Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media - McGraw-Hill Introduction to Business

Robots Do the Cooking at This Restaurant

May 18, 2018

From picking up apples to distressing jeans, automation is spreading to almost every business you can imagine. And if you happen to live in the Boston area, you could swing by the new restaurant Spyce today and have your lunch prepared by robots. This automated eatery is the result of a partnership between a group of young engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and renowned chef Daniel Boulud. Together these intrepid entrepreneurs claim they have created “the world’s Continue reading →

Product Development, Automation, Operations Management, Boston, Entrepreneurship, Partnerships, Food

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 5: Forms of Business Ownership, Chapter 6: Entrepreneurship, Chapter 9: Production and Operations Management, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Bosses Attempt to Limit Smartphone Usage among Employees

May 17, 2018

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The average person spends 2 hours and 25 minutes per day on their smartphone. Put another way, that amounts to about 2,617 daily interactions with their device in the form of taps, clicks and swipes. What’s more, a significant amount of the time people spend on their smartphone occurs when they’re at work. While these statistics might surprise some, they come as no shock to Jason Brown, an advertising CEO who has declared war on using these distracting gadgets in Continue reading →

Smartphones, Mobile, Productivity, Management, Office Culture, Ethics, Human Resources

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 7: Management & Leadership, Chapter 11: Human Resource Management, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

[VIDEO] Inside the Consumer Reports Test Lab

May 11, 2018

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If a consumer is curious about the quality of a particular product, there are plenty of websites where they can read endless reviews from both satisfied and dissatisfied customers. For a more scientific perspective, however, they can turn to Consumer Reports. The video below details how this 82-year-old nonprofit organization rigorously tests products to see if they live up to the claims put forth by their marketing campaigns.

Questions:

Why do you think Consumer Reports purchases all of its products Continue reading →

Product Development, Consumer Feedback, Product Testing, Consumer Reports, Marketing, Ethics

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

How the Free Video Game ‘Fortnite’ Makes a Fortune

May 8, 2018

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Since the release of Fortnite Battle Royale last summer, the video game has grown from a modest success into a global phenomenon with more than 40 million active players. At one point in March, 3.4 million people were playing Fortnite at the same time, making it by far the most popular video game currently on the market. The concept behind it is simple enough: 100 players parachute onto an island to fight until there’s only one person or team left Continue reading →

Entertainment, Pricing, Innovation, Product Distribution, Video Games, Fortnite, Product Development

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Making Things Insta-Worthy on a Tiny Budget

April 30, 2018

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American millennials’ tastes have turned many markets on their heads. From choice of food to the ways companies structure leadership, this large generation makes its preferences known. One trend companies are considering is how millennials tend to prefer amazing experiences rather than accumulating “things.” How can companies adapt traditional products and services to appeal to millennials?

As we know, people of all generations share experiences from travel, life events, and plain everyday life on social media. However, to earn Continue reading →

Product Development, Demographics, Marketing, Millennials, Social Media, Hotels

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 6: Entrepreneurship, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Chapter 16: Place and Promotion, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Is Your Dog Ready to Go Meatless?

April 26, 2018

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Americans spend roughly $30 billion each year on food for their dogs. As millennials have grown to be the top dog-owning demographic, they’re changing the way our furry friends eat. The growing trend, at first created for humans and now for pets, is to increase foods’ nutritional value while also keeping food sources environmentally sustainable.

American dogs are the fifth highest consumers of meat in the world. In addition, pets are responsible for 64 million tons of greenhouse gasses each Continue reading →

Food, Synthetic Meat, Pets, Product Development, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Sustainability

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 6: Entrepreneurship, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

[VIDEO] Starbucks Will Temporarily Close 8,000 U.S. Stores For Racial-Bias Training

April 19, 2018

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Last week, a manager at a Philadelphia Starbucks called the police on two African-American men who were waiting for a friend to arrive. Their subsequent arrest was caught on video and quickly went viral as thousands of social media users directed their outrage towards the coffee chain. Starbucks then took the drastic step of announcing that it would close all stores on May 29th for racial sensitivity training. Along with showing clips of the offending video, this short report also Continue reading →

How Private Funding Fuels Modern Corporations

April 17, 2018

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Earlier this month, the music streaming service Spotify went public on the New York Stock Exchange with a valuation worth approximately $30 billion. And while that is certainly an enormous amount of money, it pales in comparison to the $93 billion that the Japanese telecom giant Softbank privately raised last year to create a technology investment fund. In the past, major IPOs such as Spotify’s tended to be the most dependable way for up-and-coming companies to receive a major infusion Continue reading →

Finance, Regulation, Investing, Wall Street, Spotify, Capital, IPO

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 5: Forms of Business Ownership, Chapter 6: Entrepreneurship, Chapter 18: Financial Management, Chapter 19: Securities Markets, Chapter 20: Money and Financial Institutions, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Study Shows that Working from Home Boosts Productivity

April 12, 2018

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The concept of working from home has been a controversial issue among some employers for years. On the one hand, proponents claim that remote working can reduce costs while improving morale among staff. For its critics, though, the idea of working from home brings to mind images of employees who would rather lounge on a couch than do their job.

But according to a new study from Stanford, the former group’s assessment is likely the more accurate one. It all Continue reading →

Management, Motivation, China, Global, Work Environment, Human Resources, Office Culture, Telecommuting

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 3: Globalization, Chapter 7: Management & Leadership, Chapter 8: Organizational Culture and Structure, Chapter 9: Production and Operations Management, Chapter 10: Motivation, Chapter 11: Human Resource Management, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Credit Card Companies Begin Phasing out Signatures

April 10, 2018

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Paying with a credit card is an almost entirely electronic process except for one notable step: the signature. Although this final part of the transaction is meant to provide another layer of security, many consumers quickly squiggle something down on the line just to get the procedure over with. Then there are people like Doug Taylor, who goes the extra mile by signing his receipts with a doodle of a little dog wagging its tail. “It gets a laugh, most Continue reading →

Credit Cards, Operations Management, Retail, Innovation, Currency, Security

Chapter 9: Production and Operations Management, Chapter 17: Accounting, Chapter 20: Money and Financial Institutions, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media, Bonus Chapter C: Managing Risk