From Emilie Gibeau’s blog we found out an exciting piece of news that related to newly invented software of UPS called “package flow” which can direct the divers with a more fuel efficient way.  As for Yssa Romero’s blog, he wrote a blog about LG create a bendable OLED and the competition with Samsung’s new product is nothing but all about timing issue.

Both of these two blog posts are related to innovations which can indicates that nowadays, the rapid technology development is ruling our daily life. Specially, the upgrading of skills not only reduced money and improve the efficiency of productivity but also moves the society forward.

Accompanied with globalization, informationization and marketization getting much more relevant in our life, the innovative business model is taking place the original norm one to be imperative. What’s more, producing new product or service is an easier way to build up a value proposition and maintain a competitive advantage of a company.

References:
Al, Bredenberg. “At Logistics Giant UPS, Sustainability Is About … Logistics | ThomasNet News Green & Clean Journal – ThomasNet.com.” ThomasNet News Green Clean Journal ThomasNetcom RSS. N.p., 1 Oct. 2012. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. <http://news.thomasnet.com/green_clean/2012/10/01/at-logistics-giant-ups-sustainability-is-about-logistics/>.

Rodriguez, Salvador October. “LG Mass-producing Curved Screens for Upcoming Smartphone.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 07 Oct. 2013. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. <http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-lg-curved-screens-smartphone-20131007,0,3500864.story>.

pictures from http://www.tobiasclarsson.com/wp-content/uploads/WallinIsakssonLarssonLarsson-MeasuringInnovationCapabilityInTechnology-focusedDevelopment-2010-wordle.jpg

On November 15^th 2013 CBC news states that compares to last year, the average price for house in Canada rises 8 % to about $40,000 in October. Meanwhile, data from Canadian Real Estate Association displayed the number of house sold declined along with the increasing price of house and also proves the Law of Demand in terms of economics.

As can be seen from the figure above, it clearly shows that the average home price is increasing in most part of Canada. However, British Columbia area was shaded blue and made approximately 26 % contribution to the sales of the whole country.

The way Canada increase the price of a house may lead to a failure in response to sustainable development because it destroy the normal order flow of real estate. Additionally, it doesn’t help in shrinking the gap between the rich and the poor then create community disharmony. As a businessman with responsibility, it is the right time to provide a considerable amount of ordinary commercial housing with a affordable price for those salariat.

References:
CBC News. “Map: Real Estate Prices across Canada – CBC.” CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 15 Nov. 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. <http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/housing-canada/>.

Pete, Evans. “Average House Price in Canada Rises 8% to $391,820.” CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 15 Nov. 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. <http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/average-house-price-in-canada-rises-8-to-391-820-1.2427778>.

pictures from http://creanews.ca/

This post is in response to Eric Cho’s blog post about twitter shareholders.
After the IPO of Twitter involves in a great success, the corporation decided to serves a longer lock-up period than Google and Facebook. From Eric’s point of view, the best way to retain the shareholders is to show them the steady stock price.

Personally, I believe it is a wise choice for Twitter to close for nearly half year. First of all, according to Facebook’s failure, the company knows the right timing to avoid stock pressure even if they accidently meet the unlock stage in this competitive market. Secondly, it actually calms the investors down; they won’t give up their share at the beginning. In addition, since Twitter gain more reputation during to the IPO launch, people are more likely to trust them as well as expecting the profitability they bring back when re-started.

Overall, Twitter provides a reasonable norm strategy for the company to integrate better with the market.

Reference:
Aman, Jain. “ValueWalk.” ValueWalk. N.p., 12 Nov. 2013. Web. 14 Nov. 2013. <http://www.valuewalk.com/2013/11/twitter-keeps-longer-lock-up-period/>.

As it is said in a Guardian Sustainable Business Blog written by Andrew Winston, we need an effective mechanism to reducing the booming CO2 emissions.

