Business & Personal Finance

The rise of the department store

(Le Bon Marché, Paris, 1867)

Can you picture a world without Walmart, Zellers or The Bay? It's hard to believe that there was a time when people bought what they needed from local markets, small shops and even directly from craftsmen and street vendors.  During the Elizabethan age shopping was about acquiring basic necessities, not self-indulgence.  By the eighteenth century shops became more elaborate allowing customers opportunities to browse and to be enticed by artistically displayed goods.

During the Industrial Revolution people started to earn more money and a middle class began to emerge.   This, in addition to cheaper factory-produced goods, created an expanded consumer demand that could no longer be met by small retail outlets. In fact, the department store introduced people to the fine arts and to new styles and ideas. Up until the 1830's shops tended to be specialized but when Aristide Boucicaut founded Le Bon Marché in 1852 in Paris, now considered to be the world's first department store, retailers everywhere sat up and took notice. Le Bon Marche inspired the growth of department stores around the world with names like Macy's, Marshall Field's, Strawbridge & Clothier, Lewis's of Liverpool, Eaton's and many others. Over the years department stores have provided a wide range of consumer goods from fabrics to plants and automobiles to airplanes. Although the recent recession has taken its toll on department stores, they show a determination to survive by continuing to reinvent themselves.

To read more about department stores, check out these books:

 

Finding Company Histories

Some companies are so successful that they are able to celebrate a long and prosperous history. 

For example, Tiffany & Co. is one of those companies.  The jeweller is celebrating its 175th anniversary this year.  Charles Lewis Tiffany, the company's founder, founded the store in 1837.

Many companies with such an illustrious past sometimes have a web page dedicated to its history at their web site.  If such a web page does not exist for a company that you are interested in, here is a list of Toronto Public Library's electronic resources that may be able to help you find a company history: 

Business & Company Resource Center

• If you do a Company Search, select the desired company from the Results List.
• In the selected company's profile, click on the Histories tab.
• Two sources may be available for your selected company; i.e. Notable Corporate Chronologies and/or International DIrectory of Company Histories.

Financial Post (FP) Advisor

• Historical reports are available for the top currently and formerly traded Canadian companies. 
• These reports include detailed descriptions on operations, 7-year consolidated financial statements, capital stock changes, and company history dating back to incorporation.

Mergent Online

• Company profiles include a History tab.

These TPL databases are available via remote access.  An active Toronto Public Library card is required in order to access.

For those interested in a history of Tiffany & Co., search the Toronto Public Library catalogue with the subject heading Tiffany and Company - History.

Starbucks effect: Not just a great cup of coffee

 

I love going to Starbucks, and judging by the statistics so do you!  Maybe it's their coffee or snacks or maybe it's just the atmosphere.  Whatever it is that attracts us to them, the success of Starbucks has influenced the way we do business and has spawned the publication of many books on various business topics.

In 1971 Starbucks opened their first store in Seattle, Washington at the historic Pike Place Market. Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegler and Gordon Bowker started the company with the encouragement of their friend Alfred Peet who had his own store called Peet's Coffee and Tea. By 1980 the partners had grown the company to six retail outlets and it had become the largest coffee roaster in Washington State. In 1987 Howard Schultz bought the comapny and turned it into the business that it is today by fashioning it after the coffee houses he visited while on a trip to Italy.  The company is now the largest coffee store chain in the world with over 17,000 stores in 50 countries.

What makes Starbucks unique is their sense of community, the same sense of community that is evident in corner coffee houses all over Italy. It is a place where employees and customers are treated with respect and dignity, and being green is a an important part of how the company conducts its business. Although experts have been predicting the demise of Starbucks for some time because of it's efforts to keep up with shareholder expectations, Starbucks seems to have shrugged off the naysayers by continually introducing new products that keep customers interested. Books about Starbucks continue to be published, and from Beijing to Moscow and Toronto to Seattle the coffee keeps on brewing.

Here are some titles you can borrow from the library:

Living in a world without Twinkies

One of my fondest memories of childhood was the occasional treat of the pure indulgence of a Twinkie.  My mother in law, when my husband was young, would put a candle in the middle of one, and presto - a ready made birthday cake!

