Arthur Clarke once said “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. One such amazing example can be seen in Sauderite Sid’s post “The Future is Here, Right In Our Living Rooms”. The concept of Ninja Sphere intrigued me as it seems like a concept which is highly useful for every family on this planet. The idea is that the product detects changes in the environment. If you leave the gas on, the device automatically detects it, and with your permission, switches it off as well!

The company already has created the prototype for the final product and will go through beta testing. If this Kickstarter project successfully passes the test, it will capitalize on an entire untapped market. It will gain a first mover advantage as it will be the first of its kind. With zero competition, the company can quickly cover up its costs. Also, by creating patents, the company can maximize its revenues as no other firm would be able to copy its prototypes. With such a user-friendly and effective concept, the company seems to be treading on a path of success, a success for both the consumer and the producer.

High-tech computer corporation (HTC,) for the first time in its history of sixteen years, recorded a quarterly loss. The company, being one of the first ones to enter the android market, rather shocked everyone as it recorded a loss of as high as $120 million. The company’s market share dropped from 10.3% to 2.6%. The company’s stubbornness to use the expensive components in a price sensitive market, and weak marketing strategies, are a few reasons for this drop.

To overcome these issues, the company should primarily invest in its marketing department. The company’s biggest competitors, Apple and Samsung, make large investments in their marketing department, simply to create a strong brand image. This thus helps them to beat HTC, despite HTC entering the market much earlier. HTC could invest especially more in its ad-campaigns, so as to increase brand awareness. A strong brand image would strongly help the company increase revenues. HTC uses expensive components in its production. The customer, on the other hand, is rather seeking for a cheaper product. The company is thus losing out on higher profit margins, as it could rather use cheaper components. A reluctance to change can affect HTC to an even greater level, and it should thus adapt to the changes rather than neglecting it!

I recently read a blog named “Is opportunity declining?” by Becker. It has several interesting ideas about how the opportunities available for children with high-income parents is vary from that of children with low-level income parents. However, he seemed to miss out on a very important aspect about opportunities and success.

The blogger mentioned that despite the high differences in money and time spent on the two categories of children, there is a small gap present in opportunities and success levels achieved. However, he did not take into consideration the advent of technology. He takes the time frame of 1970s to 1990s. In this time period, internet has made phenomenal advancements. Despite being cost-free, it is one of the finest methods of achieving success, as there is a broad spectrum of opportunities available to capitalize on the internet. One could literally make thousands of dollars by simply making a video and posting it on YouTube! This thus shows that how the notion of success and opportunities varies along different time frames and is thus a hard concept to evaluate.

The greatest football club in the history of England, Manchester United, has the most titles in the Premier League. Despite an astonishing one-tenth of the world’s population supporting the club, it still faces financial dilemmas. I intend to look at Sauderite Anand Madan’s blog post from a different perspective. To meet the expectations of such a large fan base, it needs to invest back in the club. However, the public limited company owed debts of over £500 million. This issue seems to be diminishing as the company’s profits for the latest fiscal year rose from £23 million to £146.4 million.

This thus shows that how United’s current success in the premier league has a direct impact on its revenues. It recently made a world record-breaking shirt deal with the automobile company, Chevrolet. Carrying such a strong brand image thus has benefits, as there is more trust in the company and higher possibilities for better deals. On the other hand, it has to maintain high standards so as not to lose its supporters, as customer loyalty is directly related to revenues. The higher the fan base, the higher the revenues by selling its merchandise. The latest earnings thus helped United to reduce its debts to £389.2 million. A constant improvement in its revenues would thus help United to improve its financial status, thereby taking the brand image to an even higher level.

Whenever we hear the name IKEA, the first and only thing that pops up in our minds is furniture. Well, that has changed now. Sören Hullberg, a former store manager of IKEA, came up with the concept of having a food department. Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA’s frugal founder, was worried about the fact that “too many customers were shopping with an empty stomach”. What a straight-forward solution, provide food! Sauderite Benji’s post “Ikea’s Meaty Strategy: outstripping furniture shops and restaurants” really led me to look at this concept from a slightly different perspective.

With this concept, the company has created a simple but amazing point of difference for itself. Even though it is not related to its products in any manner, it enhances the customer’s experience as a whole. They have kept it simple, 5 dishes that are easy on the wallet. Not too much choice, not too much confusion. In a highly competitive market, IKEA has shown a unique way gaining a competitive edge over its rivals. Especially with the company’s latest mission to sell over 150 million Swedish meatballs, it is trying to spread its organizational culture, and at the same time, creating a unique selling point for itself.

