Facebook, as one of the largest social media streams, has permitted to use users’ posts as a way of advertising. An example given in the article is: “… if someone posted “Just had a great seafood feast at Red Lobster” or even just hit the like button on the chain’s Facebook page, the restaurant company might pay to make sure that post, or sponsored story, showed up high in the Facebook feeds of that person’s friends.” This acts like word of mouth and the messages can be passed on from one person to another extremely easily.

For firms, this is a very good opportunity for them to advertise their brands and build up the brand reputations as massages about them can be exposed to millions or trillions Facebook users in such an easy way. And as the consumers are the ones who are promoting the brands, it would appear to be more reliable and the credibility of the words increases.

However, a concern that arises with this assertion is the privacy of the Facebook users. If their posts can be used to advertise without noticing, it can be considered to be unethical as it is taking away the users’ rights.

Work Cited:

Innovation is a crucial component to help firms to achieve their common goal: to maximise profit. Innovation acts a key differentiator between market leaders and their rivals. I have come across an article which states that firms should have innovations that match with their brands. If a brand fails to have innovations that fit the brand, the firm will face high costs and failure to expand and grow.

I agree with the article where it mentions that trustworthy brands play a significant role in innovation, as it reduces consumers’ risks in trying new products, positions the innovation, and provides credibility. If a brand is unreliable with its current products, new ideas and products will be meaningless as the consumers won’t buy it.

Therefore, there is a clear link between marketing and innovation, which is not about R&D only, firms should focus on building up brand reputation or use other strong branded streams (e.g. media sources such as the New York Times) in order to get high attention from consumers and other stakeholders. This significantly helps the firms to become more competitive and hence increase sales on their innovated ideas or products.

Work Cited:

http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/11/make-sure-new-features-match-your-brand/

Shoppers, Canada’s largest retail pharmacy chain has recently merged with Canada’s largest food retailer, the company Loblaw Co, under a $12.4-billion deal. This action has varies effects on different stakeholders.

For both Shoppers and Loblaw, this takeover is an extremely beneficial growth opportunity as they can use each other’s built-up brand reputation to increase their customer sources. For Shoppers, with the pressure of increasing cost resulted from regulatory changes in drug reimbursement programs as well as increasing competition, being taken-over by Loblaw allows it to increase its profit.

Moreover, to explore the effects on consumers and consumption trend, as mentioned in the article, “Shoppers’ president and chief executive Domenic Pilla said the Loblaw deal will change the retail landscape in Canada.” As foreign competition has become highly competitive within Canada’s retail landscape, this takeover can be seen as a development of new store concepts or brand strategy innovation.

However, the concern from this takeover is the pricing of the drugs from Shoppers. In comparison with other independent pharmacies, Shoppers’ general pricing tends to be higher than average. It is important for Shoppers, or Loblaw after the takeover, to examine the price in order to maximise profits.

Work Cited:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/shoppers-drug-mart-profit-dips-on-loblaw-takeover-costs-1.1539575

http://globalnews.ca/news/962385/shoppers-loblaw-behemoth-eyes-buying-up-more-pharmacies/

While reading my classmates’ blogs, I came across this interesting blog post by Aidan Lau on points of difference, which took the newly launched iPhone 5S as an example. He points out that the article he chose is concerned with the drawback of the fingerprint system is the insecurity as government and hackers can access fingerprint information of individuals. However, Aidan thinks we should not put too much focus on the points of difference as it can lead to technology development constraints.

As a user of iPhone 5S, I strongly agree with Aidan. For firms, the fingerprint system is the main feature that differentiates iPhone 5S from the other smart phones that brings them sales and makes them stand out. For customers, like myself, I find the fingerprint system really useful as it saves a lot of time and efforts on typing in passwords.

It is certainly a good thing to consider thoroughly while launching a new product. However, it is slightly exaggerating to deny the benefits of the fingerprint system with some reasons that may not necessarily come across in daily life basics.

Work Cited:

Drawback of Points of Difference

Recently we’ve studied about social enterprises in class and it appears very interesting to me because social enterprises in general are more focusing on maximising social welfare rather than profit only. In my opinion, I think this is extremely meaningful.

I looked into the company “Save On Meats” which is a social enterprise as well as a strong community partner. It provides work experiences for students, helps raising funds for different organizations, donating food through the Sandwich Token programme, and etc.

However, its significant brand sign has been ‘stolen’ by the Anarchists. However, Save On Meats managed to come up with creative photo and campaign to hit back. To further deliver the message, Save On Meats promised to donate one breakfast for a local women’s centre each time the photo was shared on social media.

Personally I think this is a very good strategy because first of all, they can keep their brand image by keeping the ‘aim’ of Save On Meats – helping the community by donating breakfast. But at the same time it also shows a strong perspective of standing up the anarchists bullies, this creates positive effects on their brand image and reputations.

