Tamara sachs

Seth Godin’s blog provides fun and inspirational topics. It enriches you with skills and ideas of how to improve your competitive advantages, as well as providing one with successful tools and knowledge to succeed in the competitive business market.

Seth has a rich background in marketing.

He founded Yoyodyne , one of the first internet based direct marketing companies, that was sold to Yahoo in 1998 for $30,000,000.

Seth is also known for his use of the term “permission marketing” – marketing in which the marketers receive permission before the customer purchases the product.

He supports a friendly marketing approach rather than an aggressive approach.

All his experiences and academic knowledge have proven him to be one of the biggest business Gurus out there, therefore it is worthwhile to check his blog to get some ideas and motivation.

Citation: Godin, Seth. “Seth Godin’s blog” <http://sethgodin.typepad.com/>

Linkedin launched in May with great success.

On the first day it started trading with an initial price of $45 and by the end of the first day it reached $122.70.

Just two weeks ago, it was Groupon’s turn to raise capital and they too, showed gains on their first day of trading starting at $20, and rising to $31- ending the day at $28.

We question if internet stocks are to be considered a good investment?

According to  James K. Glassman they are “fun but risky”.

Glassman provides 6 rules to assist in deciding whether a company is worth investing in:

-Smart business proposition.

-Innovation.

-Awareness of competition.

-Analysis of the balance sheet.

-Faithful patience.

-Diversification.

If we implement Glassman’s rules to see whether Linkedin and Groupon are worthwhile investments, we see that both companies are interesting propositions.

Linkedin is unique, while Groupon has many competitors.

Balance sheets will show no profits for both in 2011, however, Groupon’s accounts will look worse especially after all the adjustments have been made.

Patience is always needed when considering investing in stocks, because the temptation of a quick gain is always there…

To conclude, Linkedin has been around and stable for quite some time, while Groupon is new to the market, and has had some tough times this year…

Citation: K. Glassman, James.  “6 Rules for Investing in Internet Stocks and 8 Promising Picks” Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. October 2010.<www.kiplinger.com/columns/openingshot/archives/6-rules-for-investing-internet-stocks-8-promising-picks.html>

Halliday, Josh. “Groupon share price soars after IPO” The Guardian. 4 November 2011. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/nov/04/groupon-share-price-soars-ipo>

Bladwin Clare & Selyukh Alina  “LinkedIn share price more than doubles in NYSE debut”. Reuters. May 19, 2011. <http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/19/us-linkedin-ipo-risks-idUSTRE74H0TL20110519>

Chan criticizes the inefficiency that stands behind any business decision that is for sustainability.

Chan “conveniently” neglects to point out that sustainability not only brings profit, but also depletes resources.

If Governments and business firms focus only on present profit gain, and ignore the “sustainability” side, there will be no future business for anyone, because there will be no resources left.

Chan’s example of downtown heavy traffic jams, due to the new bicycles lanes, have caused people to cease using their cars and to commute downtown using bicycles or public transportation.

 If the Government had not invested in improving bicycle paths and public transportation, people would still commute to downtown by cars and cause heavier pollution.

As for sustainability, in my opinion, there will be a much higher opportunity cost if we continue to ignore the same.

The world cannot continue the way things are now…

So changes MUST be implemented…

Citation: Chan, Ivan. “Inefficiency. The Opportunity Cost of Sustainability?” ivanchan blog. November 15th, 2011. < https://blogs.ubc.ca/ivanchan/2011/11/15/sustainability/>

Back in 2000, Nike purchased software (i2 demand-planning software) that supposedly can foresees the quantity recommended to produce by evaluating past sales.

 Sounds good?

 The forecast caused Nike a loss of $100 million!

The idea is logical. Nike is such a huge company that it is hard to create orders based on intuition alone; however, trusting a computer program will not do it by itself!

The strategy is to combine both, and to take into consideration whatever the marketing team is forecasting in sales for a certain product.

 The supply chain is more sensitive in the clothing and apparel businesses, since, if you over produce, even though the goods will not “get spoiled” their “fashionable value” will depreciate and  they will lose their price value.

Therefore, trusting the human instinct is the best way to lead the supply chain.

 That is what Nike learned from their mistakes, and increased their profits in later years.

citation: Koch ,Christopher. “Nike Rebounds: How (and Why) Nike Recovered from Its Supply Chain Disaster” Tue, June 15, 2004 http://www.cio.com/article/32334/Nike_Rebounds_How_and_Why_Nike_Recovered_from_Its_Supply_Chain_Disaster?page=1&taxonomyId=3207

Bellack points out the importance of a supply chain to a company, however she neglects to mention why it is important?

It is important to note that the reason the supply chain is so important is because the supply chain is the heart and soul of the company- without it there is no company!

If the marketing and sales teams do an excellent job on promoting a new product, and the production and  supply chains cannot meet the high demand, then all the hard work is for nothing!

 THE SYNCHRONIZATION between the different departments of a company (marketing, accounting, and stores) and the supply chain are crucial, just like our heart cannot function without our brain.

 Not synchronizing properly, will probably be the No.1 factor for failing supply chains.

Citation: Bellack, Liesl. “Science of a Supply Chain” Liesl Bellack’s Blog. Oct. 31st, 2011 <https://blogs.ubc.ca/lieslmb/2011/10/31/science-of-a-supply-chain/>

“Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.”

Conard Hilton – Entrepreneurship success

Some call it luck, others call it destiny, but evidently there are some people out there that simply know how to do the right thing. This is the art of the entrepreneur – spot an opportunity, find means in which he can successfully accomplish his vision, and GO FOR IT!

