Delivering Value Through Networks And Relationships In International Trade
The nature of business relationships and the role and importance of different models for developing international business
The study focuses on an interview that is undertaken to understand the relationships and networks that need to be created in order to expand and develop businesses. The study aims to understand the essential factors that enhance deal making functions of organizations that focus on expanding. In order to effectively help towards the same an interview has been taken of Joel Neoh Eu-Jin, Malaysian entrepreneur and the CEO of e-commerce site Groupon. The information generated from this interview is then to be used in order to understand the vital aspects related to organizational expansion. The focus will be towards generating significant perspectives of the chosen entrepreneur and analyzing the same in line with the aim of the study.
The entrepreneur was selected on the basis of exceptional growth of business. This is done mainly to understand the value that the person have added towards the growth of the organization. The selected entrepreneur for the interview is Joel Neoh Eu-Jin, the CEO Groupon. The organization have witnessed rapid growth and popularity over the years. The expansion of the business have also been complemented by the rapid growth in revenue. Hence, the selection of Joel Neoh Eu-Jin became an obvious choice. Moreover, the business of Groupon have been recently started. Meaning that the organization is ideal for analysis of entrepreneurial aspects that help towards rapid business expansion.
- What is the typical working day like for Joel Neoh Eu-Jin?
The typical day for me begins with getting up in the morning meeting and getting along with my family. I spend some time with my daughter and wife and then I go to office to manage my business. I start my daily schedule by looking at the important appointments that I have got. Moving forward I normally engage myself with further office work. Many times I have important interviews to attend, which given the time of the year can become the daily schedule. I always interact with other board members. I travel frequently in order to keep up with the pace of a growing Groupon job site network. If I do not have anywhere to go I return back home from office and meet with my family. Sometimes I work at night if required.
- The online industry is a relatively new industry but is already filled with many challenges that typically affect any other enterprise. What are your views on the same?
The online industry is now a well-established industry with all the perks and challenges that comes with being a fully functional industry. The major challenges are rapidly growing customer expectations and increase in the number of competitors. E-commerce has reached the high point of its growth and will continue on this path for many years to come. The customer base is also rapidly increasing. My views are that these things will grow further with time. I believe Groupon will be able to completely realize the potential of this increasing customer base.
- According to you what skills should a new age entrepreneur possess in order to be effective in the work that he does? Do you think an entrepreneur needs to be a man of action or an effective innovator?
I think a new age entrepreneur needs to develop new ideas every day. I think budding entrepreneurs need to be innovative to say the least. Organizations are performing today based on how innovative they can get. Thus, new age entrepreneurs need to have new age ideas. Hence, I strongly believe that an entrepreneur need to be an effective innovator. Moreover, the modern entrepreneur needs to be a man of idea. The effectiveness of ideas coupled with the enhancements of the same towards reality gives a modern business its identity.
- How do you view Groupon? Give us an insight into what it takes for a business idea like Groupon to emerge victorious in the global online market?
International trade and the challenges of operating cross-culturally
For me Groupon Malaysia is a new age innovative marketplace. I believe that above everything else it is a platform that connects people with the various available markets. This helps Groupon to be a bigger world phenomenon. The most important factor that worked in favor of Groupon was the fact that it was able to connect various parts of the world. It was able to generate lots of positives in the middle of many negative things that we see in the internet today. However I think the fact that people were able to connect with their friends through this online platform. For me this is the factor that has led to the popularity of the social networking site.
- Describe your role in the initiation and expansion of Groupon? What have you done to expand Groupon to all corners of the globe?
I was always the person that initiated all the expansion processes that Groupon had to go through. As you already know I had to go to a lot of places and do a lot of things connected with the expansion of Groupon. After joining Groupon Malaysia as the CEO I had to meet new people across the globe as my new role required me to be global. Groupon Malaysia started growing and I had to take important decisions in regards to the newer mergers and acquisitions that were required. I got into business agreements like investing in Snaptee, Durian and BookDoc along with other major partnerships and acquisitions were initiated by me.
- What would you comment regarding the performance of the venture over time? What are your views in regards to the performance of Groupon as a business venture over time? Why do you have these views?
Groupon has risen from being an intra-university social networking platform to a world platform that is now used by billions of ever growing users across the globe. First the company was small when we started in 2004. Moving forward, the company went forward from strength to strength to establish itself as the largest social networking platform in the world. I believe the performance have been superb. Moreover, I believe that Groupon has been able to perform as the graduate youth’s gateway to the corporate world. I have these views as I have witnessed the changes since being associated with the company.
- Businesses in today’s world, especially global businesses like yours depend greatly on network for expanding successfully across the world? What are the most important networks that you have? Can you describe these networks historically, presently and the future? Did you have the right networks for all the aspects like talent acquisition, distribution, testing, development and selling?
