Today, more and more companies pay attention to collect data. Some data will be analyzed and visualized. Then company can use data visualization to solve some complex problems, or do forecasts. However, is data visualization necessary? Shander explains his idea in his blog.

As Shander said, data visualization is expensive. Therefore,it is not always a good thing for companies. I used to believe that it was inefficiency if a company had a huge amount of data, but did not use them. However, after reading Shander’s blog, I find that it is not true. If the cost of data visualization excess its benefit, then there is no financial reason to do it. Maximizing profit is the main goal for almost any companies. So, data visualization will become a financial weakness if the overall profit is decreased. Furthermore, sometimes data visualization is not necessary. For example, an Internet company does not need to do data visualization to see how Coca Cola’s price changing. Therefore, I believe that a company should do data visualization when it is necessary and is reasonable.

Reference: http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/11/does-your-company-actually-need-data-visualization/

In Benji’s blog, he analyzed why iPhone 5s had a small market share in China. I agreed with his opinion. However, I think there are more reasons why Apple did not do well in China.

In China, the market is more competitive. There are many domestic cell phone companies, such as Xiaomi, produce smartphones, which has many features. For example, big screen, super long-lasting battery, cheap price. Furthermore, these domestic companies are easier to know customer’s performance, and produce the smartphone which consumers want. Therefore, if Apple wants to win, iPhone must be unique in the market. However, I believe iPhone 5s does not have many differences comparing with iPhone 5. Yes, Touch ID is a new feature, but I think it does not give too many effects on personal using. By contrast, when Siri was launched, people were amazed about it. So customers were willing to buy iPhone 4s. However, when they face iPhone 5s, they think if it is worth to buy it (iPhone is more expensive compared with its substitutions).  Therefore, many Chinese customers choose other smartphones. If Apple wants to have a bigger market share for the next product in China, it should build iPhone 6 with a unique feature.

Reference: https://blogs.ubc.ca/haohuahuang/2013/11/10/re-external-chinas-apple-clone-how-consumer-atitude-defines-a-market/

I agreed with Girotra andNeressine’s opinion. An appropriate business strategy and audit the strategy constantly will help a company gets more profit and success. Today, e-business becomes more and more popular. However, the market is almost perfectly competitive and has a strong buyer power. Therefore, if a company does not build its point of difference and has some competitive advantages, the company will hardly survive. Amazon does a good job in this. Recently, it begins to provide Sunday deliveries service in several large cities in the USA, such as New York, and LA. This strategy helps Amazon successfully attach customers to purchase on Amazon.

Another famous example is Alibaba Corporation. It is a famous Chinese e-business company. It was founded in 1999, and today it is one of the biggest e-business companies in the world. At first, Alibaba just provided an online market for business-to- business service. Later as the company grew, it began to provide Consumer-to-Consumer, and Business-to-Consumers service. In 2012, the corporation divided their business into three companies (Tmall, Taobao, etao). The goal was to provide a better service to different types of customers. Tmall is better on Business-to-Consumer service, and Taobao is better on Consumer-to-Consumer service. By applying appropriate business strategies in different time, Alibaba becomes really successful.

Reference: http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/11/amazon-constantly-audits-its-business-model/

Recently, I have begun to think about the word  “ opportunity”. In class 20, we discussed different aspects about entrepreneurship: why people want to be an entrepreneur, and which kinds of skills they should have. I agree that these things are important. But, when I watched Brian’s video, there is one word that attracted my attention –“opportunity”. I think the ability to catch opportunity is far more important than other skills. If a businessperson can see and catch opportunity before others, he/she will have higher chance to become a winner. The reason is that if you are the first couple of persons in a new market, your company is much more easer to capture the market. For example, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs.  They are the first couple of people who saw and caught opportunity during the information revolution. Today, their companies are among the biggest companies in the world. Before Brian Wong begins advertising in mobile games, there are not too many people beginning to think about this area. Catch the opportunity before competitors, apply efficiency business strategies to the companies; that’s the reason why these entrepreneurs gain success.

Over the last decade, organizational culture has become more and more popular, and has being adopted by many companies.  The general idea is that companies provide good value to customers (such as free shipment), and treat their employees well (such as providing a variety of free food). But why should companies do these things? Why do they need to create their own company cultures? Basically, there are two main reasons. Firstly, from the employee perspective, free food, a friendly working environment will help employees reduce stress and feel better, so that they can preform some high qualities services. Furthermore, company culture will help build company loyalty, and employees may decide to stay. As they already got job training and have worked in the company for a long time, they are considered to be more specialized. Also, a well-known company culture will attract many high- value people who want to work for the company, such as Google.  Secondly, from the customer perspective, customers will feel happy by enjoying high quality services and major benefits (such as free shipping). Therefore, this will help customers build their loyalty to the company.

