Wednesday February 15, 2017 in class we watched Professor Sistrunk on his debut on the well known show, Deal or No Deal. We have all been glued to the television when things got intense during the gut wrenching seconds a guest on a game show has to become $100,000 richer or a sore loser! Like many Americans the 6 season show made you think you were about the have a heart attack but you just couldn't look away! After watching our professor I thought it would be cool to find some things out about the show and to look up some facts about the show!
At the beginning of Deal or No Deal, the contestant is presented with 26 suitcase. As talked about in class, accepting a “deal” for less than the mean would generally be regarded as a gutless or a weak decision. However, late in the game, if a savvy contestant were to wrangle an amount out of the banker that is greater than the mean, then he or she should definitely take it.
Fun facts include:
over the 6 seasons 58,000 cases were open,
over 30 million dollars in total has been won by contestants,
The movie Get Out is very controversial horror film, filled with many messages hidden within its satirical elements. From talking to my peers and reading different reviews, the movie has been interpreted in many different ways. After seeing the movie and discussing it with my friends, I have my own perspective about the different meanings within the movie. One aspect of the movie was relevant to an early discussion we had in class about the future of technology, and what life will be like years from now. Dr. Sistrumk informed us about the scientist Ray Kurzweil, who predicts that there will be immortality by 2045. In the youtube video, Ray Kurzweil discusses his predictions about radical life extension and the future of physical immortality. He states that "We'll be routinely able to change our bodies very quickly, as well as our environments in virtual reality, but it will feel very real. We'll ultimately be able to do that with real reality too." I made a connection between this idea and the movie, when the Father of the white family was transferring parts of the african-americans brain into members of his family and friends. For example, the African-american house-keeper was grandma and the grounds-keeper was grandpa. The white family was preserving the life of their family members by replacing their brains with African-american people. In my opinion this is very similar to the type of immortality that Scientist Ray Kurzweil speaks of. Another interpretation of this scene was the notion that it was used to expose the truth about the preservation of African-Americans organs.
It is no secret that Millennials have shaken up the world in all aspects. We dance to our own beat, go against mostly everything previous generations have taught us and do all things on a World Wide scale. We are the Insta generation of Master Blenders, who have perfected the craft of balancing work and play together.
Unlike the X,Y and Z generations before us, we have redefined what we define as our success. We not only want to have that up-ward moving career but also, that booming social life. Because of this Millennials have blurred those lines between what is consider social and professional. Many things that were once informal in a professional setting, like calling your superior by their first name, is now insisted upon. Professional suite and tie, has become plain jeans and a blazer. The standard corporate offices looks a lot different than my grandmother remembers.
Success is also, no longer defined by how many figures you have in your account, its also defined by the amount of followers you have on Instagram. Or the amount of friends on your Facebook page. Social success also weights into the total success of the person for us millennials.
100k like on "the gram" + 100k in the bank= #Winning at life; is the formula for success for Millennials.
In the words of Keys to Success Guru himself, Dj Khaled, "The key is to make" , by your own definition.
It is exciting to witness the development of technology and fashion combined as one. Technology is steadily turning the entire fashion industry around. Though the Apple Watch, and Google Glass get all of the rage, the craze goes way beyond this point. Fashion designers are becoming more innovative; creating accessories, apparel and fitness wear that can do it all from monitoring your heart rate to playing music.
Everyone love a nice sneaker, but hate the reality of having to tie their shoelace every minute, so what better idea than a self-tightening lace. Nike is obviously moving with time by creating the HyperAdapt 1.0 shoe with a self-tightening lace. The shoe has a pressure sensor that triggers to automatically tighten your laces whenever they come unloose. When the battery is low, there are LED lights presented on the soles that will notify wearers how much battery life they have available. When charged, the battery last up to two weeks.
Personally, I think the idea of a self-tightening lace will only add to our lazy habits. Also, for the price of $720, I expect the shoe to have way more innovative features than to only tighten up my shoelace for me. Nike's HyperAdapt 1.0 is a barrier for many people because not many can afford a shoe at such a high price. I'm certain that self-tightening shoes will be as big as self-driving cars in the future.
After a company completes their SWOT analysis and/or Porter's 5 Forces analysis, they need to develop an action plan based on the analysis.
This week we will discuss how a company develops a strategy to combat competitive forces.
In the SWOT analysis, the competition can show up in any of the four sections:
Success
Weakness
Opportunity
Threat
In Porter's 5 Forces analysis, the competition can show up in:
Rivalry
Substitutes
New Entries
The Five Generic Strategies:
Low-Cost Provider Strategy - Broad set of customers with lower overall costs.
