Month: January 2009

Today business class was very interesting.

At first, we had met some new students came to our class, actually there were late enrolment, because they had some reasons. Later, Alex began to ask us what he taught yesterday.

After that, he taught us the next topic, Macroenvironment. In this macro environment, it has 5 components. There are political forces, economical forces, social forces, technological forces, natural forces. He taught us just to memorize by PEST+N.

The most interesting one came in when he began his long story.

First, he taught about the social environment. What results of social environment have? At the first sentence, the note told us changing age structure, example Baby Boom.

From Alex, Baby Boom is meant by at one time a lot of baby was born. He taught us that got a time Baby Boom occurred. It was after World War 2, 1946 – 1965. For that people who born at that time now already aged between 44 and 63. Why Baby Boom occurred? It is because at the time between World War 1 and World War 2, the children, if it is a boy, he will sent to military school to learn guns and will not be back when he big. That is the reason why they don’t do SEX at that time. But after World War 2, the United Nation announced that, now that MUST NOT HAVE WAR, now MUST PEACE. So many of people thought that it is the best time to build a family. They began going to have a baby. So that is the reason why our father side and mother side has a lot of brothers and sisters. For my father side has 11 persons if no wrong.

Baby Boom, sounds good or not? Some people thought it is good, but some people thought bad. For a business man, Baby Boom is a big chance to them to earn big money. Why we say that?

At the time Baby Boom occurred, there are a lot of baby born in the world. For a business man, Baby Boom is sounds great. When the baby came to one year old, what his needs? He needs a pamper, milk powder, baby clothes. So the company can sell these things, they will earn a lot of money. When the baby came to one year old to two years old, what else his needs? He needs a baby toy, story books, and etc. So the company can change the way to sell baby toy and these things. To examine the growth of the age structure, to do the effective business works.

And there was a second Baby Boom but smaller one, that is in 2000, the millennium year. This is a special year and also this is the dragon year of Chinese, so many babies were born.

And don’t know what topics we changed to Levis by Alex. Levis is a company who sold Jeans. It was founded in 1865 and registered as a company in 1873. At that time in USA, that rises a cow boy cultures. At that time as so many Chinese moved to USA because want surf for gold mining. They maybe need to live in a camp which made by sail cloth. At that time Levis found that this is a big business if doing a jean. He founded the company which make the Jeans. At that moment Levis is the first company to do this business, and it is very popular. Levis earn a lot from Baby Boom.

At the late 80’s and begin of 90’s, there is the crises suffered by Levis. There are a lot of new Jeans company for example D&G, Armani, there eat up the market of Levis. So as that time Levis nearly closed. But Levis is forced to more creative at that time. When 2000, at the second Baby Boom, there was invented a new type of Jeans.

They keen to be more creative to invent this type of jeans. But at the beginning it is not very popular. While there are a little of people buy it, for example Alex, but most of the people don’t like to buy it even has a try. The interesting one is from Japan, has one time this jean is very very popular and had a big sales in Japan. Why we say so? This is a marketing strategy by Levis. Levis found a way that provides buyer to take a pose graphic when buy the jeans. When the buyer buy that, their graphics will shown on any where, they can show up them, they become a model, anyone has a change to do that. That’s why so many people want to try it. So, I think I can promote my poll application, a web widget or gadget by doing this type of marketing strategy, to let other people to show off their existence.

Back to social environment, the second point is changing size of family, for example two children. At most of the Asian, the size of family remains one or two or three. If four person it is considered many. In Asian, when the man and woman need to go for work, who take care the children. And also have many children it is the burden of them. Nowadays, a person must achieve a degree or at least a master, it need a lot of money, while our parents they only ending their education at primary or secondary. For my father he is junior secondary level, and my mother is primary level.