Our Groupon team initially had to essentially depend on networking for its effective performance. The most important network we have is out online team. Groupon has historically relied on the various market dealers to understand the nature of the discounts that can be given to the customers. Groupon has now created a wide network in the e-commerce sector of the country. Historically we had to depend on only one media team but now we have teams working across the globe. Our HR team helps with the talent acquisition. Our distribution teams consist of various acquired online and offline companies. The testing team takes care of the new features that are provided by Groupon Malaysia. Selling is done through our global advertising management teams.
- What are the emerging market trends in the online market? Do you think Groupon Malaysia will be able to capitalize on the same?
The emerging market trend is towards smartphone optimized e-commerce networks. Groupon Malaysia is preparing by making better smartphone versions of the app. This is because in the current world people are more inclined towards buying things from their smartphones. Hence, we are trying to move the entire thing into a compact optimized smartphone app.
- At this stage of your organizational endeavor what are the essential challenge that you face?
Transnational business in contemporary society: strategic context
The essential challenges that I face at this time is the management of the ever increasing customer base. Moreover, the challenge from amazon and e-bay are very great. The organization has a number of stakeholders and partners. Managing them effectively in order to promote and develop the site further and is a significant challenge. I believe the biggest challenge I and Groupon face at this time is the huge growth of the e-commerce market in the country and the world.
- There are a lot of rumors that have emerged recently in regards to the operations of Groupon Malaysia? How do you handle these types of rumors?
Groupon Malaysia always tries to handle rumors by directly interacting and communicating with the people. It there are certain discounts that we are not giving or certain malicious cyber criminals trying to use our name to make money illegally we immediately approach the authorities. Moreover, we always maintain our portal for better customer interactions.
The interview has pointed towards various traits of leadership that has helped Joel Neoh Eu-Jin to successful expand his business venture. It was found that Joel Neoh Eu-Jin had a significant role to play in the business expansion of Groupon in Malaysia. At first he started a separate e-commerce venture styled on the lines of Groupon. The venture, called Groupsmore was a great success leading to the original US Company to acquire this Malayisan venture. Joel Neoh’s great skills ensure that he became the CEO of Groupon Malaysia, the newly formed company as a result of the acquisition. As a business leader the fact that he already had an idea in regards to how a social media can be used and the impact it can create on the lives of people. However, significant challenges have risen the process of making Groupon Malaysia an effective online enterprise around Malaysia and the South East Asia. The challenges were found to be mostly related to making networks as this required Joel Neoh to interact with people of completely different views and perspective. The interview was helpful towards gathering essential information about relationship, networking and business growth.
The interview pointed towards the fact that a lot of planning was done in order to enhance the growth of Groupon Malaysia venture in the online market. Much of the planning had to be done with regards to the advertising and subsequent generation of revenue. However, it was found that the foundation and the subsequent expansion were based on ideas. The interview pointed towards essential frameworks that can be integrated within the organizational management to enhance the prospects of relationship building and networking. It can be said that the theory of entrepreneurship that can be applied in this case is the opportunity based entrepreneurship theory. In accordance with this theory business expansion is done by entrepreneurs upon taking advantage of available opportunities (Jensen, 2017). The opportunities can be realized through cultural, social and technology oriented changes that take place.
Stakeholder theory also becomes very important while analyzing the information that have generated from the interview. According to me, the theory of stakeholder relationships can be easily applied to the generation of network that Joel Neoh Eu-Jin have done for the company. According to the Stakeholder theory the various people that are related to a business are interconnected. Hence, there is significant connection between suppliers, customers, investors, employees and communities. This forms the basis for the ideas that have been presented through the interview. Another important framework that can be applied to the concept of Groupon Malaysia is foreign expansion theory. It was essentially understood from the interview that the entrepreneur wanted to make the social networking company a global enterprise rather than concentrate only on South East Asian markets. I can strongly relate the expansion theory which states that a product needs to be optimized according to the requirements of various countries and cultures. Groupon Malaysia was thus launched as a significant Asian e-commerce website. I have been able to also identify the shareholder theory in the description that was provided by Joel Neoh in regards to the operations of the organization. The organization took the decision to be a publicly shared company. The shares were released in order to enhance the investment towards the company functions. Moving forward the company used effective communicational strategy in order to help the organization grow. The business model of the organization itself was developed considering the perspectives of effective communications. The site itself as I understood was made to enhance communication across the world. This same aspect became the significant basis for developing business communication as the online channels for promotion were mainly used. Customer satisfaction was found to be the driving force behind the productivity functions of the organization.
