As a mentor of the Junior Achievement Company Program, an afterschool program that provides high school students an entrepreneurial experience to operate a business within a sixteen-week timeframe, my team and I have recently interviewed nearly thirty candidates within one night and appointed the qualified individuals as the executive members of their company. Not only will the executives be working closely together to establish their business’ success, I also feel responsible for paving the path and guiding the students to success. One of my first steps is to find the rightful candidate for each executive position.

I came across the article “Your Corporate Strategy is Your Talent Strategy” on the website CEB Global, and I strongly agree with the result of the research. CEB and other firms together, over a research time span of fifteen years, have observed large corporations on six continents and how their employee talent management has corresponded with the company’s growth. It has been observed that CEOs and other board members often implement decisions base on the business’ talent pool as they believe “talent is central to every plot”. Obviously it is excellent when a company has brainstormed the most brilliant idea that will shoot the business to a rocket-high value, but does the company have the rightful skilled employees to implement the idea? In the absence of talent management, a corporate goal will never be achieved.

The article continues summarizing the research result and demonstrates examples of talent strategies, such as how to motivate employees and maximize each worker’s productivity. Senior managers with a good understanding of the talent data will allocate talents and assign workers tasks more efficiently. This reminded me of my mentor role as I was trying my best to understand my interviewees and allocate the most suitable candidates to each executive position. Then, the newly appointed executive members will understand their department members and appoint them to their most compatible department positions. In a retail store environment, this is similar to mangers training shift leaders and shift leaders assigning workers to their responsible zones, such as the best store ambassador, floor selling salesperson, cashier, fitting room expert etc.

Human resources is beyond motivating employees, human resources is also about talent management and allocating each employee to maximize their productivity for the corporate’s success. Like the article has said, “Your Corporate Strategy is Your Talent Strategy”.

“Your Corporate Strategy is Your Talent Strategy”

http://www.executiveboard.com/blogs/your-corporate-strategy-is-your-talent-strategy/?business_line=human-resources&cid=70180000000b6AL

Lululemon founder, in his recent interview, claimed that Lululemon’s yoga pants are not suitable for “some women’s bodies”. My fellow Sauder classmate, Summer Liu, seems to be upset by Lululemon founder’s statement and she express her thoughts in her blog post,  “Lululemon founder says yoga pants don’t work with ‘some women’s bodies”. However, I would like to take a different approach in Lululemon’s product size chart.

As a retail salesperson in women’s clothing and intimate wear for two years, I became aware of women’s high caution in their sizes, whether they believe they are too big or too small. In order to address their concerns, I recommend the most suitable products by explaining why the product has been designed for their body shapes. Although occasionally, customers are disappointed that the products they wanted are not available in their sizes, they often come back satisfied as they have found other products that are truly designed for them. Is size a problem for women? Yes. Are companies creating products to fit women’s needs? Yes.

The company I worked for has attempted to widen certain products’ size availabilities, but the new sizes often end up piling on sale rack as customers simply do not want those products. Chance is, customers that fit the new available sizes have already found their perfect fits in another product design, and they refused to switch to a product that just doesn’t work well with their bodies. If a company’s product sales is lower than its production cost, why would the company continue producing and selling that product? If women with curvier bodies have a significantly smaller demand in Lululemon’s yoga pants, why would Lululemon continue offering the product to that market? Instead of accusing the Lululemon founder for “fat-shaming” women with curvier bodies, it is more reasonable to argue that Lululemon focuses in a different target market of women with a smaller built.

Do not confuse me for justifying what the Lululemon founder has said, because I do believe his wordings have misled some viewers into thinking Lululemon is size-discriminating some women. I am justifying the fact that a company cannot target the world as a single market, and Lululemon is merely targeting its product on the customer segment that Lululemon believes is the most profitable.

