Chris Sorensen’s blog “ WestJet bound for Europe” describes that WestJet decides to open up a transatlantic airline between St. John’s and Dublin next spring in 2014.  This is the first flight WestJet connecting Canada and Europe.  As the airline’s vice-president Chris Avery states, ““WestJet’s innovative foray into the European market represents a willingness to do what it takes to connect Canadians to the world while bringing the world to Canada,” and the reason they chose Dublin is because there has flights to over 100 cities in Europe at a low cost.

This Calgary- based airline’s new decision actually surprised me since we have once discussed in comm 101 about how WestJet prefers only using the flight model Boeing 737s, because running a single flight model reduces the cost; it’s a very good and smart managing strategy.  However in Sorensen’s blog, he explains that WestJet will overhaul its cabins to include business class and premium economy tickets as they change into bigger, wider aircrafts like Boeing 767 or 787.  The higher price of the business classes is the major revenue for a flight company on oversea flights. Such change of WestJet shows us their ambition to move into international airline companies and become a serious player, and as Sorensen writes, “there will be more changes”.

Cited:

Business Blog.” Macleansca WestJet Bound for Europe Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2013. <http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/11/15/westjet-bound-for-europe/>.

I have recently read on Melissa Wu’s blog “the gradual extinction”, and in this article she indicates that the non-digital service is gradually moving into extinction. The Canadian telephone directory publisher Yellow Media Ltd recently announced to cuts 10% of its workforce as they are moving into digital and dropping the traditional pint and legacy area of business.

A now many of the publishers are suffering because of the fast developing technology world. The users have switched to online searching engine like Google Inc.  where they can access the information they need faster and easier. As for advertising companies, they have now chosen to advertise online, where holds a larger number of potential consumers, and further decreasing the revenue for director publishers.  However, based on Melissa’s researching, Yellow Media has seem to have an increase in the value of their shares.\

 I completely agree with her that currently there’s a rapid growth in e-commerce and digital services. The technology-based platforms have become more and more dominant in where we receive our information.  Companies should be flexible with the business they do and keep up with the consistently changing world.

cited:

“The gradual extinction” by Melissa Wu. Nov, 17, 2013 <https://blogs.ubc.ca/melissawu/>

Recently I read on Allison Lee’s blog “ Rainbow Oreos Sparking Internet Outrage”.   Based on her research, Kraft’s Oreo replaced the traditional white icing into rainbow colored icing in its advertisement in order to show support for world Pride last year.  Because of this, many homophobic consumers expressed their anger and disgust toward Oreos new appearance.  Facebook became the major platform expressing their outrage among social medias.  They posted their point of view with strong resistance to the new change.  Many threatened that they will switch into another cookie brand and never buy Oreo again.

Nevertheless, even though the Facebook uproar has brought negative effects on Oreos, Allison’s mentioned that it is still a brilliant marking strategy; I agree completely on that.  This incident has brought Oreos out to the public again and gained a large amount of attention.  Those who did not cared so much of this cookies brand may started to pay attention when they walk pass by the shelf that stands Oreos.  She also talked about that she was disappointed how this new rainbow colored Oreos cookies was a purely marketing campaign. The company wasn’t planning to sell it in the market.  After this Internet outrage and public attention, it could’ve been a great opportunity for them to introduce a new product, and could’ve further distinguished the brand from other cookies by showing support to equality.

The public might have forgot the incident already after a yearlong; after all, it was just a moment of heat.

Cited:

“Rainbow Oreos sparking Internet Outrage” by Allison Lee,  Nov 16, 2013 <https://blogs.ubc.ca/allisonlee/>

Instagram, a super hot online photo sharing social networking app is a great example of lean-startup business. By the end of 2011, there were only seven people working for it. Just over one year, the users grow to 30 million. In April 2012, Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock. Yet people ask “does it worth it”? Well, there’s large amount of uploading and sharing going on Instagram. And Facebook is an advertising platform, to advertise, they need things to catch people’s eyes. Right now, Instagram is getting a lot of attention. Instagram sharing now can be seen on Facebook, it is a good marketing strategy especially when Facebook is have a declining active users.

This strategy might seem good, but is it really useful? There are 55 million photos uploaded on Instagram everyday, and 0.45 billion on Facebook. At the same time, there are also 0.45 billion photos uploaded to Snapchat and 0.4 billion to Whatsapp. Though Instagram is a hit, but it is not the sole platform for such service. It’s just one of the major social networking app, not the biggest. Which means the help to Facebook may not be as significant.

