Class 20: United Nations and Social Enterprise

Everyone knows the United Nations, which is an intergovernmental organization, established on 1945. It aims to maintain the world peace, alleviate stressful international situation and tackle the conflict. How about social enterprise? Social entrepreneurs are

“individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems”.

In my point of view, the Social Enterprise assists the United Nations to solve lots of problems that the United Nations missed. The social enterprise always creates solutions to make the world better or innovate approaches to solving social problem. One example of Social Enterprise is Arc Initiative, which is

“a unique program built upon the partnership of business leaders, faculty, young professionals and students.”

This program discards the conventional business model and tries to build an innovative local business to solve the social problem by educating children the elementary business knowledge and foster their leadership. By doing this, social enterprise can improve some local particular social problems which are United Nations unable to tackle.
All in all, both the United Nations and Social Enterprise make the contribution to the world, and they are all necessary

sources:
http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/social_entrepreneurship_the_case_for_definition/

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7252825/Ashoka_studentkit_12-15-12_final.pdf

http://www.schwabfound.org/content/what-social-entrepreneur

Because of the recent international situation and the change of oil prices, Canadian dollar falls in last ten months, and it seems like will keep fall in the future year. On 15th October, Canadian dollar falls below 88 cents US, and this is the lowest number since 2009. Personally, I deem that even thought there are lots of negative aspects for the decline of Canadian dollar; this news still can bring out some beneficial facts. On the one hand, with the Canadian dollar keeps dropping, it might offer a new competitive opportunity to the investment immigrants. The previous cost of BC investment immigrants is around 1.8 million RMB (approximately 320 thousand CAD), but now it only needs 1.5 million RMB (about 264 thousand CAD). In addition, the decreasing Canadian dollar is also a good news for international students that save 2500 CAD per year for every international student. On the other hand, as the Canadian dollar falling, more job opportunities are available. In other words, the local unemployment rate will decrease. Overall, it is hard to say that the descending Canadian dollar is a good news or a bad news for citizen.

Sources:
http://business.financialpost.com/tag/canadian-dollar/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canadian-dollar-falls-below-89-cents-us-to-6-month-low-1.2787033

Alexander wang’s 61-piece collaboration for H&M is in stores and online on 6th November. On that day, the H&M stores were crowded with customers and each one customer could only buy one cloth. This phenomenon makes me raise one question: Why this collaboration is so remarkable that attracts lots of clients to buy it? To answer these two questions, let’s take a look at both these two brands.

The characteristics of H&M are cheap, and the style of clothes are various but lake of its unique features. Meanwhile, the style of Alexander clothes is exclusive and novel, which appeals a larger number of customers to buy it. However, Alexander Wang is one of the luxuries, so not lots of customers can afford it. This collaboration is win-win for both H&M and Alexander. With the clothes market becomes more accessible and civilized, luxury clothes markets will be languishing little by little. In this collaboration, products combine the advantages of both two brands; they are not so costly, but do not lose the uniqueness of clothes. In other words, the clients of H&M own an opportunity to buy a high-quality cloth, and the customers of Alexander can buy a cloth at a lower price.

Sources:
http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/article/TMG11096347/Everything-we-know-about-Alexander-Wang-for-HandM-so-far.html

http://www2.hm.com/en_cn/men/shop-by-feature/alexander-wang-x-hm.html

http://ca.complex.com/style/2014/09/alexander-wang-hm-preview

RE: The Rising Star: How Did Xiaomi Doubled Their Revenue?
Source: http://blogs.ubc.ca/jaeseunglee/

Xiaomi is one of the chinese electronic companies which is mainly selling smartphones. As the blog “The Rising Start” discussed Xiaomi only used four years to domain Chinese smartphone market and became the competitive challenger to Apple and Samsung. How can it be so successful in such a short time? I deem that the effective marketing strategy plays a crucial role in it. Except the low price, marketing based on social media, and online-base sales, which had discussed in last blog, I found there is another unique approach used in Xiaomi marketing strategy “Hunger Marketing”. Xiaomi always launches a conferences presentation in public to introduce its new products. By doing this, Xiaomi can attract more costumers and interest in its novel products. After that, the demand of the new smartphone of course will increase but the company always produces the quantity of smartphone below the demand to cause an illusion that it is so popular and it is hard to buy one. Thus, Xiaomi can sell its products in a short time, and there are no more inventories. In addition, “Huger Marketing” is beneficial for manufacturers to control the quality of production; even if there is the trouble or flaw in the smartphone it is within the control ability.