Based on the recent data released on IPCC, the title relation question can be answered directly to human activities and especially businessman. The average temperature and sea levels are getting closer to a dangerous boundary year by year due to large amount of greenhouse gas emission from numerous industries.
In terms of sustainability, it is the overlapping part of social, economic and environmental problems but the last one accounts the most proportion. Therefore, it is necessary for the government to carbon budgeting those factories to regulate CO2emissions and advocate them to be eco-friendly.

In a word, although making profit is important for a company, the prerequisite of earn money is the to ensure component of the company—human, won’t die because of natural disaster caused by global warming.

References:
“Can Carbon Budgets Divert the World from Dangerous Climate Change?” The Guardian. N.p., 25 Oct. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. <http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/blog/carbon-budgets-dangerous-climate-change>.

“IPCC Report Contains ‘Grave’ Carbon Budget Message | Climate Central.” IPCC Report Contains ‘Grave’ Carbon Budget Message | Climate Central. N.p., 4 Oct. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. <http://www.climatecentral.org/news/ipcc-climate-change-report-contains-grave-carbon-budget-message-16569>.

Based on the CBC news released on July 26 2011, Edmonton international Airport asked passengers to pay $5 more while fly out of the airport for the new facility construction improvement fee. Interestingly, it has increased to $30 per passenger this year that is more than one third in VAA (Vancouver’s Airport Authority), which will also lead to a considerable effect especially in the peak season.

The Law of demand states that when other factors remain the same, the price of a product going up, the demand of the market will relatively going down and vice versa. Therefore, from my own estimation, although EIA provides a higher quality of service, the passengers level will still be lower than previous data and the additional revenue from improvement fee cannot offset the infrastructure cost of the airport.

In conclusion, it is quite risky for Edmonton International Airport to hiking a passenger fee up to $ 30 per person. Doing a feedback research from customers could help the company to adjust the policy and make more profit.

References:
“Edmonton International Airport to Hike Passenger Fees.” CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 13 Nov. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. <http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-international-airport-to-hike-passenger-fees-1.2426047>.

“Edmonton Air Passengers to Pay $5 More.” CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 26 July 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. <http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-air-passengers-to-pay-5-more-1.1116231>.

Pictures from Google.

General Motor is an automobile company which origins from Detroit, Michigan America and now the bellwether in the vehicle market. In 2005, the initial public offering they made ranked top 5 of largest IPO all over the world and then turns into profitability same year. GM also sells up to 13 brands of cars such as Buick and Chevrolet in 37 different part of the world.

Like other successful companies, GM also decided to expand their corporations aboard to gain a larger amount of profit. According to the data displayed on the Statistic Brain, China came in second from 16 countries and sold 1,095,000 vehicles in 2008. However, it only holds 12.0% market shares. Therefore, vice president of GM split China out from international market to stand on its own and move its international headquarter to Singapore.

To sum up, it is a wise decision for GM focusing more on China because balancing the supply and demand of the market will ascends the benefit.

References:
“General Motors Company Statistics.” Statistic Brain RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.<http://www.statisticbrain.com/general-motors-statistics/>.
“GM to Move International HQ to Singapore.” BBC News. BBC, 12 Nov. 2013. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24921966>.

Pictures from google

In past few years, Blackberry Ltd. has faced plenty of different kinds of lawsuit. The most recent class action suit happened on 4th October is about the company misled their investors in terms of company’s future. The lawsuit said that the Blackberry 10 didn’t well-accepted by the market, so they decided to book a billion dollars in losses and layoff 40% employees to reduce the cost. Due to that fact, their share prices will repeat same tragedy as they did last month.

Employees are the core part of a company, especially for innovations. However, Blackberry fired approximately 4,500 labors to cut down the work force which means the maker of new Blackberry product is gone. Therefore, the company now offers only four new phones instead of six.

A few years ago, Blackberry Smartphone ranked nearly top on the market but after their industry rivals (such as: Apple, Samsung, etc) come to compete, they gradually fall behind. Competitors are everywhere, thus internal operation and speed of innovation must be the key factor of a technology company’s success.

