As a governing body, the United Nations “committed to maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights.” The United Nations strives to make the world a better place, thus, it is an indispensable international organization. Unlike the United Nations, the Arc and social enterprise benefit impoverished areas by strengthening local people’s skills and offering them business opportunities. The Arc aims to lead to a “long-term economic betterment for the local communities.” Members of Arc aims to share their business knowledge with local people in order to solve local poverty problems, whereas the United Nations tend to offer direct financial assistance. Therefore, we still need social enterprises even if the United Nations is fully funded. I believe the world poverty problems will be much more effectively solved if social enterprises and the UN can work together.

The Hershey Company wins P3 Impact Award for its CocoaLink mobile program in Ghana. This program aims to provide a free and two-way information exchange between cocoa experts and cocoa farmers in Ghana. Cocoa experts send weekly messages on planting, pruning, and fertilizer use to local farmers who have signed up for Cocoalink. An independent study shows that this program “significantly improved the behavior and livelihoods” of cocoa farmers. Farmers enrolled in Cocoalink increased their yields by 45.6% in three years.

I am delighted to see that Hershey is making efforts to create societal benefits by improving cocoa farmers’ working and living conditions. By embarking on shared value initiatives, Hershey is able to address social issues and fulfill societal needs while achieving an economic growth. The success of a chocolate company is largely depended on the quality and efficiency of the cocoa production. The Cocoalink program gives farmers helpful farming tips and enables local cluster development. With the assistance of this program, farmers will have more professional knowledge for producing high-quality cocoa. According to “Creating Shared Value” by Harvard Business Review, we can see that “as suppliers get stronger, their environmental impact often fails dramatically, which further improves their efficiency.” As a result, the Hershey Company’s shared value is developed, bringing substantial benefits to economy, society, and environment.

After reading Charmian’s blog post, I am surprised by the fact that the fast food giant, McDonald’s has admitted that it is foreseeing a 30% decrease in profit in the third quarter. In this post, Charmian also describes McDonalds’ several strategies to reignite sales growth, including “Create Your Taste” option and a social media campaign. Charmian states that a large number of consumers have chosen a healthier approach to food, and I strongly agree with her. “Convenience” and “affordability” are the key elements in McDonald’s value proposition. But now, McDonald’s dominance in fast food is challenged by the trend, which encourages people to live a healthy and clean life. McDonald’s is rarely the first place that comes to people’s minds when thinking about  low-calorie and low-fat food options. Therefore, I believe it is essential for McDonald’s to modify its value proposition and marketing strategy by incorporating “healthy” and “natural” features, such as fresh fruits and green salads. By adding more healthy choices, McDonald’s will enlarge its customer segments as it also caters to people who care about nutrition facts or have dietary restrictions.

I had never heard of Tim Hortons before I moved to Canada two years ago. Now, it has become my favorite place for a coffee break. On August 26th, the Canada-based Tim Hortons and the U.S.-based fast food giant, Burger King joined hands to create the third largest quick service restaurant in the world. The new company now has over 18,000 restaurants in 100 countries and generates total sales of $23 billion.

In Yinuo’s blog, she mentions that Tim Hortons will have more opportunities to expand internationally after the merge. I agree with her because Burger King has strong brand recognition worldwide. In the recent  years, Burger King has exponentially increased the number of restaurants overseas. Therefore, it is able to offer Tim Hortons more international exposure. As Yinuo says in her post, Tim Hortons has struggled with expanding in America. I think in order to be successful in other countries, Tim Hortons should have a different marketing strategy than the domestic one. In fact, Tim Hortons’ marketing scheme highlights people’ s patriotism by positioning itself as a symbol of Canadian identity and national pride. However, solely relying on consumers’ passion for Canadian pride is not going to appeal to people in other parts of the world. Instead, by emphasizing on the high quality and freshness of drinks and food, Tim Hortons can build a better brand awareness and therefore, attract more customers worldwide.

In 2006, the founder of TOMS Shoes, Blake Mycoskie took a trip to Argentina to learn polo, practice tango and volunteer in the local community. During his stay, he saw that children in the village did not have adequate shoes to protect their feet. He was also shocked by health and poverty problems sprawling in Argentina. Soon after he went back home, he came up with the one-for-one business model – a promise for every pair of alpargata slip-on sold, a new pair of shoes would be donated to a child in need. TOMS sold 10,000 pairs of shoes during the first year in business. Since its launch, the company has donated over 115,000 shoes to impoverished children around the world.

TOMS’s socially-minded business model has generated a large amount of profits and created a positive and charitable brand image. Combining the goal of solving social issues with the objective of earning profits, social entrepreneurs demonstrate their great abilities of becoming innovators who change the traditional business world. I believe a business that can blend philanthropy into its value proposition will have a more competitive and firm stand in the market. Because many people are willing to make the world a better place and social entrepreneurship is able to satisfy this large market need.

