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Original Ad This campaign by the state of Georgia stirred controversy when it used the images of children to fight childhood obesity. This image is one of several that were featured in a $50 million five-year print and television advertising … Continue reading
One thing that Crystal emphasis on her blog is that TATA’s big problem was the Marketing and I couldn’t agree more on that.
The perception is really an important point which should have been considered by TATA people before deciding the price. Lower middle class wants a car that apart from solving their transportation needs, should also get them a superior status on the roads. TATA people completely neglected this fact and put all their resources in making the car cheap.
Nano was a car with mixed opinion in the market. The marketing campaign of Nano was a blunder too. The company should never have used the word cheapest car. Majority of people misinterpret the word cheapest by relating it to the quality standard. This fact was even accepted by Mr. Ratan himself. Ratan Tata says calling Nano the ‘cheapest car’ was a mistake.
Positioning is the key to selling a product. Positioning helps create an image for a product or brand or even company. How the potential customers perceive a product is very important. This is where Tata Motor’s failed miserably. Nano’s positioning as a “cheap” car killed the aspirational element in the car and the performance of the model has been terribly underwhelming over the years.
Crystal’s blog: http://blogs.ubc.ca/yuhsuanko/
External research:
http://profit.ndtv.com/news/industries/article-ratan-tata-says-calling-nano-the-cheapest-car-was-a-mistake-373603
http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jan2011/ca20110111_359394.htm
I agree on Rachel’s opinion on how well Apple pay will affect the market and it is true that virtual payment provides convenience for people.
However, is it really a good thing that Apple pay entering Canada?
I want to believe Apple when it says its digital wallet is secure, but a sad truth remains that hackers are going to hack. And given the recent breach that exposed celebrities’ naked photos on Apple devices, it’s clear that Apple Pay will be a popular target. Again, it sounds like Apple did a good job designing a system that keeps your financial data out of hackers’ reach. Removing credit card numbers from the transaction is a really good idea. Heck, even the phrase “Secure Element” instills confidence.
Several of the gates between a hacker and the phone owner’s financial information can be broken down. Apple Pay is connected to iTunes accounts which we already know have vulnerabilities. It’s also been proven that Touch ID is hackable. And despite Find My iPhone protection, the phone itself can still be a risk.
So it is still negotiable that Apple pay is suitable for nowadays transaction because people more concern about their privacy protection.
Rachel’s blog: http://blogs.ubc.ca/youjiali/2015/11/17/farewell-to-cash/
External research: file:///C:/Users/admin/Downloads/EPI_TheFutureofApplePay_211115.pdf
Shoppers spent nearly $8 billions in the first 10 hours of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s “singles day” event on Wednesday. In comparison, desktop sales for the five days from Thanksgiving through to Cyber Monday in the US stood at $6.56bn in 2014.
“Singles day” is not a traditional Chinese festival, but Alibaba has been pushing the 11 November date – named after the digits it contains – since 2009 as it looks to tap an expanding market in internet shopping in China, which has the world’s biggest online population of 668 million people. The success of Singles’ Day demonstrated how e-commerce companies can manufacture consumer demand through promotion. Chinese consumers have a lot of money in their hands, and online retailers need to customize their products to serve these increasingly savvy urban consumers.
Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms benefit from network effects and increasing returns to scale. More merchants and product selection lead to more consumers which lead to more merchants etc. That feedback loop works at the individual platform level (i.e. Alibaba.com, Taobao, Tmall). Alibaba has been able to extend that across platforms and create an ecosystem of platforms. The success of Alibaba.com was a customer acquisition engine for Taobao and some merchants moved over. Later and still to this day Taobao is a customer acquisition engine for Tmall.
The rise of Alibaba can be contribute to its local knowledge. It understand the local buyers and sellers better than western competitors.
Original news: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-12/alibaba-singles-day-draws-record-sales-amid-economic-concerns
BlackBerry, once the global leader in smartphone technology,has put itself up for sale after years of falling sales and failed revamps. Unable to match Apple’s iPhone for cool or the sheer range of devices from Samsung and others using Google’s Android mobile system, making the company have hard time to make customers.
The first BlackBerry device, an email pager, was released in 1999 and allowed busy execs to collect and reply to their messages on the go in a way that revolutionized business communications. The BlackBerry Curve, Pearl and Bold followed shortly after, adding cameras and features to broaden the company’s appeal to consumers. But then in 2007 came the iPhone. At first BlackBerry relied on its ties to the business community and its perceived advantages in security to fend off Apple’s attack. It didn’t work. Apple’s Steve Jobs had spotted that mobile devices were becoming media devices – powered by the increasing prevalence of Wi-Fi and more high powered mobile networks – music and games were set to be as important as email in the smartphone future. Google was soon chasing Apple in the mobile market with its Android operating system, Blackberry fell further behind. The arrival of apps let people personalise their mobiles and further changed the ways they used their devices.
BlackBerry has made five acquisitions in the last 20 months, helped BlackBerry gain new mobile device-management customers. Now BlackBerry is in transition to software business.
