Disney to probe labor claims in China factories

In this article, it shows that the company was not aware of what is happening in the factories in China. They thought that the company is working in very good conditions and trusting the factories to work according to the rules. What they didn’t know is that the factories were not provide the workers with any safe working conditions, and made them work more for extra hours with minimum wages. However, later the company was aware of the situation and they assigned non-profit social auditing and training firm called “Verite” to assess the conditions. This problem led to non-market environmental situation. For that, it should be analyzed through Baron's frame work.

The four I’s in Disney Article are:

Issues:
Social responsibility problems like
* Unsafe working conditions and extra working hours “employees to work 10- to 13-hour work days”
* “Paid below the legal minimum wage”

Interests:
* National Labor Committee
* Verite (non-profit social auditing and training firm)

Institutions:
* The government is involved in this issue.

Information:
* China’s government should be aware of the problem facing the employees in the working field. Also, they should know the conditions the employee has to face every day in the job.
* The interested groups know about the issue and try to publish them in the media like, newspapers to make people aware of the situation.

Al Maya Group plans expansion

The article shows the large expansion of Al Maya group. The growth was because of the “traffic growing and high gasoline price” which will allow the company to be like the “neighbor stores” for the people. Part of their growth is through Investing more than Dhs 40 Million in setting up 8 new supermarkets and at least two fashion retail stores. In this article I will use Porter framework to analyze the company.

The Company is considered substitute and could be a substitute of their companies. Large Company like, Carrefour is considered a big challenge to Al Maya company. Carrefour is a very popular and with highly demands over the GCC. It has 13outlet in the GCC and its revenue is more than 3.67 billion. From this information we can find out that Carrefour is considered threat to Al Maya and could be substitute for it.

There are many competitors to Al Maya Company such as, Lal’s, Choithram and Tesco. The competition between them is very hard specially when they are equal in size and power, so we can see that May’s expansion could be a way of differentiate and way of rising above its competitors.
Al Maya group could also use buyers and suppliers power as way to expand. Buyers and suppliers power have a very big impact on the expansion of Al Maya Group. For that the company is targeting buyers and suppliers and trying to affect on them.

Mecca Cola rides anti-West wave with cafe chain plan

Mecca cola is considered on of the popular cola’s in its region. Mecca company popularity in its Mecca cola production allowed the company to expand in its industry and succeed in it. Mecca Company now has coffee shops in many countries. The company’s core strategy is “to have at least one coffee shop in every Muslim capital.” Mecca Company can be analyzed through portal’s framework. For the coffee shop industry the Mecca coffee shop is rivalry with other companies. Mecca Coffee shop can also be seen as a substitute for many companies. For example, Starbucks and Central perk is considered big competitors for Mecca coffee shops. Opening a branch in Dubai would make the company face some difficulties. People became loyal customers to some famous coffee shops and new entry of the company would make it difficult to have customer’s interest and gain their loyalty. Being well organized company is one of the major elements of being successful in the industry.

Using politics to increase it is competition was one of the strategies they used to have a known brand name. As the comapny said “launch coffee shops under the brand name Mecca Cafe to provide an alternative to established Western outlets in Muslim countries.” The Company became famous after the boycott of Danish products. Also, we can consider it as a competitive advantage for the company. Mathlouthi said “We did not benefit directly from the boycott of Danish products”, “But the anger over this issue has attracted more Muslims to our products.” Moreover, Mecca Company growth enhanced when the demand for Mecca Cola started in France. Having many competitions, and lack of differentiation from other companies makes it very difficult to distinguish their company. Also, the company didn’t provide any kind of media channel to attract customer’s attention. The only channel that we can consider is world of mouth, chatting room. This lack in differentiation led the company to have a competitive disadvantage. To be known company they should target customers base their production on customer’s interest.

