After our class where we learned about BHAG’s, there was something that kept bugging me. How could one have a Big Hairy Audacious Goal with a tangible way of breaking it down into feasible steps? Isn’t the whole point of a BHAG to have a wild idea? The answer to this came from one of the most technologically advanced and unique company’s that exists today: X.

X (formerly known as Google X) is a company that thrives on having BHAG’s, in fact, that’s all that they do. They look for big problems in our world and fix them with a radical solution using breakthrough technology. They call these solutions “moonshots” referencing JKF’s BHAG of getting a man on the moon in the 1960’s. X seeks to solve these problems not by 10% but by 10x more. When I read through their company’s website, something became very clear to me. X is able to have such crazy BHAG’s because they encourage failure.

Source: BIM + Integrated Design

Astro Teller, so called “captain of the moonshots” once stated in a Ted Talk that X not only encourages, but also congratulates failure. One of the main objectives at X is to “run as fast as [they] can at all the hardest parts of a problem, and try to prove that something can’t be done.” 95% of moonshots fail as a result which seems like a very unsustainable business model for a company and yet, they’re still here.

The reason X is still around alive and well is because of the 5% of these crazy ideas that end up making it past all the rigorous testing. These projects usually have massive implications on improving our society. A couple successful projects recently included “Google brain”, a supercomputer that can teach itself using a method called “deep learning”. Another project is Wyamo, which is a self-driving car that has already clocked over 2.3 million km on the road.

Source: Waymo

Ultimately, the world is becoming much more interconnected through the use of the Internet. Daniella Moretti touched upon the role of e-commerce in her blog, which talked about Amazon. Amazon is currently looking into using drone technology to further this technological movement, which is something X is doing as well. One of the current projects X is working on that Astro Teller is in charge of is Project Wing. This is a project to get drones to deliver goods in the air, which makes shopping easier and more environmentally friendly.

Source: Wired

Overall, X is able to put out these crazy BHAG’s not just through ambition and hardwork, but also through encouraging failure. Through failure comes new ideas and greater successes, which can typically have a much greater impact on our daily lives.

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A couple of days ago on October 27^th, pre-orders for the brand-new iPhone X began. The iPhone X marks the 10th-year anniversary of the release of the first iPhone, something that has completely revolutionized the face of the earth since its creation. This new iPhone will be quite expensive at around $1500 CAD per phone. As a result, many people may buy the recently released iPhone 8 and 8 plus, which began shipment on September 22^nd. So far, the iPhone has followed a numerical sequence of numbers, which begs the question: what happened to the iPhone 9?

Source: Wccftech

 

There are a lot of different theories on why the iPhone 9 was never produced. Some say that Apple really wanted to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of the iPhone. This could be the reason Apple named it the “X” and not the “10” as they could potentially release the iPhone 9 at a future date. However, I personally believe this is simply a smart marketing trick from Apple’s headquarters.

 

The number 10 is considered a major milestone, especially in business. It marks the first time your company or products have been alive for a year containing double digits. In the eyes of consumers, this is also a big deal and they will typically be willing to pay more or wait longer for this milestone. This is because they will usually expect companies to make their products much better than ever before. Looking at McGrath’s Transient Advantage Theory, Apple has been following this method quite closely by ramping up a new product each year and capitalizing on it until the release of the next best thing. It’s very likely that the advantage for the iPhone 9 would be very small and most people would rather save their money to by the much more impressive sounding iPhone 10, or in this case, “X”.

 

Apple isn’t the first company to do this either. On July 29^th, 2015, Windows announced Windows 10, which followed the Windows 8 upgrade. Once again this could have been for a couple of reasons. First off, the number 9 is considered unlucky in Japan and with the significant presence Microsoft has there; the jump would be a smart move on their behalf. The more likely reason was that Microsoft wanted to encourage the majority of their customers who don’t upgrade to the newest product right away, to start upgrading. If they were still on Windows 7 when Windows 8 came out, that would be fine, but if Windows 10 came out, they would feel more pressure to upgrade, giving Microsoft more revenue.