Broad Differentiation Strategy - Broad set of customers with a customized product/service
Focused Low-Cost Strategy - Narrow set of buyer segment(s) (niche) with lower cost product/service
Focused Differentiation Strategy - Narrow set of buyer segment(s) with customized product/service
Best Cost Provider Strategy - Provide best value - Best price for the product or service attributes compared to competitors
1) LOW COST PROVIDER:
Works best when:
Price Competition is strong
Product Identical
Few ways to achieve differentiation
Buyers can easily switch
Few large volume buyers
New Entries use lower intro prices to grab market share
Problems:
Lower prices and profits
Too fixated on cost
Reduced cost approaches can be copied by competition
2) BROAD DIFFERENTIATION:
Works best when product/service can become unique.
Input Quality
Marketing/Brand
Employe Skills/Training/Experience
Continuous Quality Improvement
R&D
Product Features
Innovation
Works best:
Buyers are diverse
Many ways to differentiate the product
Few rivals
Technology changes fast
Risks:
Over differentiate so that the quality exceeds he buyer's needs
Premium price too high
Being too timid
3) FOCUSED LOW COST PROVIDER:
Works best when the company has a competitive advantage over its competition within a target market. See video below for discussion on competitive advantage.
4) FOCUSED DIFFERENTIATION PROVIDER:
They create carefully designed products or services to appeal to a unique target Market.
Gucci
Four Season Hotels
BMW
Works When:
Target market is large enough
Leaders choose not too compete
Too costly for others to compete
Too many market segments, so each company can have their own
Risks:
Market so profitable, other enter and lower prices
Customer preferences change over time
Competition find ways to reduce your competitive advantage
5) BEST COST PROVIDER:
Works Best:
Product Differentiation is the norm
Large number of Value customers
Market has both high price and low price competitors
When economy is slow
Risks:
Hard to remain in the middle and provide value as competitors move up and down to grab market share.
In Class #8 we discussed Porter's Five forces and how its used to analyze a company and industry. In Class #10 (Last Class), we discussed using SWOT analysis to analyze a company and industry.
How are these tools related? What are their differences and similarities?
SWOT and Michael Porter's Five Forces analysis model are both useful tools in strategic planning. While they both help in assessing your company's strengths and weaknesses relative to industry opportunities and challenges, a primary difference is that SWOT focuses more on company-specific elements while Five Forces involves a look at five important competitive factors when making a strategic decision.
SWOT Basics
SWOT is a basic assessment of your company's current position based on strengths and weaknesses, as well as a look at opportunities and potential threats as the company moves forward. To conduct this analysis, company leaders often set up a table that includes key points in each of the four SWOT categories. Strengths and weaknesses are analyzed relative to how your company currently measures up against competitors. Identifying opportunities and threats involves brainstorming future events or direction.
Five Forces Basics
The Five Forces model includes five factors in a competitive assessment. They include supplier power, buyer power, competitive rivalry, substitution threat and threat of new entry. You use Five Forces analysis to figure out the competitive advantages your business has in each area. As a product reseller, for instance, it helps to know your relative bargaining power with industry suppliers and buyers. The general level of competition may also affect your opportunities. Substitution threats and potential new entries involve analyzing long-term viability if you enter a market.
Level of Specificity
One major distinction between the two is that
1) SWOT is a general, overall assessment, while
Five Forces is typically focused on a single growth decision (one product).
You might start with SWOT to paint the picture of your company's current position in the marketplace and then look ahead to future strategic options.
Then, Five Forces provides a tool to assess viability of particular product, service or industry expansion. You can weigh diversification into a product category using Five Forces, for instance.
Competition and Time-Orientation
1) SWOT is about your business and its position, and
Five Forces is a tool you use to analyze competitors and how they could inhibit you.
Generally, the best opportunities for a business lie in situations where a company's strengths relative to competition align with its opportunities and less inhibiting competitive factors. Time-orientation is also slightly different with SWOT and Five Forces. With SWOT, you assess your current position and future endeavors. Five Forces is centered mostly on future decisions.
Drones are slowly becoming the new phase of technology for the future. Drones started out as a military technology, but are increasingly being used for a wide range of consumer and commercial applications. Drones are going to be used in the upcoming years for various reasons such as, inspecting critical infrastructure like bridges and power lines, to survey areas struck by natural disasters, and many other creative uses. Drones being used specifically to help the environment will eventually lead to certain job titles fading away due to the new technology of drones. These drones will be able to catch certain things that men can't or will simply take twice as long to figure out. So, with the invention of drones this will eliminate extra time that it takes humans to figure these situations out.
Another reason drones will be in the future technology is that fortune 500 companies such as Amazon and Google are building drones to deliver household items. This will be beneficial because homeowners who are too busy to or need their products that they purchased to be expedited and the drones will be a faster delivery. Using the drones to deliver has some cons such as weather, aviation rules and not being able to hold heavy cargo. Amazon said it would now test drone deliveries with two more customers near Cambridge, an English city where the company has a large drone-testing plant. If the tests are successful, the company says it wants to expand the number of consumers who could participate in the trial to dozens in the coming months, eventually allowing hundreds to use the drone service.
