There’s always a secret to everything, including the success of every big companies. As international businesses become even easier and more common, businesses started to take more risks in going global, but what exactly make an international business successful?

The key to the success itself relies on the knowledge that the business got. Not just the basic knowledge about how a business operates, but also about the culture of the country that the business operates. Culture varies between different countries, there might be some similarities between the countries that you are operating in, but you can almost find differences in each and every country that you’ve involved yourself with.

In order to be accepted by the people in a certain country, you have to fit in with their ‘certain’ culture, for example, in some countries gender is still a big and sensitive issue, there are some countries that still perceive women as that of a lower level than men. A simple information about that country can also be a big thing if you want to do your business there. For example, some countries such as China and Japan give see gifts as a formal way of settling or doing a business, but in Western cultures, they tend to associate gifts with the word ‘bribe’.

Most businesses have their peaks and troughs, a period where everything is busy and where everything is not. There are a few businesses that rely on the-so-called ‘busy period”s profit to cover up the rest of the quite period. Usually those businesses have to strive to do their best in order to get the maximum amount of profit to survive throughout the year, it’s a tough business for most of the people.

Most businesses have their busiest time during holiday, a certain holiday such as christmas works the best for some businesses, all usually depends on what type of business you are in or what products are you selling.

Making a maximum amount of profit, means cutting costs. Costs can be reduced by using resources as efficiently as possible, not wasting any but not paying extras. Which might have brought questions to some people? How’d they manage to do that?

Years of experience help businesses to devise staffing, cashflow and stock plans that help them cope with whatever the peak times throw at them, so most businesses are already prepared even long before their peak time.

But as these businesses seek for the cheapest costs, that means that they are trying to get rid off the costs that they deemed as unnecessary for their short term goal, which is to maximize their profit at least by the end of their peak period. But Does that affect anything at all? the quality of their business? How about the employees’ motivation? or customers services? loyalty?

Tal Dehtiar, the owner of an Oakville shoe company called Oliberte, clearly knows what he is doing. As the world’s first certified fair trade shoe company, Oliberte has provided tons of job opportunities to the people of Africa. Not only has this country provided a good deal of payment for the workers, Dehtiar also offered child care, medical care and bought picnic tables where employees could eat during lunch breaks.

Customers can not only benefit from the chance of owning a stylish leather shoes worth of $150, but also from knowing that they’ve contributed to helping the Africans through job, not aid.

The International Fair Trade Association has more than believe that the company has “concern for the social, economic and environmental well-being of marginalized small producers”and that Oliberte don’t “maximize profit at their expense.”

“We want to give people a different way to look at Africa,” Dehtiar said. “Our ad features a swimmer, skier and a boxer and we want people to see Africa not with pity. They should see these African sports ambassadors as a symbol of African empowerment.”

Overall, it’s one great of a business strategy, never thought of, which could be an excellent example of first-mover advantage businesses. Oliberte has not only made a good ‘social image’ in the eyes of the customers, but also a good brand awareness.

References:

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/11/08/oakville_shoe_company_olibert_is_first_in_the_world_to_get_fair_trade_certification.html

As a developing country experiencing a drastically rapid industrial growth, it is inevitable for China to suffer environmentally. Beijing, being the most polluted city in China, has experienced air pollution 40 times higher than the World Health Organization’s safety limit in January. A study by the American National Academy of Sciences stated that with the current air condition in northern China, life expectancy decreases, on average, by at least 5 years per person.

Taking an action for cleaning up China’s polluted air is a huge challenge for China, especially with their current way of doing things. In China, corruption happens within the top ranks of the Communist Party, the corruptors are commonly known as the ‘mayors’ that run the country. The ‘mayors’ tend to ignored the environmental edicts issued in Beijing for the sake of their businesses. As social pressures increases, threatening the rule of the Communist Party, China has no other choice but to take an immediate action.

Google along with Microsoft, both as the leading search engine companies, have decided to agree measures to block abuse images. Both have decided to work together in making a new software that will prevent searches for child abuse imagery or any possible searches that could lead to such inappropriate imagery.

“As important, we will soon roll out these changes in more than 150 languages, so the impact will be truly global.” – Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt.

As social awareness for the said issue arises, demands from society also increases, which resulted to an add up pressure to global, big companies such as Google and Microsoft. It is, of course, a big and daring move coming out from both companies. And since most illegal abuse images are hidden on peer-to-peer networks, both companies had to take a drastic measure, involving the National Crime Agency and other organizations similar to that to help in the work of finding both the sources and the creators of child abuse images.

It’s a lot of work for them, and a huge responsibility since both of the companies have to bear with high society expectations, both direct and indirect.

What has gone wrong with HP? That’s the question that we all would very much like to know. The answer actually varies depending on how a person sees the situation, a lot of people actually blame the past CEOs for the downfall of the company- although it’s not entirely wrong to say that, but blaming the entire problem on the CEOs is not exactly the perfect way to address the issue.

Over the years of progressing under the different CEOs (Carly F., Mark Hurd, Leo Apotheker), HP had changed into a mass production, profits-aiming business that rather than focusing on the pursue of creativity and innovation, focuses on minimizing costs and expenditures.