 

So there’s the answer. There is no iPhone 9 because of simple, yet powerful marketing tools and worldwide superstition.

Source: Vorply

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Many businesses credit their success to long-term finance, marketing, strategy, or management. However, business is an unpredictable world with some of the greatest gains and losses happening in a very short period of time. In fact, just this week, Dove essentially destroyed their entire 10 year-long campaign in just 3 seconds.

 

A new advert released on social media on October 6^th portrayed a black woman turning into a white woman, as shown below. This picture went viral very quickly as many people believed it was highly offensive to people of colour and a direct attack against Dove’s very own campaign. Many were reminded of similar racist soap ads in the 19^th century where black people were depicted washing themselves and turning white. Dove quickly removed their ad from Facebook and publicly apologized over Twitter saying they “missed the mark in representing woman of color thoughtfully”.

Source: Toronto Star

 

One thing to consider about this ad is that the picture that went viral doesn’t show the full story. The full ad portrays the white woman turning into an Asian woman and then the ad repeats itself. The original ad was 13 seconds long with a 30 second ad on TV. Clearly, Dove did not intend to post a racist ad, rather they released perhaps the greatest marketing failure of 2017. Dove likely wanted to show how woman of all types and colour were equally beautiful as has been their campaign for a significant period of time. Despite this, with the first few seconds of the ad taken out of context, the damage was done with #DonewithDove trending on Twitter in multiple languages showing a significant movement to boycott the company.

 

What’s interesting about the ad was that the original black actress, Lola Ogunyemi, defended the company stating her time on set was “positive” and how “all of the women in the shoot understood the concept and overarching objective – to use [their] differences to highlight the fact that all skin deserves gentleness”. Regardless of how the ad was taken out of Dove’s original context, it’s very easy to see how this ad could have been very racist, so how did it pass through all the edits before release? Some attribute this to a lack of diversity in the workplace, something so crucial to large businesses around the world. Others say that there was a lack of consumer research and focus on downstream marketing as we learned about in class 11. Whatever the answer may be, it’s shocking that Dove would miss the mark so much and not see an issue with the ad before posting it. 3 seconds was all it took for Dove’s marketing team to damage the brand for years to come.

Source: CNBC

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We live in a world where most people view money/success and making the world a better place as two completely separate ideas. As business students, we all hopefully recognize that this is simply not true; however, there are instances that seem to perpetrate this stereotype. An example of this is Mylan Pharmaceuticals which sells Epi Pens across the United States. One would think that such a necessary commodity would be free of charge and covered by a nation-wide healthcare plan; however, the United States lacks a strong coverage system as compared to Canada. The article I delved into was written by the CBC and can be found here. To sum it up, Mylan Pharmaceuticals has quadrupled the price of Epi Pens in the past 8 years, bringing the price to $600 USD for a pack of two. This type of price is absurd as anyone with severe allergies can literally die without one. By raising the price of Epi Pens, the economic divide currently seen in the United States may become a manner of life and death.

 

This way of making a profit for a business is extremely unethical and harmful to people who need the medication. If media outlets spread this information around (which already has been happening, in this article), they could potentially make a dent in the company’s credibility and further decrease their profits. The increase in pricing of this item for the sake of profit coupled with public awareness would become a lose-lose situation. This could have all been avoided with Mylan utilizing good business ethics. Here in Canada, a company called Pfizer Canada has a licence through Mylan. A spokesperson for the company has stated that “the price has not changed and there are no plans to do so.”

 

As a more personal example of the importance of business ethics, we have to look no further than our own school. Every faculty seems to have stereotypes about Sauder students and many appear to believe that we’re only in this program to make the most money possible. During Imagine Day, the Dean of Sauder, Robert Helsley showed us examples of businesses that have gone on to make the world a better place, all of which were founded by Sauder students. All those people he mentioned are not only successful financially, but their incredible business ethics have contributed vastly to our society in an extremely positive way. After all, as we learned in the second class of Comm101, teamwork is more important in the long-run than the success of an individual.

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