After reading the articles and news, I understand about more about arc initiative and social entrepreneurship. We can join these two projects in order to contribute to our society.

I believed that the reason why we still need arc initiative and social entrepreneurship when we already have United Nation is because we can join those two originations easily. Social entrepreneurs are aimed to help to create social value in order to make improvements on system and create solution to certain problem. Arc is an organization, which gathers the business people in Canada, alumni from UBC, connecting to the global community and deliver knowledge to the world. These organizations provide us with a direct change to make contributions to our society.

Arc Initiative – Fueling Entrepreneurship

United Nation is indeed a powerful origination, and it mainly focus on worldwide big issues. However, there are some small towns and villages that need help, and their problems can be easily ignored. As a result, arc initiative and social entrepreneurship provide solutions to those areas. From the articles “Can fair trade boutique expand without alienating customers?” and “In a crowded market, entrepreneur finds a sweet way to stand out”, UBC arc team helped to solve the problems in Addis Ababa, which directly help them to find their solution.

Although United Nation is powerful, we still need arc initiative and social entrepreneurship to focus on particular issues. In addition, as a UBC undergraduate student, we actually can participate in these activities. As a result, arc initiative and social entrepreneurship is necessary.

On September 18^th, Alibaba issued its initial public offering that brought the world’s attention. As the largest e-commerce retailer in China, Alibaba now has a market value of more than $250 billion according to the news on November 4^th “Alibaba, Shrugging Off Slowdown in Chinese Economy, Reports Strong First Earnings”, and “Alibaba is worth more than Facebook”.

Alibaba is aimed to provide the world with a new and convenient way to exchange, including on-line payment. I think Alibaba changed the way of how people lived and the numbers shows that this has a lot of potential. I personally like to do on-line shopping and Alibaba makes sure that I can to do on-line payment. Especially in China, Alibaba established Taobao and Tmall, which later become the two biggest online selling systems in China. Alibaba also established alipay, a third party payment platform, which most of Chinese people chose to use. These examples show how people’s lives are changing with technology. I also believe that in now day, the industries that associates with new technology has a lot of potentials, since people want their lives to be simplified. Actually, I think that every firm needs a innovative thinking to make it differentiable.

“Alibaba is worth more than Facebook”

I try to imagine that in the future, people can just sit in their bed and press some bottoms on their smart phone, and they can handle everything. We are waiting for Jack Ma to establish more technology to us.

After reading Sichen(Michael) Pan’s blog “IT’S NOT [JUST] ABOUT THE MONEY”, I found some of his ideas really interesting and I really want to talk about these ideas as well.

He posted a blog base on Kalpana R’s article “Education Is More Than Scoring Marks”, which expressed a different perspective on education. Kalpana R states that we can’t just look at the marks, what’s more important is to gain experience in life.

I really liked that way how Michael brings this idea into business. I totally go along with his point that business is not only about making money, although this goes against with the concept that we leant in Econ class. I want to quote one sentence from Michael’s blog, which I agreed with: “Successful firms, like successful students view problems and challenges as chances to discover”. We can evaluate a successful students on their performance in class, their after school activities and their creativities. Similarly, we can evaluate a firm by its business ethics, sustainability, working condition, company’s culture, and etc.

After learning these concepts from class, I think that we can’t always assume that every business only wants to maximum its profit. The reason that we always assume this is because this assumption can make our life easier since we don’t have to deal with different extra cost spending on, for example environmental protection. However, we should carefully consider these concepts in reality because, as Michael states at the end of his blog, “it benefits not only the creator(s), but also the recipient of the finished product (aka. consumers)”.

Sustainability & Profitability

Home Depot Says About 53 Million Email Addresses Stolen in Breach

For the people who unhesitatingly believe that technology can only bring benefits to our lives, there is a headline for you: “Home Depot Says About 53 Million Email Addresses Stolen in Breach”. The world’s largest home improvement chain was attacked by hackers. The company also states that the hackers used a third-party vendor’s user name and password to enter their network and system.

