The article talks about the significance of marketing and how to get the marketing message out. The most important point is making people realize they can have the greatest product or service, but if no one knows they are there, their business will fail.

I strongly agree with author’s opinion. Actually, from my perspective, it is the problem of value proposition and brand identity, which play a crucial important role in the business. First, increasing marketing can make people have a special impression on the product and generate a willing to try it which can increase the selling volume.

Secondly, it may be effective if marketing can be integrated into every facet of building and growing your business, such as newspapers, radio, fliers, word of mouth, networking and testimonials. However, in terms of small or growing companies who desire to be easily recognized and memorized, they would not have unstinted budget to support this kind of marketing. Despite the fact that marketing is the key to business success, production and operating are the basis of the business which is of vital importance.

Therefore, a contradiction exists. New and growing company have little budget to improve their value proposition and brand identity. On the other hand, the giant company uses a lot of money to do it and gains selling volume and the loyalty of consumers. This is an interesting issue.

Sources:

Get Your Marketing Message Out or You’ll Fail. By Glenn Muske (Blog outside Sauder)

http://smallbizsurvival.com/2013/10/get-your-marketing-message-out.html

The article is talking about LG’s innovation—its new smartphones with bendable OLED screens will be released later. This may be a good idea to launch new product after Apple’s 5S and 5C.

Even though the bendable OLED screens is the point of difference and flexible screens may play a big role in the future, however, it’s difficult to consider phones like the G Flex and Samsung’s Galaxy Round an effective application of the technology. There is nothing improved in its point of parity. The new product isn’t even trying to display it as an innovation that fundamentally enhances the smartphone experience. In other word, it is only produced for those who want to show up their new and special phone. However, most showing-up people will chasing after Apple, which is considered as the most fashionable technology company.

Considering the battle between LG and Samsung, in my opinion, Samsung will beat it because Samsung actually occupies 1/3 market share of the whole. Also, Samsung and Android gained a lot reputation during these years, which can enhance their brand identity thereby attracting many potential customers.

It is reported that Samsung is in a quiet push to make its Tizen operating system a part of the technology lexicon as familiar as Google’s Android or Apple’s IOS, which can make a greater difference that the mentioned bendable screens.

Source: LG’s innovation. By Yssa Romero.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/yssaromero/2013/10/08/lgs-innovation/

G Flex: hands-on with LG’s truly flexible phone. By Sam Byford on November 5, 2013 12:00 am

http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/5/5067186/lg-g-flex-curved-oled-smartphone-hands-on

Samsung Tizen OS touted as Android alternative. The Associated Press Posted: Nov 12, 2013 11:35 AM

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/samsung-tizen-os-touted-as-android-alternative-1.2423682

This article talked about the Zappos, which has been discussing in our lectures. The author found out some ways that she learned from Zappos which may “put a smile on customer’s face”.

First of all, it may be effective if Zappos can reach customers with different preferences. However, actually, never can it meet everyone’s need and affection. So it seems that it is an unreachable goal. Also, financially, there is no doubt that it should import increasing shoes to meet the diversity of both size and appearance. It absolutely leads to a significant increase in total cost with high risk due to the invisible returns.

Secondly, free calls may be a credible way to improve customer service, but, obviously, it needs a lot of labor—human forces, which is a relatively expensive production factor. Moreover, according to the video we saw in the lecture, employees always received many unreasonable call from customers—maybe just trouble-makers which is a great waste of time and money. Thus, from my perspective, it is not wise to increase profit by focusing on free call.

In addition, even though it seemed very ethic for Zappos to suggest their customers to look at competitor online shops, it did not make sense at all. Customers will hardly be impressed by the company who cannot provide them with tangible goods, especially online shopping.

References

-The Art of “Putting a Smile on Customer’s Face”. By Aylin Senem.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/aylinsenempiskin/2013/11/12/the-art-of-putting-a-smile-on-customers-face/

In spite of the decreasing impact of the globe economic crisis, many entrepreneurs are still confronted with a decline business and seeking methods to go over it. For example, in terms of management, the Hewlett-Packard has issued a new edict calling for more employees to show up at the office more often instead of working at home. Obviously, what Meg Whitman, the CEO of HP, wants is building a stronger culture of engagement and collaboration to improve the business.

There is no doubt that a healthy organizational culture may provide various benefits. Actually, not only can it enhance company’s rivalry by improving innovation and customer service, but also it can improve employee performance which can be more efficient and consistent. A 2003 Harvard Business School study reported that culture has a significant impact on an organization’s long-term economic performance.