On the evening of 13 November 2015, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks—consisting of mass shootings, suicide bombings, and hostage-taking—occurred in Paris, France. 129 victims were killed and whole world were shocked by this disaster. For the second time in a year, the capital of the world’s leading tourist nation has been the scene of coordinated mass murders. Tourists and business travelers with forward plans to visit the French capital are considering their options. Not only France, because ISIS who is responsible for this mass murder also released the targets of some major cities around the world. This further grows people’s fear and there will be a significant drop on travelers each day after the attack. the consequence could significantly impact tourism in Europe’s most visited city. Tourism is the world’s largest industry, and a very critical part of France’s economy.
These Paris terrorist attacks and the larger scale of this attack could have a meaningful negative impact on the travel and tourism sector where weaken the economic confidence trade within Europe.
Original news: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/16/us-france-shooting-markets-idUSKCN0T402N20151116
Apple just released a new generation of iPad- iPad Pro, which is the best large-screen tablet with an attachable keyboard and optional stylus you can possibly buy today. The iPad Pro is Apple’s largest and priciest tablet to date and price is about $799-$1,079. o Mr. Cook has his eye on the enterprise market. In the past year, he has struck partnerships with companies such as Cisco Systems and International Business Machines to help market Apple’s devices to large companies. To this end, the company is pitting its latest iPad not against other tablets, but laptops.
However, iPad sales fell 20 percent from the same period a year earlier, the seventh quarter in a row that sales have fallen year over year and have failed to meet analyst estimates. Meanwhile, sales of Apple’s own Mac lineup have risen nearly every year since the first iPad’s launch. So, is it really work for Cook’s idea of replace laptops by iPad? I would say no, because people already have their smart phone which is similar to iPad and it is hard to compete with laptop’s performance at the same price. Tablets are not computers and run different (smaller) programs, and most of us still need computers.
Original news: http://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-ipad-pro-sizing-up-the-challenge-1447264368
Over the past ten years, Walmart has become the world’s largest and arguably most powerful retailer with the highest sales per square foot, inventory turnover, and operating profit of any discount retailer. In its transition from regional retailer to global powerhouse, the organisation has become synonymous with the concept of successful supply chain management.
Walmart’s supply chain innovation began with the company removing a few of the chain’s links. In the 1980s, Walmart began working directly with manufacturers to cut costs and more efficiently manage the supply chain. Walmart embarked on strategic sourcing to find products at the best price from suppliers who are in a position to ensure they can meet demand. The company then establishes strategic partnerships with most of their vendors, offering them the potential for long-term and high volume purchases in exchange for the lowest possible prices.
Walmart’s supply chain management strategy has provided the company with several sustainable competitive advantages, including lower product costs, reduced inventory carrying costs, improved in-store variety and selection, and highly competitive pricing for the consumer. This strategy has helped Walmart become a dominant force in a competitive global market. As technology evolves, Walmart continues to focus on innovative processes and systems to improve its supply chain and achieve greater efficiency.
Supply chain management is moving the right items to the right customer at the right time by the most efficient means. By far no one does better than Walmart.
http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/13-039%20Nov%202012_612ce7e2-7f81-4eea-9126-3c0964f2be2f.pdf
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/234167019_WALMART_SUCCESS_IN_MEXICO_CANADA_AND_CHINA_GLOBAL_EXPANSION_STRATEGIES_ENTRY_MODES_THREATS_AND_OPPORTUNITIES
League of Legends” — which is basically like a more-complicated video game version of capture the flag — is huge in the e-sports world. In January it boasted a staggering 27 million daily active players. And it has around 67 million active monthly players.League of Legends, the wildly popular multiplayer online battle arena PC game is “free-to-play” as well. But “free-to-play,” like “freemium,” doesn’t really mean free – last year, the game generated over $1 billion in microtransactions.
There are several reasons that why League of Legends became so popular in the world. Firstly, it offers players the core game for free and then optionally charges them for premium content such as in-game currency, extra content, or customization. Players in League of Legends can purchase new champions, skins , and influence-points boosts (which help you gain IP faster from playing the game, so you can buy champions without spending money). Secondly, League of Legends provides a fair game for players to play, so that players will not feel uncomfortable when they new to the game. League of Legends is more like a direct business model, where uses customers feedbacks and customization to update their services.
‘Revenue is second, the player experience is first.’executives at Riot tells us the customer relationship is a critical part of business.
Dollarama has more than a 60% market share in Canada, expects to open its 1,000th store this year. Now that Dollarama is able to compete with its rivals Metro and Walmart with its comparative advantage–cheaper price.Customers appreciate the compelling value in our multiple-price-point offering, which is a unique strategy that differentiates Dollarama.The company targeted middle-class group where count for 60 percent in Canadian society,making its blockbuster retail performance in the first quarter of fiscal 2013. Dollarama is the epitome of a no-frills operation, but it runs far more efficiently at the retail level than a number of top Canadian retailers. Its advantage is that is not based on a big box model, so it can open smaller stores in more areas around town, where provides convenience for shoppers. 
While Dollarama once sold only trinkets, they’ve been expanding into other categories in recent years, offering more toys, party supplies, and dry good food products. Other than that, Dollarama has implemented standardized recall procedures which comply with requirements issued by Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, promoting good company business ethics for Dollarama in community.
Overall, Dollarama is suitable expanding in Canadian market as it has the reasonable business strategies of developing in major metro market, where the bigger company like Walmart has trouble to fit into that.
