Categories
Introduction to Business

Re: WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price

In the earlier years of my life, I had taken Economics 12. One of the most interesting documentaries that our teacher had shown us was, “WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price”, which I highly recommend to watch. The video shows multiple aspects on American WAL-MART, such as worker exploitation, environmental damage, and its massive impact on opening in small cities. It is made in a low-budget form, with an obvious biased standing strictly against the monopoly.

Our teacher was clearly completely convinced that WAL-MART is pure evil. The image is still vivid – enthusiastically waving her arms and speaking with such force that her mouth was as dangerous as a garden sprinkler, all regarding responsible actions that companies should undertake.

Although the documentary, like our instructor, makes its argument with the least of grace, it does point out shocking aspects of the company that I never thought would be happening, especially about how such a big company can disregard the environment and nonchalantly deals with company complaints.

You can check out the documentary here.

 

Categories
Entrepreneurship Introduction to Business

What is an Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship is an aspect of business that I have never truly understood, and will keep on trying to figure out.

Perhaps it is the versatility of entrepreneurs that makes the concept difficult to grasp, because the images that appear in my mind can vary from Donald Trump’s blonde toupee, to the Monopoly character that looks awfully similar to the Pringles man.

My good friend once told me that entrepreneurs are people that earns money by organizing people to make the best out of their talents.  What I had gotten out of our conversation  (perhaps also due to my natural tendency to exaggerate), was that an entrepreneur will be a shark, a sweet-talker, a charming-your-pants-off type of man with a killer haircut and legitimate-enough suit, that you cannot quite define their profession.

I find entrepreneurs share these similar qualities of charisma and ambition for success which are mostly personality traits, rather than skills learned off the textbook.

Most importantly, they are willing to take risks.

 

 

Categories
Entrepreneurship Introduction to Business

Dropbox is Innovative

How to make a great, delicious innovation. 

Ingredients:

– 1 Great idea, preferrably ripe and applicable to everyday lifestyle
 -1 Dash of courage
– Technology, to taste

I applaud. Dropbox has done this by claiming their spot in the file synchronization industry first.
Founder Drew Houston had thought of the idea because he had commonly forgot his USB  at home. Of all the times that I had forgotten my USB, why hadn’t I thought of this idea before Drew Houston?

Recently, Seth Fiegerman on Mashable posted Dropbox Hits 100 Million Users. Do you remember the days of the USB? Surely, Dropbox doesn’t. Recently, Dropbox has reached a milestone of a whooping 100 million users. Competitors such as Apple are fighting to compete with their similar cloud systems, but Dropbox confidently takes the lead.

The first time I had encountered their system was in high school, where a knowledgeable graphic designer friend had informed me about this beauty. He had his entire design life on there, it’s much more secure than carrying USB, or even hard drives around.  Dropbox has then since held my hand throughout my high school career, file sharing at lightning speeds, group work at school became a breeze.
Perhaps following the recipe for innovation, I could make a game-changer too. Hey, a girl can dream right?

 

http://mashable.com/2012/11/13/dropbox-hits-100-million-users/

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