What is social enterprise?

Social enterprise is to use business tools and methods, such as business management, to achieve social objectives. It is not like a charity, because the social enterprise can also gain profits. However, the social enterprise does not pursue to maximize profits like most companies do, it mainly focus on bringing benefits to people and dealing with the social issues. Through running the social enterprise, the social entrepreneurs can create both social and business value. For example, social enterprise can provide personal services for people, like baby-sitting to satisfy the social needs of this kind of service.

What is the Arc?

The Arc Initiative is to build a bridge to exchange knowledge and experiences through internship and workshop. It involves initiating and fostering relationship between communities in Rwanda, South Africa, Ethiopia and Colombia. For example, people can get business skills from other communities and then apply and take back these skills to their home countries. Jeff Kroeker, Sauder accounting instructor and Arc co-creator, said, “Arc provides a unique platform to fuse this [business] education with entrepreneurs in developing countries with the goal of building capacity, building relationships and ultimately, building a better future.” Arc has such strong power indeed.

“If the United Nations was fully funded why would we need the Arc or social enterprise”?

As I just mentioned above, the main goal of social enterprise is not to maximize profit. Social enterprise is mainly about promoting social-interest, solving social problems and improving the society. If the United Nations was fully funded, social entrepreneurs can also start their social enterprises, because they are not in conflict and social enterprise is not primarily for money. Social entrepreneurs can find the social issues which affect people’s life the most, and then they uses social entrepreneurship to organize, create and start a social enterprise to deal with the social issues, improve our society and our living environment, and achieve their social objectives ultimately. The society needs this kind of social enterprise to help change our living environment. Also, Arc is a unique partnership for global communities to share their knowledge and business skills. If the United Nations was fully funded, we should pay more attention on social problems and global expansion, but not on maximizing profits and making money. Arc can expand the business circle and build a bridge in the global market. It can bring more opportunities to the global market as well. Therefore, if the United Nations was fully funded, we need the Arc to expand and connect global market and build a relationship between communities; we also need social enterprise to deal with social issues to improve our society.

Reference:

“What is social entrepreneurship?”

http://skollworldforum.org/about/what-is-social-entrepreneurship/

“Arc Initiative”

http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/Global_Reach/ARC_Initiative

Comment on Tianye Guo’s blog:

This is what a SUCCESSFUL Entrepreneur Needs to Do

Title: That is What A SUCCESSFUL Entrepreneur Needs to Do

Author: Tianye Guo

Tianye Guo uses Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, as an example in her blog to show what a successful entrepreneur should do after being successful. Mark Zuckerberg started to learn Mandarin and tried to take and create the opportunities to enter Chinese market in the future.

After entrepreneurs start a new company and become successful on operating and managing the company, they should not stay at the same place. They should improve their strategies and enhance the employees working skills to make sure that the company can keep growing and make more profits. I totally agree with Tianye’s conclusion that all entrepreneurs know how to analyze useful and crucial information about their companies based on their current situation, but only successful entrepreneurs know how to make full use of their current information, resources and capital to create opportunities for themselves to expand their companies and enter global markets.

For example, Yun Ma (Jack Ma) is a successful Chinese entrepreneur and the CEO of Alibaba Group. He is the first mainland Chinese entrepreneur that appeared on the cover of Forbes. Is he successful? Of course he is pretty successful, and he knows what the best time is to start the company, to develop its business, to publish new service and to go public. He also knows how to utilize the opportunities to maximize the benefits and get best outcomes.

Therefore, I think successful entrepreneurs need to have better understanding of their own business. They ought to know what they should do to take the opportunities for which the markets provide, and they should create new opportunities for themselves to enter new markets and start new business by utilizing the resources and capitals effectively and efficiently as well.

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ma

Poor weather leads to lower quality crop.

As people know that fluctuations in the weather conditions bring fluctuations in farm output and prices and sometimes leave farmers with low incomes, and farmers always produce low-quality grains and crops with poor weather conditions.

In Canada, a snowfall and hail in September in 2013 created poor, cool and damp weather conditions for farmers at a time when the wheat crops had to dry for later harvest. Due to the poor weather conditions last year, the production of grains and oilseeds this year decreases a lot and the quality is lower than before as well. In 2013, the production of wheat crops reached a peak which is 38% increase than 2012. The quality was also pretty high and most was of highest quality. However, the total wheat production is expected to fall around 27% this year, and almost none is of highest quality. The quality is pretty low, which also influences the selling price.

