Business Organisation
Will the Co-op buy Somerfield?
The Co-op, the UK’s fifth largest supermarket chain has said it is in talks about buying rival Somerfield. The Co-op is a fascinating business (see more at the Co-op website) and is thought to have up to £1.5bn to pay for a major investment in its smaller rival.
The Co-op had a pretty dreadful 2007, with profits halving to around £200m. The business is run on behalf of its 2.5 million members – customers who banked £45m in cash dividends last year.
Jaguar: Globalisation and the car industry
No one can complete a business course without making several references to the car business. Whether it’s lean production or economies of scale, marketing or location, car industry case studies can be very instructive. Here’s another in the long line. Jaguar, a classic UK brand (but owned by US car giant Ford) has been sold on to a rising Indian industrial group. Sign of the times?
Indian company Tata, which is India’s biggest vehicle maker, accounts for more than half of the sub-continent’s truck market and has about 20% of India’s car market. It famously launched its new budget Nano car recently, which has been designed to reach India’s growing new middle class.
The firm is likely to pay about £1bn in the deal, although analysts will be keen to see the exact price and terms. The lengthy sale process started last June when Ford announced its intention to sell the companies as a package.
The BBC provide some helpful background at Tata, a growing global giant
read more...»Grand Theft Auto Takeover
Video game firm Electronic Arts (EA) has made a hostile £1bn bid for Take-Two Interactive Software, which publishes Grand Theft Auto.
According to the BBC, Grand Theft Auto bid goes hostile, the chief executive of EA said the offer was NOT hostile. “This is an incredibly friendly proposition: we’re offering a premium of over 60% of what [the share price] was trading at before our offer. I think we’re the best possible home for their creative organisations; frankly, we’re big fans.”
read more...»Team spirit, innovation and business success
People are naturally cooperative and humans have a phenomenal capacity to work collaboratively in teams according to Lynda Gratton, Professor of management practise, London Business School, one of the contributors of Peter Day’s latest In Business programme. He visits the preparations of the Cambridge University boat race team to discover some of the factors that influence team-building and its significance in helping businesses to innovate, raise productivity, succeed in markets and drive shareholder value. Increasingly modern business organisations are looking for team-players, we hear that Goldman Sachs may put people through up to sixty interviews before taking them on! The programme interviews the author Mark de Rond, Reader in strategy & organisation, Judge Business School, Cambridge who has written a book about his experiences with the Cambridge boat race crew entitled “The Last Amateurs”.
