Hydroelectric dam generates electricity from transforming the pushing force of water into electricity. It produces tremendous amount of electricity for both factory and residences, but it also destructively impact environment, such as eroding river bed, blocking fish migration routes, and flooding large area of land.

In September 18th, 2014, the First Nation chiefs urges government to reject BC Hydro’s construction plan of a mega Hydroelectric dam called Site C. Forcefully opposing against the plan, since the impact of Site C to the environment is destructive. The construction of the dam would flood 83 km of Peace River Valley, and causes a significant effect on First Nation’s fishing opportunity.

Would a $8 billion mega project be a benefit or catastrophe? The discrepancies between First Nation and BC Hydro obviously shift the value proposition of the dam. The environmental concerns of First Nation chiefs for their people become a dramatic external factor to the organization. As an external factor, First Nation’s concern of environment also implicate with politics as they claim to challenge the decision in Federal Court of Canada if the plan is approved. The violation on the benefit and property, which was declared by Premier Christy Clark last week that, ” B.C is Indian land,” would cause the co-operation between organizations and First Nations to be tangled to achieve. The external factors to organization could be critical and effect the whole canvas model.

Reference: O’Neil, Peter. “First Nation Chiefs to Stage Site C Showdown.” Www.vancouversun.com. The Vancouver Sun, 18 Sept. 2014. Web. 05 Oct.     2014.

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As we learnt in Class 7 Business Canvas and Strategy, a company’s strategy and technology will quickly being emulated by its rivals. This concept realistically revealed in the Mobile Phone Industry. Samsung and Apple are the two most significant competitors in the industry. Introduced in the Business Insider, Samsung’s ability on learning from its competitors is better than any others in the industry. It observes the social response to its competitors’ products to find out the interests of consumers, and then combines with their own research to produce new innovations. For example after iPhone 5s was released with the fingerprint feature; Samsung also released Galaxy S5 with fingerprint and heart rate detection features. In this way, Samsung could save a large amount of money on trying and researching. They could easily understand the favour of customers from their responses to competitors’ products. The rivalry in the industry is drastic; Samsung risks investing 5.7% of its total revenue into Research & Development while Apple only invests 2.4%. The input of researching and marketing created opportunity for Samsung to catch up and compete with Apple. Moreover, quickly help Samsung to learn and develop better innovations than rivals.

From understanding the interests of consumers and learning from competitors, Samsung’s products are as popular as IPhones in recent years. However, Samsung also got into trouble for imitating Apple’s design in the past, but it did not have an intense impact on Samsung. Emulating strategy and technology will not stop in industries; in order to keep the leading positions, companies need to rebuild their strategy from researching and learning. Learning from competitors are important for the growth of a company in the industry. Emulating, in my opinion, is an essential part of operation for a company to grow, since it could help a company to save both money and time on finding the interest and responses of consumers. The drastic rivalry will never stop.

Picture resource: <http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2014/06/apple-samsung-smartphone-patent-war.jpg>

Article Reference: Nisen, Max. “Samsung Has A Totally Different Strategy From Apple, And It’s Working Great.” Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 15 Mar. 2013. Web. 05 Oct. 2014.