” If  the United Nations was fully funded why would we need the Arc or social enterprise”?

United Nations is an  and the Arc program is an organisation designed to promote international co-operation. Many things that the UN does is to help particularly 3rd nation countries is reducing poverty. This is done by donating resources. The problem however is that this solution is not sustainable.

If certain programs such as the Arc, which promotes social enterprise to take place, this allows for a more sustainable future for local entrepreneurs if given the opportunity. As one of the article says, one of the reasons why 3rd nation countries are still in a state of poverty isn’t solely based on the lack of resources, but because of the lack of entrepreneurial skills that they have when they receive this sum of money.

Therefore programs like the Arc develop a long term solution to the problems that they face, by investing smartly, local entrepreneurs can turn around their businesses and start producing more, as a result this will create a ripple effect, as more income in one’s pocket will lead to either larger investment into the business, or consumption of other local good which will increase domestic GDP. A fully funded UN would be great, but social enterprise is still needed to teach and exchange knowledge to local entrepreneurs,.

This external blog by Gene Marks describes his opinions of Victoria Beckham’s recent award given by Management Today for  UK’ Entrepreneur of the Year. He believes that although Victoria Beckham’s traits and skills as a business woman, she lacks the single trait of what a person an entrepreneur: ‘Risk’.

What differentiates Victoria Beckham from other entrepreneurs is that she already had a lot of publicity and capital to work with. I believe that her image of ‘Posh Spice’ helped with her fashion line dramatically as she already built a reputation of being fashionable.

Personally, I agree with Marks’ opinions. After listening to Tom Dobrzanski, Jenny Duffy and Paul Davidescu’s engaging experience of how they started up their own successful careers. To me, a successful entrepreneur is to able to either believe in your business idea so much that you are willing to risk all your assets for example given ‘love money’ from close family members and relatives. By adding this factor of ‘risk’, their success typically depends on multiple attempts, suffered both failures and successes until that one ‘big break’.

Many of the most successful companies in the world are run by entrepreneurs who experienced hardship, however I believe has lead to leading innovators of the world, producing goods and services that we as consumers both need and want.

Article Link:

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20141111185212-2474348-why-victoria-beckham-is-not-a-successful-entrepreneur?trk=tod-posts-post1-ptlt

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/236433

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20141111185212-2474348-why-victoria-beckham-is-not-a-successful-entrepreneur?trk=tod-posts-post1-ptlt

The article describes AT&T’s new intention to expand its telecommunication services to Latin America by buying out the third largest wireless operator in Mexico, right after abandoning their intentions to deploy its plan for high speed in-flight internet.

Personally, I agree with this strategic business decision by AT&T. Firstly, I believe that this is a good decision by AT&T by purchasing ‘Grupo Iusacell SA’ because the company itself has already established a strong foothold within the industry as they currently have a subscription base of 8.2 million subscribers. This meaning that AT&T is going to invest less in resources for marketing and advertising to obtain customers. Instead, AT&T and dedicate its resources into technological development and research. 

Secondly, I believe that, through analysing the articles with the PEST analysis, there are more opportunities in choosing to expand in Latin America politically. Especially after the 2014 World Cup, the region is politically stable, meaning it is a safe and wise place to invest in.

Thirdly, in terms of the social aspect there is an up and coming trend of growing middle class and population, and I think that allows for a great opportunity for AT&T to invest in due to the increase of potential consumers that would be willing to purchase AT&T’s subscription base.

Finally, economically, the region is projected to increase its economic growth by 3.6% this year, and 4.1% in 2015, meaning that the economy is expanding, which I believe implies a possible increase in the consumption of goods. In today’s new digital era, telecom services are more popular than before and this will only increase in demand.

As a result, with AT&T’s strong brand image entering a fairly untapped market, especially with its capital and resources to invest in further technological advancements, there is large potential that AT&T could control a large segment of the market in Latin America.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-07/at-t-agrees-to-acquire-mexico-s-iusacell-for-2-5-billion.html

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-10/at-and-t-drops-a-plan-for-inflight-internet-access-in-2015#r=hpt-ls

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/2014-latin-americas-big-year-9629

https://blogs.ubc.ca/johnathanlam/2014/11/08/how-important-is-sustainability-to-businesses/

Whilst profit is a main objective for most firms, I do not believe that all firms have profit as their number one priority. Not including non-profitable organizations many firms do have sustainable intentions when producing products to the public.

The important idea is that for me, sustainability is a cumulative problem, if more people act towards a ‘greener future’, producers will start producing at a more green level because that now becomes the ‘social norm’. Whilst perhaps the idea of sustainability is not so much a priority for smaller firms simply due to the lack of cash flow to employ a CSO/establish more sustainable capital, for larger firms due to the large mass of production of goods that is being created, sustainability is important. As we have learnt in class, many firms in recent years often employ a CSO (Chief Sustainability Officer), whilst profits may not come in the short run due to more expensive resources/ cost of production, A CSO’s long term goal is to create a long term profitable sustainability strategy in order for the firm to be more efficient whilst it produces.

Also, some large firms create a brand image for themselves based on a sustainable value propositions such as Body Shop. As the general public becomes more aware on issues about sustainability, this might lead to a bigger change in the way firms produce their products, and as a result could lead to a bigger long term change in the future.

Article from: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/07/technology/microsoft-to-give-away-mobile-version-of-office-software.html?ref=business&_r=0

This article briefly describes Microsoft’s new marketing strategy to release free versions of microsoft office to mobile users. I believe that this will improve Microsoft’s intentions of increasing the use of office towards mobile users, who currently turn to free apps such as evernote.

