In the age where technology is so powerful, we often see news regrading breaches of security in businesses or leaked passwords on websites. Home Depot was no exception to falling victim to hackers hacking into their system and retrieving thousands of credit card information from their customers, causing huge security issues.

In his article of how Home Depot could’ve combated the hack, Justin Worland reported that experts are arguing that Home Depot (and companies vulnerable to hackers), instead of spending resources on prevention, should focus more on detection. Indeed, businesses should develop both proactive and reactive strategies in the face of an emergency or disaster. Home Depot, and other major retailers such as Target, has been adopting a primarily proactive approach in terms of keeping customers’ credit card information secure. While having a proactive strategy to combat emergencies is useful, it may be costly in terms of resources and time spent on trying to fix all loopholes in the system that the hackers can possible get through. It also applies to other businesses: to what extent is spending a great amount of our time thinking of possible emergency situations and developing the correct responses a productive use of our time? In fact, in general developing a proactive response to emergencies is usually more time-consuming and costly. As a result, having a reactive (detection) approach when dealing with hackers, especially for large retailers with enormous databases, can be the more efficient option even though it may seem counter-intuitive at first.

This case demonstrates that there is no perfect approach to developing a business strategy in response to change, and that it often depends on the environment the business operates in.

http://time.com/3404330/home-depot-hack/

http://time.com/3399822/home-depot-breach-exposed-56-million-credit-cards/

http://bookriotcom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/barnes-and-noble-booksellers.jpg

Many are baffled by the fact that Barnes & Nobles, the largest book retailer in the United States, started selling toys in their stores. I believe that the fact Barnes & Nobles diversifies into retailing books is due to the fact the firm was unable to respond effectively and quickly to the external environment.

As technology developed and many publishers began selling e-books, many national booksellers closed and their products, physical copies of novels, started to become somewhat obsolete. Ebooks became popular due to several reasons, one of the them being the fact that it’s less costly and the development and growing use of technology. While Amazon quickly responded to the changing environment by grasping the opportunity, the rapidly advancing technology, by producing an e-reader and selling ebooks, Barnes & Nobles was unable to react fast enough to produce a strategy that would take advantage of such a change in the public’s attitude towards reading books. Barnes & Nobles’s e-reader, the Nook, poses minimal threat to Amazon’s Kindle. Nonetheless, there are still a number of loyal customers who prefer hardcopy books to electronic versions. However, the fact that Barnes & Nobles began to sell toys, among other things, seems to be a sign that the firm has to find other ways to keep itself from closing.

http://time.com/3318591/barnes-and-noble-toys-nooks/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_%26_Noble

As we’ve briefly touched upon in class, Tesla has chosen Nevada as the place to build its “gigafactory,” or its $5 million battery plant. Such action has tremendous implications, which includes bringing 6,500 job opportunities and potential economic growth that Tesla may bring to Reno, Nevada.

In my opinion, Tesla’s decision to build its factory in Nevada may be seen as an act of corporate social responsibility — with a long term interest. Tesla, through the establishment of its gigafactory, plans on providing plenty of job opportunity to curb the 7.7% unemployment rate in Nevada, assisting in the economic development of the city (as well as the state), and ensuring aspects of the factory is sustainable, such as producing its own energy, to minimize damage on the environment.

However, like Friedman mentioned, such acts of responsibility may just be a “cloak” for an ulterior motive. Building this gigafactory can allow Tesla to decrease its cost in the short run. Also, I believe we must also consider the consequences of this decision to establish such a huge factory the town. When Tesla is financially unstable or leaves Nevada in search of a better location, it would be detrimental to the “Tesla Town” and leaves the city terribly unemployed.

Sources

Regan, Helen. “Tesla Awards ‘Gigafactory’ Deal to Nevada.” Time. Time, 5 Sept. 2014. Web. 10 Sept. 2014. <http://time.com/3272004/tesla-awards-nevada-huge-gigafactory-deal-reno-elon-musk/>.

“Unemployment Rates for States.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Web. 10 Sept. 2014. <http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm>.

Zimmerli, Walther Ch., Klaus Richter, and Markus Holzinger. Corporate Ethics and Corporate Governance. Berlin: Springer, 2007. Print.