As an avid purse collector myself, Hayley Palmer’s blog post on eco-friendly bag producer Matt & Nat caught my eye, as it’s a brand that I consistently purchase.  I agree with Hayley’s comment that Matt & Nat has created vegan, eco-responsible products that make the message of the company one that consumers and employees can stand behind, however I have to disagree that this is the sole reason that consumers are attracted to the brand.  Matt & Nat has established itself as a vegan brand, but looking at their target market, which I would define as teenagers to women in their late twenties and early thirties, I believe that it is their brand holding somewhat of a prestige in the fashion industry that pulls consumers in.  Now obviously these bags are not on the same price scale as Chanel or Louis Vuitton, however they have established a brand that fetches prices of over one hundred dollars, becoming somewhat of a status item that their target market would appreciate.  I would not it any way say that their eco-friendly tactic is unimportant, I just have to wonder if their target market is overly concerned that their new bag is made from 21 recycled bottles.

In today’s business world, you most often hear of companies outsourcing their customer service departments, such as call centres, to other countries like India and the Philippines where labour costs are lower.  Terasen Gas recently reversed that process by bringing their call centres, which had been outsourced for the last eight years, back to B.C. in an attempt to improve the quality of their customer service.  Although an expensive project to improve their infrastructure, Terasen Gas made a smart move in order to provide consumers with more knowledgeable staff in regards to billing and energy conservation, which will likely result in an increase in customer loyalty.  And the benefits don’t stop there, this change will also have an impact on the local economy by providing more jobs, a perk that has been quantified at $25 million.  Having direct control over their customer service department, rather than delegating it to CustomerWorks LP (the company that was controlling their outsourcing), will potentially allow for profit gains from increased customer loyalty and the ability to promote efficiency and energy conservation programs.  That being said, Terasen Gas may not have lost money through this endeavour, but in fact potentially increased future profits and growth.

Facebook has already established itself as the largest social networking site in the world, but recently it has recently been reported that the site is adding a new media platform that will allow its 750 million users to share music with their friends.  Facebook has chosen to pair up with notable music streaming services Spotify and Rhapsody as well as a variety of the former’s smaller scale competition such as Rdio and MOG, which will support the links that Facebook users choose to put on their profiles as “favourites”.

From Facebook’s perspective, this interoperability between the music industry and social networking can only be positive, however it could be potentially detrimental to those smaller music streaming sites that are less well-known.  These companies will have to make the risky decision of entering Facebook directly alongside their competition in addition to trying to maintain deals with record companies when the free trials that the other companies are offering leave little incentive for users to subscribe to their services.  The president of Rhapsody is definitely correct when he states that “It’s going to be hard for the players not at scale to survive, you’re looking at a two-horse race.”

The newest advancement in medical science is the revolutionary idea of stem cells; undifferentiated cells that can form into any type of cell that the human body requires.  As ideal as this kind of treatment sounds, businesses are beginning to see the profit of this therapy and exploiting it in order to maximize their sales.  Because stem cell research is so preliminary, businesses have preyed on families hope for a unconventional cure to lifelong diseases by guaranteeing them results from stem cell research, which have thusly turned out to be fraudulent.  International regulations have yet to be established on the distribution and use of stem cells as a valid treatment for ailments such as Parkinson’s disease, allowing businesses a time frame in which to promote their product as a “miracle cure” without running into the difficulty of overcoming laws.  However, this lends to the debate of business ethics in that businesses are not taking into account the harm that this is causing to both the patients and the families that are counting on this treatment to save lives.  In this case, business’ sole motivation is profit, seemingly being unconcerned and unwilling to consider the ethics of creating hope without results.