yutong, wu's blog

I would like to say that even if the United Nation is well funded, social enterprise is still needed. Firstly, both social enterprise and United Nations have the missions that are in common. They are both trying to deal with social problems and are having a goal to improve the life of people who have been suffering from poverty and violation of human right; so, from the perspective of the society as a whole, the existence social enterprise will lead to better achieve of these goals. Furthermore, United Nations is more of an international organization which stands for a bigger environment compare to social enterprises do, so the United Nation focuses more on general and big international issues; however, social enterprise is a behavior of individuals, and those people are more likely to detect and help to deal with more specific problems around us. In addition, the most important aspect about social enterprise is that, this is the spontaneity of the society, and this kind of initiative represents an improvement of society since individuals in the society start to combine personal benefits with collective interests. So no matter how well the United Nations is funded, if social enterprise is creating values to the society then we definitely need it.

From my perspective of view, I think it is a great decision for Tesla to remove the patent, and I think removing the patent of Tesla will not increase threatens for the companies. The first reason is that sustainable transportation is a goal that people are trying to achieve these days, so, even if Tesla doesn’t remove the patent, there will still be new achievements and new entrants in this field, a patent will not protect Tesla from not facing more competitors in the future, instead, just as what is mentioned in the blog that the patent just “entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors”. By removing the patent, instead of playing its own game, Tesla actually declared its leading position in this field, no matter how many companies will apply its technologies in the future, talking about sustainable transportation, Tesla is still the pioneer in consumers’ opinion, so the first choice for consumers as well. Also, transferring from the manufacture of gasoline cars to electric cars, traditional car manufacturers need more time to set up and need to pay more efforts to explore, so, in the short run, there will not be lots of competitors, and Tesla can make better improvement and achieve new breakthrough to strengthen its leading position at this time.

I am one of the members who have bought a bottle of cola, which has my name on it, and I have to say this is definitely the most interesting idea I have seen recent years. Coca Cola has always been being creative and different when marketing for its products. This time it integrated social media and marketing to better interact with customers all over the world to create more possibilities for its future development.I agree with Winnie that It is true in order to succeed and survive, companies and industries should always keep innovating, and obviously, Coca Cola has been doing this all the time. However, for all the efforts Coca Cola has made to improve and be different, I think it is so narrow to just talk about successfully making profit here, I think what it has done is more of a reflection of its mission and value.
“To refresh the world, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness……to create value and make differences.” Coca cola has stick to this mission all the time. Even though it is already a successful company, it never stops improving and seeking for new possibilities. It always tried to be inspiring and innovative. Strategies like“share a Coca” is just one of its inspiring strategies. On the one hand, Coca Cola can get more money by doing so; on the other hand, it is delivering its value to customers. So, rather than say this is another way Coca cola is trying to promote its products, I’d believe this is just, as usual, a way it fulfills its mission.

 3D printing is a fairly new but exciting technology in modern society. Even though it is still on a developing stage, and is not ubiquitous among customers, we can still feel it’s potential and believe that one day it will be revolutionary. As an Entrepreneur, Lucas Matheson has a good sense of the future of 3D printing technology. Firstly, once the 3D printing technology is widely accepted in the future, what will be the jobs that both the consumers of 3D print products and 3D print artists want to be done? A good platform for trading can definitely provide more convenience to both customers and 3D printing artists. Lucas Matheson’s idea-“ITunes of 3D printing” is such a platform, so, there is a great potential for this business to be elaborated in the future. And also, we can see specific value propositions that the business has; it wants to create a channel that customers can easily download 3D print products, and a channel that 3D print artists can promote their products. Furthermore, this is a brand new idea that hasn’t been explored by others; once the 3D printing technology is popularized in the future, “ITunes of 3D print ” can get the first position and capture a great advantage in this market. In conclusion, innovating ideas can always lead to revolution, so, this “ITunes of 3D printing” is possible to achieve a great success under the developing and thriving 3D printing technology in the future.

