In Jingyi’s article, I agree with her on the service provided by Korean Air. I actually enjoyed the services a lot during the long flight when I came to Vancouver from China. I would say that Korean Air does a good job on that. The cabin staff are very polite and always have smiles on their faces, which give customers good mood during flight. Apart from that, I think the food Korean Air provided is also delicious and adequate. Not mentioning its hygienic condition, customers feel comfortable on airplane.

Jingyi pointed out Korean Air’s serious safety problem which I wasn’t 100% agreed on. Korean Air did have several air crushes in the past. However, Korean Air sought help from foriegn specialists in flight safety and became more proficient on driving airplanes safely. As a matter of fact, International Air Transpor Association certified Korean Air as “the highest standards and best practices for safety” airplane corporation in 2006.

Accordingly, Korean Air deserves its good reputation overall since there’s no absolute safety guarantte or absolute consumer satisfaction rate. The only thing the company can do is to maximize its limits and tries their best to remedy any leaks brought to the consumers in the future.

Article:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/jingyijia/

http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2013/07/07/a-closer-look-at-asiana-airlines/

In Zhiying’s blog, she talked about the big success of TaoBao in online shopping market by effectively using the information technology. Personally, I strongly agree with that. On TaoBao, consumers just need to type the key words of what they want into the search bar. Then a list of various commodities will show out. Consumers can also rank the commodities in their own preferences like ranking by price, by hotness, and by time.

On November 11, TaoBao earned approximately $5.75 billion in one day. How does TaoBao do that? November 11 is the “single day” in China. By having that idea in mind, TaoBao claimed that it will have massive discounts on that day to help cheer people who are still single up. Originally, the target consumers are females. However, since the prices are very low on that day, males start to join the big online shopping group. In order to advertise this exciting news to consumers, TaoBao makes great use of its official website on Weibo which is a social application used by almost 90% of Chinese.

Nowadays, TaoBao not only has official application on mobiles, but also on iPads, which apparently create more opportunities for consumers shopping online at any time and at any place as long as there’s internet. Accordingly, TaoBao’s success can’t do without great use of information technology.

Article:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/lilyjiang/

Have you met any angels in real life? For me, YES! Angels are coming back on December 10th 2013. Although I have watched this fashion show since 2010, I was shocked again by the price of bras those angels wore. One of my favourite angels Candice Swanepoel will wear a 10 million Royal Fantasy Bra while walking on the runway.

Meanwhile, well-known singers will also be invited to the fashion show to give lives with angels, which will match Victoria’s Secret’s different topics. Apparently, lots of people enjoy their fashion show and celebrities will come to the show. It can actually bring a considerable amount of profits to the company because of the so-called “celebrity effect”. When auditors especially females watch the angels, they admire the angels perfect body shape. Therefore, they will start to go to gym to keep themselves in good figures and will go buy bra in Victoria’s Secret. From another part, after watching the fashion show, males are going to think of buying their girlfriends or wives Victoria’s Secret as gifts on event days. I would say that the company really does a good job on advertising their products effectively. Additionally, it has both physical stores and online stores, which enable customers choose either options flexibly.

Resources:

1. http://www.cbs.com/shows/victorias_secret/news/1001516/

2.http://www.victoriassecret.com/

Nokia is well-known by its high quality of cell phones. Additionally, Nokia focuses on producing eco-friendly mobiles. Not only the materials that made up the cell cases and the packaging, but also the energy used in mobiles all meet the environment-friendly criteria. More importantly, their cell phones and packaging are all renewable and 100% recyclable. Therefore, as a consumer, I would like to consider both of these unique characteristics as reasons when I actually purchase Nokia’s products.

The sustainable competitive advantages enable companies develop their unique products that fit in consumers’ tastes and create social benefits. When consumers purchase products, they usually know what they are looking for and what they are interested in. Therefore, it’s relatively easy for consumers to seek information online to find products. Meanwhile, some consumers don’t really know what they want while they are shopping. In that case, people tend to be attractive by unique and novel ideas and qualities of the products. As a result, it will increase consumers’ likelihood to buy those kinds of products.

