As a customer of Amazon.com in the last three years, I agree that the company has been under-performing based on its spending and rate of development in technology. Their customer services (especially in the issues of goods or books return or order cancellation) are performing very poor and even less well than other small online book stores. For instance, you may have to wait for more than 6 weeks (or up to 12 weeks on an international standard land service shipping times expired), before the company will refund your credit --even the vendor of goods or book in Amazon marketplace never return your e-mails or requests of order cancellation from the customer department. Amazon.com protects and cares its dealers and suppliers more than its customers. However, the company provides several international sites, such as Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, France, and China. It has thousands and thousands of vendors around the world with all kinds of products for sale. In this slow economy, new entrepreneur and sellers can use Amazon to sell their products (e.g., used textbooks, music or video CDs, etc.) online worldwide with a low monthly fee (e.g., less than $40) and access to millions of potential customers with world class fraud protection (Amazon.com, 2009).

  Reference


Amazon.com. (2009). Sell on Amazon. Retrieved on April 15, 2009, from

        http://www.amazon.com

      It is not a good sign that Ocean Conservancy's program expenses are nearing the same amount as their revenues. In order to function and manage well, it must get more than it spends, and the organization must increase fundraising, and do more public relations or advertising on public media—even it is one of America’s top 100 charities with over 500,000 volunteers and members (Ocean conservancy, 2009). Compared to other non-profit organizations (e.g., World Vision, or Red Cross), in our area, we seldom hear any news, or get any report from the Ocean Conservancy (especially, there is nothing about it on weekend morning’s non-for-profit organizations’ TV programs). The organization focuses on local or national level, and not much in international issues—however, oceans are connecting and bonding to each others.  In order to get more supports, donors, volunteers, members, and funds, it needs to redesign its organizational structure and communication system.  As we have so many lakes (e.g., Lake Superior, Lake Huron and Lake Ontario) that relating or connecting many major cities (e.g., Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, or New York) in North America, I suggest it should put all together and change the organization name as: "Ocean and Lake Conservancy" and keep protecting water, fish, and environment—this new name and approach may attract more urban school students, volunteers and members that they feel closely and directly their lakes and waters, so that it will get more fund raising and revenues in the coming years.

Reference

Ocean Conservancy. (2009). Ocean conservancy financial reports.

In the issues of growth strategy, Cosper (2009), Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur, argues, “Fear is not a growth strategy. Period… It’s bad enough that Detroit is wheezing and Rome is burning…but what’s worse is that the situation is making normally rational people act like loonies. It is fear. And it’s a real business issue these days… Fear makes us irrational—like thinking cutting and growing are the same things. Cutting costs does not equal growing sales. Never has. Never will… When you let fear infiltrate your strategic plan, you will fail to thrive in any economy. After all, fearlessness is what distinguishes entrepreneurial DNA” (p.12). It is very true.  There were many great innovative inspirations or products created during a recession, such as: Campbell’s chicken noodle soup in 1934; GE fluorescent light bulb in 1938; McDonald’s in 1955; and Diet coke in 1982 (Cosper, p.12). For a strategy to be effectively executed, it must be made action oriented (e.g., this is done through a series of programs, budgets, and detailed procedures).

References

Cosper, A. (2009, Feb.). Fear is not a growth strategy. Period. 

       Entrepreneur, 37(2).Retrieved on April 12, 2009, from Ebsco

        host: Business source elite database.

Wheelen, T., & Hunger, D. (2008).  Strategic Management and Business

     Policy. Concepts.  (11^thed.).  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Prentice Hall.

With the current slow economy, the subject: what can information technology or business professional do to continue and stay employed?   Eckle (2009) suggests that “First, they can keep their technology (or business) skills fresh and take advantages of training opportunities, such as free online courses and certifications… Second, they can leverage their (know-how or) technology expertise to help their company perform better (e.g., build an application that helps the firm’s sales division)… Third, stay positive. Fourth, stay busy, and never say no to an assignment” (p.1). I totally agree, and his suggestions can apply to any jobs or employments. This is not a good time to ask your company to pay your training if you can get it free online or at your local community center. Understanding and putting yourself in your employer’s standpoint will make better communication, appreciation, interaction, and consideration. In order to maintain good relationship and keep our business running, we just accept a new service agreement and cut one-third of our service charges from one of our major account in the Midwest. Company structure must follow strategy or environment.

Reference

Eckle, J. (2009, March 2). Career watch. Computerworld, 43 (9). Retrieved


       on April 12, 2009,from Ebsco host: Business source elite database.