Because of the low quality grains and wheat crops, the farmers cannot even get to the breakeven point and cannot get the money that they spent on growing them back. People are not willing to buy the low quality crops, so the farmers decide to sell the crops as seeds to livestock producers. The farmers use this way to get a little amount of money back as their income. As an outcome of this situation, 10-20 percent of farmers faced to sell the crops at a price which is less than the cost of production. Also, due to the oversupply of corn and soybeans production worldwide, the world price of corn drops 34% and the price of soybeans drops 25%.

This news is about how the weather conditions affect the production and supply of the grains and wheat crops, which is more about microeconomics. As the output and quality of the grains and wheat crops are much lower than before, people are not willing to buy such low-quality products and they might choose to buy much higher-quality imported grains and crops. From my perspective, if I know that the quality of the local products is not good, I will not support for them and sacrifice my self-interest to promote social-interest. I will buy better imported products just as most people will choose. In this case, as fewer people are going to buy low-quality local products, the suppliers have to look for some methods to sell them. One way that they choose to do is to lower the price, which makes the price lower than normal, and to increase the sales. However, this way seems not quite available in this case, so the farmers also sells the lower-quality grains and wheat as seeds to livestock producers to just get some money back. Also, if a product is oversupplied in the market, people will place low value on it, and the price will also be lower due to people’s decreased level of willingness to pay for it.

Reference:

“Grain farmers produced 27% less than in 2013 and face lower prices.” CBC News. Web. Oct 31, 2014

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/grain-farmers-produced-27-less-than-in-2013-and-face-lower-prices-1.2819868

Comment on Yiting Zhang’s blog:

#2 Alibaba shares surge in their NY stock market debut

Title: Alibaba Shares Surge in Their NY Stock Market Debut

Alibaba is the largest e-commerce company in China. Alibaba went public on September 19, 2014 and made it the largest IPO ever in US market, which was 22 billion dollars. From Yiting Zhang’s blog, I got some interesting points. Firstly, Taobao is the biggest online shopping medium under Alibaba, which is responsible for more than 80% of online e-commerce in China. For me, when I was in China, I used to visit Taobao when I had nothing to do even though I did not have something to buy. Taobao is gradually becoming a part of people’s daily life. However, I am surprised that there was no effect on Taobao when Alibaba went public. Why this happened?

Yiting also mentioned Alipay in her blog. Alipay is becoming a more and more common online payment method in China. People can use Alipay to pay for their telephone bill, credit card and other purchases. It’s very convenient and Chinese are more likely to use Alipay rather than giving cash directly. Once I took a taxi in China, the taxi driver asked me if I could pay him by Alipay rather than giving cash to him. I was so surprised about the popularity of Alipay. In this case, I think Yun Ma (Jack Ma) is very successful in building this online payment system. Alipay is a significant part of Alibaba, so I think Yiting found a good point.

In Yiting’s third paragraph, she asks about the reasons why people choose to shop on Taobao. From my perspective, online shopping is very convenient and we don’t need to go to a shopping mall and spend a lot of time on just walking around. Taobao is a unique shopping website which provides customers with a variety of good quality goods. The price is pretty low which can be affordable for most of people, and the quality of the goods is adequate. Also, Taobao provides a lot of goods that are hard to find in the market, so people will easily be attracted by the unique goods.

After reading Yiting’s blog, I have same feelings as her. As Taobao has become an integral part of people’s life, Alibaba should develop this online shopping system in other countries to earn more profits and expand its sales and brand influence. However, I wonder what will happen then if the company goes public and why they choose to go public. Is going public for every company a good thing?

Reference:

This link is about the secret of Taobao’s success:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-18/the-secret-of-taobaos-success

“Alibaba prices stock at $68 US in $22B IPO” CBC News. Web. Sep 18, 2014.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/alibaba-prices-stock-at-68-us-in-22b-ipo-1.2770686

“Group argues flooding valley would impair their rights to fish, hunt and use the area for ceremonial purposes”

First Nations are aboriginal people who have lived in Canada for a long time, but they are considered minority in Canada. They also have they own rights and land in Canada, and there is Indian Act to protect the native population and their rights as well. B.C. government wants to make good cooperation with First Nations, but First Nations are ambitious and they want more land and more rights in Canada. They also even declared that B.C. was Indian land.

