In my classmate’s Thomas Love’s blog, there is a post titled “The impact of Artificial Intelligence” very intriguing to me. Thomas expresses that artificial intelligence is replacing more and more jobs in labor markets, describes some general characteristics of replaceable jobs by automation, and both the economic and political impacts artificial intelligence has made in the society. In the end of the article, Thomas makes an appeal that to be equipped with the knowledge irreplaceable by automation is the utmost significance, especially for us current university students who are still studying on campus.

After reading this article, I can’t help thinking deeply about the analysis of such future trends. Mosty, I agree that artificial intelligence is definitely a warning for job seekers in the world, but this warning is a double sided sword with both the good and the bad.

On the one hand, if laborers do not improve their skills and their knowledge, they will be highly likely to lose their jobs and get replaced by robots. Thus, massive unemployment could happen as a result. When thousands of people would lose jobs and get homeless for such reason, this could even cause instability in the macroeconomy potentially.

On the other hand, such threats as automation in labor markets could not only improve the economic productivity but also propel everyone to improve and grow. According to the famous Darwinian law of natural selection, the species who cannot adapt to the environment will die out, but the ones who can successfully adapt to the system can survive and reproduce with more powerful genes to better adapt to the environment. Nowadays, although humans don’t have brutal competitions of survivals and getting food, we still need to constantly learn, improve, and grow in order to better adapt to the fast-changing economic environment as Thomas appeals in the end of his article. At least, this is the only way to ensure we will not get replaced by robots, and that we still have values brought to the society, which robots don’t have.

In general, governments could use the power of laws to force companies not to adopt robots and cut off workers too quickly in order to ease the unemployment caused by artificial intelligence; meanwhile, workers need to acquire the habits to constantly learn new knowledge and keep up the moving pace of the world. In this way, artificial intelligence would not only improve the economic productivity but also improve the labor quality all over the fields.

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(Image from Shutterstock website)

https://www.ft.com/content/d096c04e-b5a4-11e7-a398-73d59db9e399?mhq5j=e7

(For commercial purposes, the article can’t be viewed by opening the link directly. Please use Google to search for the news title in order to access the same article of Financial Times)

(Image from BBC.com/news/business: EU officials inspected the Munich offices this week)

Over last weekend, there was a piece of news article making me think deeply about the relations between corporate social responsibility and business development strategy.

According to Financial Times, Europe Union officials made a search at BMW headquarter office in Munich because they suspected the allegations that BMW and other German carmakers have been doing business cartel for decades since 1990 by limiting car prices and emission technology development spendings mutually. If that is a true case, BMW, by definition, will certainly violate anti-trust laws of Europe Union. Particularly, it was alleged that those carmakers agreed mutually to adopt lower-cost components and suppliers, which sacrifices higher emissions as a result.

For responses, BMW said governments should make a clear distinction between anti-trust laws, and manipulations of gas emission. At the moment, BMW has only been accused of anti-trust violations, but not manipulations of gas emissions.

Financial Times announces further that major car companies from Germany often make partnerships together to cooperate and set up standards in order to make automobile industry as an entirety move further, which is the strategic business development for economic growth at a macroscopic level. On the one hand, common standards can not only make suppliers’ jobs much easier but also benefit large consumer bodies more conveniently. On the other hand, the boundaries between cartels and partnerships are often blurry and hard to tell.

Certainly, I totally understand there is no way for managers at such super larger organizations as BMW to do jobs easily. It’s often just one step away from jail once a manager is in charge of a large multinational corporation. However, as an upright citizen with strong beliefs in corporate social responsibility, I really don’t like BMW’s crafty response or even excuse: because they are not accused of manipulations of gas emissions, they should be free from violation claims for adopting lower-cost components with higher gas emissions.

Environment protection should always be the sustainability goals of every citizen and every company for this planet; furthermore, BMW and other major German car companies who exert huge influences on environments even use the commercial power to mutually adopt components with higher gas emissions because of lower costs and higher profitability. Such actions should be strongly criticized although they are not qualified to be legal violations.

Business partnership for strategic development is always important and mutually beneficial; however, besides the monetary factors in company budgets, companies should always take environmental and social effects into consideration when doing decision makings. There is no clear separation between partnership and cartel; meanwhile, I would like to say, there is also no clear separation between business strategy and corporate social responsibility. Why not make a great balance together?

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(Jason Franson/Canadian Press): Suncor is focused on cost-cutting to in order to increase profits and remain competitive.

Today, I’ve read an article called “Canadian oil producers alter strategies in face of oil supply certainty” from CBC news, which invoked my deep thoughts of business strategy.

In summary, massive industrial productions largely drive up the surplus of oil supply nowadays; therefore, oil prices overall become more and more limited or even lower. Many investors are scared away from oil and gas industries due to the volatility of energy prices and fading margins. Steve Reynish, executive vice-president of strategy and corporate development at Suncor Energy Inc, made a saying at a conference in Alberta to express the company’s shift of strategy focus on cost-cutting of oil production in order to increase margins and stay competitive in financial markets. Due to lack of enough pipeline spaces for most of Canadian oil producers and suppliers, Canadian oil companies typically often choose railway transportations which cost significantly higher than pipelines do. Suncor, one of the major Canadian oil producers, will probably be one of the first oil companies to slow down and sacrifice growth in order to cut down long-term transportation costs and keep up profit margins.