Since2008, Starbucks has set up an on-line community called MY STARBUCKS IDEA which consumers can share their ideas and suggestions about the products of Starbucks. In this way, Starbucks can always understand what their consumers want and keep changing and improving instead of lagging behind the public trend. This is actually a good market strategy. Firstly, consumers spontaneously give responses to products they have tasted and these ideas can become important information for Starbucks to understand what consumers want. Also, compare to the ideas that are generated by doing a traditional market research, the information in this website is more valuable because those information is provided by consumers who usually buy products from Starbucks. Furthermore, getting social advocates is a good marketing strategy that can be used to advertise products. Even though, Starbucks is a well-known brand, the power of social advocates still cannot be ignored. People are more easily influenced by each other’s experiences of a certain product in a certain community, so, this website not only provides Starbucks with ideas about how to improve their performance, but it also helps Starbucks to advertise and promote their products, because of the influence of those social advocates.

Electronic industry is a very competitive market.The fast developing new technology easily called out many companies. So, positioning in this industry for a company becomes even more important.When, thinking about the most advanced electronic advices, people might not have LG in their mind, since, there are some other companies which have already positioned their products as the most advanced in the markets. So , it is so difficult for LG to replace their position. Understanding this, LG declared “life is good”, which positions its products to a “more human level”. Rolling out a new position I think is what LG is doing to create more possibilities for its new products. Also, new position doesn’t conflict with its previous marketing concept, instead, it actually strengthened the previous position and at the same time created better prospect. LG is still converting the idea that “Life is good”; however, now, it seems that it wants customers to know life is even better with new possibilities of technologies. So, I think this new strategy will provide LG with more chances.

Burger King merged with Tim Hortons, one of the most famous industries in Canada, to achieve its expansion to a new country. This action generated their strengths to overcome their weaknesses, and both entities can have a growing revenue by doing so. However, I think Burger king’s  plans might not work out as well as expected. Tim Hortons has achieved great success in Canada, and, I think for most of the Canadians or even people who are from outside of the countries, Tim Hortons is more of a represent of culture. So, some people like it just because it is Tim Hortons. While, once it merged with Burger King, this strength basically disappeared. So, even though Tim Hortons itself has a great influence on Canada, it doesn’t mean the new company in Canada would work out as well as Tim Hortons. Furthermore, the merge only conveyed an information that Burger King is now selling Tim Hortons’s coffees, if Tim Hortons doesn’t have a great impact in the US market, how would this become a strength which is powerful enough  for the new company to fight against the competitors? So, in my opinion, this merge will have fewer benefits than expected in the long run.

Selling outdoor products for almost 40 years, MEC has generated lots of loyal customers. Mountain equipment Co-op has been stigmatized in the fans of outdoor activities.MEC has recently rebranded, and I think this decision could be both an opportunity and a bad choice for it. rebranding might help it to attract more customers, since this action makes it “remain relevant” to the trend of the society. Furthermore, the simplified logo is easier to be remembered by customers. However, I think when it was making this decision, it need to think that this could help it to inspire the customer segments like young generations, but would other customers who were more familiar with its old brand be influenced？Would they accept this change? if the new idea is not accepted by some of its customers, this action is eroding its position. Also, even though MEC has made a great success in Canada, and is well-known domestically, in an international market, it is still on a developing stage, so it rebranded at this time can also threaten the their position in the international market. A company abbreviating its name might be a good idea if this company is famous enough(like Apple), but if not, abbreviating its name will lower its recognition.

CVS decide to stop selling cigarettes in the future. As a drugstore chain, CVS want to focus more on helping people take good care of their health, and cigarettes which are causing troubles to people’s bodies conflict with the wish of the drugstore.
CVS is not a non-profit business; stop selling cigarettes that can bring profits to them seems to be a bad idea; however, taking cigarettes away from their good shelves doesn’t cut down much of their profits; only $2 billion out of the company’s overall sells $123billion has been shaved. So, stopping selling cigarettes not only has little impact on the company’s profit, it also a way the company is taking responsibility for the society. Rather than saying this company is giving up it’s own benefit to support the society, I would say it is actually seeking for better ways of making profit, since the government of the country is enacting legislation to control the market of cigarettes. So, they are, on the one hand, trying to achieve “capitalism tick”, and on the other hand, they are looking for new opportunities, for example, the smoking cessation program the company is going have might make up some of the loss that the company has by stopping selling cigarettes, and this could be considered as an opportunity for the company.