Chinese bachelors and bachelorettes used to drink or visit karaoke bars to seek solace on November 11^th, the unofficial holiday for single people. Now they are throwing their money at computer screens to break free of the monotony of their single lives. The Chinese e-commerce company, Alibaba, launched its first Singles Day Sale in 2009 and created a frantic shopping spree. On this particular day in 2013, Alibaba processed more than $5.75 billion in its online payment system, Alipay, exceeding by 2.5 times the total for American retailers on Cyber Monday. With 180 million single people in China, their passion for this year’s shopping carnival is about to be kindled very soon.

Undoubtedly, Alibaba has impressed the market with its astonishing amount of sales transacted on Singles Day. I believe the key to its huge success is that the company well understands its customers’ needs. Alibaba captures single people’s loneliness and creates a hyper of overcoming it by shopping online. Serving as a painkiller, Alibaba turns some customers’ sorrow of being single into an online shopping bonanza. The success of Singles Day Sale confirms that in order to be competitive in the market, a company must address consumers’ needs and provide products and services that can alleviate their ‘’pains.” By incorporating the goal of satisfying people’s requests into a company’s value proposition, it will definitely appeal to more and more customers.

BC Hydro is going to construct and operate a dam and  hydroelectric generating station on the Peace River in the northeastern British Columbia. However, this plan is strongly opposed by First Nation leaders due to the fact that the dam would flood 83 kilometers of the Peace River Valley and destroy farmland and wildlife habitat. First Nation chief declares that if Ottawa approves the project, local aboriginal people will challenge the decision in the Federal Court of Canada.

This news article clearly demonstrates how socio-economic factors in the PEST analysis can significantly affect business activities. Without doubt, building more hydroelectric stations will benefit British Columbia economically by providing more clean energy source. However, it is necessary for BC Hydro to negotiate with First Nation People with regard to the potential environmental impact on their lands. First Nation people have a unique spiritual connection with their lands, as the First Nation delegation says, “It’s our church, it’s our store, it’s our school. We have elders’ gatherings there annually.” Therefore, besides environmental issues, it also raises an ethical problem when business embarks on a project at a cost of violating First Nation people’s values and beliefs.

There is a video going viral on Youtube, which is created by a comedian, Paul Gale. The video has received around eight million views in three weeks. Paul Gale is playing the part of the barista and he explains why baristas in Starbucks always misspell customers’ names, even simple names such as, Jessica. “I didn’t mishear your name,” Gale says in the video, “I’m deliberately misspelling your name to confuse and annoy you.” Then he adds，“It’s the best part of my job, and I will never stop.” Well, the reason behind the annoying misspelling is even more annoying.

Writing every customer’s name and order on the cup is seemingly inefficient and in this way, baristas tend to make mistakes. Then why don’t Starbucks hand out order numbers to customers instead? After reading Roger Dooley’s blog, I had a better insight of the advantages of this scheme. I strongly agree with Roger’s idea that the process of writing names is crucial in forming relationship with customers. Baristas can remember the names of regular customers and greet them by their names. The closer connection the customers form with the store, they will visit it more often. I believe Starbucks’ unique and smart business practice enables it to outstand from other coffee shops and win more loyal fans.

Blackberry once dominated the smartphone market, now it has lost a huge portion of sales to its powerful competitors, such as Apple and Samsung. Today, it only accounts for less than 1% of the sales of smartphones. However, Blackberry’s CEO, John Chen, has planned out a comeback strategy and hopes to see the company return to profit by 2016. The launch of the new smartphone, Passport, is only a small aspect of the strategy. Mr. Chen is trying to reposition Blackberry more as a service and software provider to large companies and governments. The company is also making efforts to cater security-conscious business by building on its encrypted messaging services.

I do believe that Blackberry is able to recover from the previous loss and start to make profit only if it can stand out from its competitors and have a unique position in customers’ mind. Blackberry’s strong brand background and great reputation for its cell phone security are beneficial and important for it to win back the market. The recent nude photo hacking scandal has raised people’s attention to smartphone security and highlighted their demand for trusted cell phones. With its sufficient and innovative technical talent, I believe Blackberry will regain the market.

Have you ever associated a casual food truck on a street with a fancy luxury hotel, such as Four Season? Now, you have the chance to try it out! Four Season has started its second annual food truck tour along the East Coast in the U.S. The food truck will visit nine cities and serve local gourmets in each city, such as lobster rolls in Boston and pastrami sliders in New York. The food truck also makes contribution to charities. By donating a portion of its revenue to local charities, it helps raise breast cancer awareness and supports pediatric oncology research.

I think this is a smart marketing scheme carried out by Four Season. Because besides all the basic services that customers expect from a hotel, it also offers a unique and interesting food truck service, which differentiates Four Season from its competitors. It is now possible for people to get high-quality hotel restaurant food in a convenient and casual way. According to Ries and Trout’s ideas, if a firm can claim a unique position in people’s mind, it will effectively stand out from other products and win the “battle for mind.” The creative collaboration of food truck and luxury hotel sets up a point of difference for Four Season and enables it to attract more customers in the future.

Click here to read the original article.