Starbucks: Inspiring Loyal Consumers

Posted on November 16, 2013 by Tiana Piva

Click to view Starbuck’s blog

Starbucks is not just a coffee shop; not only does the company provide individuals their morning pick-me-up, a warm place to meet up with a friend, and a delicious place to indulge one’s sweet tooth, Starbuck’s uplifts all individuals that gets a taste of what it has to offer. Starbucks’ mission statement describes the impression that it leaves on its consumers perfectly: “Our mission is to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.” By staying true to this mission statement, Starbucks’ consistently supplies cups of joy to 10,465,000 fulfilled consumers each day¹. Starbucks’ cheerfulness, generosity, and kindness have created an uplifting culture that inspires happiness among consumers, through its many functions and especially in its warm customer relations. This culture is evident in the joyfulness of the baristas, the tunes that sing happily in each shop, and most especially in the way that each consumer is handled with care.

Inspiration From A Starbucks Coffee Cup

In Peony Au’s blog post, “A Refreshing Company Culture: Starbucks,” Peony reflects a time that she was supplied with a complimentary drink because of the long wait she had endured.This is only one of the small ways that Starbucks goes above and beyond to supply customer satisfaction. As a result of Starbuck’s impeccable service and amazing positive culture, Starbucks has created innumerable loyal consumers that leave the shop with a satisfied tummy, a full smile, and soul filled with inspiration.

Source 1: http://www.ask.com/question/how-many-cups-of-coffee-does-starbucks-sell-a-day

Checkout Peony Au’s Blog for more of her intriguing business insights: https://blogs.ubc.ca/peonyau/

How Target’s Targeting You

Posted on November 10, 2013 by Tiana Piva

What’s the best way to target our consumers? The profitable answer to this question is the spark that ignites every major retailer to use predictive analytics: the science of predicting consumers’ habits. The research of this has been transforming how organizations’ attract its consumers and keep them coming back.

The degree to which retailers know about us is alarming. To provide a better sense, let’s take a look at Target. Target is arguably one of the best stores at using predictive analytics. The company has recognized that consumers make purchase decisions based on quantifiable habits. These habits may be hard to break, yet, this major retailer has discovered a time in people’s lives when consumers’ habits waiver and their shopping patterns are most easily influenced: when a baby is on the way. “We knew that if we could identify [pregnant women] in their second trimester, there’s a good chance we could capture them for years,” Said Andrew Pole, one of Target’s statisticians. And it worked. Between 2002 — when Pole was hired — and 2010, Target’s revenues grew from $44 billion to $67 billion according to a 2012 New York Times article. Now I’ve probably got you wondering if that coupon that Target sent you about dorm ideas before university, or party ideas before your birthday was no coincidence, and you’re right, it wasn’t. With this revolutionary expertise, companies may even begin to know more about what you want than you do.

Happiness: The Key to Employee Motivation

Posted on November 9, 2013 by Tiana Piva

Ali Jafferi‘s recent blog post entitled Yelling: Disaster or Motivator? made me wonder, what is the best way to keep employees motivated? The post explained that yelling only works in organizational cultures where high vocal-force is tolerated. Agreeing with his conclusion prompted me to further research the connection between motivated workers. The key is fostering happy employees through the following foundations:

1. Positive organizational culture:

The environment that surrounds employees has the power to either motivate or discourage any worker. Hence it is extremely vital that an organization’s culture remain positive. Working in an encouraging environment (as opposed to an intimidating or fearful one) equates to an organization filled with happy and motivated employees.

2. Choosing the right employees for the job:

A “well-qualified” employee for an organization is not simply a skillful employee, but one that is aligned with the values of the organization’s culture. Employees are key components to sustaining an organization’s culture, because they ultimately create the atmosphere they are surrounded by. Thus, it is important to select employees that will positively enhance this environment.

A Harvard Business Review article stated that the level of happiness has a profound impact on workers’ creativity, productivity, and commitment. Consequently, happier employees means more motivated employees.

