This blog highlights how hiring the wrong employees can adversely cost the company a lot of its resources and time. The time and money used in recruiting, selecting and orienting them are put to waste. Even worse, every time a company hires the “wrong” employee, the same time and resources will be used up.

In addition to this, there are also extra expenses spent on severance pay, termination costs and potential legal issues concerning unfair dismissals. This will of course greatly affect their company in a negative way; potentially chasing customers away due to its perceived image as a company that does not have corporate social responsibility.

Apart from bringing the company in a bad light, it will affect the company’s productivity, its relationship with their customers and work quality. Therefore, I think that it is important that a company ensures that they hire employees who cares about the interests of the business, truly wants to work there and help it develop and become more successful.

As mentioned by Berfu, most travellers like myself don’t pay attention to safety instructions on board mainly because it is very boring and repetitive. Even different airlines seems like they have the same instructional video. With this, Virgin Airlines is able to differentiate themselves among competitors and potentially attract more customers.

The main purpose of the video was probably to make it more engaging for passengers and ensure they know the safety procedures in case of an emergency. However, Virgin was able to utilize and maximize the costs used in the production of the video by effectively using it as a marketing tool. By releasing the videos on Google Play, Youtube and on digital boards across Time Square, they were indeed able to increase brand awareness and spark the interest of potential customers.

Not only this, but Virgin Airlines is able to project themselves as a fun company offering great flights.

The video: Virgin America Safety Video #VXsafetydance

Response to Berfu’s blogpost.

It is evident that there is strict competition between Samsung and Apple in the smartphone industry. Both companies offer the same points of parity such as the ability to communicate through voice calls and text messages, download and play various apps, take images and videos. It is also quite interesting to note how Samsung has been able to rise as the champion above all other companies that integrates the Android OS into their smartphones. This may be because Samsung offers amazing features at a fairly good price.

Despite this, I think that one of the main reason that Apple is able to rise above as one of the leading companies in the market is due to the point of difference offered by their unique OS; because of this, consumers may be more attracted to the product, helping Apple dominate the industry.

I agree with Jordan’s opinion about how competition will further encourage innovation and the production of better products. If competition didn’t exist, one company would have monopoly in a market, giving them the opportunity to exploit and raise the prices however they like.

Response to Jordan’s blog

In one of our lectures, we came across a unique company with a great organizational structure. This company is Zappos; an online shoe store that ships shoes for free with the possibility of exchanges within 360 days. Their staff also communicates with their customers well, even interacting with them on a personal basis. They are well-trained and deal with the problems on the spot: there is no need to go through multiple staff members.

This goes to show that Zappos provides its customers with impeccable customer service. But what is the driving force between the workforces’ enthusiasm and ability to provide high quality customer service? It’s Zappos’ organizational structure.

Zappos’ workforce is kept happy through many perks such as providing free food and drinks, facilitating social interactions between its employees and allowing individualism (they can decorate their cubicle). By keeping their employees happy, their loyalty increases and  customers are happy too; thereby helping Zappos keep their employees and customers.

It is also interesting to note Zappos’ recruitment process: they take extra measures to ensure that the employees they hire want to work for the company and arent there to just pay the bills. For instance, they will pay new employees to quit: it may seem like they will be making a loss but they are making more. It reduces turnover costs and the assurance that the employees takes the company’s interests to heart.

This article talks about how mobile apps have been chipping away $58 billion off of the global market for traditional video games due to the digital era and the convenience provided by smartphones.

Although it is true that our world has been greatly revolutionized by smartphones, I don’t think that it is at an extent where the video game console industry will suffer a great loss. This is because there is still a point of difference: an app cant give consumers the full gaming a experience a console can. Consoles have better graphics quality and the mechanics in terms of how a player controls the game is more engaging.