Hostess, the maker of Twinkies, as well as the equally delicious Ding Dongs, Hostess Cupcakes, and Snow Balls, recently announced that the company was filing for bankruptcy protection.  It seems that today's consumer is after healthier snacks. 

This whole discussion about Twinkies got me thinking about the snack cake industry in general. So I decided to have a look to see what I could find.  A field trip to my local grocery store showed that a couple of other companies are out there in terms of competition.  Vachon, a Quebec company founded in 1923, has multiple lines of products, as does Little Debbie, a Tennessee based company also founded around the Great Depression had significant shelf space.

But all of these companies are privately held - therefore they don't need to give any sales figures.  So how does one find information on industries that are rife with private companies? 

I began my search with the Gale Virtual Reference Library, which has a directory called The Market Share Reporter.  A quick search revealed that Little Debbie and Hostess are the top brands for sales.  This reference also gave me a NAICS (North American Industrial Classification System) code to work with.  This gives what the company sees as its major line of business.  In this case it was 311812 (Commerical Bakeries).  With this code I could now search a number of databases to find out more information. 

Other possibilities for searching for more industry information, to name a few, include:

• Scott's Online

• Marketline
  

• Business and Company Resource Centre

• Canadian Business and Current Affairs

All accessible with your TPL library card through our website.  Marketline is the only exception - you need to be at one of the Research and Reference branches of the system.  This approach can be used for almost any industry that you are looking to find information on.  Industry periodicals, and statistical sources such as Statistics Canada and the Census Bureau of the United States compiles industry statistics  are also great sources for information.

By the way - Hostess has assured that the flow of Twinkies will continue despite its bankruptcy filing.  Another crisis averted!

 

 

Business and philanthropy

 

 I recently went to the Art Gallery of Ontario to view the works of art donated to the gallery by Kenneth Thomson.  In addition to donating $70 million to the AGO in 2002, Thomson, an avid art collector, also donated more than 2,000 pieces of artwork valued at more than $300 million.

Many wealthy business people give generously to various charities, organizations and foundations for one reason or another. Take for example Bill Gates and Warren Buffett who, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, have joined forces to give billions of dollars to fight AIDS and fund medical research in the hopes of fostering global health equity. Or Andrew Carnegie who once said "The man who dies rich dies disgraced" and proceeded to give away his entire fortune. And then there is Michael De Groote , former CEO of Laidlaw Transport Ltd., who donated $105 million to McMcaster University's medical school.

To read more about other generous business people, check out these titles:

 

Or, to find out how your business can help make the world a better place, try these titles:

 

The cost of not keeping up with the times.

My great aunt had a killer portfolio.  Almost every stock that she owned shares in were considered blue chip at the time, with one of her most prized stock holdings being that of Eastman Kodak.  Kodak, at that time in the 1960's, was a safe investment that returned good dividends - after all who wasn't taking pictures and getting them developed at the drugstore?

It was my aunt I was thinking of as I was reading of the recent downward spiral of Kodak, on the brink of bankruptcy, trying to sell off its vast patent holdings to stay afloat.   In a recent article in the Toronto Star, entitled "The last picture show", David Olive points out that companies that become complacent risk losing everything, especially today, where technology touches every aspect of our lives. 

How do you keep relevant in today's fast changing environment?  Brian Nichelson outlines 4 steps in "Keeping Up with Technology", by developing a technology awareness strategy.  It's easier than you would think and many of the resources he suggested are available at the library, including magazines, newspapers, the Internet and seeking out knowledgeable colleagues. 

Check out a few recent additions to our collection on business technology management:

         

 Interested in the storied history of Kodak and the man who founded it?  Try some of these titles:

      

 

 

There's no business like show business

It's that time of year.  Oscar buzz is abounding at our house.  Once the nominees are announced the race is on to predict who will take home the golden statue.  This years race is particularly interesting, with the silent film "The Artist" up for 10 awards, including one for best picture.  If it wins, it will be the first silent movie to win top honors since the very first award was presented in 1929 for the picture "Wings".