Along with the developing of technology, a lot of retailers chose to hire consultants for business technology management (BTM). There is no doubt that technology does help the retailer to work more efficiently. The cashiers are able to send you a bunch of coupons through email. This however created a hazard to your personal information, because hackers can use more advance technology to attack the system. On one hand, from my point of view, I believed that any company has the obligation to protect their customers’ personal information. This is important for establishing a good customer relationship. Company should hire a more effective data security system in order to fix the existing vulnerabilities.

On the other hand, shouldn’t the customers consider more before they give out their personal information to the retailer? You don’t have to tell them your email and your zip code, and you can directly avoid some hazards by just being more watchful. I think after reading this news, I will stop telling them my true email address.

After reading the article “10 Ways Today’s Purpose-Driven Brands Can Bring Their Core Values To Life”, I have a strong connection with some points in this article. It mainly talks about that in order for a brand to survive today, it must bring its core value to life, and this article introduces 10 ways to achieve that.

The first way is about humanity. This indicates that if your brand value is connecting with more “good works”, people will find your brand more meaningful. It also talks about CSR, which I totally agreed with. In today’s society, people are becoming more concerned about the positive value that a brand delivers rather than only looking at the products and services. Therefore, I suggest that the company should put sustainability into one of their core value just like what this first paragraph is suggesting.

CSR is an important part of a brand’s core value.

The second way also caught my attention by a quote “you must tell a story worth telling to be a brand worth sharing”. It states that a good story of your brand will be even more useful than the technology you have. In my opinion, a good brand story should make their customers feel empathy. For example, I remembered how the CEO of Zimt Artisan Chocolate told her brand story in class. I could totally understand the purpose of her brand because my mother is a vegan. In addition, I believe that the story is also important because your customers can help you to tell the story. Isn’t that a good way to promote?

Make Your Brand Story A Tale Worth Telling.

Besides those two points that I talked about, this article also has some different ideas. I believe that these can be very helpful for a brand to deliver their core value to its customers

“10 Ways Today’s Purpose-Driven Brands Can Bring Their Core Values To Life”

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3019856/10-ways-todays-purpose-driven-brands-can-bring-their-core-values-to-life

People might find this question extremely stupid. If online selling is not possible, why do amazon and eBay still exit? However, what I will be looking at today is to sell cars online. According to Brad Farris’ blog post: “How to sell: How business owners can sell in this day and age”, I found a word that we’re so familiar with – Tesla. As we all know, Tesla is a car manufacturer that sells electric cars to the customers, and a big channel for Tesla is online selling. This sales model is so different with what companies used in the past, which is selling through car dealership, and I couldn’t agree more with Bard Farris that “Don’t get stuck in the old sales model!”

In my opinion, selling online requires trust between the customers and the company. To establish brand royalty and trust, it is very important that a company can create a good customer relationship,which I believed that Tesla did a good job on. In addition, Tesla also carries social responsibility since they deliver an idea of using eco-friendly product, which is their electric car. I totally support Tesla’s new selling model because it can help Tesla to develop. What I mean by that is that if Tesla wants to maintain this sales model, they will have to develop a strong customer relationship. In order to achieve that, they will work harder onits product and value proposition. Thus, in my opinion, this new sales model will not only make the customers’ lives more convenient, but it will also help this company to develop. So why don’t other companies try to adapt this sales model?

The partnership between First Nation and federal government is remarked as “historic”. They had negotiated in the past but their negotiations were not considered successful.  Recently, B.C. cabinet and native leaders came together in order to improve their relationship. Premier Christy Clark kept saying that she is not there to answer all the questions. In addition. She also responded “We simply aren’t there yet,” to First Nations proposal which I think is not a good answer. 

I found one sentence that Christy said very interesting, “This is our chance to be on the right side of history”. I wondered, what is the right side of history? If we looked back into the history, there were some really bad actions which did hurt a lot of native people, and I believed that First Nation people needed to be treated equally. As Christy said, that the right side of history is that they need to provide First Nation people with better treatment. Thus, I think the corporation between First Nation and federal government is necessary, and their corporation should correspond to what people really need. 

On the other hand, some people believed that they shouldn’t take responsibility for the mistake that their ancestor made. In sum, this is a controversial topic for all time. So all they can do is just keeping on negotiation and trying to find a solution which satisfy both group of people.

