priority foreign market which has the most potential, they plan on increasing sales by increasing their store count from 36 to 80 by 2016.

Looking at this from an outside perspective, this seems like a very good idea especially since they have a joint venture partners (Reliance Retail and Planet Retail). However they have to know the clothing industry and their competitors in India better, for example their main competitor is fashion retailer Inditex SA and their brand Zara (article).

I recommend that they use business decision tools such as Porter’s Five Forces, CPEST and SWOT to know their industry, their own business and their competitors better.

M&S should focus on selling affordable yet high quality clothes that “emphasizes its value for money” as stated in the article. This will target a different market and different types of customers as compared to Zara’s high end fashion customers. Since India consists of a lot of low income to mid income groups, I think this is the right step forward for M&S to establish themselves as one of the main fashion retailers in India. Through the usage of the SWOT by analyzing their opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses and CPEST and Porter’s 5 forces, this will be achievable.

A statement that stuck with me that was mentioned by Scott Sinclair in one of the COMM 101 lectures was “commerce is a people’s business”. What I garnered from this was that what makes an organization so successful are the employees. When the employees are happy working for a certain company, they will feel more motivated to work harder to achieve the company’s goal.

Zappos is an online retail store that  is a definition of a people’s business and it has core values that encourage good behavior, ethics and motivation.

These 10 values above create a friendly working environment for the employees because they all believe in the same thing; they are all trying to help the company achieve its goal of “delivering happiness to its customers”.
Zappos has great business ethics and they focus on customer happiness, their profits are bound to increase in the long run due to increase in consumer happiness, this leads to stronger brand loyalty.
It markets itself as a company that is not entirely focused on profits. This image will attract customers and skilled employees, these employees will be more willing to work for Zappos in the long term because the working environment is unique and positive.