Category: Uncategorized

I agree with Steven’s blog post about the truthfulness and accuracy of ads. Companies, especially high-profile ones, need to ensure that the messages that their ads send is not only effective in enticing customers, but also is accurately reflective of the company and the product it is trying to sell.

Brand image and reputation are incredibly important to customers, and in order to protect those, companies need to be honest with their customers. Steven’s example of Nike’s sweatshop scandals is perfectly illustrative of the backlash that failing to protect those two factors can lead to.

Luckily, some companies are beginning to take a stand such as Jacob, the Canadian clothing company that has refused to retouch the models in their ads since 2010. Instead of falsely depicting what its products will look like on customers, Jacob has chosen to display its products in an accurate way, thereby increasing customer’s trust in the company and its products. I predict that this “honest” advertising is going to be a trend and will take off most notably in the fashion industry.

The Global X Social Media Index is a fund that groups social media stocks together. Since social media is “generating a lot of interest among investors”, grouping them together might capitalize on that interest; however this blog suggests that poor timing is the reason why this fund falling.

Companies included in this fund are: GroupOn, LinkedIn, Pandora, and other high-profile social media companies.

Although these companies are high-profile, the hype surrounding them is dying down, resulting in the lack  success of the fund.

This blog offers valuable insight about this particular issue because it suggests that similar funds will attract investors who want to “[spread] risk among a number of different companies“, but also contemplates whether investors will catch on right away or not.

Despite the disappointing results of this fund, I suspect that similar funds will start appearing in different areas when investors begin to take note of trends in certain markets. This also ties in with the lecture when we discussed Bloomberg which gives a snapshot of markets that would include information such as the status of these funds.

Cameron posted about sexism in the workplace in the context that women are often paid less and are given less opportunities to make important decisions compared to men in business. While I agree that there is obvious inequality in the workplace, I have a few insights as to why this inequality exists.

Evidently, both men and women have the ability to succeed in business. Using organizational behaviour concepts, I have learned that men and women are often evaluated differently despite given the same tasks; for example, in this article, the author explains that for women in leadership positions, body language carries a larger importance compared to men in the same roles.

Since men and women are evaluated differently in the workplace, it may be more difficult for women to reach senior-level positions in a company because they are given different criteria and expectations.

This inequality shows the importance of being evaluated fairly; the problem of being evaluated by different criteria can potentially be solved by using the balance scorecard that we discussed in the lectures and tutorials, or even applying the same concept to the existing criteria.

Jim Pattison Group is an example of an entrepreneurship.

The company started when Jim Pattison “took out a C$40,000 loan against his mortgage and his insurance” in 1960 to buy a car dealership in Burnaby.The dealership enjoyed rapid success as his revenues increased from “just over C$2 million in 1961 to over C$4 million in 2000“. Evidently, the risk he took was extremely successful.

What sets his business apart from others is that he has maintained control over all of his ventures, meaning that he does not work with any partners or shareholders. This can be seen as a new form of organization, which allows Jim Pattison to monitor his ventures carefully.

Jim Pattison Group is also known for acquiring many other companies.

On average, Canadians are working more and spending less time with their families, which leads to lack of job satisfaction and increases absenteeism. The effect is having a negative impact on the economy.

A possible solution is to work from home, but doing so will require the ability to balance work and home life without relying on the structure and discipline being in an office setting would have provided.

Since the number of people who work from home is increasing, (due to factors such as technology), it is important to the general job satisfaction and job performance of those who work at home.

In Tuesday’s lecture, we discussed organizational behaviour, and more specifically, we went into detail about organizational culture. The question is if people who work from home feel like they are part of the organization, and if so, are they influenced by the organization’s culture? Therefore, although working from home is a possible solution to job dissatisfaction, the effects of working from home can also lead to job dissatisfaction.

In lieu of the large-scale marketing campaigns and various other ways of approaching business, major corporations may now be looking at methods that were previously associated with small-businesses.