In the end, companies with sustainable competitive advantages survive longer in the market and can easily get more attention from consumers, which will in turn maximize the profits.

Resource:

http://www.nokia.com/global/about-nokia/people-and-planet/sustainable-devices/sustainable-devices/

Does technology only bring benefits to business? To answer this tricky question, we need to be more careful and thoughtful because it depends. It depends on which side of the business people are talking about. For example in the news, Kindle e-book does provide more alternatives and bring convenience to customers, which is definitely a positive effect on both consumers and people who work in Amazon. However, if we see the opposite part of this phenomenon, it’s very obvious that workers in bookshop will get hurt because they will lose a considerable number of consumers and thus the bookstore will lose money and in turn employees in the bookshop will lose their jobs.

Apart from that, I was also thinking of the costs of companies if an advanced technology was introduced. Apparently, the costs of labor and capital will be reduced. At first, the benefits brought will be remarkable. But as an increasing number of technology tools involved, the marginal benefit is going to start to decrease. Another thing is that the rate of unemployment will grow up because the introduced technology will somehow cut off the costs of labor, which means that people again will lose their jobs.

In conclusion, although technology does boost economic growth of a business on some aspects, when it comes to other aspects, technology may not be that helpful or effective.

Resources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24868137

There was an article showed that social entrepreneurship expanded in China recently. Personally, that’s really a great thing to do. As a matter of fact, mainland China has very strong level of government control, so every time there’s a non-profit organization, they always raise money in public, which takes relatively long time to get responded by the government. But those social entrepreneurs are able to create values more quickly and more reliable.

Social entrepreneurs see issues in society, seek effective solutions to solve the problems, and more importantly they do a great job on being social responsible. Instead of behaving negatively, they bring hope and opportunities to society. Obviously, at the very beginning of this business, it isn’t easy to get attention by the society. After all, few people can only make a slight change. However, as more people start get involved with this particular business, the change and the benefits carried out as results to society or/and environment are going to be huge.

Personally, I will join some of the sustainable business in the future. I’m a member in society, and I see issues and problems. By helping people who are in trouble, I feel a sense of fulfillment. I know this is a tough work, but still helping people win their smells back does make lots of other people’s days.

References:

1. Hu, Xin. “Nonprofits in China » Social Entrepreneurship in China: A Resource Guide.”

Harvard Kennedy School – Hauser Institute for Civil Society . 6 Sep 2013. Web.       <http://hausercenter.org/chinanpo/2013/09/social-entrepreneurship-in-china-a-resource-guide/>.

2. “What is Social Entrepreneurship / Examples Of A Social Entrepreneur.” Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. Web. <http://skollworldforum.org/about/what-is-social-entrepreneurship/>.

Infrastructures and manufactures all use electricity to generate powers. There are a great number of power stations generate power by burning fossil fules. After burning fossil fuels, power stations emit the carbon dioxide, sulful dioxide, and other green house gase emissions into the air, which causes more serious environmental problems. Therefore, it’s also business’ responsibility to think of a way so that the green house effects can be addressed effectively.

Net Power said that they were planning to build a small power plant to ensure their new technology to help address global warming would work out. The new technology is to gather the carbon dioxide emissions only from burning the fossil fules and store them underground somewhere. However, Net Power is facing some practical challenges. The first one is that how can it gather pure carbon dioxide from all the gas emissions. The second one is that after storing carbon dioxide underground, if they mix with oil, oil emissions will still be difficult to capture.

Accordingly, businesses bring lots of benefits to each individual and to the society as well, they do generate some environmental problems at the same time. Regardless the problems, they are trying to find a new way to better the environment shows their responsibility not only as businessmen, but also as citizens.