I found this article very interesting, because as big as a company as Microsoft is, I’m surprised that it took this long to start targeting mobile device users. As more people are becoming more technologically savvy, more users are switching towards computers to portable devices such as tablets or iPads, therefore increasing usage of microsoft products wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Personally though I feel like this is just a small goal in what Microsoft’s main intentions are, which is to increase brand awareness of their product, and the potential brand loyalty obtained from all these users using office resulting in the purchase of the premium product. I could even suggest that this could increase PC sales, however this seems unlikely due to the upcoming trend of tablet usage.

However, I think that this is just a minute step to Microsoft’s long term goal as only 13% of microsoft office revenue comes from consumers (Wingfield) , with so many free substitutes to Microsoft Office, what is it that differentiates Microsoft Office from any other note-taking product? Are they trying to push tablet sales like the ‘surface’ or trying to increase PC sales? By making microsoft office free for mobile users, they leave both options possible, more people might purchase products related to microsoft like the surface, or if that trend starts to fade out the brand loyalty of microsoft might lead them to buying microsoft related computers.

With regards to Chelsea’s recent post about Adidas slowly losing out to companies such as Nike and Under Armour. Whilst I agree that Adidas should look towards a marketing strategy similar to that Of Nike, I do not believe that it is essential towards Adidas’ future success.

I believe that Adidas’ marketing strategy should be getting their brand name across. One of Nike’s reason to being more successful than Adidas is Nike’s big endorsement deals with big names such as Cristiano Ronaldo. Especially in this industry, brand loyalty is a huge thing. With regards to basketball alone, Nike has celebrity endorsements deals with Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, and Kevin Durant at the same time, thereby controlling a major part of NBA’s fanbase as Nike owned 93% of market shares on basketball shoes (Maisonet). Personally I believe all basketball shoes are similar in design or performance; therefore it is quite reasonable to assume that Nike’s success comes from endorsements.

Adidas’ biggest basketball celebrity is Derrick Rose, who suffered from injury for the last 2 years. It explains Adidas’ dip on the shoe market as it is important to have an active ambassador to represent the brand. As a result, what Adidas should do is to continue to pursue young upcoming stars in the sports world, something that Under Armour is doing to try and break into the market share as well. Kevin Durant’s signature shoe for Nike, for instance, generated $85 Million alone. Thus, if Adidas can actively look for endorsement deals with potential stars, they could potentially return to the once sports giants that they were.

Sources Cited:

Forbes Magazine. “Sneakernomics: What Happened To The Big NBA Rookie Shoe Contracts?.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2014. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/mattpowell/2014/07/08/sneakernomics-what-happened-to-the-big-nba-rookie-shoe-contracts/>.

“Why Kevin Durant chose Nike over Under Armour.” SBNation.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2014. <http://www.sbnation.com/2014/9/3/6098457/kevin-durant-nike-contract-under-armour>.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/First+Nation+chiefs+stage+Site+showdown/10215965/story.html

Tradition and culture is a vital and important component in the history of British Columbia. This tradition has often lead to both benefits and consequences, most recently the rejection of a new $8 billion hydro-electric project built near tribal land, affecting the wellbeing of the first nations people by destroying wildlife and farmland.

The first nations influence on the decision to discontinue with the development of the project is considered as ‘political’ with regards to the ‘PEST’ analysis. An external factor regarded as the peace treaty and laws of the first nation could potentially affect the development of BC Hydro, therefore causing them to change their business model/development plan if necessary.

Ethically however, as the first nations government, is this the right thing to do? Obviously tradition has a large influence in political decisions in British Columbia, but in terms of society, the economic and development benefits that would be provided if the project is continued for me personally would heavily outweigh the consequences. Sustainability is a large concern not just for people in B.C but around the world, and for BC Hydro the project would create a market force that would benefit them greatly as the costs and time needed to replicate the same output would take a substantial amount of time.

Sources Cited:

“First Nation chiefs to stage Site C showdown.” www.vancouversun.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2014<http://www.vancouversun.com/news/First+Nation+chiefs+stage+Site+showdown/10215965/story.html>.

“Porter’s Five Forces.” Porter’s Five Forces. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Oct. 2014. <http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/porter.shtml>.

“Understanding Pest Analysis with Definitions and Examples.” PESTLE Analysis. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Oct. 2014. <http://pestleanalysis.com/pest-analysis/>.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26481654

Facebook has recently been given the green light to purchase Whatsapp for a whopping $19 billion. However there has been a lot of controversy with regards to the privacy for many existing whatsapp consumers, and Europe’s Telecom’s market.

The deal has been criticized heavily by European Telecom companies, worried about their loss in revenue from free mobile messaging services provided by Whatsapp as well as concerns related to privacy for users.

Facebook is notorious for providing personal information to collect advertisement revenues, something that Whatsapp is committed to not doing. Whilst Facebook has stated that it intends to respect the privacy policies set in place for Whatsapp, Zuckerberg has in fact changed Privacy Regulations towards recently acquired companies. According to Friedman, these ‘acts of responsibility’ could just be to cover up an interior motive.

Friedman argues that as long as profit is being maximized the business is working responsibly. However if Zuckerberg does indeed change the privacy policies then he will be deceiving the public and current users, something  that might possibly affect Facebook’s reputation in the long run potentially limiting future users from using Whatsapp and instead using other competitors such as Wechat, KakaoTalk, and Viber.

Sources Cited:

Rawlinson, Kevin. “Facebook’s WhatsApp purchase opposed.” BBC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2014. <http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26481654>.

CNET. “Facebook’s WhatsApp deal gets regulatory OK in Europe – CNET.” CNET. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2014. <http://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-whatsapp-deal-gets-regulatory-ok-in-europe/>.

Zimmerli, Walther Ch., Klaus Richter, and Markus Holzinger. Corporate Ethics and Corporate Governance. Berlin: Springer, 2007. Print.