Shubhankar Rustagi's blog

After reading Matthew Andersons blog on Lululemon I was reminded about all our discussions in class, but this was looking at Lululemon in a negative light. Recently the CEO said ” Some women just can’t wear lululemon pants”, basically telling the consumer that his clothes were just not made for plus size people. As Matthew mentioned in his blog, I too have great respect for the rapid success that the company has been able to achieve under his management but at the same time I feel that this will have a big blow on the sales of the company.

As Matthew said, most customers that bought their clothing will feel disappointed if not hurt that the founder himself said that the clothing was not for them. This also might be the reason why the shares have plumeted from $84 a share to $69 a share. I believe that what the CEO has said could have been said in a better way but to rectify this I believe that he will have to market the plus size audience.

Blog Commented on :- https://blogs.ubc.ca/matthewanderson/2013/11/08/one-sour-lemon-lululemon/

Cites used :- http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/divas/lululemon-not-for-everyone-plus-a-sale/2151494

Whether its a big budget blockbuster or a science fiction novel we have all heard of and imagined flying through the guy strapped to a jet pack with our aviators on. Now we actually can as a company in Christchurch, New Zealand has been able to make a jetpack that is not only practical but also safe. Other bloggers like Matthew Stibbe from forbes has also written about this start up.

As Matthew points out in his blog post the company has decided to use fan powered engines and a conventional power source unlike the previous ones which has used hydrogen peroxide. This has not only insured the safety of the personal using the jetpack but also makes them more sustainable and affordable. But the one question that still stands is that,” Would I really want to buy a jetpack ?” I personally cannot imagine integrating a jetpack into my daily life, thus I feel that the greatest problem this company will have is trying to advertise to people why and how this product will be a nescicity in their lives in the near future.

I found Matthew Anderson’s blog post on Tesla quite interesting because he pointed out a problem I was quite interested in. One believes that once a car company, that too a relatively new one like Tesla receives news of their cars catching on fire it is the end of the line for them. But as Matthew Pointed out this should be a way for the company to learn about what it is doing wrong and improve on its flaws.

I agree with Matthew, In the belief that a company like Tesla will keep on growing as electric cars are the future and Tesla is one of the leading companies in perfecting the technology of fully electric super cars. Even though the shares for Tesla did drop by $50 due to these reports of fire I believe that this is only temporarily as Tesla would have a stronger product and thus would lead to an increase in sales. Also upon reading the feed back from customers whoms cars had caught fire, most said that they would buy another Tesla.

Blog commented on :-

https://blogs.ubc.ca/matthewanderson/2013/11/12/teslas-too-hot/

Sources cited :-

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/11/13/telsa-motors-inc-recall-decision-musk/

“$3 billion isn’t cool. You know what’s cool ? walking away from $3 billion”

Said Snapchat to Facebook upon declining a 3 billion dollar offer by Facebook for a buyout. Snapchat is a company that was started about 2 years ago and has an app that allows its users to send pictures or videos that can only be viewed for a limited period before they are erased. Snapchat’s value proposition, allows the users of the app to edit and share pictures and videos in a easy way. It is currently worth at $860 million, so another question that should be asked is ” Why Facebook wanted Snapchat soo badly ? “.

Facebook is a social networking website that reaches 1.2 billion people all around the world, while Snapchat is a 20 personal company which has no form of revenue. I believe the reason for Facebook’s offer to buyout Snapchat lies in Snapchat’s value proposition. In todays world we see that sharing Photos and Videos is what fuels the social networks as more and more people upload photos. Thus by acquiring Snapchat we see that Facebook is attempting to do the same as it did with Instagram in 2012, it is attempting to increase the user base  by making more outlets for them to upload, share and edit pictures.

Booster Juice has now become a household name all around Canada with more than 300 stores nationwide. Dale Wishewan, president and chief executive of Booster Juice was awarded with the entrepreneur of the year award by Prairies EY. He started Booster Juice in 1999 and within 2 years he grew his start up into a chain of 50 stores. The CEO of Booster Juice had no prior knowledge on how to run a business like Booster Juice.

I believe that the key the rapid success of Booster juice is attributed to the time at which Dale Wishewan started up Booster Juice, Booster juice was started up in 1999 during the infancy of the healthy to-go smoothie. This gave him the advantage of being the first in the market and thus allowed him to capture a large share of the market in Canada. Another reason attributed to the wide success of the Booster Juice is the fact that many call Dale Wishewan a “natural born leader” and entrepreneur, this coupled with his fearless forward thinking spirit is what has driven Booster Juice to success.

Sources Cited :-
http://boosterjuice.com/index.php/news/details/ey-prairies-entrepreneur-of-the-year-awards-event-in-calgary

On the 1st of August 2013 LG introduced its new catchphrase ” It’s All Possible” this will be placed alongside its current catchphrase “Life’s Good”. This is being launched in leu of the new line of products in 2013 and other products to come. This will be a wide spread add campaign which will be put up in prominent locations like Piccadilly in London and Times Square in New York City. This new line of advertising using the new catchphrase will be using a lot of prominent red circles to highlight some of the features of their products.