Despite the fact that organizations with strong performance-oriented cultures witnessed a better financial growth, as a matter of fact, it would experience a hardship during short term. This is due to the difficulties of organizational change, especially the groupthink of it. If the CEO handled this kind of cultural resistant properly, the company would be survived and relatively booming after its turnaround.

In a word, a good organizational culture is absolutely beneficial to a company. However, in terms of management, it should be very cautious to make any organizational change.

References

1.At HP, Meg Whitman Wants People to Show Up for Work. By Ashlee Vance  October 09, 2013.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-09/at-hp-meg-whitman-wants-people-to-show-up-for-work

2.Organizational culture. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_culture#Impacts

3.Change management. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_management

As increasing sexual assaults happen all around the world, such as the cases on UBC campus, the whole society are finding a way to protect women walking at night from sexual assaults. At this time, the appearance of “Anti-rape” underwear hits the world. A small New York state-based startup gained instant online notoriety over the weekend for marketing a line of locking, rip-proof underwear that the company is dubbing “anti-rape wear.”

From my perspective, there are two reasons for why the “Anti-rape” underwear becomes a big hit. Specifically, one is that the company has a great sense of marketing and has the ability to reveal the valuable point for its business, like “Anti-rape” for the increasing sexual assaults. In other word, that is the company grasps what costumers need, so the forecast of this product should be remarkable.

In addition, another point is that the owners of the company know the significance of the point of difference. Actually, it has already been amazing for a company to produce this kind of underwear which can be recognized without a second. More importantly, it is closely related to what we concerned about. This is the core which makes it special so that boosts the selling volume of the product.

In conclusion, it is far more important for a company to do marketing research and make what people actually need become the point of difference among other competitors by the results of the research. It is of crucial significance for a growing company.

References

1. ‘Anti-rape’ underwear stirs up storm of controversy online. Tristin Hopper | 04/11/13 11:17 PM ET.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/11/04/anti-rape-underwear-stirs-up-storm-of-controversy-online/

2. Marketing Research

http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/research/

As the negative impact of economic crisis, many countries experienced a hardship during these years. On October 1, 2013, the United States federal government entered a government shutdown, forcing furloughs of 800,000 workers and suspension of services not exempted by the Anti-deficiency Act.

Actually, this is not the first time that the U.S. government had shutdown. Moreover, the reason for it is essentially similar—- the government budget balance, especially its financial deficit. As a management of a country, it should pay large attention to its management accounting. Specifically, management accounting is concerned with the provisions and use of accounting information to managers within organizations, to provide them with the basis to make informed business decisions that will allow them to be better equipped in their management and control functions. It focuses on the future. Also, it predicts the future and helps with making decisions and improving the performance of the organization based on logical statistics. Thus, if U.S. government had done well in management accounting, they would forecast what would happen in the future and avoid the government shutdown which leads to a huge loss of taxpayers and the negative impact on the whole society.

To conclude, management accounting is of crucial importance for organization. A organization, especially the one as big as U.S. government, cannot run well without it.

Reference

1.  United States federal government shutdown of 2013. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_government_shutdown_of_2013

1. Management accounting. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_accounting

As the economic globalization, increasing companies pay more and more attention on their brand influence, which can bring in a lot of profit with slight effort in latter period. TCL, which is a Chinese multinational electronics company headquartered. It began manufacturing consumer electronics for the Chinese market during the 1980s which can remind Chinese of their childhood, adolescence and even adulthood by their advertisements.

According to National Bureau of Statistics of China Advertising Association and the Urban Social and Economic Survey Group report, in January 1998, TCL ace TV on national TV advertising investment reached nearly 6 million RMB, which is in the first place among similar products in terms of TV ad. Obviously, a huge advertising investment produced a huge brand benefit. It is estimated that in 2000 TCL’s brand value reached 10.6 billion RMB, becoming a large sum of intangible assets in the TCL.

Chinese consumers have always shop around, not to mention whether they are loyal to a brand. What makes TCL bosses pleased was that, TCL has been established a significant value proposition awareness in the minds of Chinese consumers: Although “TCL” itself does not has any special meaning, these three simple red letters can be recognized easily by consumers among dozens or even hundreds of similar products.

Because “TCL” lacks the meaning of the concept, TCL is also very easy to extend its market. TCL brand covers nearly everything from phones to TVs, mobile phones, computers, monitors, and even to education, routers, and dozens of large and small product range — the latter product’s advertising investment is almost zero, thus saving a lot of advertising costs.

To conclude, establishing a great and influential brand name exerts a far-reaching impact on a company. Therefore, management should take it into consideration to develop the business.