Sources:
http://blogs.ubc.ca/jaeseunglee/
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/08/04/xiaomi-overtakes-samsung-in-china-smartphone-market/

Xiaomi, What Americans Need To Know

A luxury high heel shoes Jimmy Choo is considering pursuing an initial public offering and going public in London in next few months. It is anticipated that the market value will achieve about two billion CND.
However, lots of people in the company claimed that they still have many other choices and make a small part of stock goes public is only one of the various options. This IPO will sell 25% share of the company to collect below 200 million capitals. As far as I deem that there are both attractive and dreadful facts or consequence to decide Jimmy Choo company if it goes to public. On the one hand, as I reckon that the compound annual growth rates of Jimmy Choo company kept from 10% to 20% in last five years, so the CAGR of Jimmy Choo tends to exceed peer companies average even though from 2012 several of dominating listed companies’ CAGR from 10% declined to 5% or 4%. Thus, going public is beneficial for Jimmy Choo to retain and attract talents.

On the other hand, the current externalities is more challenge, as the demand of China and Russia shrinks and the conflict between Ukraine and the Middle east, the turnover might go down in the largest Asian market. Both positive and negative effects need to be taken into consideration before going public.

sources:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciaadamczyk/2014/09/24/jimmy-choo-ip-in-october/

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-jimmy-choos-ipo-make-the-shoes-less-chic-2014-09-23

RE: The power of branding
Source:
http://blogs.ubc.ca/teddybusinessblog/

As the blog “The Power Of Branding” described, brand is essential for every enterprise. It can change customers’ decision when they are choosing the similar items at same prices and also it can give customers the best brand experience, which drives customers to keep coming back. What I want to discuss is based upon the power of brand, it is how to build a brand. There are three crucial steps to building a brand, which are Consistency, Persistence and Restraint respectively. As my point of view, recognizing the target customers and meeting the customers’ expectation are the most significant, which is the first step Consistency. For instance, the target clients of Red Bull are the athletes. Red Bull has lots of energetic names, the image of its package are two strong red bulls and it always says exaggeratedly that “Red Bull gives you wings”, which impel their target customers to expect this energy drink can facilitate them to replenish adequate energy and be extremely useful. Red Bull achieves customers’ expectation. It plays a useful role in assisting sportsmen to acquire energy immediately. Thus, an increasing number of customers have faith in Red Bull and become the loyal buyers of Red Bull. In other words, Red Bull has built its powerful branding successfully.

Sources:
http://www.dragonflyeffect.com/blog/puttin-your-brand-on-the-front-page-lessons-from-red-bull/

https://aytm.com/blog/research-junction/build-a-brand-in-3-steps/

Alibaba is a group which domains most of the economy in China. A better way to understand Alibaba is as a mix of eBay, amazon.com, paypal and Google. Alibaba officially lunched its first platform in Hangzhou, China, which is providing the “promotion plus web design” for the middle and small-sized enterprises. Thinking about how Alibaba can be so successful now, its marketing strategy plays an influential role. On the one hand, at the initial stage of Alibaba business, it provides enterprise a free opportunity to register as a Alibaba membership. This low threshold attracts considerable enterprises to be the members of Alibaba and then when the members reach a high number, Alibaba begins to charge memberships fees away. Notably, on the other hand, Alibaba plays as a middleman, who directly gets in touch with the sellers and buyers thus facilitates the transaction. In the design profit model, it just imitates the charge booth fees model of Canton Fair, which means it does not need to hook and trade effect, approaching first charging model. Compared with the Canton Fair, which needs the high threshold and booth fees, Alibaba’s advantages and values are reflected.

