“First Nations people” refers to various aboriginal peoples in Canada. They believe in a Great Spirit that implies that the Earth is the mother of all spirits. To be more specific, they regard Earth as the inheritance of their future generations. In the contrary, governments explore nature more frequently nowadays. Therefore, there must be much controversy between governments and aboriginal people.

Take the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline for example. The First Nations claimed that the project violated their rights significantly such as lose of 22,000 square kilometers land. And they claimed that it was the central government’s duty to consult and accommodate the interests of them right from the start. So they headed to the court to stop the project. Apart from different understanding of nature, I believe that the aboriginal people are greedy. According to the Indian Act, they wanted to be independent, however, they were reluctant to give up the special protections that the central government gave them such as tax exemptions in the reserves.

Although this is a huge threat to this project, I think the central government should not give it up for the enormous benefit behind it. The pipeline could enlarge and diversify the market of for Canadian energy resources since it would be shipped to Asia directly. It could “produce approximately $2.6 billion in total local, provincial and federal tax revenues during 30 years of operation.” (CBC News)

Under this huge pressure, what would the central government do? But there is one thing for sure, it is never easy to trade with the First Nations.

Reference:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/northern-gateway-pipeline-benefits-vs-concerns-1.1135312

Value proposition is basically what the products or services do. This is a significant part of business strategy. A good value proposition always gives a succinct summary and statement that really captures customers’ attention. Take newspaper for example. If the publisher expects to sell more, the best way is publishing the most attracting and latest news and highlight it to draw people’ attention so that more readers actually want to buy one.

On the other hand, there are many companies within one market competing by remaining the same proposition that other companies have. But I think uniqueness of the proposition is way more important. From my perspective, employees in most companies are valuable. Take journalists for example. There is no point that if anyone has the latest news because eventually everyone would know about it. The key point is how to make it different from others. If the perspective were distinct from others, there would be more readers.

Besides having the right value proposition, target customer is another essential part of a business strategy. Because we want to know who are the ones that would buy more of the product. If we blanket too many customer segments within one marketing area, we would lose most of the customers because it does not apply to them. Apart from that, if we have a larger range of customer segments, we would devote more resources and invest.

In conclusion,  I think a good business strategy should have a perfect value proposition and its target customers.

What is operation? It is “the making and delivery of any product or service.” (Operation, Mahesh Nagarajan) To be more specific, I think the essence of operation is that we need plans and actions to create value in the form of products and services. The set of activities requires the transformation of converting inputs into outputs.

There are three core functions for operation, which are production, finance, and marketing. Take a supply chain of Air Jordan sneakers shoes for example. The manufacturers need resources to produce and then distribute to warehouse around the world. This is the process of production. Meanwhile, they also need to consider the cost for the production. Therefore, finance plays an important role because it enables the company to track its capability. After shoes are produced, the company needs to figure out a specific selling plan for its product in order to maximize the profit. So they need marketing to generate demand. At last, shoes are sold to customers.

So, why should we study operation? In my opinion, operation is one of the major functions of any organization. We want to study how people organize themselves for productive enterprise in an efficient manner. For example, a company sells its product directly to its customers. During this process, there is no cost for middleman. Besides, the company can get useful information directly from its customers, such as the feedback provided to improve its product, and the demand that it can use to predict the future demand. By catering to the taste of customers and less stock, the company can actually have more demand and cash flow. In conclusion, I believe it is important and beneficial for us to understand operation more specifically.

Source: https://blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogcl_ubc_comm_101_101_2014w1_44739-cl_ubc_comm_101_101_2014w1_44739_2045960_1/files/2014/05/Class-06-Operations.pdf