AQA AS Applied Business (BS03) BLS Ltd Pre-Release
The pre-release material for AQA AS Applied Business (BS03) has now been issued and our team is working on the popular tutor2u revision toolkit for the case study - BLS Ltd. We aim to get this completed and despatched to colleagues teaching this unit before the Easter holidays. The AQA AS Applied Business (BS03) toolkit can be ordered directly online here, or by downloading and sending us this order form.
Legislation forces Coke and Pepsi to change their recipe
Coke and Pepsi are estimated to have a 90% share of the global market for fizzy drinks between them and both fiercely guard the ‘secret recipes’ which protect their strength in the market. However, the state of California has added the chemical 4-methylimidazol to its list of carcinogens, and both companies use this ingredient to add chemical colouring to their drinks. If they continue to use it, they would need to add a cancer warning label to their cans and bottles, to comply with California laws - and neither want to do that.
read more...»Making the most of Edexcel ResultsPlus
Read on to find out how to print out individual grade reports for all your students taking Edexcel Business Studies Unit 1 using the complete results spreadsheet you can download from ResultsPlus
read more...»Business legislation - the cost to businesses
AQA BUSS4 students are likely to be covering Business Legislation and Business and the EU about now. News over the weekend about new regulations giving workers a legal right to extra time off work if they become ill while on holiday give a useful case study combining both areas, as the regulations are due to changes to the European Working Time Directive, and state that time taken off work for sickness, maternity and paternity leave must be given to workers in addition to their legal right to annual leave.
read more...»Revision Toolkits for Pre-Released Case Studies - Summer 2012
Our popular revision toolkits for a range of pre-released case studies in Business Studies and Economics are now available to order. Some are already available and the rest will be despatched once complete in the next 2-3 weeks. The follow resources can now be ordered:
AQA BUSS4 Section A Takeovers and Mergers 2012
AQA Applied Unit 3 - Summer 2012
OCR A2 Economics Unit F585 June 2012
Edexcel A2 Business Unit 4a Toyota
OCR GCSE Business Unit 3 (J293) Summer 2012
OCR GCSE Economics Unit 593 Summer 2012
OCR AS Business Studies Unit F292 Summer 2012
OCR A2 Business Studies Unit F297 Summer 2012
OCR Applied Business Unit F242 Summer 2012
OCR Applied Business Unit F248 Summer 2012
BUSS4 Bellwork - The School Merger
I did this activity last year when delivering mergers and takeovers and this would make an excellent bellwork activity at the start of any buss4 lesson to get students thinking about some of the issues with mergers and takeovers.
read more...»VW targets growth markets
A quick heads up for business students and teachers who have no reason to follow the Economics blog - Geoff Riley has posted an item about VW’s growth and profits. There is a one-minute video which would be an excellent lesson starter, with hints about the acquisitions and competitive strategy which have led to a 15% growth in sales and doubling of profits, and their focus on emerging markets - plenty here which could lead into an investigation of the company for BUSS4 students.
Lesson Activity: The Human Organisation Chart
Listening to the weather forecast this morning on my way to work, I started to develop an idea to take advantage of the warmest day of the year so far and get my Year 11s outside. By the time I got to school it was a fully formed activity which proved really useful in introducing the concept of tall and flat organisational structures.
read more...»BUSS4 - Peugeot and GM in strategic alliance
This article about the possibility of a strategic alliance between Peugeot Citroen and General Motors (GM) is too good to miss for BUSS4 students. It gives several points which link directly to AQA’s first three bullet points, and I think it would make an excellent introduction to the issues of such alliances in the current global and European economic climate.
read more...»Barriers to entry for business expansion to Brazil
Operating a business in a developing economy is cheap, right? That’s why the BRIC economies have a comparative advantage, right? Wrong! At least, not in Brazil. The FT report the high costs of setting up in such a booming economy, highlighted by the fact that it is cheaper now to get your shoes shined by a Brazilian in New York than by a Brazilian in São Paulo. So businesses wanting to expand to Brazil and get the benefits of its high growth rate need to be aware of the low margins they will make, at least at first.
read more...»Spotting a Business Opportunity - Eastenders and Coronation Street
Whilst watching Eastenders last night, this belting activity just popped into my head. I think its perfect for the first unit of most GCSE courses but could also be used for BUSS1. A while away I know but I thought I would blog it before I forget.
read more...»AQA BUSS4 CPD Briefing Days in 2012
The session programme, dates, locations for our popular AQA BUSS4 CPD briefings in 2012 are shown below. Please note that the first London date is now sold out.
AQA BUSS4 Section A Briefing 2012
LONDON (A) - Monday 27 February 2012: sold out
BIRMINGHAM - Tuesday 28 February 2012
LEEDS - Wednesday 29 February 2012
MANCHESTER - Thursday 1 March 2012
NEWCASTLE - Tuesday 6 March 2012
LONDON (B) - Wednesday 7 March 2012
Bookings can be made using this online form, or by downloading this printable booking form
read more...»Vestas – has the wind gone out of their sales.
Last Wednesday, Vestas the leading supplier of wind turbines posted a substantial operating loss of €166m on its operations. This has led to the resignation of the Chief Financial Officer Henrik Norremark, and the Chairman Bent Carlsen and two other main board directors. Norremark was about to be promoted to Chief Operating Officer, in control of the firm’s manufacturing operations.
read more...»BUSS4 Research Theme - Merger and Takeover Egg Heads
I often find that one of the key challenges with the AQA BUSS4 research theme is finding ways to engage the students with the material in lessons and keeping them motivated and interested in the theme until the Summer.