The news is about that the B.C. government plans to work on Hydro’s $8-billion Site C hydroelectric megaproject, but B.C. First Nations rejected Harper government to do this. The First Nations wanted to negotiate with federal government and reject the project, because B.C. hydro project will bring many negative impacts on First Nations.

“The Panel disagrees with BC Hydro and concludes that the project is likely to cause a significant adverse effect on fishing opportunities and practices for the First Nations represented by Treaty 8 Tribal Association, Saulteau First Nations, and Blueberry River First Nations, and that these effects cannot be mitigated.”

This is a news article on First Nation partner issues, and it is mainly on the political, social, economic aspects. Political instability has been one of the external factors that influence the development between the B.C. government and First Nations. In this case, whatever B.C. and federal government decide to do, they should consider about the aboriginal people’s rights. If the B.C. government starts that hydro project, they could get a lot of benefits, but First Nations will get less fishing opportunities and their rights will be violated. Based on the Indian Act, aboriginal people’s rights should be protected as Canadian people. From the economic aspect, if B.C. government is going to do that, it will hurt the economic growth of First Nations. First Nations allow some small projects, but they reject the megaproject like this one to impair their rights to fish, hunt and use the area for ceremonial purposes.

Reference:

O’Neil, Peter.  First Nations chiefs to stage Site C showdown.  Vancouver Sun.  September 18, 2014.  Newspaper Article.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/First+Nation+chiefs+stage+Site+showdown/10215965/story.html

Montpetit, Isabelle.  Background of the Indian Act.  CBC New Canada.  July 14, 2011.  Newspaper Article.

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/i-5/fulltext.html

Staples closes 15 Canadian stores

“Office supplies retailer struggles to improve results in face of online competition”

In North America, such as U.S. and Canada, as many as 225 Staples stores are closed. 15 of its 331 stores were closed at the end of September in Canada in order to improve their results. Staples shut the underperforming location stores and moved online for bigger business. In modern society, as the technology becomes more and more advanced, online shopping becomes increasingly convenient and popular, and it has become a good substitute for people to go shopping. More and more people choose to shop online, which has reduced the profits of the stores. A latest financial report of Staples shows that the profit declined a lot from  $108 million  to $82 million in the second quarter of 2013.

Today, many other retail stores are also closed, such as Grand & Toy and Office Depot, and they moved all of their business online. Online shopping is a channel for suppliers to deliver products. As this channel becomes more convenient, more companies choose to use this distribution channel. Because selling products and doing business online cannot only reduce their costs of renting a store, but also increase customers and profits. But as more companies develop online stores, these companies will confront a lot of online competition as well, such as the competition with Amazon.com. Whatever the way they choose as a channel, they should consider about the way in which they can get the most profit. They should think about their own strategy to enlarge their company and seek for greater profits, such as making differentiation of the products or lowering the price. “CEO Ron Sargent said Staples had accelerated growth in its delivery business and introduced innovations such as in-store pickup windows for online orders to increase retail traffic.” From this, we can see that Staples is trying to make the online shopping different. Staples changes its distribution channel and its operation strategy to make its company more responsive to customers’ needs.

Reference:

Staples closes 15 Canadian stores. CBC news. Oct. 01, 2014. Web.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/staples-closes-15-canadian-stores-1.2783780

Mary Barra bets GM’s future on new models, sales in China

Stock up 2% after CEO outlines plan to boost profits

“CEO Mary Barra is relying on growing the Cadillac brand and building in China to help GM achieve better results”

“General Motors CEO Mary Barra told investors Wednesday that GM will rely on new models and a big push to sell more cars in China to boost profits in coming years, as the company tries to shift the spotlight from a mishandled recall of older small cars.”

General Motors had made a mistake on the ignition switches and caused at least 23 deaths worldwide. GM was blamed about that and they tried to recall all the faulty cars back and fix all of the ignition switches. This is a really serious problem, and the stock of GM has dropped a lot. GM tried to recall all of the small cars that have such problems all over the world, but the reputation of GM has already ruined. Because of that, GM wanted to make new models of the vehicles and enter Chinese car market to boost its profits. The Cadillac luxury brands in China have very high reputation, and GM wanted to take this opportunity and enter Chinese car market to sell more cars and get its reputation back. GM will introduce nine new models in China, and they assume that China will be the largest luxury car market in the world over the next decade.