But for the business man, the changing size of family to less people, it is good news for them. Why say so? Nowadays, the family keen to use money to send their children to swimming class, piano class, a lot of tuition class, class class classes…. It need a lot of money, but they think it is to be worth for them. Nowadays again, the children in primary schools, they not to learn plus and minus again, they need to learn times and divides, the educator thought that the plus and minus is kindergarten stuff. The children need to learn many and many things than before. It is getting harder and harder. So, as we can see, this is the big business that can do. As a marketing counsellor, Alex taught us those things how they do that.

The third point is life-style has to be changed. The roles of male and female are changed. Female become more active in the business. The health consciousness also a big business.

As a female become more active in the business, it is a good news for business man. For a business, there are a lot of business can do from a female. From Alex, the all bodies of female, from their hair, face (the female can , eye, earring, lipstick, necklace, bra (a lot of cup), waist, harry porter liked shoes, even the finger nail (with colours), tattoos can have a big business.

Health consciousness keen to have more consideration for people, for example Western people can buy a healthy food, while it is smaller size. Alex shared with us about sushi is a healthy food because it has no oil while the chicken drumstick is not healthy. As also the Coca-cola, the people like to drink that but when they know Coca-cola will cause healthy problem, they keen to have drink lesser, but they can not swear off the drinking habits. For this reason Coca-cola had promoted a smaller size of tin. The drinker can drink lesser.

Nowadays, the world full of people who better educated and more white-collar population. For Malaysians, the do not want to be blue-collar, the technician works, they more prefer office work. That is why Malaysia government engage a lot of workers from foreign countries.

After that, it is very sorry for me not very hear clearly the thing after the point. But I think the thing before is more exciting.

That is all for today class. Hope you can enjoy Alex learning. Note: Alex is my lecturer… (Why direct call his name, because we are friends… But .. if not called him Alex directly, we will be do wrong)

Now, I am expecting to have a next class of Alex as soon as possible.

Today, I went through the first business class, which taught by Alex Leong.

First of all, he introduced his personality and rights again, for the new comer.

Today, we went through the Chapter 1 that is a Business And Its Environment

When talking about the definition of business, he first asked us what we understand about business. And later got some jokes happened. At first when he asked me I couldn’t get a clear answer while I have done the assignment of e-commerce last two semester. I giving an answer that buying and selling of service…

So, by the notes, the real definition of business, it combines input of raw materials and skills to gain benefit.

And then we went through the three major economic activity. There are finance, production, and marketing. I always giving answer of Internet-related, like web hosting service, social networking service, and etc. He talked us that 2009 is a bad year because we will see it at the next six month. Many big business and organization already fired thousands of workers, some nearly bankrupt and seek for help from government. Even the Malaysia’s Shit Business, Proton, also nearly bankrupt but haven’t take any actions. What I thought that is web hosting service I don’t know what will happen of it while I am doing this now. But I think this is the best time for rising of social networking service, for example Facebook. With the open API provided by Facebook, many of the developers or organizations already gain benefit from that. Social Networking Service, or SNS, it is the new place for businesses to find profit. It performs new way or new type of business, different interaction than before, so I think the next term we would make investing on the SNS.

After that, we talked about the business objectives, what means of stakeholders. For example in INTI, the lecturer, students, parents, DELL or DHL there are stakeholders of INTI. We also learnt that the profit is the main consideration for a business while there are also have non-profit organization, for example, general hospital, zoo, and museum. We touched the survival and growth of a business and also talked about the private owner and employees. if me, I will choose private owner more than employees. Because I don’t like controlled by other people and always do the same action. I like the creative works. But maybe I will choose employees because of living environment.

Next, we talked about the business environment, which divided into micro and macro environment two parts. Micro environment has the speciality of specific, internal, controllable, and it is direct environment. While Macro environment has the speciality of general, external, uncontrollable, and it is indirect environment.

After that, he taught us the english pronouns, what is the difference of english in New Zealand and ours.

Later, he taught us how to remember the elements of the micro environment. First, we have a suppliers, it sell raw materials for the company and its competitors. Then it will through the marketing intermediaries, such as supermarket, INTI Mart, 7-11 to sell the products. And later the customers buy the goods from there. And also outside got the publics.

And that is all of teaching today.