A great example would be Conrad Hilton. Hilton was the first international hotel chain.

In 1919, Hilton, who was not sure what he wanted to do with his life, encountered a small hotel -The Mobley hotel.

 He felt sure he wanted to become an emperor of hotels, so he raised money and bought that hotel.

Being successful does not end here… Conrad made the effort to study the industry well.

He invested much of his time improving the hotel and staff, and the rest is history. Another important factor for the entrepreneur is the fact he did not stop there – he kept spotting other hotels to purchase.

Conrad also knew the art of biding, he always knew the right amount when placing his bid.

Conclusion – choose a vision, find the means to fulfill your vision – and keep on moving constantly.

citation: © 2011 Scientity Inc. All right reserved. 

http://www.liveomagazine.com/article/conrad-hilton-8.html

For some reason, many mistake a free market as synonymous to capitalism. The 2008 crisis proves that this is not the case!

Free markets provide perfect competition, letting the market regulate itself, whereas capitalism now is made up of 5 gigantic companies controlling the entire market!

If that is not enough, then those 5 companies take the money that the small companies and hard working class make, and ask the US government to pay back their debts!

And if you believe that the US is out of the financial crisis, according to Jack Cafferty from CNN- the current reports indicate that: “Almost half of Americans – 48.5% live in households that get some kind of government aid” (Jack Cafferty CNN’s blog) while tax payers are decreasing.

In case you worry about the welfare of the management of Lehman brothers, they are certainly not part of the 48.5% of Americans households that receive government aid.

According to THE TIMES Christine Seib in New York, Lehman Brothers’ Richard Fuld ‘sold’ his mansion to his wife for $100 (worth 13.75 million dollars) (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5594623.ece).

In my opinion, it is safe to say that CAPITALISM is a failing economic system.

citation: Cafferty, Jack. “How long can we go on with almost half of Americans living in households that get government assistance?” CNN blog. October 6th, 2011 <http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2011/10/06/how-long-can-we-go-on-with-almost-half-of-americans-living-in-households-that-get-government-assistance/?iref=allsearch>

Seib, Christine. “Lehman Brothers’ Richard Fuld ‘sold’ mansion to wife for $100″ The Times, 27 January 2009 <http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5594623.ece>

While all over the news there are reports are showing images of Steve Jobs and his great success, he also experienced FAILURES.

Steve Job’s success did not come easily!

While studying in college, he had to drop out after the first term, because his adopted parents were unable to finance his tuition fees.

Yet Steve Jobs stayed around and attended Calligraphy classes and later said: “If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiprocessors or proportionally spaced fonts.”(Stanford Report. June 14, 2005.)

 In late 1984 he was fired from Apple, (after a great sales slump) and founded a new company – NeXT.

Even then he had tough times, creating a workstation that was way over priced. However, something good did come out of the NeXT workstation.

According to physicist Sir Tim Berners-Lee, he was able to invent the world wide web because the workstation had provided him with the tools he needed.

In 1996 Jobs returned to Apple and learning from his previous mistakes (one of the biggest ones was that he refused to license the Mac’s graphical operating system and gave Windows its biggest successes) and became what we all know today. (http://www.itnews.com.au/News/275890,vale-steve-jobs-worlds-greatest-failure.aspx)

Maybe his biggest success was consistency and going all the way with his vision.

citation: Cochrane, Nate. “Vale Steve Jobs: World’s greatest failure”. itnews. Oct 6, 2011. <http://www.itnews.com.au/News/275890,vale-steve-jobs-worlds-greatest-failure.aspx>

This week I had an accounting class, in which I asked my fellow
students if I could borrow their notes because I had missed a class.

 I asked five different people and received a creative variety of excuses why they could not
give me their notes.

Embarrassed, I ended up asking my professor if I couldborrow hers, which she gladly provided me with.

 HOWEVER the whole scene made me think that, with all due respect to competition and wishing to be successful, I
believe that we should also be GOOD to each other, and HELP.

 Acting on your own can only bring you partial success.

 If you wish to succeed beyond that, one should start treating people better.

 Furthermore, one might need some help some day, or one might find out that our world is very small and round!

 You never know where you’ll find people you mistreated, especially in the business
world.

 Therefore, I should like to  point this out  loud and clear to all the kind
SAUDER students out there – BE  KIND TO OTHERS, IT WILL NOT HARM YOUR
POSITION OR SUCCESS !IN FACT- IT WILL SHOW YOU OFF IN A VERY POSITIVE  WAY!

I would suggest that all should be kind to others on their way up the ladder of success(one never knows who one will meet on the way down!).

Interesting book on this matter:

http://www.businessknowhow.com/growth/power-nice.htm

citation: Kaplan Thaler, Linda & Koval Robin.”The Power of Nice: How to Conquer The Business World with Kindness”

Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc, 2006.

As a great lover and supporter of the electric car, I was furious to see that even though GM and Honda had  created perfect cars back in 1990, and the pilot customers who had received the cars were all extremely satisfied and wished to purchase them once the lease expired, yet  GM and Honda called on their customers to return the cars, which were then destoyed. 

 The technology was there.

Why did they do it??

One can speculate….

For more details:

http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/passionateeyeshowcase/2009/electriccar/

One wouldl think that nowadays the electric car would be eagerly welcomed, however, Canada’s federal government does not allow “Zenn” Motor (which is a proud Canadian company), to sell their international winning award,electric car in Canada!

citation: CBC news network. “Who Killed the Electric Car?” CBC news website. May 23, 2010 <http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/passionateeyeshowcase/2009/electriccar/>