Probably the main reason why apps has a large and growing market is due to the accessibility and ease of downloading these games. Although games can be purchased online on consoles, it is not that convenient due to the large file size and downloading takes a lot of time. With this being said, video game companies cant fully integrate to this method of distribution. Not until every household has access to high-speed internet.

Source: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-14/2014-outlook-video-game-consoles-game-over-or-new-era

Wade Larson came as a guest speaker to introduce a very interesting concept of using HD video imagery to project a live stream of the Earth. This idea has now materialized with the launch of the cameras into space.

UrtheCast has a great competitive advantage being the only company that offers this service. It can attract huge companies and government institutions willing to purchase their service at a high price. This is because UrtheCast can provide them with information and footage that can help them monitor the changes on the Earth’s landscape and locate resources. Broadcasting companies can also use its footage to report the scope and effects of natural calamities.

Although this seems like the perfect concept, there are issues of privacy invasion, potential misuse of the footage and tension between the idea of open information are in place. However, I think that Urthecast will be doing more good than bad: I think that they are helping to foster people’s fascination about our planet and its amazing how this can influence us in appreciating and learning about the place we live in.

With Apple just releasing the Iphone 5S and 5C, it would probably take some time before Apple releases a new smartphone in the market. That being said, this may be LG’s chance to gain some market share and strengthen its position in the market through the release and introduction of its new smartphones with bendable OLED screens set to be released later this month.

Since this point of difference is new to the market, gaining the first mover advantage will definitely benefit LG; this is because its introduction to the market will definitely spark the customer’s interest and willingness to purchase it as it is not only a faster upgrade than its predecessors.  Hence, it is a battle between LG and Samsung to release this first in the market.

Source:http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-lg-curved-screens-smartphone-20131007,0,3500864.story

In Amazon.com’s German operations, threats of strikes during Christmas season: one of the busiest and probably most profitable season for the online shop is on the way in order to persuade the company to provide higher wages. Thus, delays on customer deliveries will have a negative impact on their image, causing their customers to not trust in the service they provide.

With this in mind, shouldn’t Amazon immediately negotiate with their trade union? However, this is not the case. Amazon seems like it won’t budge against these threats due to previous strikes having little or no effect to their operations. Apart from this, Amazon is considering on moving its operations to Germany’s neighbouring countries.

Amazon ignoring the trade union’s demand may not a very good idea as it will damage the business’ reputation, allowing it to be labelled as a socially irresponsible firm which does not care about the welfare of its employees.

Source:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/06/amazon-strikes-pay-germany

As a promotional strategy, Coca-Cola released a campaign that featured a series of bottle caps that were supposed to be used to create humorous sentences. However, Coca-Cola has been under bad publicity due to their carelessness. This is because the words on the bottle caps were either in French or in English; however, English speaking-customers are under shock and disbelief due to the offensive implications some of the French words had in English. Such words were “retard”, which means late in French and “douche”, which means shower in French.

Perhaps Coca-Cola’s marketing team should have clearly distinguished the difference of both languages in order to minimize offence.  Such little mistakes did not only cost Coca-Cola money as they had to get rid of the other bottle caps but it also damaged its reputation.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/marketing/offensive-phrases-on-bottle-caps-prompt-coca-cola-to-cancel-canadian-promotion/article14427173/

Despite Android phones having better specifications than Iphones, Apple still manages to have the most market share and sales, this may be because of the prestige and the lifestyle associated with Iphones. With the release of the Iphone 5S and 5C, wouldn’t Apple be making a loss through the costs associated with the production and marketing of the 5C? This is because psychology may play a role in this: even when customers intended to buy the 5C, won’t they be tempted to pay the extra hundred dollars to purchase the 5S as it offers more prestige and durability (5C is made of plastic)? Does this mean that the 5C serves to make the 5S look more appealing and therefore boosts its sales? This is probably not the case because it still has higher sales than Android Phones and it also serves to broaden Apple’s customer base.

 http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-23/apple-sold-9-million-iphones-last-weekend-dot-heres-why