As in the article mentioned, the First Nations are making declaration for setting up their tribal park, leading them to be in charge of these properties; therefore, everyone else who wants to use the land etc. will have to get the permission from the aboriginal people. However, with a rapid economic growth, many large industries have been taken advantage of the unsetting declaration from First Nations to benefit themselves. In the article, Dave Williams indicated that industry such as mining and logging will not be permitted in the tribal park. In my view,  it’s due to the inefficiency and disruption to the environment.But at the same time, it might increase the natives’ employment rate because of the smaller-scaled activities.

Also, as what I thought in between First Nations and corporations,  there is a “middle man” in its supply chain that is blocking the benefits that both companies and natives can get. That is the government. From BC government’s point of view on this issue, they “nicely” stated that they’d like to cooperate with the First Nations and improve the relationships. Since the relation is an external factor that affects its economy and they don’t want to lose these resources which help the government to earn more revenue. Instead of saying “not more litigation” in the news,  the government should truly seek out a better business model, considering both sides to maximize their profits.

One of Stav’s blog entry describes the emergence of Pepsi’s market with a competition of Coca-Cola. As two of the products are considered closely as substitudes in the business world, therefore, the factors on how these products influence consumers have been a major part to consider.

To begin with, both of the brands are well known and they share a lot of similarities. In consumer’s mind, they care more whenever the new idea comes across first into their eyes through marketing. Therefore, it requires many operations to put emphasis on their marketing strategy and be creative, to make the strategic differentiable market plans as well as the profit growing plan.

Also, as the company should also make plans on how to target their consumers, because for most of the population, people would choose Coca-Cola over Pepsi, maybe it’s just due to its history since it is earlier launched in this industry. By controlling these factors, the company should easily have a comparative advantage than its competitors. Purchasing power would be another great external factor that help build the path for the company to make marketing strategy.

In Conclusion, similarities increase the company’s competitiveness and therefore the company should consider more about other factors that help enhance its uniqueness.

Recently, I came across the article that talks about the influences of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Protest business wide. The protest not only takes places near the schools, but it also takes places at the central financial centre of Hong Kong. Therefore, Hong Kong’s economy has been greatly influenced throughout this protest. The ANZ Bank indicates that more than $2bn Hong Kong dollars have be lost due to the pro-democracy protests. Since the Chinese government has suspended the mainland tour group or individuals travel to Hong Kong at the moment. This action leads to the following influnces.

As a large portion of Hong Kong’s GDP is contributed from the mainlanders. Because of the large amount of travellers each year to Hong Kong and also the strong consumer purchasing power, Hong Kong’s GDP has been incredibly increased each year. According to this news from CNN, approximately 1.2 million tourists travelled to Hong Kong’s popular luxury shopping district during the Chinese Golden Holiday. However, due to the Chineses government’s action this year, Hong Kong will lose so much money because of the less consumers spending on their products. The closures of travelling Hong Kong directly lead to their market growth and Gross Domestic Product per Capita decline. Therefore, political issues is a very vital part in business as it is the external factor that might increase or decrease the barrier of a company.

The American multinational corporation eBay has recently announced that it is going to split PayPal and itself into two separate companies. From the perspective of eBay’s CEO, John Donahoe confirms this breaking news and strongly believes in both companies’ future after their separation.

Looking back at the past record for two companies’ cooperation, “PayPal’s revenue are growing at 19% a year, twice as quickly as eBay’s”, this fact suggests PayPal’s rapid economic growth and better revenue earned than eBay. Here are some of the thoughts I have regards to their separation.

First, as for PayPal, after separating from eBay, it still generates most of the capital flows and at the same time, the company will have more opportunities for profit growth that will help the business develop its unlimited potentials. The company can specialize on their business operations, which eventually becomes a competitive advantage in the field. The company can be more strategically in making business plans individually as well to earn as much profits as possible.

Also, as for eBay on the other hand, the separation of two companies would directly affect eBay’s overall benefits. According to Porter’s framework in class prep 10 materials; the separation increases the exit barriers for eBay because the competition between eBay and PayPal raises, representing the competition between the field of online shopping and the online payment service field is merging into the market.