More on motivating through positive organizational culture: How to Motivate Employees: 4 Vital Management Skills

More on motivating employees through the proper selection: Ed Brown: CEO, Patrón Spirits Company

Phones: Affecting the Way Businesses do Business

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Tiana Piva

For many people today, phones have become less of a convenient form of communication and more like a third hand. With the busy lives of consumers today, people feel the need to spend every free second doing something. Whether it be tweeting your random thought, beating the next level in Angry birds, or facebooking an old friend a simple, “I miss you,” anyone can do it all, at any time. This new “mobile moments” craze has left a wide open market for businesses. With the increase of marketing on mobile accessible apps such as Twitter, Facebook, games and more, it is evident that business’ need to further their mark in technology in order to stay competitive.

Starbuck’s App

Starbuck’s app alone, in October 2013, made 11% of the company’s total sales. This sends the message to its rivals, such as Tim Horton’s, that they need innovate their technology to get ahead. Although Tim Horton’s does have its “Timmy Me” app, without its ability to make purchases, it has already fallen behind. “We need to embrace technology to leverage our scale and reach and further enhance the experience of our guests,” says Timmy’s chief executive, Marc Caira. Thus, it is clear that, in order to stay in the game, business’ need to stop accommodating consumers today, and start pleasing the consumers of tomorrow.

Lululemon’s Culture: The Pursuit of Greatness

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Tiana Piva

Checkout the ideologies behind Lulu’s manifesto

Lululemon’s vision of “elevating the world from mediocrity to greatness” has created a strong foundation for the company’s organizational culture, which is artfully displayed to its consumers through a series of inspirational quotes also known as the company’s manifesto. Yet, Lululemon values more than just the significance of the company’s culture on consumers. The founder of the business, Chip Wilson stated, “The beauty of our cultures lies not just in what it brings to our company, but in what it brings to lives of the individuals who work at Lululemon.” Lululemon’s organizational culture differentiates from the typical business because of its value in encouraging employees’ self-development, which successively aligns its staff to its organizational culture.

Most organizations develop employees from the outside in (the way they dress, how they interact with customers and the like), while Lululemon develops its employees from the inside out. Employees’ initiation includes setting their vision and goals, and throughout their employment they are encouraged to achieve these goals, help others achieve theirs, listen to self-development tapes, attend workshops, and more. “It shows up in the work your people ask you to do, because they’re enrolled in their goals,” said Erin Hochstein, who does the company’s communications. Thus, self-fulfilled employees are happy employees, which equates to happy consumers. As a result, what may seem like an expensive $98 pair of pants, the true value is in the positive effects of Lululemon’s pursuit of greatness culture.

Check out the Lululemon employee review at: http://ca.indeed.com/cmp/Lululemon-Athletica/reviews

Also, take “A rare look behind the luon curtain at Lululemon”

The Environment or The Economy: Society’s Trade-off

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Tiana Piva

Checkout the New Yorker Blog for more on the economy vs. the environment!

The trade-off between a healthy environment and a thriving economy is one of the most controversial dilemmas faced by society today. The harsh reality is that people care more about their own well being than the shrinking glaciers, and especially more than the generations hereafter that must live with the consequences of our actions. So whose responsibility is it to sustain both the environment and its economy? The answer is: it begins with the businesses. David Owen’s blog on The New Yorker says, “The world’s principal source of man-made greenhouse gases has always been prosperity.” When the economy is thriving, the actions of the people greatly affect the state of the environment. For example, more employed, well-off people leads to more cars on the road, more travelling emissions, and the like. However, we must think back to the cause of this prosperity: the thriving big industrial, job supplying, carbon-emitting companies. Many big businesses have supplied a great deal to the economy, but at the expense of the environment. The only way to stop this trend is to transform businesses to jointly create a profit for itself, value to its consumers, and environmentally harmless procedures. Thus, the environment and the economy should not be viewed as needing an “either or” type of solution, but rather one that mutually benefits both, and it starts with the businesses.

For further information on the topic visit: Eco IQ

Investments: Are Revolutionary Innovations Worth the Wait?