“Lululemon founder says yoga pants don’t work with ‘some women’s bodies”

https://blogs.ubc.ca/summerliu/2013/11/12/lululemon-founder-says-yoga-pants-dont-work-with-some-womens-bodies/

As I was reading William Liaw’s blog post, “Graduating with a Degree: Is It Enough?”, I again wonder where my bachelor degree will lead me. It is great to hear about all the Sauder graduates that have succeeded or are in the road to success, but is that the case for everyone? If not, how should I achieve success in the future? In COMM 101, we learn about the fundamentals of business and how to sell. In reality, we are constantly selling ourselves to our peers, our school, our employers and the world.

Imagine business school as the firms, and each year, UBC Sauder School of Business produces 600-700 students with a bachelor of commerce. Undoubtedly each student is unique, yet they are the same and have obtained the same degree of academic achievement. As a product, how does a recently graduated student differentiate himself/herself from the other 600-700 graduates? Better yet, how does a recently graduated Sauder student differentiate himself/herself from the rest of the business graduates in the world?

Perhaps like William has said, I should analyze a SWOT for myself. Then, I can strategize myself and optimize my competitive advantage. Hurray to competing into Sauder among the 9000 applicants… hurray to competing with the unpredictable number of business graduates in the near future. Since I cannot invent myself as a new product, excuse me while I am busy innovating myself to stand out.

“Graduating with a Degree: Is It Enough?”

https://blogs.ubc.ca/williamliaw/2013/11/16/80/

The article “Software company seeks to hire autistic workers in Vancouver”, from The Vancouver Sun, is about SAP (Systems, Applications and Products), an international application software company that is seeking autistic workers through the help of a Denmark firm, Specialisterne. In BC alone, the number of adults with autism is estimated at 40,000 and less than 25% of them have stable jobs.

SAP, based in Germany, has hired autistic people in three other countries and is now seeking more workers in Canada. Not only does the hiring benefit the autism community, but also SAP itself as the company reveals an increase in productivity after hiring people with autism. The head of human resources SAP, Baerbel Ostertag, says autistic workers “have extreme attention to detail, they are outstanding in terms of memorizing things, also they are logical thinking.”

The action of SAP is acknowledged by local BC autism support groups and the autism support groups encourage other business to hire in similar manners. In Canada, SAP’s hiring process is progressed with the help of Specialisterne. Specialisterne is a company that introduces autistic people to the work force and train employees in companies such as SAP to work cooperatively with autistic workers. This Denmark-based company has branches in numerous countries world-wide. Its founder, Thorkil Sonne, has a son diagnosed with autism, and Sonne was inspired to establish Specialisterne to engage autistic people into suitable working environments.

Thorkil Sonne

SAP and Specialisterne are working together to better the autism community. The article has mentioned a few local BC companies that hire people with autism, but little international companies are known for doing so. SAP and Specialisterne are making a social impact by offering work opportunities to autistic people.

“Software companies seeks to hire autistic workers in Vancouver”

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Software+company+seeks+hire+autistic+workers+Vancouver/9129867/story.html

What is the first word that comes into your mind when I mention “block-building toys”? That’s right, it’s Lego. Lego has successfully built its brand name association for construction toys and earlier in 2013, Lego became the world’s second largest toymaker. Its differentiation strategy is rather different from Mattel and Hasbro’s, world’s largest and third largest toymaker respectively. In the market of children’s toys, Lego focuses on one category of product, construction toys; whereas its competitors produce a large variety of products. New Yorker’s article, “The Year of the Lego”, summarizes Lego’s recent sales growth in China and analyses Lego’s SWOT.

The article states that parents in China are purchasing more Lego products under two influences, implicit and explicit recommendations from children’s schools and other experienced parents.  Non-profit organizations such as Lego Group and Lego Foundation have been providing Lego products to children through afterschool programs and within school environment to promote “development of thinking skills, problem-solving and creativity”. Of course, with children being more engaged and playing with Lego toys more, Lego’s sales would increase. On the other hand, the one-child policy in China results in more first-time toy shoppers and they are more likely to listen to the experienced parents, which often recommend Lego toys. Both implicit and explicit recommendations push the parents in China to purchase more Lego toys.