Work Cited:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/04/04/save-on-meats-hit-back-at-jackass-anarchists-who-stole-their-sign-with-playful-photo-food-campaign/

Recently I came across a blog post by Joie Chan on increasing obesity. In her post she focused on social responsibilities, in particularly on the question of: are consumers themselves to blame for the increasing obesity rate, or should the food industry hold responsibility? Joie mentioned firms mainly focuses on the goal of maximizing profits. And along with it, she thinks firms should be holding most of the responsibilities on promoting healthy eating.

I agree with her as products are produced by the firms and firms should be putting the health issues of the consumers in the first place. However, the responsibilities do not fully lie on the firms but also the consumers. Consumers make their own choices, if they do not fall for the junk food and beverages and be more concerned with their health, they can stay in good health.

As an international student, I was very concerned with the eating trend in North America when I first moved here to Canada. Walking on the street I could see uncountable McDonalds, A&W, FreshSlice Pizza and other fast-food shops around. However, it is really my decision whether to walk in or not.

Work Cited:

To Gain or Not to Gain?

Recently the US government has shutdown as the politicians on Capitol Hill have failed to agree a new budget for the 2013-2014 financial year. This shutdown has gradually hit businesses bot inside and outside of America.

In terms of employment, the shutdown could put thousands of workers on unpaid leave, without knowing how long this will last. By all means, if people are getting unpaid, the consequence would be reduced consumer spending. And some of them may simply fail to meet their essential financial need eventually. As a result or the businesses, they will make less profits or even make losses. There will be less investment spending and firms that make losses may eventually shutdown their businesses.

By placing the scope on the entire US nation, the shutdown of the federal government can hit its GDP with significant figures. And the longer the government shuts down, the greater loss of GDP will be caused.

Another major issue that is linked to the shutdown is the debt ceiling battle. America is predicted to reach its borrowing ($16.7tn dollars) around mid-October. If America reaches the limit, meaning it would default on its debts.

Work cited:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24419564

Samsung and HTC have both been the leading mobile phone companies in the industry. The article (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/technology/htc-suffers-first-quarterly-loss-as-samsung-soars.html?ref=international&_r=0) reveals that HTC has made its first loss. One suggested reason is that HTC has been concentrated on producing premium models and less focused on the lower-end demand. Whereas, its competitors – Samsung, and even some Chinese companies such as, Lenovo, ZTE and Huawei, are providing a variety of products which allow them to meet the demand from the lower-end of the market. In addition, apart from phones, Samsung also earns profits from its alternative product – memory chips. And the recent increasing price of memory chips allow Samsung to obtain significant profits and expand its growth.

On the other hand, another suggested reason for HTC’s first loss is that HTC has also experienced an internal discord.  A number of executives have quitted the company and a top designer has been caught theft of trade secrets from HTC.

Based on this article, it shows that the importance of having a wide diversification in products because there are always different groups of consumers who would have different demands. In addition, the internal discord in HTC suggests that a sufficient management team is essential to a company’s success.

Work Cited:

New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/technology/htc-suffers-first-quarterly-loss-as-samsung-soars.html?ref=international&_r=0)

Recently, minimum wage has increased from $10.25 to $10.45 in Manitoba. As Manitoba has a large population of minimum wage earners, the increasing minimum wage implies numerous effects on different stakeholders in the business.

Firstly, the workers who significantly rely on minimum wage gain benefits from the rising minimum wage as now they earn higher income. However, on the other hand, it is potentially harmful to the firms and the consumers. For firms, especially the restaurant industry as it has the most minimum wage earners, the costs of supplies increase because now they have to pay higher wages to the employees. Hence the firms lose their profits. In order for firms to retain their profits, they have to raise the overall price level. Thus, consumers will encounter higher prices of the goods and services.

Minimum wage should be kept in a level where it is not too high because otherwise eventually the social costs will increase. It may not even benefit the minimum wage workers after all because the increasing general price level applies to them as well. In addition, firms that face higher costs might take various actions to cut down the costs such as the redundancy of employees. Overall, with such a high minimum wage, it is relatively disadvantageous for the stakeholders.

Works Cited:

Batchelor, Megan. “Minimum Wage Increases in Manitoba Tuesday.” Global News. Global News, 1 Oct. 2013. Web. 03 Oct. 2013. <http://globalnews.ca/news/874065/minimum-wage-increases-in-manitoba/>

Discrimination has always been an important field while exploring the topic of “ethics”. Discrimination comes in many forms in business. It involves treating people differently according to certain distinct characteristics, such as colour, religion, race or gender. This leads to higher inequalities.

An example could be the link below: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/business/24muslim.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 (Muslims Report Rising Discrimination at Work)

This article reveals the physical and psychological harms could be brought by discrimination. In addition, discrimination could be linked with a concern mentioned by Milton Friedman (The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Profits), which is conformity. The article mentions “the rising number of complaints by Muslims, which exceeds even the amount filed in the year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks…” This implies that from people’s individual and social interests, conformity could easily lead to discrimination, and sometimes it is even unavoidable.

Although discrimination is a crucial concern in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, unfortunately many businesses, co-wokers, or human resources consultants, etc. particularly in small businesses, are often not aware of it. If discrimination exists within a business, it would bring negative impacts for both the business and the individuals. Hence it is definitely an essential ethical issue to always be considered.