Cited:
1.”Facebook收购Instagram无助于发展战略_科技_腾讯网.” Facebook收购Instagram无助于发展战略_科技_腾讯网. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. <http://tech.qq.com/a/20131112/001095.htm>.
2.”Why Would Facebook Pay $1bn for Instagram, a Company with No Revenue?”Technology Why Would Facebook Pay 1bn for Instagram a Company with No Revenue Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. <http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/alexisdormandy/100007240/why-would-facebook-pay-1bn-for-instagram-a-company-with-no-revenue/>.

Are you buying Twitter shares? On Nov. 7 2013, on the New York Stock Exchange, Twitter closed at $44.9 per share, up about 73% from its opening price of open share ($26).  The process of an IPO (initial public offering) begin when a company decides that it needs more money, and opens to public to raise cash. It hires an investment bank to help with the process; in this case, the investment banks Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase are handling orders for the 70 million shares offered in the company’s IPO.  It has been holding the biggest Internet IPO since Facebook, which sold at $38 per share for 421 millions shares.

Investors have already shown a new interest in the tech world; they are hunting for new industry leaders. Followed by Twitter’s IPO, there’s a crowd of companies dedicated to the new techniques of information storage, online social networking and cloud database. We  “could probably have a significant amount of transformation of typical businesses and industries,” Mr.Aaron Levie, CEO of Box(an online file sharing and cloud content management service for businesses), said in an interview ahead of the Twitter IPO. “I think that’s what we’re seeing from the public markets today.”

Cited:

1.”Box (company).” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Jan. 2013. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_(company)>.

2.”Going Public: How Twitter’s IPO Will Work.” Global News. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. <http://globalnews.ca/news/947566/going-public-how-twitters-ipo-will-work/>.

3.”Twitter Prices IPO at $26 per Share.” Yahoo Finance. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2013. <http://finance.yahoo.com/news/twitter-raises–xx-billion-in-ipo-190114410.html>.

Tyson Foods is one of the largest multinational corporations in the food industry controlling 27% of total meat and poultry supply in USA. How can they manage to produce such massive quantity?  Is the tempting farm image printed on the meat packages really shows the truth?

Well, for the farmers that raise animals, the cost of operating one farmhouse range form $280,000 to $300,000, not including the cost of upgrading facilities each year.  It leaves them with no choice but to keep signing contracts with Tyson because of the large amount of debt from bank loans. In order to minimize the cost and maximize the efficacy, chickens are feed with antibiotics to shorten the growth length from 3 month to 49 days.  Hundreds of chickens squeezed in one cell and live in the dark till slaughter.They even never get a chance to learnt how to walk.

In the factory where all the animals are slaughtered and packed worked thousands of undocumented workers. Most of them are illegal immigrants. The company brought them in, but in fact, there’s an agreement with the immigration office: they can take 15 workers away per day, but no massive raids. The hardworking workers are being taken away while the company doesn’t get affected at all.

Also, germs like salmonella and E.coli are delivered to people’s dinner table along with packaged beef from mass production assemble lines. With such large amount of production, affected beef won’t be able to be detected and goes out freely into the market, which had caused deaths along the years. For years within the Bush ministration, the chief of US FDA was the former chief lobbyist to the beef industry of Washington.

Who and what has empowered companies like Tyson to do things like this with out being punished?  Do we blame the famers and the factory workers, or do we blame the corp. that cares about nothing but profits?

Cited:

1.”Tyson Foods.” – SourceWatch. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2013. <http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tyson_Foods>

2.”Food Inc.”- Movie. Directed by Robert Kenner.

Since Apple released iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in September, Apple sold 9 million units of the iPhone 5s, blowing away its previous record for first weekend iPhone sales, which was 5 million for the iPhone 5 from last year. It was reported to be sold out quickly around the globe and as well as the online Apple store. Even though the sales of iPhone 5c isn’t’ as good as iPhone 5s, it is still a thrilling news to Apple by regaining its market share back. Based on the report, iPhone 5s is now the best-selling smartphone, followed by iPhone 5c, and Samsung galaxy S4 is ranked number three. This indicates that Apple hasn’t lost its strong competitive power yet, and it is estimated to have potential growth in the future as well.