Reference:
Austen, Ian. “BlackBerry to Cut 40% of Work Force After Big Loss.” The New York Times. N.p., 20 Sept. 2013. Web. 7 Oct. 2013.<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/21/technology/blackberry-plans-to-cut-4500-jobs.html>.

Friend, David. “The Globe and Mail.” The Globe and Mail. The Canadian Press, 04 Oct. 2013. Web. 07 Oct. 2013.<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/blackberry-hit-with-securities-shareholder-class-action/article14713440/>.

In 2007, Starbucks did really worse on the NASDAQ exchange and its stock prices fell by 42%, that is also the reason why their CEO Howard Schultz came back replaces Jim Donald to dissolve the problem. They admitted that they are going to fast on the market so that ignored experiences of customers. Compare to the McDonald’s a decade ago, they are in the same situation—overexpansion.

Starbucks is a café which suppose to be involved with “romance and theatre”, but as expansion goes by, they regarded higher on the quantity but not quality. For instance, they start using automatic variety instead of hand-pull machine to speed up their service.

For Business part, it is quite important to do the market research including customers’ demand before expanding the store chain to avoid troubles like producer surplus and lower value proposition of a brand. Always put quality in the first place as well as keep them in the right track of theme would also be a better choice for producers. In conclusion, a firm may not gain much more profit if they over expand a brand in a saturated market.

Reference:
“Starbucks Ousts Its Boss and Brings Back Its Founder as a New Threat Emerges.” The Economist.com. N.p., 10th Jan. 2008. Web. 5th Oct. 2013.<http://www.economist.com/node/10498747?zid=293&ah=e50f636873b42369614615ba3c16df4a>.

On August 5th New Zealand’s Fonterra Company was reported three batches of dairy which contained clostridium botulinum bacteria went to Chinese market because of dirty pipe used in the factory. As the world leading diary producer, it ruins good reputations for high quality food and the slogan “100% pure New Zealand ”.

According to the news from the Economist, Fonterra’s scandal was really detrimental because bacteria in the whey named clostridium, linked to botulism can lead to plenty of diseases such as “Symptoms include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea” It will have a long-term impact for their company to regulate themselves and they not only need to recall all the dairy product from the market all over the world but also need to response effectively to the consumers. Moreover, this scandal will change the brand proposition, people will not willing to rank diary factories in New Zealand the leading one anymore and it is quite difficult to erase this world-wide negative news from their mind. Since the demand decrease, exporters will not import goods which make no profit for them.

References：
“New Zealand Dairy Giant Issues Global Botulism Alert.” ABC News. N.p., 3 Aug. 2013. Web. 10 Oct. 2013. <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-03/new-zealand-dairy-giant-issues-global-botulism-alert/4863344>.

Tajitsu, Naomi, and Adam Jourdan. “Scare or No Scare, Customers Have Little Choice but Fonterra.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 29 Aug. 2013. Web. 03 Oct. 2013.<http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/29/us-newzealand-milk-fonterra-idUSBRE97S16720130829>.

Speaking of business ethics, I would like to talk about the Nike corporation which we also mentioned last class. As we all know that, around 2000 in Pakistan, Nike was reported to use child labor in its manufacturing line.

Children under the age of 18 were protected by law almost in every country, however, this well-known company was taking the advantage of those cheaper slaves to make a higher profit and the executives claimed that they are improving the factory conditions. According to the BBC news, several child labours were exploited, they work approximately 16 hours every day without having a rest. This situation is also called production in sweatshops, these children are not older enough to work for such a long time but with low salaries. In other words, it is unethical for a business firm to ignore their workers and their physical conditions, stakeholders like supplier and employer should keep themself in a win-win relationship. Although it is a piece of a pretty old news, it is a good example in terms of not having business ethics.

References:
Faraz Azam. “TED Case Studies.” NIKE and Child Labor. N.p., June-July 1999. Web. 05 Sept. 2013   <http://www1.american.edu/ted/nike.htm>