B.C. Premier urges cooperation, not more litigation, as government and natives reach “new fork in road”

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Premier+urges+cooperation+more+litigation+government+natives+reach+fork+road/10194776/story.html

https://blogs.ubc.ca/ziranwang/2014/10/02/blackberrys-new-unconventional-smartphone-to-be-revealed-at-mwc-2015/      Posted by Ziran Wang

BlackBerry is back to the market.  As recently, BlackBerry confirmed that they are working on a new smartphone which they described as “unconventional” smartphone, and this product will be released at MWC 2015. Few days ago, the BlackBerry Passport was introduced  to the crowd and there were about 200,000 preorders “in the first 48 hours”. Although this number is still low compare to Apple, 10 millions units within a week, it can still be considered as a huge step for Black Berry.

I agree with what Ziran has said in his blog, that since BlackBerry’s new CEO, John Chen took the position, the company is moving towards its right track. Rather than trying to get everything done all at once, the company starts to focus, as Ziran said, “only a few of its production lines”. I was kind of curious about this upcoming smart phone since  Ron Louks refused to introduce more about it. The main feature of this phone is that it can be operated by only one hand, which I believe it satisfies a lot of the consumer’s need. Thus, I totally go along with Ziran’s idea that BlackBerry is on their way of “changing its focus to enterprise customers”.

Last but not least, to see an obviously change within BlackBerry would certainly take some times, yet I believe it will be worth the wait.

What is the first thing that you are going to do when you arrive in your hotel lobby? Probably take out your phone and start searching for the wifi? But it is not going to happen if your hotel choice is Marriott, because all your internet access is blocked by the  hotel’s conference center.

Jeff Flaherty, the company spokesman, stated that they are trying to protect the customers “from rogue wireless hotspots that can cause degraded service, insidious cyber-attacks and identity theft” . However, some of their employees “used technology to disrupt customer WiFi transmissions”, which is terrible and unreasonable. Marriott Hotel still charged their customers “as much as $1,000 per device” to access their wifi and to charge on wifi has become a big part of Marriott Inc.’s income.

If we take a look at out society today, internet is an indispensable factor of our lives. As a result, to have free access to the internet is what most customers need. There are many ways to make more money, but internet is not a good way to charge. With the growth of online social media, the customers’ demand has changed, and Marriott should pay attention to them. To provide their customers with best services should be Marriott’s goal but not just making money. 

Fortunately, Marriott “was fined $600,000 by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission”.  After this, some people still believe that $600,000 is not enough compare to what they had paid to Marriott. Now, I’m removing Marriott from that list of hotel that I want to go to.

Marriott to pay $600,000 fine for blocking customers’ WiFi

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/marriott-to-pay-600000-fine-for-blocking-customers-wi-fi/article20916267/

Sears Canada, a retailer which is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, is facing a huge problem. “Sears Canada’s US parent” sells its stake in Canada to Eddie Lampert, its founder.  In addition, the CEO of Sears Canada Douglas Campbell intends to return to the U.S. and leave his job at Sears Canada.

To analysis the reasons for this survival issue that Sears Canada is facing, first we should step back and look at Sears’ performance in the past few decades. Sears barely react to the changes of environment and the needs of the customers. It is as old as before. Sears needs repositioning since rather than offering the customers what Sears can produce, they should produce what customers really need. Sears should absolutely rebrand or change its strategy in order to attract the attention of the younger generation. As a retailer, it should follow the trend so that it will not be eliminated.

After talking about the changes Sears needs to make, let’s move our attention to its service. “In some locations, you are more likely to spot a Yeti than a sales associate. “, said by James Cowan, showed a problem within Sears Canada. Costumers are not able to receive the service that they expect in Sears. It cause Sears Canada to loss support in the society.

All the retailer should pay attention to its customer service since  a retailer without costumers is nothing.  

Sears Canada Stake sold off by U.S. parent

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/sears-canada-stake-sold-off-by-u-s-parent-1.2785151

Lousy customer service sank Best Buy and Sears, not the Internet

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/companies-and-industries/retail-best-buy-sears-lousy-customer-service/