However, there is another invisible reason why companies create their organizational culture. They want to maximize companyprofit. All basic reasons will help companies to do this.

A couple days ago, typhoon Haiyan caused severe damage to Philippines, and many people lost their life and/or their families. Over the last decade, many natural disasters have occurred worldwide. Today, most companies rely on management information system. Natural disasters often severely damage MIS and cause system to shut down. Companies normally face two issues: the high cost for fixing and re-starting MIS, and the loss of important business data, such as customer information and order history. How should a company solve these issues? I have several recommendations. Firstly, a company should buy disaster insurance for its MIS if the company is located in a place where natural disasters regularly occur. Secondly, companies should back up their MIS data regularly to reduce the risk of losing data. Thirdly, if financially affordable, company should build an emergency system, so that MIS can be quickly brought online. Finally, countries should have the ability to forecast disasters. Therefore, companies can shut down their MIS in advance and try to save their machines and data.

A big event occurring in business in this month affects Canada’s biggest technology company, BlackBerry. It was purchased by FairFax Financial. Three or four years ago, BlackBerry was one of the leading companies in the cell phone market. Unfortunately today they are struggling to survive. Generally, people believe BlackBerry’s failure is due to inappropriate business strategy, inventory troubles, and less ability to attract the customers to their new products.

In recent years, BlackBerry has copied other smartphones and no longer kept physical keyboards. Actually, I think a physical keyboard is one of their great advantages. Some people use BlackBerry because of the keyboard, so they can easily check and reply to their emails, and work on their phones. Today, almost all smartphones use a touch screen keyboard. If BlackBerry can produce a new smartphone with a physical keyboard, their product will be unique in the market and have a huge point of difference from their competitors. Although BlackBerry failed in this quarter, they still have many advantages, such as the technology they have. If they can solve their financial problems, and manufacture some products with unique and useful features, they still have a chance to regain their success.

Reference: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/for-a-start-blackberry-needs-a-cultural-revolution/article14599159/

Today, many companies manufacture their products in Asian countries as several advantages.  For example, cheap labor cost,closing to a variety of raw materials. From Tina’s blog, I learn that high literacy rate can also be an advantage. This attacks my interest.  I want to know why literacy rate is also considered. This question links me to one article, which I read before, “U.S. manufacturing is back – but can Americans do the job?” In this article, I found that today the manufacturing work is complex. If some companies want to return their manufacturing back to the USA, they may face one problem: the USA may lack a huge amount of workers who can satisficy the requests of complex manufacturing skills. By contract, as Asian countries normally have large of population and high literacy rate, it is  easier to hire enough people who can satisfy the requested skills. These people may already have the request skills or can be easily training. Furthermore, these skilled workers will be paid a lower wage compared with their American counterparts. Therefore, many companies are willing to choose some Asian countries to manufacture their products.

Reference:

Tina Zhang’s blog—- Why does Apple choose to manufacture its products in Asia?https://blogs.ubc.ca/tinazhang/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/us-manufacturing-is-back-but-can-americans-do-the-job/article14230183/

As Senate disagreed with the new health law, there was no new budget sent to government. Therefore, most federal departments except security and the army were closed.

As the USA plays an important role in the international business market, this event gives a huge effect not just on the political area, but also in global business. As most departments shut down, almost all licenses and legal documents within the application processing will be delayed, and this will stop many business activities within or out of the country. For example, some part of international business will be paralyzed because there are no customs officers. In other words, many import goods cannot go into USA, and a huge amount of export goods cannot be shipped to other counties, and this will cause many companies to lose a huge amount of money. Moreover, millions of federal workers will be furloughed without pay. When they have no income, they have less purchasing power and this directly affect the business market. Besides, the market may become disordered as a result of the lack of government supervision.

Within this event, I clearly see that politics is an important external factor for business. As the American government shuts down, the business world faces so many new threats and is damaged.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304373104579107051184641222.html?mod=trending_now_3#articleTabs%3Darticle

This is an interesting article. As the article shows, some people tried to put their money in an ethical bank (which is invested money in renewable energy and companies which make some positive effects). In other words, these ethical banks get lots of new clients, and the traditional banks lose some clients.

Traditionally, companies try to get higher profit by doing some illegal things. However, these behaviours normally give companies some negative effects their brand images, and make them lose some customers.

However, it seems like ethics, and high profit are not always conflict. The ethical bank in this article is a good example. Actually, today many people in UK save their money in ethical banks. Jennifer Morgan (the character in this article) said she got the peace of mind by putting money in ethical bank and believed her money can make a difference to the world. Therefore, ethics is considered to be one of the bank’s strengths. After reading this article, I believe ethical banking is a new market. In the future, people may take care more about the environment or other ethical things. So ethical banking have a huge advantage to attract a huge amount of customers in the future.

Reference:   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19929371