Hewlett-Packard has been laying off its staff for a long time now. The first major lay-off happened in 2002, and it has been 11 years since it has been facing these issues. With the count going to its highest in 2012-13, approximately 29,000 employees, the question arises as to whether this ten year run can end soon. The main cause of this issue has been the decision to buy companies which were not worth the price paid. A wrong decision by the CEO, and the lower end employees lose their jobs!

There are various possible solutions for minimizing this lay-off issue. The company could give more attention to the recruitment of the higher-end employees, as there have been five CEO’s in eight years for the firm. A good higher level employee would remarkably help the company stabilize. It could also negotiate the pay with the employees. Employees might prefer lower salary over no salary. This would reflect highly of the organization’s culture as well, as it shows that the company is determined for its employees’ job security. However, achieving this seems tough as HP’s CEO, Meg Whitman, has clearly stated that it will have another major lay-off in 2014 and from then on, it will not have lay-off issues. Hopefully, the company will keep its word and gain stability after all!

AT&T, one of the largest telecom companies in the US market, explicitly stated that they were unwilling to enter the Canadian market. AT&T stepped out from the wireless auction market by the Canadian government, stating that there is not “enough room” for four players in the industry.

AT&T

Rogers, Wind and Telus are the three highly established telecom companies in Canada. A confidential memo obtained by BNN says that “AT&T had looked into Wind Mobile and Mobilicity in detail and passed”. This somewhat depicts an example of Porter’s five force analysis, as the companies created barriers to entry for AT&T by being strongly established in the markets and having low economies of scale. Vodafone and Telenor are also planning to enter the Canadian wireless market and the auction is going to happen in January, where four blocks of 700 megahertz spectrum are going to be up. Verizon, another telecom company, also seemed interested in being a part of the auction but finally decided not to rather participate in the auction. This thus shows that how a strong brand image and establishment could help an industry become less competitive and less threatening for the existing companies.

So Twitter Inc. finally does file for an Initial Public Offering (IPO)! There were predictions about the company going public for a few months now, but it was predicted that it would go public around the year 2014. However, Twitter has shocked people by filing for an IPO this early, just before the vacation time around.

According to a Reuters report, the share prices of Twitter could almost double in its first year. So, how does the company make its revenues, and how reliable would it really be to invest in Twitter Inc.? Twitter was successfully able to capture a part of the $200 billion global TV market with Amplify. Also, their acquisition of an online mobile-ad company, MoPub, is going to help enhance the company’s revenues. Experts say that twitter has done the hard part of building a strong brand in the market, and from here, it should thus be easier for the company to prosper in the public market. However, there were similar predictions when Mark Zuckerberg announced his company Facebook going public, and only time could tell as to whether twitter’s move to go public would be a smart one or not.

Blackberry! This company has been in the news for over a year now. A recent article says that Blackberry might be bought in pieces by Google and Cisco Systems. Fairfax, Blackberry’s largest shareholder, is also linked with entirely buying it out. Due to this news, the company’s share rose by 4 percent. This is a great demonstration of how the affiliation of big brands like Google and Cisco affect people’s image about a company.

The failure of the company, Blackberry, could be somewhat related to its internal factors. The company failed to innovate when other competitors like Apple and Samsung were. It stuck to its same old models with hardly any differences in its new products. The launch of Blackberry’s latest products, the Z7 and Z10, were also flops as it met with a poor demand globally. The company has decided to hence drop the price of Z10 by a steep discount. A continuous failure of its products and lack of innovation thus seems to be one of the reasons why the company has come to a stage of being taken over.

Potter Stewart has wisely said, “Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have the right to do and what is right to do.” This ideology applies in the world of business as well. The concept of ethics is highly vague and difficult to explain to an extent. One person’s good might be other’s evil. You cannot be ethical to all the stakeholders at all times. For instance, if you increase the price of a product, you will help maximise profits for the employer which shows your ethics towards your boss, but at the same time an unethical attitude towards the customers. On the other hand, if you incur costs for the society, for instance by being more environmental-friendly, you show ethics towards your customers, but not towards your fellow employees or employers, who would have to bear a cost for the decision. However, choosing the right thing to do at the right moment is what business is all about. The concept of ethics might seem a bit dicey, but it is the ability of making the smart choices and understanding the good for the majority which holds utmost importance, and ethical in a manner as well!

References: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ubc/docDetail.action?docID=10187339&page=171