Feedback from customers, employees, and trade people are very important to corporate strategy--it may present and offer new idea, suggestion, and direction to the company in the coming years. In an article that examines corporate strategy and Chinese multinationals corporation (MNC), Teagarden and Dong (2009) analyze that “Haier, Huawei, Lenovo, and TCL are not yet household names in the United States or Europe. But Chinese multinationals are making major inroads into markets that were once the domain of companies like Westinghouse Electric Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc., IBM Corp. and RCA. A number of Chinese multinationals… have emerged during the past three decades. As these firms have taken on world markets, they have evolved and grown in some effective and fascinating ways. This evolution has been accompanied by major shifts in corporatestrategy, technology management, and human resource management practices” (p.1). If they want to play the international business games, they must learn, practice, appreciate and comprehend the corporate strategy and approach. In order to achieve and present the company in the international market, Lenovo paid a huge price and bought IBM’s declining PC division and assume debt in 2004 for total $1.75 billion (Lenovo).

 
References

Lenovo. (2009). Company history. Retrieved on April 4, 2009, from http://www.lenovo.com

Teagarden, M., & Dong, H. (2009, January to March). Learning from Dragons who are Learning from Us: Developmental Lessons from China's Global Companies. Organizational dynamics, 38 (1), 73-81. Retrieved on April 4, 2009, from EBSCO: Business source elite database.

 

I agree that maximum value is the main goal in the corporate strategy for Newbury Comics. It is the same approach for those international corporations, such as Lenovo for PC computer, or Haier Group that making refrigerator and air condition in China. When you walk into the Home Depot or Sam’s club, you may see Haier’s products are lower prices with lower structures or designs—according to the vendors’ orders, offers, and instructions. However, in the beginning, this is the only approach or competitive advantage  that allow it to offer or present into the U.S. and international markets, but its future and potential markets are great. It just take times to learn, invest, and change. Now, when you look into the websites in English of these two companies, you can see, in fact, they are the best websites among other corporations in China, and their business approaches are almost the same as their western partners (with social responsibility, development strategy, and corporate culture, etc). Corporate strategy not only is very vital in a small company or a chain store, such as Newbury Comics, but also, is very significant to international businesses and corporations.

Franki

References

Haier. (2009). Company background. Retrieved on April 4, 2009, from http://www.haier.com

Lenovo. (2009). Company history. Retrieved on April 4, 2009, from http://www.lenovo.com

I totally agree that managers and local retailers (such as, Sears, Bay, or Wal-Mart, etc.) should support the independent artists, and consider to open new marketing or business in this area, such as limited edition of painting, drawing, design, or music, etc. (all in the same line of pop-culture). In the beginning, the company can collect the products of local independent artists that most shoppers in the region want to collect (after their customer surveys and trade people interviews with conduct environmental scanning), and then collect other areas in the later stages—or focuses on one or two best items of collections, and turn the company as the buying center of independent or local artists.  As far as I am concerned, supporting independent and local artists is the right thing to do and the right business to plan or set up. It may be not so easy to achieve great result in short-term, but as people state:  there is a will, there is a way.

  As I am reading an article in my database about digitizing and giving new life for old memories (e.g., turning our old videotapes, photo prints, slides and film negatives or home movies on film, etc.) or media images digital and stow them on DVD, CD, or our i-phones and computers, so we can keep them in less space and easy to access. I think it may be a good business for Newbury Comics as well. The company can provide the same services for all its busy and rich customers who have homemade old memories in hundred of videotapes or media, but no time or machine and know-how to do it. May be a good idea to open up a service business named: Digitize Inc.

Reference

Bluestein, A. (2009, April). New life for old memories. Money 38 (4).

       Retrieved on March 28, 2009, from Business source elite database.

It is interesting to know how differ Zurich-based  ABB  (Asea Brown Boveri AG) from or versus Matsushita Electric Industrial Corporation of Japan (MEI)--operating under the brands of Panasonic and Technic.

If you play international game, you must play  a cross-cultureal globalization, and not a focused on Japanese value, from top to bottom--this is why Baidu can sell US$183/per share in NASDAQ on this week with two Chinese Directors and three international directors--one Japanese (Baidu Japan) and two Americans (Auditing for SEC & marketing for buy and sell in US trading volumes)
(Wheelen & Hunger, 2008, p.117).

 Mission statements are the objectives or purposes of organizations or companies, and they differ broadly from one organization to another. Wheelen and Hunger (2008) claim a good mission statement “defines the fundamental, unique purpose that sets a company apart from other firms of its type and identifies the scope of the company’s operations in terms of products [including services] offered and markets served. It may also include the firm’s values and philosophy about how it does business and treats its employees. It puts into words not only what the company is now but what it wants to become—management’s strategic vision of the firm’s future” (p. 13). In other words, mission statement not only upholds and advances organization’s expectations, and shares it with all employees, but also, at the same time, it promotes a well image to stakeholders in the firm’s undertaking and responsibility environment. However, Andrew Campbell, top executive of the Ashridge strategic management centre, and a contributor to Long range planning (LRP), an international journal of strategic management, analyzes and argues that mission statement “can be more than just an expression of a company’s purpose and ambition… They can also be a company flag to rally around, a signpost for all stakeholders, a guide to behavior, and a celebration of a company’s culture” (Wheelen & Hunger, 2008, p.13).
 
Reference

Wheelen, T., and Hunger, J. (2009). Concepts in Strategic Management and
Business Policy (11th Edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice 
Hall.