In class the other week, a guest professor came in and discussed his field of operations with us. Operations is especially relevant with the recent news from Air Canada, where their stock has gone up 13 percent due to cutting costs around the airline. Essentially, the operations sector which has handled the day to day operations in trying to pursue profits. Profits have risen this quarter because the company costs have gone down. While competition is increasing and new airlines are trying to muscle in on the Canadian market, banks such as RBC place it’s value as the highest among Canadian airlines, showing that this overall wellness in operations will lead to better odds of long-term financial solvency for the company. Also linking back to what we have learned earlier in the year, Air Canada is moving to slash pension deficits and remove such legacy costs and future costs from costing the airline an arm and a leg, and allowing it to expand in the future, which is further expanded upon here. The carrier needs these cost cuts to allow the rapid expansion and addition of newer airlines like 777’s and 787’s into the overall carrier size of the airline.

In COMM 101, we talked about government regulations for soft drinks and whether they were necessary. This becomes relevant upon examining this article from The Economist, that discusses the e-cigarette industry and how the absence of quality and control standards may lead to government intervention, as well as the health issue. While e-cigarettes don’t contain the harmful carcinogens that hurt people’s lungs and cause lung cancer, they do contain the drug nicotine. While they are currently regulated as a casual item, different manufacturing standards given that many of these products come from China and other places where controls are more lax have given rise to the idea that there should be more regulations on the sale of e-cigarettes. Not only because of the drug issues, but because of how many locations exist where cigarettes are produced. One solution that has been put forward by several producers is the institution of better standards for production that are more consistent across the world. I feel like this would be better for the rapidly growing industry, which is growing due to slowing cigarette sales and turn in public opinion against it, because it prevents the intervention of government and the red tape it brings.

A large component in the success of a product is not only reaching points of parity, which basically are the standards in an industry, but also being able to show the features of a product, what exactly is different about the product. As discussed in The Globe And Mail, RIM, the producers of Blackberry phones once were at the top of the mobile phone market, but when Apple announced the iPhone and the arrival of Android devices from Google and other manufacturers, Blackberry not only refused to stick by their points of differentiation, but also released disastrous new products that were often a response to the market and were late to the mind of the consumer. Things that were pushed by execs such as a proprietary messaging server, BBM, to replace SMS, never caught on. Instead of sticking with their keyboard-based phones, which were highly popular with business users, RIM released a Z10 phone with little differentiation from competitors in an already crowded market. This disastrous launch, along with other blunders made by RIM, show why differentiating yourself in a market that is as highly competitive as cell phones is extremely important, as well as adapting to changes in consumer preferences.