Disney in Cambodia

In the article about how children in Cambodia are being hired in textile factories, we can see potential non market issues for Disney. Using the four I’s we can see that :

Issue: The issue in this case is that Disney is hiring underage children in textile shops in Cambodia
Interests: The people that are affected by this issue are the employees of the company and maybe the customers.
Institutions:
Information: Disney already had information that in Cambodia something like this has already happened in one of its previous factories.

Since non market issues can raise market, for example the customers of Disney can stop buying their clothes or stop buying Disney products all together. Disney should handle the matter as soon as possible to avoid problems with interest groups

The non market issue could have risen for a couple of reasons:

1- Disney became aware that it’s factories where hiring under aged children to manufacture clothes (new understanding of the situation).

2- Due to moral concerns for its workers Disney cancelled its production in Cambodia.

The stages of such an issue are:

Issue identification: Disney found that some of it’s companies where hiring under aged children to manufacture clothes
Interest group information: Disney should handled this non market issue as soon as possible to avoid problem with interest groups
Enforcement: Disney will probably ban the production of it’s products in Cambodia after what happened

Qatari Blacklist

The article about how some Qatari companies got black listed shows some non market issues that the Qatari companies are currently facing. This is considered a non market issue since effects the people they hire (Indians), due to a law passed by the Indian government. This non market issue will probably raise market issues, since the Qatari companies will have to start hiring other nationalities and this is a disadvantage since Indian workers settle for the lowest wages. This could also effect their relations with the customers and suppliers since some people might not want to be associated with a company that doesn’t treat its employees fairly.

Using the four I’s to analyze the case we see that:

A- Issues: The issue here is that some Qatari companies got black listed and can’t hire Indian employees anymore.
B- Interests: The people that could be affected are the employees the customer and maybe even the suppliers.
C- Institutions: The institution that had the most effect he is the Indian government since it banned the Qatari companies from hiring Indians. Also media played a role here since now people know that some Qatari companies don’t treat their workers fairly.
D-Information: What the Indian government knew about the issue was that their worker where not being compensated and that they where being treated unfairly.

This issue could have risen for some reasons which are:
1- Morale concern for the workers.
2- Interest group activity, in this case the Indian government.

Disney In China

The article about Disney in china shows a non market issue that the company is facing. Analyzing the issue using the four I’s we see that:
Issue: The issue in this case is that Disney is forcing its employees to work 10-13 hours a day and paying them below the minimum wage.
Interests: The people that are affected by this issue are the employees of the company.
Institutions: The National Labor Committee stated these facts
Information: Disney has no current information about the issue so it’s conducting an investigation to see if the claims are true.

This issue could effect the companies performance because as we know non market issues can lead to market issues in this case, such market issues could be that the customers of Disney will stop buying there products all together since they are abusing their workers. The previous non market issue could have risen due to moral concern and interest group activity.

The stages that such an issue goes through are:

Issue identification: The issue was brought up by the National Labor Committee.
Interest group information: National Labor Committee is probably a committee that is there to protect various employees and it could lead to bad publicity and damage the company’s reputation
Administration: The Company is currently undergoing an investigation to measure how accurate those statements are.
Enforcement: Once the company is done with the investigation they will probably take actions to correct the issue if it did exist.

Senior Workers Article

The article “seniors at a senor level” talks about how many seniors citizens are continuously working even thought they are over the normal retirement age of 65. Barney’s four questions about assessing a firms strength can be used to see if having workers over the age of 65 is beneficial, I will use Dana Cable as an example

The question of value: Because of the vast experience he has I think Cable is considered to be an important resources because he can aid it in grasping new opportunities and avoid threats.
The question of rareness: Currently there are not many people over 65 who are continuing to work, but it’s becoming a trend
The question of limitability: I think it will be very difficult for a firm to force their best employees who are 65 to continue working since most of them will want to retire.
The question of organization: I think firms with such senior workers will benefit from them because they are experienced and know how to and probably are exploiting the firms resources, otherwise I don’t think they will stay in a company that’s failing.

In my opinion firms with such senior workers might have a sustained competitive advantage in there personnel departments this is because such workers are valuable (due to their experiences and knowledge), rare (since many workers retire after 65), and difficult to imitate (this is in the sense that a company cannot force a worker to continue working for a firm even if that person if successful and experienced).

Danish Boycott

The article about the boycott of Danish products can be related to both the Hamel and Porter articles. From Porter’s point of view the article shows the buying power that consumers have, in this case the boycotting of Danish products. They had power to do this because the products bought from Denmark are mostly dairy ones and so are indifferent and standard, which means that they are easily substituted. I don’t think that the switching costs for the buyers are much this is because there are lots of local companies that sell similar products. Also Saudi Arabia and many other countries in the Middle East are boycotting Danish products which mean that combined together they buy a large amount of Danish products. This gives them a certain power because the Middle East forms large part of the market they operate in and so this might cause the Danish companies to ask their government to give an apology.

Some of the elements of Hamel’s business concept innovations that can be applied here are customer interface and Value network. Under the customer interface the element that we can apply is the information and insight, this is because the stores got information that people are planning to boycott and so they removed the Danish products from their shelves so they don’t loose customers. In the value network we can apply the coalition elements, this is true because the stores decided to join together and boycott Danish products until they receive an official apology from the government.

Google in China

In The first article “The Real Cost of Google’s Sellout” the main issue is how Google first refused to aid the US government in enforcing the online pornography legislation by stating that the privacy of their users is very important to them. The second issue is how Google managed to contradict them selves by saying that they will aid the Chinese government in banning access to thousands of websites, or anything that the government feels opposes their beliefs. This situation is related to Porter’s five forces in that Google faced a barrier to entry (in this case government regulation) and decided to overcome it by succumbing to their demands. The strange thing is that they rejected to aid the US government because they want to protect their users and then they go and accept an offer to prevent future users from accessing the materials they want. This could be since they are already established in the US, but in china they will do anything to gain the market even if it means sacrificing their customer’s freedom and privacy. Google’s mission as stated on their website is “Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful” (www.google.com/corporate/) if Google decides to go ahead and operate in china I think they should change their business mission, because they are basically lying to themselves and most importantly their users. And the business mission is one of Hamel’s Core strategies to succeed, if a company can’t stick to it and keeps changing its values people will begin to think the company is just interested in profit.

ASSIGMENT 3

Article 1 – Intuiting a Victory:

I think the first statement is most accurate because as defined by www.dictionary.com a rival is “One who attempts to equal or surpass another, or who pursues the same object as another; a competitor”. And that’s exactly what Microsoft is a rival that’s trying to enter a new market. Although Microsoft might overcome most of the barriers to entry I think it will still have some trouble overcoming product differentiation and the cost disadvantages independent of scale barriers. The product differentiation will be difficult since the customers are used to a certain product and might not be willing to change to a new style program, even if it might offer better options. This is true because a long time will be needed to train the employees to use the new program and the cost of replacing the old program might be too much. Also the cost disadvantage barrier is a major one for Microsoft because Intuit has years of experience on what the customers need and wants from a finance software

Article 2 – Polly’s Gourmet:

The statement that seems most accurate to me is statement F, this is because Sheldrake tried to surpass the services offered by Starbucks by giving the customers that come to his coffee shop a rewarding experience. This is also true because there are many rival coffee shops (eleven to be exact) and since the product being sold is a substitute in all eleven, Sheldrake managed to attract customers be offering better services and a customer friendly atmosphere.