Trading with the BRIC countries and emerging economies
Most of the ideas of the course can be related to the scenario and analysis of the subject matter. However, there are significant scope for the improvement of Groupon Malaysia as an effectively performing organization. I think the improvements in the organizational structure and outlook could be made through the better utilization of the theories that were discussed. It can be said that the organization uses as lot of ideas in order to reach the customers effectively. Opportunity based entrepreneurship theory can be better implemented towards gaining better more effective customer bases (Mishra & Zachary, 2015). The company keeps on changing ideas, however, does not sustain the most effective or profitable ideas. The constant innovation of the company can mean that some of the more desirable and efficient features of one particular innovation can be lost due to the series of innovative processes that essentially take place in the organization. Hence, in accordance with the theory of opportunity oriented entrepreneurship, ideas that provide the best opportunities to the organization should be utilized for better productive outcomes.
A significant area that I have also identified in the interview is related to the advertisement oriented focus of the organization. According to me the main factor that worked against the favor of customer satisfaction is excessive reliance on advertising. This is causing harm to the customer satisfaction that can be generated. Excessive reliance on advertising revenue causes the social networking site to provide too many commercial content. This can cause great disruption in the consumer satisfaction aspects as consumers sometimes view too many commercial content as detrimental to their social media experience. Another significant aspect that needs to be effectively managed is stakeholder management. The organization has a number of stakeholders and partners. These partners need to be managed effectively in order to promote and develop the site further (Suddaby, Bruton, & Si, 2015). The foreign expansion aspects of business growth also need to be significantly evaluated. This is because the company’s foreign expansion is ever increasing. In order to develop the new markets, Groupon Malaysia needs to implement better foreign expansion techniques. I think the company can create subsidiaries in many countries. They can come out of the acquisition and start a whole new e-commerce site. Socio-cultural aspects differ between countries, hence, it becomes important that these factors are noted more for better management of the organization in accordance with the same. Groupon being an e-commerce website need to take care of the suppliers as they are the most important publics. Hence, stakeholder theory needs to be better managed by the organization. Currently, the advertisers are being given more importance, which is even leading to suspicion of data theft among many customers (Hörisch, Freeman & Schaltegger, 2014).
The interview has helped me to derive significant knowledge about the ways in which Groupon operates as an organization. It became very clear that modern organization are relying more on innovative approaches in order to enhance the developmental prospects of their organizations. Previously I had an assumption that businesses can function effectively if some of the basic aspects of the most important models are implemented directly. However, the process of the interview and the results generated have helped me to garner better knowledge about the ground level issues that affect the organizational environments. I understood that there are far more challenges in the organizational functional environments than can be perceived from outside the corporate environment. It can be said that these challenges are also opportunities at the same time that can provide great levels of growth and development. The organizational aspects of businesses need to be enhanced through proper entrepreneurial knowledge, expertise and tactfulness. Joel Neoh has clearly been a success story in the current world corporate scenario. Entrepreneurship teaching theories need to be improved in order to incorporate more practical business aspects. This will help in the better representation of the organizational environments that exist. This in turn can enhance the knowledge and practical applicability of knowledge. According to me the improvements in the organizational structure and outlook could be made through the better utilization of the theories that can be formed through more real time analysis of new ventures. The information of both successful and unsuccessful ventures would have to be essentially be incorporated within the educational frameworks of entrepreneurialism. It can be said that the organizations nowadays use as lot of ideas in order to reach the customers effectively and significantly realize their business goals (Thompson, 2017). There are harsh realities that the business environments hold and far greater management issues that are present across various corporate organizational environments. They need to be addressed through the present educational system that are present for teaching entrepreneurship. I was able to understand entrepreneurship from an entirely different perspective of real time leadership. This can help to further develop deeper understandings concerning entrepreneurship in the future. The effectiveness of organizational leadership essentially depends on the views and approaches of the entrepreneur. Without having an innovative approach organizations cannot function optimally.
References
Al–Aali, A., & Teece, D. J. (2014). International Entrepreneurship and the Theory of the (Long–Lived) International Firm: A Capabilities Perspective. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 38(1), 95-116.
Groupon. (2018). Groupon: Deals and Coupons for Restaurants, Fitness, Travel, Shopping, Beauty, and more.. [online] Available at: https://www.groupon.com
Hörisch, J., Freeman, R. E., & Schaltegger, S. (2014). Applying stakeholder theory in sustainability management: Links, similarities, dissimilarities, and a conceptual framework. Organization & Environment, 27(4), 328-346.
Jensen, M. C. (2017). Value maximisation, stakeholder theory and the corporate objective function. In Unfolding stakeholder thinking (pp. 65-84). Routledge.
Mishra, C. S., & Zachary, R. K. (2015). The theory of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship research journal, 5(4), 251-268.
Suddaby, R., Bruton, G. D., & Si, S. X. (2015). Entrepreneurship through a qualitative lens: Insights on the construction and/or discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity. Journal of Business venturing, 30(1), 1-10.
Thompson, J. D. (2017). Organizations in action: Social science bases of administrative theory. Routledge.