With the increase in demand of the clean hydroelectric in B.C, the BC Hydro’s is planning to construct a dam and a hydroelectric generating station that will cost 8 billion dollars to build. Although the money that Hydro’s must pay for running this megaproject need to go into the cost structure of their business model, there are non-cash environmental cost like “83 kilometres of the Peace River Valley” will be flooded and the significant damage in “farmland and wildlife habitat” that cannot be downplayed.

Those massive environmental costs strongly prove that this project is obviously not eco-friendly; it would also violate the right of the First Nations by occupying their lands.This serious environmental conflict brings the Site C project to the highest court.

In my opinion, the external environment problem that B.C Hydro is facing is so powerful that they may not get the right to use the land eventually, and that would force them to change their key resource and cost structure of their business model or even cancel their project. They may shift to develop another relatively eco-friendly resources like wind and solar which are supported by the First Nations, and that would spontaneously affect the management cost of that project as well.

Reference: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/First+Nation+chiefs+stage+Site+showdown/10215965/story.html

(Picture from http://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/mcdonald-s-tim-hortons-emerge-as-favourite-restaurants-in-canada-study-1.2039062)

Tim Horton’s, as Denis Hancock of Brand Spark said, took the top spot in Best tasting coffee, best breakfast and best dessert was “not a surprise”. How can Tim win the top spot with no doubt? I deem the answer is because of their strategy.

Tim Horton’s has a clear and specific point of difference from other coffee shops, low cost. It runs in a focus strategy that provides low cost of products and focusing in a narrow market, making loyal Canadian coffee.  

Good company always thinks forward. Tim understands that the strength of their business is mainly rely on “out front-line team members” that they have, and they knows their potential “pain”, or to say potential weakness, is the increasing in the time of waiting in line with the growth in numbers of their customers. Therefore, they start the plan of adding 5,000 more employees into their team in Albert before the weakness goes worse which can also improves their strength, the fast speed service, at the same time.

Reference:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/mcdonald-s-tim-hortons-emerge-as-favourite-restaurants-in-canada-study-1.2039062

http://www.qsrweb.com/news/tim-hortons-adding-5000-employees-revises-tattoo-policy/

Five days ago was the National Day of People Republic of China, there were flags rising on the Tiananmen Square and citizens in China were all celebrating while the Hong Kong people, mainly students, were running the huge revolution for the pro-democracy election. Chinese government wants to solve the Hong Kong revolution safely because Hong Kong provides China unique and vital economy benefits that may cause a significant economy decrease if China loses it.

(Picture from http://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/world/2014/10/04/hong_kong_protests_and_the_echoes_of_tiananmen_burman/heart_hk.jpg.size.xxlarge.letterbox.jpg)

This Hong Kong revolution is much like the Tiananmen student revolution that happened in 1989 when the government used tank to killed millions of students in Tiananmen in order to crackdown the revolution. However, the most shocking part of the Hong Kong revolution and the Tiananmen revolution years ago is the government hid this event from the Mainland Chinese people. There are news and photos post on Chinese news website but those news are mainly talked about how some people in Hong Kong support the Chinese government and called the revolution as an illegal meeting.

I believe the reason why Chinese government hid the news from Mainland people is they do not want to cause chaos in Mainland, too. But, people have the right to know the truth instead of fake news.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/10/04/hong_kong_protests_and_the_echoes_of_tiananmen_burman.html