Most people get to know Tadashi Yanai because of the wonderful clothing retailer called UNIQLO. The expansion of UNIQLO is growing rapidly as it opened more than 400 overseas stores in countries like China, UK, and US within 20 years.

What are the keys for this fast development?

The way it operates is called the SPA business model(Specialty store retailer of Private label Apparel), which means the whole company will remain the control of the process from designing, producing, and selling. This model is quite similar to DELL’s Direct Business Model as UNIQLO cuts the payment for middle men; it also produces various products based on their research and development for the market trend. A quick reaction to market can help control the inventory level. Furthermore, this model also creates a more direct and easy way for the company’s executives to access to the production line and to ensure clothes being produced are with high quality.

Moreover, UNIQLO  builds a good customer relationship by offering online shops and delivery services, consumer service centers vice versa. This brings a large group of loyal customers like me that really enjoy buying and be willing to pay for this brand.

“By 2020, we’d like to be making $50 billion in sales, $10 billion in operating profit.”— Tadashi Yanai

Tadashi Yanai is an ambitious and outstanding businessman. However, UNIQLO is still a young company compared to  ZARA or H&M. So Mr. Yanai should figure out ways to help UNIQLO to win the fierce international competitions.  Here is my suggestion:

1.  To make more Canadians know this brand. The company should develop a marketing strategy like making more advertisements (it will be better if the advertisement is featuring with celebrities) on Canadian media so to attract customers and investors.

2.  The company should increase the choices available for customers in both stores and online shops (this can help reflect the company’s value proposition: make everyone access to all kinds of Japanese fast fashion).

In all, I still believe UNIQLO has the potential and ability to achieve Mr. Yanai’s goal. What do you think?

The result of Scottish independence referendum came out last week with 55.3% votes for NO. (Theguardian)

After reading Jiawei‘s blog, as he said, if Scotland itself becomes a country, it should take a long time to adjust changes and find ways to solve unpredictable situations. I strongly agree with this point of view since a new country has to create better and suitable policies so to become a country with completed system among aspects like economy, politics and so on. Actually, although countries like China or the UK, which have been established for a long time, they still have to put effort into the perfection of policies.

Despite what he said, in my opinion, the independence will affect the whole society. Business will be one of the victims.

Because Scotland has a large amount of natural resources, such resources can be exported and contributed to the country’s GDP. However, once Scotland separated from the UK, its GDP will decrease. A recession in economy and an uncertainty of future profits will reduce the funds paid by investors. Businesses will be at risk since they need to face the shortage of funds and higher raw material costs (in this case, there is a raise in prices of imports due to the depreciation of GBP value). The independence will also limit the number of cheap labors from Scotland that a British business can hire. Cost of production goes up again.

All in all, I have to say, to some extent, the failure in Scottish independence referendum actually helped Britain escape from a business and economic turmoil.

Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd is a Chinese based company producing Solar Panels. In 2010, a new factory of Suntech opened in Arizona, USA, but closed in 2013(Reuters). Using solar panels is considered as a recyclable way to provide electricity, and it is widely used among different groups of customers from the whole market (residences, fuel companies, etc.)

So how could this happen?

By looking at news related to Suntech, it is obvious that, after the financial crisis in 2008, most of  buyers delayed their orders, which led to overproduction in the factory. This caused an increase in operating costs and more spending on storing the products as well as equipment maintenance(Suntech Financial statement for 2011).

The US government also imposed a nearly 250% anti-dumping tariff on Suntech as this company was confirmed to sell products at price much lower than their production costs(TREFIS). Such tariff made it hard to cover costs by total revenue and achieve the business main goal: Profit maximization.

I think it is hard for Suntech to recover from this downturn. The debts that Suntech needs to take are extremely high, which leads to a bad reputation of the company. Even if Suntech wants to rebuild its reputation, it will take a long time to remove all the bad images.Furthermore, because of the failure of Suntech, customers  lost confidence to the company and eventually, they will turn to buy the substitute goods–Wind Power products(Advantages for wind power).

Business Ethics is about the responsibilities that a business needs to take during its development process. These kind of responsibilities are not only to achieve business’s objectives( like offering high returns to shareholders), but also to try to satisfy some of the public interests both in a legal way.

Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.

The news I read is about those Chinese labors being mistreated by Apple and the Pegatron Group. The workers are forced to lie about their real weekly working hours so to avoid the inspection; underage labors are being hired; insufficient wages are offered and so on.

I think these behaviors break laws and show no business ethics or social responsibilities. The exploitation of labors can largely affect labors’ living standard, and this may lead to some other social issues like  increasing labour suicide rate, health problems, etc.Although Apple and Pegatron Group want to gain competitive advantages and maximize profit by lowering labor costs, it is the business’s responsibility to protect the workers’ right and interests. Providing a safer working environment and set proper production target can help remain the labors in a long run and build a good business reputation. Or the workers will no longer want to work in such an immoral business.

Generally speaking, businesses can’t succeed if they ignore workers’ interest and right. Be aware of how important business ethic is and be responsible, is what can help a business better developed.

The link of the news is:

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-23486638

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