Zhenting Du's Blog

https://blogs.ubc.ca/12huangfw1/2014/11/09/the-9-billion-dollar-witness/

In Felix’s blog, it is used as an example that the world’s largest multinational bank, JP Morgan Chase, gave sub-prime mortgages and bad mortgages and gave money to a lawyer who witnessed this illegal behavior to prevent her from speaking out.

From my perspective, what JP Morgan did is both harmful and unethical. The reason why it it harmful is that JP Morgan give mortgages and loans to people who have low credit and who don’t have enough power to pay back. This is the reason of the financial crisis in 2008, which means what it did will potentially cause another financial crisis and is harmful to the global economy. On the other hand, it is unethical. In order to make more profit, JP Morgan did something illegal that would trigger a financial crisis. In a crises, ordinary people lose their jobs; it is harder for them to make a living. Their entire life can be ruined. And some countries would go bankrupt and in the end it is civilians who take the aftermath.

To conclude, JP Morgan’s behavior is dangerous to the world and detrimental to the people all over the world.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/wczhu/2014/10/05/what-are-brands-for/

In his blog, Wenchuan Zhu agreed with the experts in the original article  that the brand is important to a company. There are two main reasons in the blog: the customers usually don’t have the time to carefully evaluate and compare goods they want to buy; consumers can only judge products by their brands when there is not enough information about the goods themselves.

I consider this point of view reasonable. A brand is indeed significant to a company. From the perspective of the company itself, a good brand name is the proof of the success of the company. It aquires a good and wide-spread reputation is the result of its strong profitability and its favourable business ethics.  Only if a company has these two “qualities” above can it have a good brand name. When it comes to consumers, as mentioned above, when they want to buy a certain category of good that they have never consumed before, they don’t know which brand to choose. It is the time when they would make their choices based on brands.

In conclusion, having a good and wide-spread brand name is benefcial to a company. It helps the company make more profit and make it renowned. It’s a virtuous circle.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/jkchen/2014/10/05/ikea-will-never-ipo/

In this blog, it is stated that some companies like Ikea don’t offer their IPOs. According to Shuhong, there are two main reason: if they offer the IPOs, the manager will under great pressure so that they are pushed to do something that is pernicious to the future of the companies; the cash for emergency have to turn to shareholders’ benefit.

In my opinion, there are both advantages and disadvantages to offer IPOs. IPO is actually offering the control of a company to the public in return for money, or, to be specific, capital. So there are basicly two aspects: lost (share) of control, gain of money. If the right of control is shared, the decision-making will be decentralized. This can make a decision more reasonable, whereas a decision is hard to make because everyone’s idea has to be taken in to consideration. On the other hand, money is raised, which means a company has more “power” to produce and make profit. Therefore, in the long run, IPO is beneficial to the future development.

To conclude, the advantages of IPO outweigh the disadvantages. And that’s why there are numerous companies and enterprises offer their IPO instead of not. When it comes to Ikea’s not offering, there must be some other reasons of Ikea itself that weigh the advantages.

http://blog.renren.com/share/383582358/16289835300

Alibaba has carried out its IPO several weeks ago. Its primary division, Taobao, has become a really successful online shopping platform in China. Some consumers are not satisfied with shopping domesticly, but globally, since some luxury goods like Louis Vuitton and Rolex are of higher price in China than overseas because of the tariff. Therefore, these consumers want to purchase them overseas. And Taobao seized this opportunity and  launched a service, in which Taobao recruited some overseas students from China and become a kind of agency between these students and the desiring consumers in China. I will analysis this situation from the perspective of an overseas student.

At first, if we overseas students purchase goods indirectly for consumers in China via this Taobao’s service, we can’t actually make much profit. Let’s say I bought a good that tagged $800CAD, which is approximately ￥4800RMB. Taobao will firstly buy it from me at ￥5000RMB, through which I will make ￥200RMB profit. Then, Taobao will sell it as ￥7000RMB to broad groups of consumers, through which Taobao will make ￥2000RMB profit. And the post-tariff price of the good is ￥10000RMB. So it is a new Revenue Stream of Taobao, by which Taobao makes the most profit at a competitive price which ensure its quatity of demand. But I makes  little revenue.

