After reading Ziyue Han (Dennie)‘s post regarding the waiting time for McDonald, my opinion is different from hers. The reason behind the long waiting time for ordering from McDonalds is not due to their many varieties of  menu choices, instead it is due to the lack of labour within each branch of the franchise. Since each McDonald only have certain number of staffs on duty on a certain period of time, there is a lack in specialization. There is only one person who is responsible for making burgers while the other employee is responsible for making wraps. Consequently, the efficiency of product output is much lower than having the whole process specialized with few more employees working together to make one hamburger. Each branch of McDonald always focus on taking customers’ orders than making what the customer wants. The reason behind this, in my opinion, is that if a customer is waiting for his order to be taken and sees that it is a long line up, he/she will decide to choose an alternative besides McDonald. On the other hand, if a customer already ordered his food and he is more likely to wait for his food to be served instead of switching to an other alternative. In addition, the increase in consumers might be another major problem that is causing the waiting line for McDonald increases. Since our economy is still getting back to its feet, a lot of blue collars, students and white collars do not have a lot of disposable income. In order to feed themselves, they chose a much more inexpensive way of dining, which is choosing fast food over the tradition restaurants. People are now more conscious regarding how much can they get from what they are paying instead of the quality that they are paying.

In my opinion, I agree with the thought that Chit Leung Leung is developing regarding Facebook’s offer to buy out Snapchat. Although Facebook is still dominating the social media market, its market share is slowing decreasing as newer social media outlets enter the market such as Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. In order to stay competitive, the only way to guarantee its market share is to assimilate its competitors through buyouts. Even though Facebook is willingly to pay the price tag of $3 billions dollars for acquiring Snapchat, the company knows that it is able to regain that amount back soon enough in the future once they acquired Snapchat as its own; in addition, Facebook might have realized that paying $3 billions dollar to acquire its competitor is a far better deal than losing its market share to its rival. If Facebook succeeded in acquiring the newer social media, the company will have more platforms to appeal to different ages, and thus broadening the its impact on people.

Source : Issac , Mike. Could Google or Tencent Beat Facebook to Buying Snapchat?. 2013. Photograph. All Things 3DWeb. 18 Nov 2013. <http://allthingsd.com/20131025/snapchat-is-mulling-another-huge-round-at-a-3-5-billion-valuation/android-snapchat-01-650×0/>.

The prices of necessities have huge impacts on the opinions and political decisions of a country’s citizens. As we can see from recent news from Venezuela, the President Maduro is conducting inspections over price-gouging industries and penalizing owners who are responsible for the extreme prices for merchandises. Consequently, Maduro’s actions will not only help increase his overall popularity within the country, his actions will also be promoting a change in market structure of Venezuela. Since Maduro is convincing Venezuelans that the price-gouging is caused by the evil capitalists, Maduro is trying to further turning the country into a socialist state while oppressing the idea of capitalism. It is amazing to see how prices of goods can affect the orientations and the governing structure of a country.  Socialists can use price as an excuse to argue it is the best alternative for the citizens if the government is responsible for price controls of all goods while capitalists can also use prices as an excuse to promote that the way market determines prices and quantities is fair for every single citizen.

Source : http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/14/us-venezuela-economy-idUSBRE9AD1F320131114

China has just hosted its annual Communist party meeting back in Beijing. Similar to previous years’, the leaders have proposed long term and short term goals for China. However, this year’s goals are more ambitious than previous’ since the President Xin Jinping has proposed major reforms within the Chinese borders. The country is planning to abolish the infamous one-child policy and proposing to open up the state dominated sectors to the public. In addition, the country is making plans to modernize its rural areas. Since China now has become the second largest economic body in the world, the country is turning its attention back into developing its second and third-their cities. It has realized that its workforce is starting to decline although its exports and outputs are continued to incline throughout the years. The government has realized that developing and supporting citizens in the rural areas is the key for future growth of the country. Besides policy reforms, the Chinese government is now also slowly allowing the market have more power over the country’s financial and economical performances. In an overall view, China is slowly stepping out from the Communist shadow under the directions from the President. In the future, China might overtake United States as the largest economic body under the condition that the country continues to undergo policy, financial and economic reforms.