Sources:
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29077495
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2489054/e-commerce/alibaba-s-business-model-and-the-chinese-market-make-its-ipo-hot.html

H&M is one the world’s largest fashion retailers and we can say almost every H&M shop is trendy in the world. But why is H&M able to own such a good business, the most essential key for the success is their business concept. H&M focuses on offering fashion and quality at the best price.

How H&M achieve its business concept? On the one hand, as the fast clothing manufacturers, the most prominent trait for H&M is the high work efficiency. There is the very short time from the clothing design to be goods in the H&M shops, which is available for consumers to get in touch with the latest and fashion products as fast as possible. On the other hand, H&M pays more attention on saving costs; it chooses the low cost transportation, which makes the price of H&M, is cheaper than the Spanish brand ZARA and Japanese brand UNIQLO. What’s more,

“H&M does not own factories, but instead buys products from independent suppliers that are close long-term partners of H&M”.

It is also the key point for H&M can sustainably offer considerable products and reduce costs, since H&M advocates contacting with suppliers directly and cut down the middlemen. All in all, fast supply, low cost and stable partnerships contribute the ability for H&M offer the substantial goods at such a short in a low price for customers.

Sources:
http://sustainability.hm.com/en/sustainability/commitments/be-ethical/responsible-marketing.html
http://www.businessoffashion.com/2013/04/are-hms-high-end-marketing-tactics-paying-off.html
http://about.hm.com/en/About/facts-about-hm/about-hm/business-concept.html
http://about.hm.com/en/About/facts-about-hm/people-and-history/working-at-hm/values.html

Haidilao is the Chinese hot pot chain restaurants, which becomes so popular in recently years. Now Haidilao owns lots of branch restaurants in not only China but also in Singapore and the U.S. The reason why it becomes so sought-after is its humanized service, which is the essential point I adore most, and also the key point for its success. Combined with Porter’s Generic Strategies to think what the strategy Haidilao uses, it must be the focus strategy (differentiation) in the narrow market segment. It focuses on the customized and personalized service, which makes Haidilao stands out form, other hot pot restaurants.

Haidilao can meet various customers’ needs. For instance, for the female customers, Haidilao offers the beauty nail salon while the clients are lining up. Moreover, it is so circumspective that offer the hair ties for the clients with long hair and “eyeglass wipes to clean off steamy lenses”. For the male clients, it provides shoeshine service and for the children, recreational area is available, parents even can monitor their kids via the screen, which is sited before the table while they are having the hot pot. Importantly, all the services are free for any clients. Since Haidilao is always concentrated on doing the best service, it usually receives higher degree loyalty from its consumers than other restaurants according to the focus strategy.

Sources:
http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/generic.shtml
http://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-gold-20140531-story.html
http://la.eater.com/2013/5/22/6431143/hai-di-lao-unusual-chinese-hot-pot-chain-to-arcadia

This article mainly discusses that “CVS Caremark, the country’s largest drugstore chain in overall sales” is going to carry out the cessation of tobacco business plan to keep the municipalities from the diseases, which are linked to smoking. This plan’s starting point is good for citizen, especially for the teenagers’ health that is called “social responsibility of business” in the preparation article. Although CVS stopped selling the to tobaccos will decrease the profits they made and influence the incidental items, CVS can begin to offer “clients like insurance plans and companies” which assisted CVS to make up the revenue the lost in the cessation of tobacco business. This point is exactly what the writer talked about in the “social responsibility of business”. On the one hand all the stockholders in CVS can get profits in another better ways, on the other hand, this plan can also protect citizen’s health. In other words, CVS maximized the profits for shareholders, while benefiting municipalities and the whole society (decreased the number of smokers), all the stakeholders can get advantage from it.