“Social entrepreneurs are society’s change agents, creators of innovations that disrupt the status quo and transform our world. By identifying the people and programs already bringing positive change, they empower them to extend their reach, deepen their impact and fundamentally improve society.” In this way, the goals of social entrepreneurs are not only to bring fortune to local community, but also to help young entrepreneurs to improve their company and further more intractable social problems.

Fitih Tesfaye, the owner of Shega Shero Eatery in Ethiopia’s capital city, encountered big challenge in her initial stage of pioneering. The already saturated market and the increasing newborn competitors made her face the dilemma. It is not a thing about whether the funding is affluent or not but the lack of knowledge in entrepreneur. Having entered in the Arc program hosted by Sauder, Fitih found the way to deal with the problem and crave out her own niche.

Same changes also have happened on Salem Kassahun, the owner of a craft boutique and Maryanne Mathias, the owner of a fashion-forward clothing company in Ghana. The arc program not only taught them how to walk out of real difficulties but also helped them to thrive in the society and, which in turn, promote and benefit their local community.

Social entrepreneurs, as well as the arc program, are not focusing their eyes on short-term financial benefits. They are aiming to use their professional knowledge in business and skills at mobilizing human, financial and political resources, to help people change their ways of living and thus create shared value in a long-term to benefit the whole society.

Walmart and Target are moving proactively to get harmful chemicals out of their supply chains even though the nation’s main chemical safety law, the Toxic Substances Control Act, is outdated and hasn’t been reformed in nearly two decades. Walmart is focusing on cutting 10 chemicals of concern from home and personal care products it sells.

The action that Walmart takes can increase consumer safety, sustainability and transparency through entire supply chains of their products.

Most companies in today’s world are still viewing social responsibility as a periphery issue, but not the core. It is not rare that company emits poisonous gas without filtering. It is also a common situation in developing countries where food security cannot be guaranteed. The key issue here is that most companies are not aware of the changed approach to value creation. There is a thinking set that policy is depriving company from earning more profits, which leads to the situation that most companies are finding ways to capitalize on the lack of supervision. They view value creation narrowly and only aim to optimize short-term financial performance while ignoring the influences that determine their long-term performance.

Walmart is one of the far-sighted companies, who changes its way of creating value to a more sustainable and more beneficial one. In 2009, Walmart reduced its packaging and rerouted its trucks. These actions not only reduced the emission of greenhouse gases but also helped Walmart cut its cost on a large scale.

Creating shared value should no longer be a new concept for companies and our society. By reconceiving products and markets, redefining productivity in the value chain and building supportive industry clusters, company will be able to expand the total pool of economic and social value. However, there is still a long way to go. Company needs to rethink their value proposition, change marketing strategies, and adapt their operations to these changes… But creating shared value will no doubt be a key trend for the future.

Reading Resource:

http://business.edf.org/blog/2014/10/28/leadership-on-sustainability-must-include-helping-shape-smart-policy/

Zijin Liu’s blog: https://blogs.ubc.ca/liuzijin/2014/10/05/where-is-the-point-of-ipad-after-ipone-6-plus/

As Zijin Liu mentions in his blog, Ipad sales have been gradually decreasing these years. Zijin compares the screen size of Ipad mini with Iphone 6+, which no longer varies a lot and then lets readers to think why Apple makes these similar products and what triggers the decreasing sales.

Zijin makes the point that Ipad has a lot of close substitutes and it does not have a clear value proposition. I agree with him that Ipad has many competitors, including Sony Pad and Lenovo. According to a recent search, Ipad’s market share in Q2 2014 was 26.9% while SUMSUNG was 17.7% and others were 44.4%. Dating back to 2012, the situation was totally different, when Ipad took more than 60% of market shares. There is an urgent need for Ipad to make itself stand out from its competitors and turn the situation around to save its market share. However, Zijin’s point that Ipad does not have a clear value proposition is not persuasive. Ipad makes its positioning as entertainment device between Iphone and Macbook.

Next point Zijin makes is that for gaming and reading using, Ipad is less easy to carry compared to Iphone and less powerful when is compared to desktop. However, Ipad is not designed for gaming and reading only. Studying and working are also the basic functions for Ipad. Simultaneously, size is not the only criteria for users to assess a product. Yet, it is the size as well as functions and price that matters.

From my perspective, Ipad’s decreasing sales are attributed to the following factors.