"The Artist", follows the path of a silent film star who is not able to make the leap to the "talkies" in the late 1920's.  If an actor could not make the transition, his career would most likely be at an end.  The movie industry today is going through another major upheaval, with video streaming, bootleg copies of current films abounding, the industry is faced with similar challenges that it encountered when it had to accept that talking pictures were the future. 

So what is the future of movies?  A vast array of ideas come up (mainly technology related) including holograms, 3D.  Check out a PBS discussion on this topic.

According to a DataMonitor industry report (available through Marketline -an on-line database available at North York Central Library and Toronto Reference Library),  the global movies and entertainment market shrank by 1.1% in 2010.  The North American market accounts for 42% of the market value of this industry, and despite its shrinking market value, this industry still has a large number of buyers and investors, since it is such a major part of popular culture.   Sony Corporation is identified as the top player in the market.  Check out this source and other business databases available through the TPL website.

Want more information about the history of silent films?  Check out Silent Films, a website that will take you through some of the great silent movies of all time.  Want to read up on the history of film companies?  Check out a few titles available at the library:

       

   

Enjoy the awards ceremony on February 26th.  Guess which movie I will be rooting for!

Movers and shakers

 

I visited the new Loblaws at Maple Gardens the other day and was very impressed by how the building was used to create a retail space while at the same time preserving its architectural heritage. Not an easy task.  Loblaws has been a fixture in Canada since 1919 when the first store was opened in Toronto by Theodore Pringle Loblaw.

Theodore came to Toronto from Alliston, Ontario with only a few dollars in his pocket.  He quickly found work in a grocery store and decided that one day he would own his own business. He began a partnership with J. Milton Cork and together they started a chain of grocery stores making their mark by using innovative merchandising methods that continue to this day.

So, what does it take to be successful in business? Is it persistence, competitive drive, vision or just plain luck? Every successful entrepreneur has their own idea of what it takes to make it big.  Do you have what it takes?  Want to find out? The library has many biographies of famous entrepreneurs that started out with an idea, just a few dollars in their pocket and lots of ambition.  Check out these new titles:

 

Shopping for a cause.

I have always been a big fan of Coke and its iconic red can, so the recent announcement by Coke to change the color of its can to all white for a brief time (from November 1, 2011 to January 15, 2012) to help support the World Wildlife Federation's efforts to save endangered animals in the polar region, caught my eye.  By buying a "white" Coke during this time I will be helping contribute to saving the polar bears!

With the Christmas season around the corner, and more shopping to be done than any other time of the year, do efforts like this influence how we shop? 

A number of companies donate a portion of their sales to worthy causes.  A few examples include Tom's shoes which donates a new pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair sold,  Better World Books, an on-line used book site that  helps find new homes for unwanted books, donating 3.3 million books to date to partner programs around the world.  Their five primary literacy partners are : Books for Africa, Room to Read, Worldfund, the National Center for Family Literacy, and Invisible Children and The Body Shop, which runs a program called Community Trade, that has the Body Shop purchasing ingredients, gifts and accessories from marginalized countries - giving small entrepreneurs access to a global distribution market. 

Corporate social responsibility (CSR, also called corporate conscience, corporate citizenship, social performance, or sustainable responsible business), has become one of the benchmarks when a company is evaluated by investors and well as potential employees.  If done right, it can elevate a company's profile and is good for the bottom line.  If done incorrectly, it can smack of hypocrisy and insincerity.   

Check out some other examples of CSR done right and wrong.  Toronto Public Library has a number of books on this topic.  Check out a few recent examples below:

         

TPL also subscribes to a periodical entitled Corporate Knights, which is devoted entirely to this topic, as well as having a number of websites bookmarked that discuss CSR. 

Do you support a company that is trying to make the world a better place?  

 

 

 

 

Small Business Forum 2011 - "Learn Today, Grow Tomorrow"

Enterprise Toronto's Small Business Forum 2011 will take place on Tuesday, October 18th, from 9:00 - 7:30 pm at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, 222 Bremner Boulavard, South Building, Level 700, 9am - 7:30pm.

This exciting event will include a morning keynote speaker, Nadja Piatka, Founder of Nadja Foods, fifteen seminars, and a business-to-business tradeshow with over ninety exhibitors.

Don't forget to check out TPL's tradeshow booth #417!

See you there!