Apple has also announced that there are now 200 million devices running iOS 7, which makes the fastest software upgrade in history. On the newly released device, the TouchID stands out the most by giving a new feature of unlocking the screen with a fingerprint sensor. That’s probably a major reason that attracted more people to but it.

Levin, Michael R. “How Will Investors Know If the New IPhones Are a Success? The IPhone 5S and 5C Signal Apple’s Future.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 17 Sept. 2013. Web. 08 Oct. 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-r-levin/how-will-investors-know_b_3942400.html>.

 “Apple’s IPhone 5s And IPhone 5c Sell 9M Units Over Opening Weekend, Topping 5M For IPhone 5 Last Year.” TechCrunch RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Oct. 2013. <http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/23/apples-iphone-5s-and-iphone-5c-sell-9m-units-over-opening-weekend-topping-5m-for-iphone-5-last-year/>.

How close is business related to government? Well, since the US government announced to shutdown their government earlier this month, the gold price has shrunk nearly three percent to its lowest point in almost two month. The price of gas, copper and beans as has also dropped but not as sharply. However, such changes in prices were expected since the last few shutdowns of the US government had also lead to drop in prices.

In common senses, since gold has always been considered as the safe-haven product, how come the price is not booming but dropping? Well, some investors think the temporary shutdown of US government will be resolved in a short time. Some think that the Federal Reserve will continue to pump money into the economy for longer than expected in order to offset the impact of the government shutdown. While most people are just remaining still to wait and see.

However, the analysts say that if the US Congress cannot come to an agreement and raise the debt ceiling before Oct. 17, the debt crisis will trigger the need of bullion, and the gold price will rise eventually.

“Gold Drops as Shutdown Continues.” NewsComAu. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Oct. 2013.<http://www.news.com.au/business/breaking-news/gold-drops-as-shutdown-continues/story-e6frfkur1226733964869>.

<http://www.kaixian.tv/R3/n207953c7.shtml> Web. 3 Oct. 2013.

 Tang, Frank. “PRECIOUS-Gold Tumbles 3 Pct, Rattled by Fund Trade, Govt Shutdown.” N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/01/markets-precious-idUSL6N0HR1G020131001>.

Li, Ka-Shing, the richest man in China and in Asia, announces to sell two of his companies’ stakes ($5.5 billion) in Guangzhou and Shanghai earlier this month. Just a while ago, he also decided  to spin of his Hong Kong electricity business at $4 billion. His act is being seeing as a warning that he has lost faith in both Hong Kong and Mainland China’s economies.

Li Ka-shing has always had a record of being able to predict the market just like Warren Buffett; Wang Shi, chairman of Vanke, a leading realty developer in China, warned that “sales of properties in China by Li Ka-shing, noted for his business acumen, is a sign which investors cannot neglect.”

In fact, China has always had a large housing bubble, it has not popped yet because the central government is controlling and supporting the real estate so hard. Li might have already seen the crisis and decided to back up before it’s too late. However, I think this is not just about the fragility of China’s current real estate, but also related to the politics since many Hong Kong business people are dissatisfied with the government of CY Leung, a Chinese communist party supported Chief Executive and President of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. There’s a very complicated and difficult guanxi among too many stakeholders.

“Li Ka-Shing Is Selling His China Real Estate – Should KKR Be Worried?” Mingtiandi. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1202&id=20130907000121

http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1202&id=20130907000121

Privately owned by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Bloomberg supplies news and data to around 310,000 clients at a cost of $20,000 a year per terminal.The messaging service, which it pioneered before email was commonly used, is highly prized by banks for its security and functionality.

In May 2013, more than ten thousand private messages sent between users of Bloomberg’s financial terminals have leaked online. Two long lists showing confidential Bloomberg messages between traders at dozens of the world’s largest banks including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.

The messages had been found through a simple Google search. They showed information such as Bloomberg user identifiers, real names and traders’ email addresses. Others can comb through traders’ messages to get better pricing information on financial products that are traded over the counter.

The apparent accidental leak threatens to unnerve Bloomberg’s clients. It leads me to think if we are prepared for large global business to be conducted through digital areas securely and privately? Is there an ethical standard for such business practices? After all, clear guidelines should be established, and Bloomberg needs to introspect whether they have gone too far beyond the line.

Works Cited

“Bloomberg Users’ Messages Leaked Online.” Financial Times. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Sept. 2013.

The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, n.d. Web. 12 Sept. 2013.