Beyond the Rack, a Canadian company founded in 2009, has experienced great success in a few years
(Source: http://www.strategyeyedigitalmedia.com/article/2012/10/24/beyond_the_rack_lands_usd101m_for_flash_sales/) 

Beyond the Rack is a Canadian company that offers limited-time sales on designer apparel. They have been so successful with their operations that they’ve been named the fastest growing e-tailer in North America for 2011, having revenues grow from $6 million in 2009 to $100 million by their third year.

One reason behind their success may be because of their business model, which doesn’t require that they have a lot of inventory on hand. Their supply chain is set up in a way that makes this possible. They don’t purchase from their suppliers until a customer places the order on their website. This business model is great because they don’t have to spend a lot of cash on inventory and allowing them to spend on other areas, such as marketing. However, having a supply chain like this requires careful thinking as one thing going wrong would be detrimental for the entire operation. Although it may take a significant amount of work to initially set up contacts with suppliers and figure out the logistics, the long-term payoff potential is huge, as the company has seen.

Link to article here.

The ever so popular Twinkies may soon become a hot commodity
(Source: http://www.fearnet.com/news/news-article/and-you-thought-twinkies-would-be-around-forever) 

Hostess, the maker of the astronomically popular Twinkies, has announced that they’re going out of business. Their workers going on strike put them in a position that may make it impossible for them to recover, which is why they decided to do so.

They may also have been in a tough position because of a large number of substitute products that are available on the market nowadays. However, the brand recognition that Hostess has with some of its products is huge, which makes it somewhat hard to see how the company was more fragile than it seemed. Could the company have prevented something like this from happening, or was it inevitable? The article stated that retailers stop stocking their products when supplies are inadequate, which may mean the company was unprepared for a situation like this because they didn’t have many days’ worth of inventory on hand.

Many of us grew up having eaten countless Twinkies and other delectable snacks, and a world without them is hard to imagine. I, personally, sometimes get a craving for a Twinkie once in a while and would hate to see them disappear.

Link to article here.

Ten Tree Apparel is just one of a number of social enterprises in the world
(Source: http://johnfowlesthetree.com/?p=7) 

After reading Logan Parker‘s blog post about Ten Tree Apparel, it got me thinking about what the world would be like if more social enterprises like this existed. There seems to be a wide spectrum of entrepreneurs that exist in society, ranging from those who will do anything and everything possible to make and keep as much money as possible, and those who seek to achieve change with their wealth. What some people may not get is that it is possible to be a social entrepreneur and make a difference in society, while bringing in profit as well. The ideas of Ten Tree Apparel and Toms are brilliant. They both contribute to some of the world’s major problems, along with raising awareness to these problems.

Do entrepreneurs have the power to make a difference? Of course they do. A number of the world’s billionaires are philanthropists, using their wealth to make society better off. There’s power in numbers, and if more people were to use the power of business to contribute to fixing some of the problems in society, the world would be a much better place.

Without the supply chain, it would pretty much be impossible for businesses to do business
(Source: http://omiusajpic.org/issues/investing/supply-chain/)

I read a blog post about how to prevent major disruptions from happening in supply chains, which got me thinking about just how important the supply chain is for a business. The supply chain is there to keep track of where everything is coming from and making sure everything is where it needs to be at the right times. Part of creating a good supply chain is making sure that everything always flows smoothly throughout it, so being able to prevent disasters should also be integrated, if possible.

As it says in the article, if it’s possible to predict a natural disaster, it should be possible to predict where in the supply chain there could be a disruption. Companies that rely on inputs that come from sources that were expected to be hit by Hurricane Sandy could’ve planned ahead and arranged for their inputs to come from another source and be virtually unaffected by the disaster. By focusing on problems that could come up, companies could save a huge amount of money, along with generating revenue that wouldn’t have been possible with poor supply chain disaster prevention.

It’s going to be a tough uphill battle for Research in Motion 
(Source: http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2012/10/30/blackberry-failure-premature/) 

After reading about Gordon Woo‘s blog post about RIM releasing their BlackBerry 10 operating system along with new phones, I thought about if it was even possible for the company to bounce back from where it currently stands. Their upcoming releases may be too little, too late for the company.

Most companies that still use BlackBerries use it because of its high security and the way they can customize their employees’ phones through the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). If this is going to be incompatible with BlackBerry 10, there’s no doubt that any companies that still use BlackBerries will make the switch to another type of phone for their company, such as iPhones or Androids. It’s also really easy to sell your phone once you’re done with it so that it’s not just sitting around and doing nothing.

The smartphone industry is very competitive, and technological innovation is necessary if a company wants to survive. If a company doesn’t have the resources to quickly keep up with the competition, they’re going to go down the drain, and this is exactly what is presently happened to Research in Motion. It would take a miracle for them to regain significant market share with their new line of phones and operating system.

Signs inside a Zellers store, liquidating its merchandise as Target takes over
(Source: http://smartcanucks.ca/death-of-the-department-store/)

With the entry of new competitors from different countries into the department store market in Canada, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the country’s current department stores to continue growing. As Hudson’s Bay Co. announces the launching of their IPO in Canada, more competitors are coming in to take a share of its profits, including Target and Nordstrom, which could make raising as much money in their IPO as possible more difficult. Both Target and Nordstrom are expected to make their Canadian debuts in the next couple of years.

Hudson’s Bay Co. is doing what it can to overcome the difficulties that this new competition is going to bring. One thing they plan on doing is implementing a strategy that focuses on bringing bigger fashion brands into the store, such as Michael Kors and Topshop, creating points of difference. If the company wants to continue doing business and increase profitability in Canada, it’ll have to use its strong brand, along with the marketing advantage of being truly Canadian, to convince people that they are the better choice. Otherwise, they risk giving up a significant amount of their market share to the new entrants.