http://www.guardian.co.tt/business/2013-10-27/get-away-ngos-charities-says-della-casa-move-social-enterprise

Sallyann Della Casa, founder of The Growing Leaders Foundation says that charity systems of NGOs must give way to social enterprise. Della Casa said she wanted to help people move away from the dependency syndrome and handouts and not only teach them how to fish, but how to market and sell it also.

Della Casa believes that companies and people should move away from this whole charity and philanthropy and get into social enterprise which is a hybrid between an NGO and a full profit organisation.

I agree with Della Casa. She makes a good point that charities are not sustainable, as they are funded by “someone writing a cheque”. Della Casa advocates a system where companies address societal issues but using business knowledge to achieve it. Also, doing it this way means that income can be generated and can be reinvested into the company to make even greater societal benefits, E.g increasing jobs or salaries. Even though Della Casa did not make this point in her article, I believe that shifting away from charities to companies which aim to simultaneous advance the social and economic systems will increase efficiency. Firms will naturally be more efficient then charities because they experience more pressures such as competition, this makes them have more incentive to work harder and become more efficient. With greater efficiency greater value is created according to the Harvard Business Review “Creating Shared Value” who states that “value is defined as benefits relative to costs, not just benefits alone. Therefore in respect to this principle, social enterprise is a better alternative to NGO charities to improve both economic and social conditions.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/lufthansa-targets-operational-efficiency-efb-150449403.html;_ylt=A2KJjajDO1JSk0YAY7PQtDMD

Lufthansa adoption of the new EFB tool which helps pilots actively manage the operational efficiency of their flights is an example of how advancements in technology can increase efficiency in firms, reduce costs and thus increase profits. In the industry of air travel, one of the major costs is jet fuel. This new EFB  software is able to pinpoint the available cost savings potential for every instant of the flight and display it to pilots in easy-to-read charts, giving concise information about fuel burn, overall cost and delay. This technology will likely result in more fuel efficient flights resulting in both a benefit to the airline in profits and to the environment in less carbon emissions.

This is a good example of how investments in research and development although expensive can yield beneficial outcomes and are worthwhile investment for firms who can afford it. Although investing in technology can be undesirable in the eyes of the firms for several reasons including: high costs and high risks. Costs of investing in research and development for greater technologies is expensive because you are devoting a large portion of your firm to do research and experimentation. This is expensive because you are paying the salaries and capital for the research to be made but you do not make any revenue during the time of the research, only after a break through has been made can you make and financial gains. This leads to the second undesirable characteristic of R&D – high risk. As just previously mentioned, conducting R&D is expensive however it is also risky as there is no guarantee that the research results in any useful benefit. It is for these two reasons why only established firms with high savings or profits can conduct R&D, and it is because of R&D that allows these large firms to remain as the dominant competitor of the market because they tend to have technological advantages that allow them to be more effective and efficient and therefore providing cheaper prices then smaller firms who can’t afford to conduct R&D and make any efficiency advancements.

Tool that allows for pilots to calculate more fuel efficient routes

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/sobeys-launches-mission-better-food-135200076.html

This article discusses the new branding and positioning strategies that Sobeys, the second largest Canadian food retailer, is trying to accomplish in order to gain additional market share to overtake Safeway and becoming the leading food retailer in Canada.

Sobeys’ point of difference which makes it stand out in comparison to other food retailers in Canada is their strategy of newly adopting a much healthier and wholesome food philosophy. Sobeys’ main positioning hook is that Jamie Oliver, a famous chef renown for healthy and tasteful recipes will be leading in the selection of foods provided in the supermarket. I believe that Sobeys’ strategy of publicly displaying that Jamie Oliver will be personally tailoring the assortments of foods in the store will be very effective in capturing the attention of Canadian consumers, as Jamie Oliver is a well respected and generally well liked chef. This strategy will hopefully shift public food consumption more towards Sobeys and away from other large food retailers which don’t make much effort in providing healthy wholesome food choices. I find that this new brand positioning of healthy living will be particular successful because more and more Canadians understand the importance of healthy eating and want to purchase and eat more healthy foods. Sobeys’ marketing team have done a good job identifying this unoccupied market and are quickly taking action to capitalize on the opportunity as according to Al Ries and Jack Trout, being the first to occupy a market often leads to many advantages such associating the brand name with the market itself and establishing brand loyalty.

This article also ties into the subject of business ethics. Even though Sobeys might generate plenty of profit from satisfying this specific market segment they are also providing a valuable service to society by providing healthier foods to the Canadian public.

Banking Software helps institutions modernize operations. 

Infosys, a company based in Bangalore, India and Dubai, UAE is a global leader in consulting, technology and outsourcing. Infosys has recently developed an advanced universal banking solution that simplifies banking transformation. This technology can help banks of various sizes to modernize and simplify their operations while maintaining low risk. Not only does this new operating system enhance a bank’s efficiency but also improve costumer experience in all channels.

Infosys serves multiple purposes:

– Its componentized structure makes it easy for banks to quickly target new customer segments.

-The product factory capabilities in Finacle 11E empower banks to create and deploy new products in weeks instead of months.

– The solution’s ready-made integration adaptors and compliance to industry standards ensure shorter deployment cycles and significantly lower total project costs

– Its enterprise class capabilities helps banks break their technology silos and eliminate duplicate applications. This helps banks reduce their cost of operations and simplify their processes

– Multichannel Framework – Enables customers to navigate seamlessly across multiple channels without losing the transaction context.

– Offers and Catalog – Empowers banks to publish instant offers across channels. Graphical product simulators, comparators, customer reviews offer customers a ‘Do It Yourself’ convenience

This case study relates to the operations component to the Comm 101 course. As discussed in class operations is the entire process that a product goes through from the suppliers to the hands of the consumers. One of the main points emphasized in class was that the more intermediary steps between the the source (supplier) to the hands of the consumers the higher the costs will be to produce this product. Therefore the more intermediary steps you eliminate the more efficient the productions process will become and the cheaper the costs of producing the product will be. The introduction of this new banking system is an example of this how these intermediary steps are eliminated to make a more efficient process of the services provided by these banks.