Reference

1． TCL Corporation. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCL_Corporation

As the potential market in China is growing, increasing companies are interested in Chinese market which includes 1.4 billion persons. For example, Wal-Mart, which is an American multinational retail corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores, considers acquisitions in China to expand its market. However, Google is an exception. Google China was founded in 2005 and operated well until 2010. The very fact that Google ended some of its services in China on June 30, 2010, and the reason was the censorship in China.

The different attitudes of two companies largely depend on the property of them. Specifically, Wal-Mart is only a company that similar to a big super-market. What it ought to do is only guaranteeing its product’s quality. At most it is banned to sell sexual magazines which might be a negligible part of its profit.

However, the main service of Google is search engine which covers a lot of issues that against Chinese policy. Assuming that Google continues its strategy in China, it may gain a lot of profit but some people thought that this behavior acted against the slogan of Google, DON’T BE EVIL. So its reputation could be negatively influenced which exert a great loss. Also, Google violated its belief.

To conclude, although China is a potential big market, companies should think twice: will what company do violate Chinese policy? Will the faith of company be violated by Chinese policy? Maybe only company like Wal-Mart and Nike, which will not reveal much more information, is suitable for China.

Reference

1. Wal-Mart eyes acquisitions in China: WSJ. CHICAGO | Sat Oct 5, 2013 1:39pm EDT.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/05/us-walmart-china-deals-idUSBRE9940AD20131005

2. The definition of Wal-Mart. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walmart

3. Wal-Mart looks for China acquisitions. Oct. 6, 2013, 1:12 p.m. EDT. By Laurie Burkitt.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wal-mart-looks-for-china-acquisitions-2013-10-06

4. Google China. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China

As Apple’s IOS, Google’s Android and Nokia’s Win8 operating systems are in vogue, the competition among smartphone companies is increasing fierce. After the takeover of Motorola Mobility, which is part of Google now, BlackBerry announced on September 23rd that it had struck a preliminary $4.7 billion deal with a group of investors who want to take it private.

Obviously, the management accounting worked bad for the Blackberry, which became an important reason for its crumbling. Actually, the management of it was divided in opinion. QNX, as a new team which was taken over by Blackberry, was ordered to develop a new system independently, while the old team of Blackberry was developing the old system. In my opinion, this is a waste of resources, giving rise to a bad result of the Playbook which was widely considered to be a useless electronic product. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants states that management accounting as practice extends to strategic, performance and risk management, which supports long-range plans, adjustment between each sector, decision making of the management. More importantly, it is supposed to compare the prediction with the reality of the product’s situation and revise the method and decision in time to promote economic benefits. Thus, management accounting should have warned Blackberry’s managers and revise the strategy, but they did not.

In conclusion, management accounting exerts a crucial impact on a company. A company should guarantee the effective operation of it and it should warn the company in time if something serious happens. Blackberry is a counter-example.

Reference

1. Time for Plan Z. Sep 23rd 2013, 23:27 by M.D. | OTTAWA AND M.G. | SAN FRANCISCO

http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/09/blackberry

2. Inside the fall of BlackBerry: How the smartphone inventor failed to adapt. By SEAN SILCOFF, JACQUIE McNISH AND STEVE LADURANTAYE. The Globe and Mail. Published Friday, Sep. 27 2013, 7:03 AM EDT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/the-inside-story-of-why-blackberry-is-failing/article14563602/?page=all

3. Management accounting. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_accounting

Good business ethics contributes to positive reputation for a company. However, as long as a company causes one issue that violates the business ethics, almost everything of the company will be bad. Take Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd, a company from New zealand, for example.

New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra announced on Aug. 3, 2013  that tests of some ingredients used in infant formula and sports drinks have turned up a type of bacteria that could cause botulism. Before that happened, Fonterra was praised as the biggest export merchant all around the world. In addition, it is widely acknowledged that New Zealand and its companies have a clean and healthy reputation and business ethics can be implemented thoroughly. That is why many countries chose Fonterra.

However, Fonterra is not as ethical as the public thought, and it did not even take people’s health into consideration. Obviously, the violation of business ethics always gives rise to the damage of a company’s reputation. And then, a series of negative impact aroused which deeply blocked the development of a company. For instance, China has stopped all of New Zealand and Australia imports of milk powder even though some dairies’ products are reliable,  which is a big blow to Fonterra because it  focuses on Chinese market.

In conclusion, Fonterra lost its reputation and profit because of the violation of business ethics. Thus, following the business ethics has a far-reaching and important effect on a company. Once the company offends it, the company will pay for a heavy price.

REFERENCE:

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/new-zealand-dairy-giant-finds-botulism-bacteria-milk-products-6C10835461