“The Year of the Lego” also briefly analyses Lego’s SWOT. Lego’s strength is the fact that Lego is unquestionably the market leader in construction toys. As mentioned earlier, Lego has established a brand name association to the market. With reference to the first half of the article, Lego’s opportunity lies in the market of Asia, especially in China. It is expected that in late 2013, the Lego sales in Asia will reach higher than the sales in North America, Lego’s original primary market. However, one of Lego’s weaknesses is its high price in comparison to other similar products. The high price has driven some customers to other alternative products. Another threat of Lego that drives customers to other competitions is that since 1988, when Lego’s core patent expired, any company can create similar and even identical products. In response to the threat, some believe the competitors are only able to make entry-point imitations and it is only a matter of time until parents switch and “upgrade to the real thing”.

After years of success and experimenting, Lego realizes specializing in one iconic product generates the most sales and Lego’s sales in the market of Asia is growing exponentially. After all, at least to the readers to my blog, who has not heard of Lego, not to mention how Lego has been an essential toy in our childhood. Lego is more than a fun piece of our childhood memories, but also a construction of youth growth and education.

“The Year of the Lego”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2013/11/lego-company-asian-toy-industry-sales-in-china.html

In 2012, Facebook overestimated its IPO price and led to little expected trades on its first day. In 2013, Twitter attempted to avoid Facebook’s mistake, and in result, Twitter underestimated its IPO price and led to the loss of a potential billionaire revenue. A gain from Twitter’s IPO trade is indeed existent. The question is, who is benefiting from the underpriced trades? This argument is discussed in New Yorker’s article, “Who Gained From Twitter’s Underpriced I.P.O.?”

The act of underpricing IPO’s seem like a trend for the last few years. The rise of newly public company shares, on the day of their IPO’s, was calculated at thirteen percent in 2011, eighteen in 2012; and this year in 2013, it is sitting at twenty-one percent. Although the author of “Who Gained From Twitter’s Underpriced I.P.O.?” does not directly state that Twitter’s IPO underwriters have intentionally underestimated the value of Twitter , the author comments on the fact that those bankers actually gain through two forms – IPO profit commission and also, in the “form of happy clients” where clients that have gained from underpriced IPO’s return to the same bankers for more future investments. Whether IPO underwriters underpriced newly public companies unintentionally or not, the underwriters still gain from two revenue streams.

As mentioned earlier, there is a “billion-dollar gaps amount to more than the cumulative sun of all the revenue [Twitter] has ever earned”.  Instead of Twitter selling its seventy millionaire shares at forty-five dollars apiece, it was sold at for twenty-five dollars instead. The company could have used the additional profit to invest in its business, and now, the benefit is in the hands of investors.  The gain from Twitter’s IPO still exists, but the profit is circulated in the market of funds and banks; which undoubtedly, is improving the economy. However, if the gain was in the hands of Twitter, the economy also could have been improved as Twitter is an innovative and fast-growing company. The author of “Who Gained From Twitter’s Underpriced I.P.O.?” believes a dollar spent by the company would have been economically more efficient than a dollar invested in funds and banks. I personally support the argument of the author.

Indeed Twitter has successfully avoided Facebook’s mistake of overpricing its IPO, but Twitter dove too far in the opposite direction by underpricing its IPO.  Twitter has gained profit from its newly public shares, yet the profit could have been significantly higher. The gain of profit still exists and the money is now circulating in the hands of investors. Has Twitter gained? Has investors and bankers gained more than Twitter? Yes, and yes.

“Who Gained From Twitter’s Underpriced I.P.O.?”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2013/11/who-gained-from-twitters-underpriced-ipo.html

Remember Nolan Watson, the CEO and President of Sandstorm Gold? He graduated form UBC Sauder School of Business. What about Mark Zuckerberg? He started Facebook in his spare time during his university years, unaware of the impact he was about to make in business and technology. How about the guy that sits next to you in COMM 101? For all I know, he can be the next millionaire of his business. Do you know any peer that is interested in starting their own business? Better yet, do you now any peer that has already begun their entrepreneurship journey? A few names pop up in my mind immediately, myself included. Why is entrepreneurship a trend among us students? Perhaps like the article from The Globe and Mail says, students are “natural entrepreneurs”.