On the other hand, if I directly buy the same good and bring it back to China to sell, I can tag it ￥6000RMB and I’ll make ￥1200RMB profit, which is 6 times more than the former one. Meanwhile my price is more competitive than Taobao’s price. Nevertheless, my Customer Segment is much more narrow. My potential customers are limited to friends, relatives etc. who can trust me more than Taobao.

To conclude, if overseas students want to make more profit by doing overseas purchasing, they should sell directly to thier customer. If they want to sell more, they can use Taobao as an agency.

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BlackBerry’s new Passport – enough to get back into the competition?

In this blog, Leonardo consider that Blackberry is utilizing the differenciation strategy in Porter’s Generic Strategics. Under intense competition in smartphone market, Blackberry was nearly defeated by its rivals (e.g. Apple, Samsung etc.). To get rid of this situation, Blackberry released a new phone: Passport. It is a passport-sized smart phone with a squre sreen, with is one of the features that differentiates it from other smart phones. There are also other features like HD Display and longer battery life.

In my opinion, according to Porter’s Five Forces, Blackberry should consider two of these five forces seriously, Threats of Substitutes and Buyer Power. In terms of Threats of Substitutes, which is an important aspect, it is obvious that Apple and Samsung are two major competitors. Apple is recognized by its distinctive concept (i.e. simplicity) and its special attractiveness. And Samsung’s smart phones have big and HD screens and there are many different tpyes which give consumers numbers of choices. Compared to these two rivals, Blackberry is actually not that competitive, although it used the differenciation strategy and has the new Passport. When it comes to Buyer Power, Blackberry currently has no speicial features, such as new and practical technology, attractive appearance and excellent UE (user experience), to attract consumers. And there is a tendency that built-in keyboard is more acceptable, while Blackberry still use the external keyboard.

To conclude, although Blackberry use the differenciation strategy, it still is not so relatively competitive.

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http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/Unilateral+park+declared+Tsilhqot+includes+Prosperity+mine/10192766/story.html

There is plenty of mineral resources in Chilcotin where is the territory of the First Nation. So many corporations plan to set up some mining projects there, one of which is the Taseko’s gold-copper mine project. This project is quite controversial. Some of the people there approve exploiting the mine, whereas others oppose this for thier sovereign territory . The First Nation does impact the project, but I think it does good to the native people.

Admittedly, running the project will unevitably use some of there territory. They declare Chilcotin as their “sovereign territory“. It is understandable that they want to protect their land form being voilated. But there are advantages exploiting the mine. At first, the gold-copper mine is a kind of natural resources. If it isn’t digged out and turns into product, the mine will not realize its value. In other words, the mine will be lying there as nothing. Secondly, the project can bring them with numerous jobs. And then the employment rate goes up, which means the aboriginals can make a living by working for the project rather than hunting in forests. In addition to jobs, the project can also bring tourist, which is also a way to earn money.

To conclude, although the gold-mine project is affected by First Nation, the project can indeed give the dwellers some material comforts.

© Zhenting Du All Rights Reserved

Companies should focus on its people —— the employees

This blog explains why conpanies should distribute salary according to age and how. After I read the blog, I got something I agree with and something I disagree with.

What I agree with is that there exists a dilemma that the young employees should be paid less whereas they are facing more severe problems such as housing problem and finacial struggle. To get out of the dilemma, the companies can provide them with temporary accommodations and financial aid while not rising their salary.

What I somehow disagree is that why these older employees should be paid more is they are in high position. In my opinion, the reasons are that, at first, they are more experienced than the new comers. With their experience, the senior workers can creat more value. In other word, they deserve high salary. Secondly, higher salary is a kind of award to them for the loyalty. Loyalty of employees is important to a company. And paid more, the loyal employees can be models to the younger ones and can inspire them to be loyal, furthermore, to create more value to the companies.