Years of inconsistencies, and the always changing CEOs has left the employees feeling both demotivated and unappreciated, which obviously clashed with their own beliefs of “making the employees one of their top priorities.”

The HP now has, indeed, gone far away from their HP way, back in 1990s, which probably is the main cause of their downfall- They are just too far away from their original motives.

This year’s king is Apple- Not Cola, not anymore. Apple has successfully gained the first place on the 100 most variable brand, replacing Cola’s position. Perhaps it’s because brands like Apple or google not only provides a much deeper version of advanced technology, but it has also changed the way we live our lives,

or it’s never ending products development; are they valued because of the huge amount of money they spend on their R&D, which results in the provision of the latest, most advanced technology that they could possibly give to their customers?

or are they valued simply for the years and years of effort in building the ‘perfect’ image? or the way they differentiate themselves by always being the first to develop the i-products? No matter what reason it is, Apple has now positioned itself as the most valuable brand and the status itself shows how much approvals they are getting from their always-loyal customers.

 References: 

As our reliance on technology increases, social medias such as Twitter, Facebook, etc. suddenly matters a lot, more than ever. It’s not only used for social interactions, it can also be used as an instant advertising, a form of marketing strategy, used by businesses to target a broad range of people in just one click, a simple way to get customers.

Just in a minute, apple’s market capitalization increased by $17 billion. And now the question is- How? How, indeed. Well, the answer is none other than Twitter. On Tuesday morning, Mr. Icahn posted the following tweet:

“Had a cordial dinner with Tim last night. We pushed hard for a 150 billion buyback. We decided to continue dialogue in about three weeks.”

Who would have ever guessed that it takes only a mere tweet to get customers this interested? Apple immediately gained a “Fast Money” right after Mr. Icahn’s Twitter post. Since social media is a kind of mouth-to-mouth advertisements, if used properly- it can be big and that’s exactly what happened to Apple.

References:

US is undoubtedly in the middle of a very harsh situation and whoever says otherwise, obviously hasn’t seen it in a bigger-picture-kind-of-way. The fact that US is now faced with an economic blow; tons of debt ceiling drama, has pushed Mr. Obama to take a step up and calls for a shutdown. A shutdown with zero progress and for which also to be closed as soon as the fifth day ends.

Despite Government’s various attempts at avoiding any further debts, none of them worked- and worst is that they still need to pay for the bills. Borrowing a few more is just out of question, because that would just push the debt above the limit. For them to avoid default, they have to raise their debt ceiling. Other options are simply impossible to achieve; it’s either taxes have to go up really high, or spending must be reduced greatly. So the only ‘smart’ option left would be to raise the debt ceiling.

If none of them works, then recession, bond market crisis, declining stock market, low value of dollar, unemployment would likely to occur, and if that’s what happen, then US is certainly heading towards a big crisis.

References: 

http://money.cnn.com/interactive/news/economy/whats-up-with-the-debt-ceiling/?hpt=hp_t1

http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/07/news/economy/shutdown-economic-impact/index.html?iid=SF_BN_LN

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24419564

The Economist: Going Banana (Direct access to the article: http://www.economist.com/node/21551500)

Businesses strive for success, and the definition of the ‘success’ itself is very subjective, for some, it might mean gaining higher profits, brand, or even surviving (during recession). But overall, businesses’s one and only unchanging aim is to satisfy all their stakeholders, because satisfying all of them means success for every business.

But we all know that different stakeholder has different opinion, aims and objectives. So, it is almost impossible for a business- no matter how successful or how much profit they get in one year, to completely satisfy all their stakeholders.

Businesses might have to go against others just for the sake of satisfying that one ‘important’ stakeholder. That’s what happened to Chiquita Brands, one of the world’s biggest suppliers of bananas and other fruit.

After a campaign by a green group called ForestEthics, Chiquita agreed to avoid fuel from Canadian tar sands, which resulted to the boycott of Chiquita’s products.

“Canada depends on Alberta’s oil-rich economy to fuel prosperity and any shut down in the province’s oil industry would be felt across the country.If that happens, not only will there be significant job loss across the country, but there will be a radical change and we will lose a considerable amount of investment,” – Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach.

Despite their success in pleasing the environmentalists, the Chiquita had apparently offended Canadians who depend on the oil industry. According to them, what Chiquita has done is not only just being inconsiderate, but also unethical.

Deciding which stakeholder businesses have to concern themselves with is definitely not an easy choice to make, nor is defining ‘ethic’ in terms of different perspectives.

References: 

Canada’s economy depends on Alberta oil: Stelmach | CTV News . 2013.Canada’s economy depends on Alberta oil: Stelmach | CTV News . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada-s-economy-depends-on-alberta-oil-stelmach-1.273270. [Accessed 12 September 2013].

Chiquita CEO pays the price for attacking Canada’s ethical oil | Ethical Oil.org. 2013. Chiquita CEO pays the price for attacking Canada’s ethical oil | Ethical Oil.org. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.ethicaloil.org/news/chiquita-ceo-pays-the-price-for-attacking-canadas-ethical-oil/. [Accessed 12 September 2013].