The practice of entrepreneurship is not merely existing within students in business, but the opportunities that students seek campus-wide and community-wide. The news article “Why students are natural entrepreneurs” explore the opportunities and business information students absorb during their post-secondary studies, as simple as babysitting and tutoring to running a company with employees and shareholders. The experience of university life itself allows students to interact with more people, hence discovering an unmet demand and provide products and services accordingly. Later on, the article continues illustrate the potential entrepreneurship talents in students and how students should be educated in that manner. The article then concludes with encouraging universities to offer more resources for students, such as co-op and internship.

Although “Why students are natural entrepreneurs” is not related to my COMM 101 material nor can I reflect what I have learned from this article, it is an interesting read as being a student myself, I recognize the interest of young people in entrepreneurship. While most of us are still inexperienced in running a business, I believe the post-secondary education and experience will stimulate students’ success and lead students to a better direction.

“Why students are natural entrepreneurs”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/keg-parties-textbook-markets-every-student-is-a-natural-entrepreneur/article14802550/

Online shopping platforms act as both “pain killers” and “gain creators” in its value propositions. Through online grocers, the shopping cart rides and cashier check-out line ups are replaced with a few clicks in the comfort of your own home. Customers seek the most convenient method of shopping while businesses are shortening the supply chain.

Instead of building physical locations and hiring grocery store workers with wages and salaries, online grocers deliver straight to their customers; decreasing operational costs such as the shipments to grocery stores. As Mr. Gardner says in the article “For Shoppers, Next Level of Instant Gratification”, “efficient markets don’t like middlemen.” The question is, what about the middlemen that has been disintermediated? If the middlemen in the supply chain are all replaced by direct selling, how many companies would go bankrupt and how many employees will be laid off? While producers are increasing their revenues by shortening the supply chain, they are also increasing their market power; which in economic terms, it leads to market failure. In other words, a long supply chain with numerous middlemen results in an inefficient market, but so does a direct selling producer that gains market power and controls the entire market.

Regardless the dismissal of middlemen, online grocers do offer a new value proposition to grocery shoppers; and like the article title itself, online grocers offer the “next level of instant gratification”.

“For Shoppers, Next Level of Instant Gratification”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/technology/for-shoppers-next-level-of-instant-gratification.html?smid=pl-share

Facebook’s ultimate strength is its title as the “largest social network platform”, and advertisers are eager to reach their markets through this globally recognized company. With the continuous growth of social networking and online marketing, Facebook is looking at an enormous figure of profit. In fact, a large amount of Facebook’s profit is generated through selling users’ data to marketers.

The New York Times article, written by Vindu Goel and Edward Wyatt, “Facebook Privacy Change Is Subject of F.T.C Inquiry” talks about the most recent Facebook privacy policy update and its possible violation to an US Federal Trade Commission (F.T.C) agreement. Although users have clicked “I Agree” to every word of a privacy consent agreement they have not read, is it ethical for Facebook to fully expose its users’ personal information to generate profit? Is there a defined limit on how much information can be exposed?

Disregarding the possible legal violation of the F.T.C agreement, Facebook is ethical in its right to use users’ personal information. This is because Facebook has achieved its social responsibilities in providing benefits to all stakeholders. Facebook users get to network on the largest online platform, marketers gain access to more information through this social network market leader, and last but not least, Facebook is generating revenue and creating job opportunities. Some may argue that Facebook is overexposing users’ personal information, but they forget the fact that each user has agreed to the privacy consent prior using Facebook for the first time. Besides, it is the user’s decision to how much information he would like to share. Each status, each photo, each piece of information is updated by the user on his own will. Facebook is simply using one’s previously uploaded information, which by the privacy agreement, Facebook gains the legal ownership.

Facebook’s possible violation to the US Federal Trade Comission agreement is to be investigated, but by the definition of social responsibilities, Facebook has not violated business ethics.

“Facebook Privacy Change Is Subject of F.T.C Inquiry”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/technology/personaltech/ftc-looking-into-facebook-privacy-policy.html?hpw

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