Although the article mentions that recent rise of U.S. dollar price to Canadian dollar is expected to hurt Canadian oil producers’ oil and gas prices, I don’t think they will get affected too much as long as they trade in Canadian domestic oil markets and employ Forex Asset Department to keep track of asset values affected by volatility in international currency, which is what large international corporations do typically. I really like how Suncor assesses its internal and external contexts in detail and serves as the first Canadian oil producers to take the initiative for long-term cost-cutting strategy development.

Recently in COMM 101 lectures, we just learned financial accounting, managerial accounting, and business strategy, and I feel they are all interconnected somehow in a corporate organization both internally and externally. For example, in this piece of news article, initially, Suncor wants to increase the financial performance in cash flow statements and fund markets in order to better attract investors, which is the perspective of financial accounting; then, Suncor made plans to particularly sacrifice short-term growth to exchange long-term limited transportation costs, or known as period costs in managerial accounting, which is an internal decision-making accounting perspective. The entire proposal processes of long-term strategies and short-term tactics are just what we call “Strategic Decision Making”, including strategies, tactics, situation analysis, and initiatives; situation analysis includes both internal and external strategic assessments, which is highly bond to both managerial accounting and financial accounting together.

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http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/alibaba-canada-1.4305325

Last weekend, I was excited to read a piece of news in CBC titled “Alibaba-related company Alipay expands payment processing service into Canada”. Basically, Alipay, the electronic payment system of Alibaba Corporation, will enter into Canada soon, and Chinese in Canada can finish their payments and transactions through Alipay while Canadian merchants have access to Chinese markets.

Since I am from China, and I can see and tell how much positive impacts Alipay makes to our everyday life, I had indescribable happiness and excitement when seeing the news. In China, I can pay for almost everything even including bus tickets and taxi fees by either letting people scan my Alipay QR code on my cellphone or me scanning their Alipay QR code. The transaction payment process used to be relatively inconvenient because it was very annoying to carry lots of cash and changes in pockets, and it’s hard to keep track of the amount we have with ourselves for every moment, and the coins themseves are heavy to carry; if our wallets are stolen or lost, we will just lose all our cash. However, the invention of Alipay makes everything in transaction and payments easy, convenient, and safe regardless of the price and the distance just by a quick QR code scanning. Even if the phone is stolen, the fingerprint login of Alipay app can still distinguish different users and fail to implement the transactions by strangers.

On the other hand, I’m also a little bit frustrated at some misconceptions that westerners still have about China when I read some comments left below the news. Although Alibaba is a completely private-owned corporation in China to make its own business, technology, and trades, some cyber users still attack to say that the biggest owner of Alibaba is Chinese communist government, or even say that Alibaba entering Canada is a big sign that China will take over Canada completely. The successful international business is based on the international trust and international respect to each other mutually. No matter what the political ideologies the government adopts for historical or cultural context, as long as the business brings great positive values to the society, to the world, it should be considered a good business.

Now, when I think peacefully, I just find that everything has two-side views. It totally despends on the perceptions from individuals either by internal reasons or external reasons, which is completely normal. As for whether Alipay entering Canada is good or not, time could prove everything.

(11/08/2017 Fri 12:33 in Malaysia by Venus Hew of Market-Interactive)

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/06/mars-counters-trumps-climate-stance-with-1bn-sustainability-plan

Photograph by staff writers in Global

Last weekend, I’ve read a piece of news titled “Mars counters Trump’s climate stance with $1bn sustainability plan” on the Guardian, which led my environmental sustainability thinking.

For the summary of this piece of news, in reaction to U.S. President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from 2015 Paris Climate Accord, Mars company launched a one billion dollar plan targeting on renewable energy for environmental sustainability, and the investment includes cutting greenhouse gas emissions, running a poverty reduction, and increasing food safety and security. As we can see in the image, Mars will brand renewable energy idea through its own logo, featuring a windmill beside a candy character.

Business ethics has a much broader limit on behaviors than business law does because morals and values are often not defined or required in legal systems, and business ethics often go beyond what law defines. According to the news report from the Guardian, “its sustainability investments and M&M’s campaign were announced ahead of the UN general assembly and climate week which will run from 18 to 24 September in New York.” This made me see the true innate values of an enterprise to take the initiative on social responsibility and appeals on environmentally-friendly movement, regardless of zero government requirements.

Moreover, implementations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) don’t only just help with better business environments and societal sustainability, but also help build better corporate reputations and even higher profits for the enterprises themselves. In marketing perspective, certainly more socially responsible companies gain more respect and better names from the public in the society.

From now on, I also decide firmly that our team in COMM 101 course should start small and adopt correct ethical values and attitudes of corporate social sustainability when we start drafting our first business plan proposal. After all, why not balance the socially responsible business and additional margins together?

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