In conclusion, salary should be paid according to the employees age. Because the senior ones deserve more.

© Zhenting Du All Rights Reserved

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/09/how-space-x-learned-to-make-faster-decisions/

SpaceX is a space transportation company. The company adopted faster decision making to make the whole company operated more efficiently. With this company as an example, the author came up with three ideas regarding how to make faster decisions: Offer a shared vision, Encourage more problem solving and Make decisions in parallel. I will give my comments focusing on the second point: Encourage more problem solving.

Ecourage problem solving, according to the author, means that the employees should seek problems to solve rather than wait for tasks. In my point of view, this method is useful to some extent, but there are still some specific problem about it. At first, to achieve this, the employees must be fully motivated and passionate about their work. Nevertheless, in workplaces, not all employees are as motivated as the employers expect to be. So the efficiency is relatively not that high. Secondly, staff initiatively seeking tasks has the tendency of chaos. Some work will be left undone and other work will be done repeatedly. That leads to disorder and inefficiency. So besides the employees seeking problems, the leader are supposed to assign tasks rationally to avoid confusion.

To conclude, ecouraging problem solving is indeed an efficient way. If the employers motivate the employees and assign tasks to them properly, this method would be better.

© Zhenting Du All Rights Reserved

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/09/why-the-apple-watch-is-a-gift-to-the-swiss-watch-industry/

Three weeks ago, Apple Inc. released its first smart watch, the Apple Watch®. And it has been said that the Swiss Watch may get affected. But in this article, Mr. Ryan Raffaelli holds the belief that Apple Watch doesn’t pose any threat to the Swiss Watch, and gives three reasons:

First, the Apple Watch makes wearing a watch relevant to a new generation of future watch collectors.

Second, the Apple Watch is likely to be a complement rather than a competitor to the Swiss watch.

Third, Apple and Swiss watchmakers have this in common: they are deeply committed to connecting their product with the consumer on a personal level.

I  agree with the reasons above to some extent. Nevertheless, in my opinion, I got a reason why Apple Watch does challenge the Swiss Watch: the practical value of Apple Watch weighs much more than the collection value of Swiss Watch. The current society is a place where practice is paid more attention to. To Apple Watch, it can be used to answer and make phone calls, send messages, find locations, stay healthy etc.  On the contrary, Swiss Watch is only one of the collections in th shelf of an old collector. The value of the Swiss Watch is only embodied in its ancient requtation and its symbol of status. The only use of a Swiss Watch is a timekeeper.

Swiss watch is indeed a classic watch brand, but nowadays, it is practical utility that counts.

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http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-business-ethics.htm

I’m really agree with the idea in this passage. Business ethic is really important to a company, even to a country. To a company, if it does something unethical, it would be fined or face the problem of bankrupting. To a country, if it does something unethical, it would be repelled by the globle trade system and may ended up disrupting.

In my opinion, the unethical behavior is always driven by self-interest. The word “ethic”, I think, is behavior that benefits other people else besides the one who conduct the behavior. In the light of this statement, unethical business always sacrifices other public’s interest to satisfy itself’s. And the common ending is that the business is stifled by what it did unethically.

So what to do to accord the definition of  “ethic”, or “business ethics“? (mentioned in the article. “Business ethics is the behavior that a business adheres to in its daily dealings with the world.”)  For example, an automobile manufacture should do its best to make their cars safe so that the consumers won’t get badly hurt due to the quality problems. The child labor should not exist so that children will not be under heavy labor or get hurt. We can see that companies ought to run their business and profit in the premise of not violating others’ legal rights and most of their interest. (In some cases, part of their interest should be sacrificed to achieve  higher goals that benefit them more.)

In conclusion, business ethics are of great significance to maximise everyone’s benefit and to make a harmonious business environment.

© Zhenting Du All Rights Reserved