This has been done by LG to attract the consumers to its new line of products but unlike other brands like Samsung and Sony who showcase their technological advances and give the consumers statistics and compare their products with that of others we see that LG has approached the larger section of the market who are not technologically savvy and showcase how the new products allow you to do what was not possible before and also show how the product then becomes a part of your life. This new brand positioning should allow the brand to increase sales at it allows even the least tech savvy consumers to understand the benefits of the product, thus increasing its consumer base.

Sources Used,

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/lg-rolls-out-new-positioning-to-add-warmth-to-the-brand/4007542.article
http://www.firstpost.com/brands/lg-introduces-new-brand-identity-for-global-audience-1003109.html

As of September the 3rd Microsoft announced that it would buy out Nokia for 5.44 billion Euros. This would be an easy way for Microsoft to enter the phone market directly and bring more innovation to the market than Nokia. We see that this not only good for Microsoft but also for Nokia as now the shareholders in Nokia will face a rise in the value of shares and profits due to its buy out by Microsoft.

We see that this has also cemented Nokia as a Microsoft carrier for its phones. This is profitable to Microsoft as android was growing at a very fast rate. This protects the future of Microsoft as a Operating System on phones as Nokia is now the only phone company that uses the Operating System.

This buy out also means that Microsoft will have the design team and the patents from Nokia which means that they save money which would have been spent on research and development. This also allows them to have access to the employees that have years of experience in the industry.

For the consumers on the other hand this means that the lack of competition will lead to fewer options in the windows phone market and will also lead to slow release of new apps and updates.

Websites Used,

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/2/4688530/microsoft-buys-nokias-devices-and-services-unit-unites-windows-phone

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2013/sep13/09-02announcementpr.aspx

In October the US government announced its shutdown, the first time in 17 years. The question that arises from this is that how does this shutdown affect the USA’s and the worlds businesses and economy ?

We have seen the immediate affect of the shutdown in many government related organisations across the USA like Lockheed Martin, who had to put 3000 employees on unpaid leave in leu of the shutdown. This shutdown will also affect the US economy as many important organisations which rely on the government to collate imformation on the economy, the US government are a large source for economic data for many large multinationals and other american companies. This shutdown has impeded the slow growth in employment after the economic crisis and if the shutdown were to go on would only lead to more layoffs and maybe shutdown in companies like lockheed that earn a large part of their revenue from deals with the US government.

If this shutdown were to last longer it could have adverse effects on the global economy as the rising unemployment would lead to a drop in demands for imports and thus hurt many economies around the world. Due to the importance of the USA in international markets a prolonged period of the shutdown could also lead to a drastic drop in the value of the dollar as the markets around the USA all begin to collapse.

Website used,

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/05/us-shutdown-what-will-happen-who-affect

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-10-05/news/42745288_1_government-shutdown-usec-inc-employee-furloughs

As of the 20th of September Apple Inc. has released as new phone to its very successful iPhone line, the IPhone 5c will be a phone that is priced between the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s thus increasing their consumer base as now they are targeting the market which could afford a iPhone 5 but not a iPhone 5s and wanted something in between.

The unlocked iPhone 5c is listed on the apple store for between $599 to $719. But we see that this price has not been met by the same high quality feel as did the iphone 5. Upon research we can see that apple has been able to save $42 on the new plastic back that it has used in the iphone 5c unlike the metal back it used previously.  The iPhone also doesn’t have the fingerprint sensor that the iPhone 5s has and thus saves a further $7. Apple has outsourced its parts from its competitors like its “retina display” has been made with help from Samsung and its Camera sensor from Sony.

From this we see that even though Apple has saved money on the iPhone 5c  it has used it’s brand image and its dedicated fan following to be able to sell this product even though it does not have some features that other phones in its price range like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC ONE have. I believe that this practice is slightly unethical as it is not using ground breaking innovation to sell its product rather its name and fame.

Shubhankar Rustagi
10/01/2013 10:43 pm

Works cited,
Rooney, Ben. “UBS: iPhone 5C Plastic Saves Apple $42.” 30 September 2013. The Wall Street Journal. 1 October 2013                                      <http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/09/30/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-an-iphone/>.

The long running crisis in Egypt that erupted in late November of 2012 has had adverse effects on the economy of the country.

The tourism industry in Egypt was providing approximately 2.8 million jobs and was 11% of the GDP. Due to the continuing crisis in Egypt, tourism has been heavily impacted. This has lead to a large loss of jobs in the tourism sector and put many tourism agencies out of business.

The crisis has also has hurt outside investment. The news websites like The Gaurdian and BBC shows us that due to the violent clashes there has been an increased amount of workers that are being pulled out of big oil manufacturers like BP, this mass exodus has lead to uncertainty in the oil prices all around the world.

From a purely ethical stand point i believe that what the companies are doing the right thing by removing their workers, but i believe from a business stand point news like that of BP not only leads to less foreign investment in the future but also is a reason for the low tourism as many people who view the news see this in a negative light and will not want to travel.

Shubhankar Rustagi,
11th of September 2013