Posted on October 5, 2013 by Tiana Piva

Source: Canadian Business on Quantum Computing

Click for more info on investing for the future

Major investors today are reluctant to capitalize ventures further into the future than 10 years. However, with vast innovations proceeding, this cautious attitude allows for too many missed opportunities. Take D-Wave for example. This company founded in 1999 in Burnaby, BC, backed by six keen capital investors, took thirteen year for the capital to transform into a revolution of quantum computing, yet it continually advances. In early 2012, the company launched D-Wave Two, which became the first commercially available quantum computer and is believed to be able to solve some of the world’s most perplexing computational problems. In May 2013, Google, NASA, and the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) were not hesitant to purchase this $15-million machine together, intended for their new Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab. Even with this gigantic advancement, founder and CTO of D-Wave, Geordie Rose acknowledges that this is just an early step toward the true potential of quantum computing. Although it may be difficult to persuade other investors to capitalize on ventures similar that will demand 10 to 30 years, the potential returns made through innovation may be worth the risk. Canadian businessman Mike Lazaridis suggests, “…invest in something that nobody understands. Because if you understand it, you’re probably too late.”

Pinterest: The Marketing Strategy of the Future

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Tiana Piva

Oh, How Pinteresting! Blog

“Pinterest is a sight for collecting and organizing the things you love,” says the Pinterest sight itself. Many users “pin” pictures to this virtual pin board as inspiration for events, fashion, recipes and more. Since the website’s launch in 2010, it has become the fastest growing sight to reach 10 million visitors and, as of July 2013, it surpassed 70 million users worldwide. For businesses, this database could be a gold mine for new marketing strategies.

Click for more about Pinterest

Pinterest introduced a tool called “Rich Pins,” which allows retailers to provide extra information about their pins, such as price and size of their product, the site recently introduced another business marketing enticement: promoted pins. Pinterest vows to keep promotions relevant to users’ wants: “These pins should be about stuff you’re actually interested in, like a delicious recipe, or a jacket that’s your style,” states Ben Silbermann, CEO and Co-Founder of Pinterest. Automatically corresponding pinners tastes with companies’ promoted pins will add tremendous value to both businesses and users. Pinterest could be the connection between target markets and advertisements that firms have been searching for. Now the question is: will Pinterest be the online marketing strategy of the future?

Twitter Vs. Facebook: An Endless Race

Posted on September 30, 2013 by Tiana Piva

Twitter Partners with the NFL

Twitter and Facebook have continuously been striving to advance one another. However, Facebook (with 82% of users that are active compared to Twitter’s 62%, according to social media today) has steadily taken the lead. Despite these pressing statistics, Twitter has been working diligently to amplify its services to appeal to more users, more frequently. A recent Canadian Business article details the company’s latest features that are believed to attract more traffic to the site: a new emergency messaging system that notifies users with critical health and safety warnings and regular NFL game highlights, info, and analysis based on the new partnership between the two companies. These new utilities are suspected to attract millions more to sign on with twitter.

Facebook Researches Further into Artificial Intelligence

Conversely, Facebook is taking another approach to grow their business. Rather than attract more users, they’re goal is to absorb more information out of individual’s interactions with Facebook to enhance the company’s ad targeting. “Facebook’s piles of data on people’s lives could allow it to push the boundaries of what can be done,” says the Technology Review. Although, the advancements of these companies are somewhat incomparable, it is obvious that regardless of which social media company you are, if you’re not growing, you’re dying.

Businesses’ Superficial Aim to Sustain

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Tiana Piva

It is unethical, in today’s awareness of the effects that humankind has on both global warming and the environment, for businesses not to take action. Although many businesses do operate with a social conscience, there are many others that are not nearly as sustainable as they have led you to believe. Businesses are more keenly motivated to appear environmentally righteous through the eyes of society than their own aim to improve environmental responsibility. Attaining sustainability for moral purposes does not seem to be the true aspiration for most organizations on the environmental movement.

2013 Global Corporate Sustainability Report

Based on the most recent Global Corporate Sustainability Report, many businesses have found a way to please the environmentally aware while doing as little as possible. According to the report, 65% of companies surveyed have developed and/or evaluated policies and strategies at the CEO level. This fact would lead many to believe that progress is being made in businesses towards more ethical environmental approaches. However, the report clarifies that only 35% are training managers to actually integrate sustainability into strategy and operations. Action should not only be taken until society believes the company meets the people’s environmental standards, but until they do. Many businesses today are hiding the fact that they are creating harm to the environment by promises and policies that have yet to be fulfilled.

Tiana Mae Piva's Blog

A New Perspective