Companies achieve this by acting like technology start-ups. While this will promote a more innovative entrepreneurial mindset and is financially beneficial. However, the risks are operating in the same bureaucratic ways and also the repercussions of the sudden success of the founders.

Additionally, operating separately from a large corporation can increase and maintain focus because it is detached from the hierarchy of the company.

Overall, I see the logic behind the trend of small-business “thinking”; for so long, it was typical of large corporations to bombard potential consumers with flashy campaigns. Despite the risks of small-business tactics, the change to smaller-scale ideas is refreshing and will catch the attention of the many who are craving for something different.

After low profits, low sales, and other financial disappointments, Sears has announced its plans to sell its brands to its competitors.

The reliability of the brands that Sears sells is one of the company’s strengths, and in order to soften the recent financial blow, it will start selling those brands to competitors while charging a Sears brand association fee.

In doing so, Sears hopes to boost brand loyalty so that customers will buy more of its products, even if the products are not bought directly from Sears.

Although experts believe that this method will be successful in the short-run, they are unsure of whether this method is a long-run solution as well.

For the most part, customers seem to buy products from certain places based on convenience. Sears is not as accessible or widespread as a department store such as Wal-Mart, so it’s difficult to see how Sears is promoting its own sales through its new plan. It seems as though Sears would only make money off the brands they sell to competitors; in other words, the plan does not promote sales for Sears itself.

Although the iPhone 4 and newly released iPhone 4S have many similarities, the most significant new feature of the 4S is perhaps Siri.

Siri is a voice-recognition software that can aid in many tasks such as note-taking, scheduling, and information finding. Essentially, people can play with existing features on their iPhones using voice control through Siri. The sophisticated system is unlike other voice-control software because it is able to recognize and comprehend commands and questions at an advanced level (in other words, the system can recognize contextual/more subtle commands).

Much like how other Apple features have been adopted by other companies, the author believes that a feature similar to Siri will start appearing in other phones and technologies.

Technology as advanced as Siri is bound to make people feel apprehensive, and although some of the tasks that Siri can perform seem excessive, I predict that people will begin to use Siri for tasks that require efficiency and speed such as note-taking. However, until Siri is able to accommodate more people (through region or understanding accents), the popularity of this new feature will only grow gradually for now.

Mercedes-Benz is relaunching its smart car.

When it first came out, sales were promising because gas prices were high. However, sales diminished as large cars such as SUVs grew in popularity. With this relaunch comes a $30 million marketing campaign, aimed at promoting smaller cars such as the Smarts while “bashing” bigger cars.

However, some potential customers may be turned off by the relatively expensive price of such a small car.

The company is obviously invested in the concept of smart cars and is probably encouraged by the consistently high price of gas. However, as the article stated, people may not feel like they are getting their money’s worth with a purchase of a smart car. The marketing campaign is a good idea, but it’s doubtful that a significant number of drivers of SUVs and other big cars will switch to smart cars. Still, the marketing campaign will surely convince many first-time car owners to consider buying smart cars.

Many of the daily products we buy and use are likely to have been made by horribly underpaid and overworked workers, many of them foreign and/or children. Some well-known companies that have been accused of using child workers include: Guess, Wal-Mart, The Gap, and of course, Nike. After the accusations, many companies vehemently deny that they had prior knowledge of these conditions, yet have taken little action to investigate or stop these practices.

Additionally, these workers often have to work in poor conditions as well, due to slack health and safety regulations, allowing them to be exposed to hazards such as dangerous chemicals.

Although the sweatshops we hear about are often in countries like China and India, there are sweatshops in countries like the United States as well.

For more info, go to http://ihscslnews.org/view_article.php?id=213

The main issue of this article is the poor working conditions of the workers of corporations. Corporations hire workers (often young and overseas) in order to underpay and overwork them, to ignore safety and health regulations, and to cut costs such as employment insurance.