Source : http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/17/us-china-reform-markets-idUSBRE9AG06B20131117

Recently, Boeing is searching for a new location for its new manufacturing plant, which will be responsible for the assembly line for Boeing’s new generation of long-haul plane, 777x. Due to the workers in Washington State have rejected the renewed employee contract from firm, Boeing has to turn away and look into establishing the 777x manufacturing plant in other states. Since the economic recovery from the 2007 financial crisis is significantly slow, many states are highly interested in bidding for the Boeing manufacturing plant. Opportunities are endless when one has a lucrative company establishing its assembly line within one’s state. The plant will not only reduce the over-the-top unemployment rate within the state, the state government will also collect large sum of tax revenues from the operation, in which both are essentials for state’s recovery from the crisis. In addition, Boeing is benefitting the country in whole since it is encouraging other large firms like itself to employ local (Americans) to assemble and produce merchandises instead of outsourcing to other countries in hopes of reducing variable and fixed costs for the manufacturing process. In conclusion, the process of establishing a manufacturing plant within American soil will results in a win-win situation for the company and the country.

Source : http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/15/us-boeing-states-insight-idUSBRE9AE00A20131115

Recently, there is an insider news leaking out from Microsoft regarding if Bill Gates is still suitable for the position of Chairman of the firm. The three major investors of the company are concerned that if Gates, who  is now focusing more and more on the Bill & Melinda Foundation funds instead of the company, is still capable of handling the company, and now wanting him to hand over his power. However, is it appropriate for three outsiders, in this case the three investors, to tell the co-founder and chairman of the firm to step down and to hand over his authority of the company? These investors are willing to ruin the Gates and his legacy merely because of their interest in saving their own stakes in the company. Besides seeing their investments grow, the investors might have neglected the relation between Gates and the technological empire that he built with his own bare hands.  Even though Microsoft is in a capitalist economic environment, is the human relationship and feeling going to get neglected? Is money to only true motivator and the only end goal in a capitalist environment? It is going to be interesting to see how the board of directors are going to react towards the three investors’ request.

Source : http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/01/us-microsoft-gates-investors-idUSBRE9901H320131001

This post is also related to some aspects of the previous blog post regarding business ethic. In the article, it is accusing British Petroleum has underestimated and lied about the amount of petroleum that was gushing out of the exposed drilling well back in the Gulf of Mexico.  The reason behind BP’s decision of hiding the amount of petroleum that was leaking out of its well might be its effort of trying to reduce its already enormous amount of fine imposed by the U.S. government (fine is determined by the amount of petroleum that had leaked out). Instead of saving and controlling the damage that the drilling well was causing to the surrounding environment, the company has chose to save itself in terms of reputation and financially. Consequently, the company has established an image of itself as a company that only care about “milking” money out of consumers and not care about anything else. The actions that BP had made generated public contempt throughout the world, especially the environment activists, and a significant drop in its revenue.  Although the company is doing its best for its stakeholders and itself, its actions have left an undesirable mark in the company’s history.

Source : http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/30/us-bp-trial-idUSBRE98T13U20130930

Even though the U.S. government has shut down due to the conflicts between the two political parties, the world economy continues to move on. Since the U.S. government is temporarily shut down, this meant that there are less regulations and rules imposed on the stock trading market. The investors see this as an opportunity to show off their investing skills. The shutdown of the U.S. government encourages more activities on the foreign trading markets, such as the TSX. When there are more and more people getting involved in trading, their money has to go somewhere. The rush of enormous amount of investments into the market pushes stock prices of many sectors up high. The material sector is one of the sectors that benefits from the government shut down. This significantly showed that investors across the world are starting get more active due to this current event, and this could possibly be the recovery of the international stock markets. Are the indirect consequences of shutting down U.S. government turns out better than what we expected? The question is answered by the markets.

Source : http://www.reuters.com/article//idUSBRE9960CB20131007

Samsung is slowly increasing its market shares in the smartphone market and catching up to its number one competitor, Apple. The reason that Samsung is catching up to the market leader is due to its willingness to modify and create new innovations for its already successful line of products. It is not afraid of losing its existing market shares by trying to experiment with what the consumers desired, and testing the boundaries/limits of the consumers.  As we can see from the release of its Galaxy S3 and Galaxy S4, people are starting to buy more of Samsung’s product instead of Apple’s because of Galaxy’s uniqueness and innovation. Consumers are always looking for something new is what motivates Samsung to continue improve its lines of products. The product’s uniqueness and innovation is the main tool that helps Samsung to close the gap between Apple and itself.

Source : http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobile-technology/samsungs-share-grows-while-apples-declines-in-q3-smartphone-market-229691

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