Resources:

Gadkari,  Pia. “BBC News – Could power plants of the future produce zero emissions?.” BBC – Homepage. BBC, 27 Sep 2013. Web. 07 Oct 2013. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24225901>.

Brand positioning is not only about making employees be aware fo what exactly their products are, but also about how meaningful the brands are to consumers.

One way to measure or look at the brand positioning is through the emotional reflects of consumers when they see or hear the brands’ tagline. For example, the tagline for BME is  “The ultimate driving machine”. When customers see this, they feel powerful and trustworthy. Therefore, whenever consumers see BMW cars, they always get a sense of safety. BMW positions an effective brand in the market since the brand is well recognised by consumers and well defined by consumers. However, if BMW’s tagline is really plain and does not highlight its unique characteristic well, then it’s hard for consumers to have a deep and impressive impression after they see the cars or logos.

In conclusion, brand positioning is important to analyze the factors like the brand name, the brand information, etc. Analyzing the brand tagline is a hint as well.

Resources:

1. “Product Positioning.” QuickMBA: Accounting, Business Law, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Management, Marketing, Operations, Statistics, Strategy. Web. 05 Oct 2013. <http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/ries-trout/positioning/>.

2. Joseph, Jim. “The Art of Positioning Your Brand and Why You Can’t Afford to Screw It Up | Entrepreneur.com.” Business News & Strategy For Entrepreneurs | Entrepreneur.com. 19 Jul 2013. Web. 05 Oct 2013. <http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227445>.

Business models help companies to use their resources including products, services, and financial features to maximize their target customers’ needs and satisfactions. Meanwhile, a effective business model eliminate the wasted business processes so that to cut down the cost on wasted procedures, which enable organizations to make more profits. In addition, organizations actually develop their competitive advantages through demonstrating a business model. A successful organization usually has a comprehensive canvas, for example, Google.

Why does Google’s business model work? For one part, the company made a novel idea on their key activities part: it focuses on activities, that are inexpensive, in order to monetize the core values of the activities. Like the Google Doc, they are free for customers. But when you create and sign up for the account to get access to the online documents by using your email address, several advertisements will reach you. That’s how the advertising works in Google. For another part, Google’s technological innovations are powerful. When people are researching, different categories like vedios, papers, websites, etc. are shown in the top of Google.com. It gives customers multiple accessible channels to find what they want, and in return, Google gets more attentions from those customers.

Similarly, successful organizations always have effective business models to lead them to the right paths, which give them more opportunities to develop their unique tactics to run their own systems and therefore keep their companies function well enough to attract more customers.

Resources:

1. “Understanding Google Business Model | Understanding Business Models.” Understanding Business Models | Design, Assessment, Innovation, Differentiation, and Transformation. Web. 2 Oct 2013. <http://bmimatters.com/2012/03/29/understanding-google-business-model/>.

2. Crawford,  Alejandro  and Lisa Chau. “Why Google’s Business Model Works – Economic Intelligence (usnews.com).” US News & World Report | News & Rankings | Best Colleges, Best Hospitals, and more. 25 Jun 2013. Web. 2 Oct 2013. <http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2013/06/25/why-googles-business-model-works>.

Companies should place high priority on business ethics because managers’ tactics can have a great deal of effects on the society, consumers, employees, shareholders, and so on. It’s a disrespectful action to ignore the moral principles in their businesses. For one part, knowing that their companies have had negative effects on the society for not being ethical, employees will quit their jobs. In turn, companies can’t function well, which leads to a decreasing stage in the pool of consumers. Consumers will find out that it’s a fraud rather than a proper business. For example, one of the biggest Chinese dairy company “San Lu” was reported that there were excessive melamine in the products, which resulted in lots of infants having kidney stones. Since then, the society blamed the company for their deceits, consumers left for disrespectful toward lives, and the stakeholders lost plenty of money. For another part, each company should set an ethical standard so that employees will follow the rules efficiently. Therefore, good job performances always carry out positive feedbacks either from the society or consumers.