-First, environment is totally different from past (2010) and now. In 2010, Macbook is heavy and thick and people are completely mesmerized by apps. However, at present, macbooks are thin, light and the app ecosystem is tired and somewhat stable.

-Second, larger size of phones is making students more likely to use their phones to deal with tasks, which, however, is initially designed as a function of Ipad.

-Third, the introducing of Ipad mini is confusing customers’ positioning for Ipad, as its screen is much smaller than Macbook, which cannot act as a replacement. Meanwhile, the size is not as convenience as Iphone.

Picture and resource from: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/samsung-is-stealing-apples-ipad-market-share-2013-10

Xuanya Liu’s blog:

https://blogs.ubc.ca/xuanyaliu/2014/10/23/what-results-in-the-falling-of-amazons-stock/

In Xuanya Liu’s blog, she writes that Yahoo should think twice before investing Snapchat. The main point she made is that the selling point of Snapchat- automatically delete the uploaded photos thus protecting users’ privacy- is not that strong and cannot ensure its reliability. This is a big issue that Snapchat should deal with urgently. However, I do believe that this problem cannot deny Spanchat’s potential of development.

Snapchat’s value proposition is to establish a platform for users to share whatever they want with their friends and do not need to care about the disclosure of their privacy. It is a total new concept in today’s world. Nowadays, people are gradually getting concerned with their public identities and are no longer able to share what they want with their friends in public social network. Every post published will relate to their social life and may be seen by their future boss, thus “taken all of the fun out of communicating”, said Spiegel, the founder of Snapchat.

Xuanya points out that Snapchat may not have the large market as Instagram has since Instagram targets on broader users. It is true that Snapchat only targets at teenagers between 13 and 23. However, this group is with great potential since they are at the critical time to establish their social network. Upon founding their basic network at Snapchat, they will find hard to abandon it. What Snapchat is trying is to create a total new socializing way.

Resouce from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snapchat

The dollar general company, which firstly established the concept of “one dollar”, is one of the dollar stores in America. Dollar store targets at consumers ranging from 55 to 64, who pinch pennies, cannot and don’t need to get into the high-end market because of their low income. Dollar store is selling daily necessities, simple clothes, food, toys, etc. The price is always lower than 10 dollars. Dollar store always minimizes their cost on labor and advertising. Meanwhile, they only provide a certain categories of goods and adopt a simple products’ display form.

When the dollar store first came into the market, it didn’t pose threats to the existing big supermarkets like Wal-Mart and Kmart, as it seems that dollar store doesn’t have any business overlap with them.

At first, most dollar stores were found in suburbs in southern and eastern America, where the population scale in these districts was small and couldn’t afford the big supermarkets and big discount stores. Accordingly, dollar stores occupied the market that big supermarkets cannot take into account. With the growing number of multiple shops, dollar store began to enter bigger districts and even those with Wal-Mart already. Using its convenience and price advantage, dollar store became the flourishing business around the world.

Dollar store has low gross margins, small target markets, and simple products and services that may not appear as attractive as existing solutions when compared against traditional performance metrics. The concept of dollar store can be understood as a disrupt innovation for retail giant. It targets at low-end customers who are beneath big supermarket’s attention.

Supporting information:

http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/cs/company-profile.DOLLAR_GENERAL_CORPORATION.7d1718d2a07e9402.html

Ashiley Lutz’s blog:

http://www.businessinsider.com/costcos-simple-strategy-2014-9

This post is a response to Ashiley Lutz’s blog on Costco. In Ashiley Lutz’s blog, she writes that Costco is consistently outperforming competitors like Wal-Mart and Target. She attributes this to two main reasons. One is Costco’s differentiate strategy- concentrating on driving sales. The other is the relatively high wages for its employees.

I do agree with Ashiley’s first point. Costco sells fewer items than Wal-Mart but increases sales volume they offered. It means that although Costco cannot be as competitive as a department store like Wal-Mart is, it is really doing well for a grocer.

However, I do not agree with the fact that the high wages contribute to Costco’s good performance. As what we learned in class, employees are motivated by values like respect, recognition, involvement, and fair treatment. Under paying employees is a disincentive, but high pay is not incentive. Only when people are getting satisfaction from their work can they be fully engaged in what they are doing. Zappo offers its employees a relatively low wage. However, it creates a family-like atmosphere and provides free food, dental benefits, etc. All of its employees are striving to make Zappo a better company and earn its company good word-of-mouth. It is not just pay, but also ensures every employee know they are valuable and how they do their job makes a difference.