The New School

This article talks about how business schools are competing for student. It started when collage graduate faced many difficulties when looking for jobs and that is because of the increase in the competition between graduate students. For that many graduate student are taking master degree to increase their chances of getting the job. As Tom Lee said “a lot of collage grads are charging out for an M.B.A., but for the wrong reasons.” Business schools found this a good opportunity for them to get as many students as they can. Business schools started to enhance their program “to better prepare graduates for the competitive work environment,” said by Kim Riley. Many schools are using different strategies to attract the students and stimulate them. For example, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business tried to stimulate students by assisting in job search. As they said “Our goal [was] to provide jobs now and build relationships for the future. Also, Babson Colleges F.W Olin Graduate School of Business strategy was to arrange with some companies to allow students to work in the industry as part of studying to be able to handle a job in the future. The university also provided online M.B.A. programs for people who can’t attend the traditional class. Moreover, Charles H. Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at Depaul University of Chicago thinks that M.B.A. programs should be innovative by teaching all communication skills. Wake Forest University’s Babcoke Graduate School of Management in Winston Salem have another opinion is that it should be a collaboration between graduate and undergraduate schools. The University also provided M.B.A programs for graduate student of different collages. Dell Computer Company sees an opportunity to be part of this competition. Irvin founder of new program was sponsored by Dell computers to use this program to teach M.B.A studies. They provided free laptops for all students as a way of attraction. As Dell Comapny said “America has the interest and the capability to be involved in the long-term thinking and planning for the world tomorrow.” Competition between schools are not only about low prices but also re-think about their business and strive to fully understand the ways in which they can still offer value and competitive advantage over other business. As Jay barney said “not just a few resources and capabilities enable a firm to gain a competitive advantage but that literally thousands of these organizational attributes bundled together to generate these advantages. In this article business schools are trying to improve the economic performance of their business and increase their competitive advantage. Schools approach and attempts to develop the understanding through which different types of schools compete. Schools are having different valuable resources and capabilities. Although they are competing in the same business they are rare, because they are choosing different innovative approaches to attract their target customers which in this article the student. In general, there is no easy way to recipe for the success of Business organizations.

Effect of Danish Boycott Patchy

In this Article it shows the reaction of the supermarket managers in Jeddah to the controversial cartoon published in the Danish media. The Supermarket managers realized that buyers have power to affect on the Market. Buyer’s power is the power of the buyers to create competition on the other side of the Market. It is like a merger decision between sellers and buyers. In the Article Buyers used that power to affect on the decision making of the supermarkets. By using this power supermarket management started to do some changes. Fulfillment and Support is one of the methods Companies use to reach customers satisfaction. As Mohammed Gashgari said “We have pulled all Danish products from the shelves of our Panda supermarkets and hypermarkets as of Thursday and left the shelves empty for the people to notice. We have stopped promoting Danish products since early last week. This is a very important issue for us out of principle. This will continue until a just and satisfying official response from Denmark.” This message is considered a channel to reach customers and to get their satisfaction. They also used Information and insight to get information about the customer’s demands. They used Strategic Resources like Core Competence to make their Market different from others by using diverse ways to attract the customer. In the Article they attract the customers by leaving empty shelves to indicate that they took Danish products from their Store. They also used another way to attract customer by including a photograph of Danish Feta Cheese with the words “Canceled” In English and Arabic Clearly overprinted. They also used Core Processes where the people do activities rather than producing assets to translate competencies, and assets in to value to their customer. This strategic that Companies uses make customers more satisfied. Even though Danish products were five percent of their sales dissatisfied customers are more important to company who have competitors. Customers will switch to competitors if alternatives are available and if the company does not apply a number of methods to prevent customers from switching. These methods are way to strengthen the relationship with the customer and make it more valuable.

Google Is Destined To Fail In China

Google had some problems when entering China market. It was an indication of its eventual failure around the world. Entrance of Google in to China market caused them some threats of entry. The threats of entry that Google faced depend on the barriers that china industry presents. Google main purpose is to become the biggest search engine in the world with large profit. What Google forgot when entering China market is the huge competitor in the industry and the previous failing of other foreign Companies to enter the market. Moreover, Google Company was afraid of competing with other companies and didn’t use any of the Competitor Lock-out approaches. Google was trying to be a leader in the search engine market in china except that China has already leading companies in the same specialty. Competing with other companies in China means that all business are treated the same and even though they are competing against each other they still have good relationship with each other also Competitors are numerous or roughly equal in size and power that what made it more difficult for Google to work in China. The problem is not because Google is competing in the China but in the way they want to compete.

Test Post for MGT 406

Test Post for MGT 406 at AUS