Monthly Archives: November 2015

innovation

Is Failure the Secret to Success?

 

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https://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/1365891184_F-Grade1.jpg

This blog post encourages us to take an interesting stance, one that is not against failure, but for failure, describing failure as an “essential part of innovation”. The fault with our culture is that we are too bounded to the metrics that reward only success. However, even innovative, well-thought out ideas can result in failure and this failure is far from a bad thing, because lessons can be learnt from the mistakes. Ultimately, these “smart failures” should rewarded.

Though the blog post is geared towards business and supplier innovation, I think its message can be extrapolated into our daily lives as students here as well.

The competitive atmosphere at Sauder’s business school nurses a fear of not excelling, of not succeeding, and of failure. Because of this, maybe we are being too cautious and overly concerned about fitting in: taking the right courses, making the right connections, building the right network.

Certainly these are important, but maybe, like these businesses, our caution and fear of failure are preventing us from taking a risk to be different and to be innovative.

At Me Inc.’s workshop Amplify, the ending keynote closed with a challenge to take the unconventional route with our education – what would you do if you had no fears?

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business model

Success has a Fast-Approaching Expiry Date

The danger of today’s dynamic business environment is that success today does not mean success tomorrow. Many companies are vulnerable to the trap of piggybacking onto the success of current business models for future success. They over-exploit their current business models because it has proven to be successful. Time and resources are spent fine-tuning current models rather than developing new ones, which although is cost-efficient, low risk, and reaps rewards in the short-run, prevents growth and development in the long run.

Businesses need to have a strategy that balances both exploitation and exploration. Nowadays, Porter’s ideals of operational efficiency are not enough for a business to success. Businesses will need to embrace a transient business model to competitively sustain themselves in this fast-paced, changing society.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/kirstenbishop/files/2014/10/wave-of-transient-advantage-rita.png

https://blogs.ubc.ca/kirstenbishop/files/2014/10/wave-of-transient-advantage-rita.png

Two examples of companies that have embraced this “ambidextrous” model of exploitation and exploration are Amazon and Google. What makes both companies successful is their continual focus on exploration, but at the same time pursues efficiency and excellence in operations and commerce.

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business model, Social Media

YouTube Red: Would you pay for what you could see for free?

As my three-month free trial of Apple Music expired, I found myself spending more time on YouTube, because I had the access to a wide variety of free creative content. However, with the introduction of YouTube Red, their premium subscription service, will I still have free access to all of this content in the near future?

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http://nofilmschool.com/sites/default/files/styles/facebook/public/youtube_red_logo.png?itok=r1FtGYl9

In my opinion their current approach of focusing on consumer satisfaction over profitability is what propels YouTube’s popularity and encourages new users. The success of YouTube is accredited to the fact that this video sharing platform is free for both users and creators.

Personally, these premium features are not enough to justify the monthly subscription fee. YouTube Red is offering music streaming and offline downloads for their premium subscribers. However, I disagree with Brendan that these features are points of differences for YouTube Red, seeing that Spotify and Apple Music offers these features as well.

Another notable feature YouTube Red offers is exclusive content to their premium subscribers. Current YouTubers may be hesitant to create exclusive content because it simply would not reach to the majority of their viewers. They’ve built their success on the accessibility of YouTube, and that’s the main selling point of YouTube’s current brand. As an avid viewer of YouTube, it frustrates me that I would now have to pay for “exclusive content” that I would otherwise be able to view for free.

Lastly, the premium subscription service removes all advertisements from videos, which is indeed a convenient feature, but again, does not justify the $10/month. For most users, time spent on YouTube is leisure time and the extra few seconds watching ads, especially that many of the advertisements are skip-able is overly cumbersome.

Yes, this feature may enhance the experience of a small user base, but I don’t think this introduction of YouTube Red will work in the interest of the majority of the YouTube’s audience.

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business model

Amazon Books: Selling Offline and in Person

With much irony, Amazon’s new strategy to target the millennials is to open a brick and mortar book store, Amazon Books. Sales of e-reader devices have been declining, so in addition to selling books, this store will act as a marketing platform for customers to try out their Kindle and Fire Tablet devices. This is certainly an interesting maneuver, contradictory of our societal trends towards e-commerce.

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I disagree with Michael that Amazon Books will be able to differentiate themselves from their competitors because of their large online database to determine which books to stock. Book retailers such as Indigo and Barnes & Noble will, of course, have similar metrics to determine the popularity of books and predict sales. Customer reviews and ratings are not new to this market.

I think Amazon’s success comes from the convenience, comfort, and accessibility from ordering books or products online. Because Amazon is an e-commerce retailer, the brand itself may lack buzz to entice buyers from the comfort of their homes into their stores. However, this may be a strategic decision to target a different customer segment: ones enjoy browsing displays and see shopping as social experience.

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business model, Social Enterprise

Baby Steps and Bandaids

In order for any enterprises to flourish, it must have support from consumers and this model has been very attractive.  They able to thrive because of its marketability. Consumers want to know that their resources and money are going directly to bettering someone’s life.

However, this business model does acts as a surface short-term relief and is not in any way a long-term sustainable solution. This business model does not address the root of the issues rather, it tries to solve it by addressing its side-effects, acting as a “band-aid”. The complexity of these social issues, such as poverty is summed by the the article, “poor people aren’t poor because they lack stuff; they’re poor because they lack the infrastructure to create wealth.”

I agree with this comment, but it fails to address that poverty itself prevents the launch of the infrastructure to create wealth. Companies like Toms who are embracing this business model are providing poor economies some aspects of basic necessities, the most basic starting point to combat poverty. Though it does not solve poverty, this business model opens doors to other possible solutions.

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http://claireabellemakes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/toms-one-for-one-campaign.jpg

It is apparent that these social issues such as poverty are enormously complex and cannot be addressed by a single solution. The one-to-one business model is a small step towards a better world.

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