From my perspective, General Motors changed its operation and management strategies and tried to enter Chinese car market for financial reasons. I think they got managerial accounting information from analysis about their company, and  tried to make a good plan and a right decision that are the best for them to continue to developing in the car industry. From the managerial information, they knew what they did could get more profits and what they should not have done since they had bad reputation in Europe, and even in the world. According to the concept of the managerial accounting, managerial accounting information is based on the internal specification for data accumulation and presentation. Good decision making should be made based on the information that managerial accounting provides. GM knew that the Cadillac luxury brands in China had very high repututaion, and the company sold around three million vehicles in China in 2013. Also, GM also knew that people would not trust the old vehicle models that they produced anymore. In this case, they made a plan to produce new models and sale in China to try to achieve better results.

I think when a company makes a mistake, the first thing that they should do is to fix the mistake and analyze the reasons why they make this mistake. After the analysis, they would know what they should do to improve their company and make more profits. Then they should adjust their operation and management strategies, and make a plan for their future development.

Reference:

Mary Barra bets GM’s future on new models, sales in China. CBC News. Oct. 01, 2014. Web.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/mary-barra-bets-gm-s-future-on-new-models-sales-in-china-1.2784291

Read more information about managerial accounting here:

http://www.principlesofaccounting.com/chapter17/chapter17.html

When iPhone 6 was launched, nobody realized that Samsung Galaxy Note 4 was also launched at almost the same time. People paid all their attention on iPhone 6, and forgot that there was another good brand called Samsung. This situation aroused my curiosity, because we know that Samsung is also one of the most popular smart phone brand in the world.

The following paragraphs are my analysis:

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd is one of the largest technology companies in the world, and it mainly produces consumer electronics, telecoms equipment, semiconductors and home appliances. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd is a pretty strong company in the age of technology.

Samsung has low production costs which make the price of some products lower than some other brands. Samsung does not price most products very high, so it has a very low gross margin on these products. However, it also faces threats due to its price, because all other technology companies are trying to reduce their price of the products. If Samsung continues to cutting price, the gross margin of many products will finally falls to zero percent.

Also, the design of Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is not very innovative, because most of smart phones that produced by Samsung are ultrathin with big screens. The screen of Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is still very big and is bigger than most cellphones of other brands. But iPhone 6 copied this innovation, and Apple Inc. also produced big screen smartphones which is iPhone 6 Plus. People like innovative products, and the innovation and design can bring more benefits to Samsung. But if Samsung and Apple are at the same conditions, more people might prefer iPhone 6 with no rational reasons.

Moreover, Samsung focus on too many products which is one of its weaknesses. Samsung has to divide the resources equally to produce different products. In this case, Samsung Electronics loses a focus when competing in too many different industries and products. When Samsung tries to make good smart phones, the company is also trying to make good home appliances. Samsung is in too many competitions in the different industries at the same time. In this case, Samsung could not put all of its attentions on the smartphones which gives Apple Inc. a lot of opportunities to go beyond it. On the contrary, Apple Inc only focuses on several products, such as iPhone, iPod, iPad and Macbook. From this, I think people might believe more in the company that only dominates in one industry.

Even though Samsung might not be the top one among all of the technology companies today, it is improving its products and its services gradually. It might overcome its weaknesses one day and become a better electronic and technology company in the future.

Reference:

Jurevicius, Ovidijus. SWOT analysis of Samsung. Strategic Management Insight. Feb 16, 2013. Web.

http://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/samsung-swot-analysis.html

Kelly, Jordan. Apple iPhone 6 vs Samsung Galaxy Alpha: 2014’s Biggest Smartphone Fight. Forbes. Oct. 14, 2014. Web.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2014/08/13/apple-iphone-6-vs-samsung-galaxy-alpha-2014s-biggest-smartphone-fight/

Samsung Official Website:

http://www.samsung.com/ca/aboutsamsung/index.html

Rogerson James. Samsung Galaxy Note 4 release date, news and features. techradar.phones. Sep 25, 2014. Web.

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-note-4-release-date-news-and-rumors-1239700