A business has to trade with the external world to make profit, thus external factors can have great impacts on a company’s business model. I’d like to take the First Nation issue as an example to analysis its impacts on the hydroelectric business in Canada.

The BC Hydro’s $8-billion Site C hydroelectric megaproject meets with opposition from the First Nation people in B.C (O’NEIL).

We can see First Nation people’s opposition on the project as an industry force, because it actually block the company’s access to its supply of input, so it can’t get the key resources needed by its key activities and value proposition. What’s more, B.C. have to bear the losses of delaying its project.

First Nation issue can also create regulatory trend and societal&cultural trend. The company may be forced by the government to improve their ways of production to reduce the damage to environment in aborigines region and may also face negative comments and lawsuit from advocators of aborigines and environmentalist. These factors can affect the cost structure by  increasing the company’s production, advertising and legal cost.

Considering the First Nation group is only a small part of the whole economy and is relatively isolated, plus B.C. Hydro’s product has high necessity and small elasticity of demand. My analysis shows that the First Nation issue will not significantly cause macro economic or market force that can greatly affect demand for the company goods and services very.

Bibliography

O’NEIL, PETER. First Nation chiefs to stage Site C showdown. 18 09 2014. 6 10 2014 <http://www.vancouversun.com/news/First+Nation+chiefs+stage+Site+showdown/10215965/story.html>.

Chinese businesses are going online, trying to enhance their productivity. According to the author. China now has the most smartphone users in the world, so my analysis shows that, businesses should not be satisfied by only, going online, they should also go mobile. With the rapid growth of smartphone and tablet users, Internet is no longer only accessible on computers, consumers are spending more time with their smart devices, going mobile will provide more chance for consumers to know your business,to  get access to you and to send you feedback after they used your products and services. 

Company with a informative website or mobile app will have a great advantage over its rivals who has a formalism website, because they help you capture your potential consumers’ spare moments, for example the two minutes’ time when they wait for a bus. Consumers can also receive more information about the products and services from the website and they can also receive some helpful self-service.

What’s more, going online or going mobile cut companies’ cost of hiring too many telephone operators, a server can deal with hundreds of customers at a same time, never make mistakes and requires no salary.

source: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21608639-chinese-business-has-been-slow-embrace-internet-it-does-productivity-should?fsrc=email_to_a_friend

This article uses so many data to show us the value of warehouses. This inspire me to think about a question, what is the purpose of building warehouses? The answer is, to keep the companies’ inventories. Then what is the real value of inventories? Only just some goods that are waiting for sale or a part of asset on the balance sheet? Of course not, my analysis shows that well located inventories can help companies attract potential customers in this Internet ear.

Imagine you need a watch for tomorrow’s exam or a sinus rinser when you have a allergy. You searched on Amazon and it says the nearest seller is thousands kilometers away, you’ll probably spend half of a day to buy it in downtown instead of buying it online. In this way, online sellers lose a lot of chances to make a deal. 

So it is a great idea to have a company provide small amount storages and delivery service for those online sellers to help them spread their inventories to meet potential demand in different areas, this actually shorten the distance from sellers to consumers.

Source: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21610288-rise-e-commerce-has-set-boom-market-warehouses-stores-value?fsrc=email_to_a_friend

This article introduce us the profit earning mechanism in the elevator industry. People usually think that the biggest proportion of profit of a manufacturer is the sale of their products, but lift producers show us another great source of income, the maintenance of products.

Maintenance of products generates a great amount of profit because the marginal cost is small, mostly the labour cost of and the production cost of spare parts. However, it needs a huge network of technicians if your products are globally sold. This creates a significant enter barrier for the industry, help producers hold the domination situation.

In my opinion, in order to create more profit, lift producers should make use of their existing huge and well spread service network, extent their business into new areas such as temperature and humid control or other smart electronic control system for buildings.

Source: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21573568-things-are-looking-up-liftmakers-top-floor-please