With this in mind, I will be blogging about some strategies that I have successfully used in the past to engage the students and applying them to the new theme: take-overs and mergers.
read more...»A light-hearted look at induction training
I’m always on the look out for neat little video clips I can use to bring ideas and concepts to life. I’ve just seen the latest McDonald’s TV ad for the first time and it looks a great way of getting across the concept of induction training.
read more...»Glenstrata - Glencore proposes merger with Xstrata
Yesterday morning’s business news has been dominated by the proposed merger of Glencore and Xstrata. Glencore’s 34% holding of Xstrata shares had made a third party approach for Xstrata very difficult if not impossible.
read more...»PEST - IAG and BMI acquisition
International Airlines Group or BA and Iberia are trying to acquire BMI from Lufthansa.
A move which would allow IAG would gain c. 56 additional take-off and landing slots at Heathrow. Lufthansa had bought up most of BMI’s shares in 2008 but has failed to prevent the group losing money.
Mastering the art of merger integration
As the BUSS4 research topic reaches the students it is useful to be able to steer them towards something to get the process started. Finding something they can do alongside other work should help to motivate them as they feel their way into the topic.
read more...»Integration, integration, integration
HP is an example of a firm which is struggling to integrate acquisitions, and the perils of diversification.
BUSS4 research - some initial ideas
The brief for the BUSS4 research task makes the point that “You are strongly recommended to compare and contrast a number of different takeovers and mergers.” There is a huge amount of news reporting on this topic; in addition to the Guardian hub reported by Miss C Wilkin’s blog below, both FT.com and Reuters have link pages which will take you to myriad of reports about Mergers and Acquisitions - more information that your students could ever need, and which they will need some help to negotiate.
It is early days at the moment to get the students too far into the bullet points, but if they want to get going on some of the issues that might be involved, here is my initial list of some key news stories that could give a start point:
read more...»Schultz on Leadership, Love and the Competitive Advantage of Culture
We know that the BUSS4 is a big fan of the Apple and Steve Jobs - and with good reason. As our BUSS4 Topic Tracker indicates, a previous essay question (Jan 2010) used the example of Steve Jobs to ask students to evaluate how easy it is for a Chief Executive to change a struggling business into a more successful one.
Steve Jobs shares much in common with another well-known entrepreneur and CEO - Howard Schultz (Starbucks). Both men founded, left and then returned to lead a turnaround of their respective businesses. Both have taken on the challenge of taking a business idea through rapid growth and then also manage a global brand in a much more uncertain external environment.
Might Howard Schultz feature in a future AQA BUSS4 essay choice? Its certainly possible and this article from Ernst & Young ought to be essential reading for any A2 business student who wants to build their understanding of Schultz and his leadership style and business strategy for Starbucks.
read more...»Our Enterprise Challenge (with some exam skills for good measure!)
This week, Graham Prior (AKA ”Lord Sutch”) and I are putting the finishing touches to the Priestley College Business Challenge Event 2012. It is the fourth year we have been invited to Priestley College to deliver a fun but challenging event to their AS students, who have just sat their F291 unit exam.
read more...»Four ways to make your BUSS3 exam answers stand out
Every student sitting BUSS3 gets to answer the same four questions based on the same case study. Everyone gets the same time allocation. When the examiner starts marking scripts many answers will be similar; relatively few will stand out in terms of the quality of analysis and evaluation. So how can you make yours one of the stand-out scripts?
read more...»Maximise your Marks in BUSS3
BUSS3 is a tough exam and a significant step up in challenge for many A Level Business students compared with the BUSS1 & BUSS2 exams at AS level. To do well at BUSS3 you need to combine good subject knowledge and understanding with excellent exam technique. Here is some guidance which you might find helpful.
read more...»External influences: the threat that is China
Most A2 Business students have their sights firmly set on BUSS3 this week, which is very much as it should be. However, next week their attention will turn to the wider world of BUSS4. In planning for that, it looks as if the three-part series of reports about China that Newsnight will be running this week would be very useful, and worth recording or at least picking up on i-player.
read more...»Business Revision Workshops - Latest Availability
We are often asked how many places are left on our popular revisions workshops. So we’ve created a widget which shows you the latest seat availability! The details for the next series of revision workshops is shown below. It is updated each time our office processed a new or amended booking, so it provides an up-to-date overview of the remaining places.
read more...»tutor2u launches revision workshops for GCSE Business Studies
Following a large number of requests, we have decided to launch a programme of our popular cinema-based revision workshops for GCSE Business students. The initial programme takes us to two venues…
read more...»AQA A2 Business (BUSS3) Revision Guide
Our BUSS3 revision guide has now been printed and we’ve sent a copy to all the thousands of students who attended the BUSS3 revision workshops in November and December 2011 as well as all those who pre-ordered. We have around 300 copies left, so please order soon if you would like one. Here is the link:
http://www.tutor2u.net/acatalog/AQA-Business-Studies-New-Spec.html
read more...»AQA & Edexcel GCSE Business Controlled Assessment 2012 - CPD Support Course
A date for your diaries in April 2012 if you teach AQA or Edexcel GCSE Business Studies. We are running CPD days in Manchester (19 April 2012) and London (20 April 2012) to support teachers preparing and supervising their GCSE Business students as they tackle the 2012 controlled assessment tasks. A separate course is being run for both the 2012 AQA and Edexcel controlled assessments. Each course will run from 10.30 a.m. until 2.30 p.m. including lunch.
Places on the courses will be limited, so please make a provisional booking as soon as possible. Places can be booked online here:
https://tutor2u.wufoo.com/forms/gcse-business-controlled-assessment-support-cpd/
Tesco’s Big Price Drop - on the Stock Market, or, Porter and Ansoff in action
Such is the importance of Tesco’s and their dominance of the retail market that the effect of a 2.3% drop in their like-for-like sales knocked almost 16% off their share price yesterday. Perhaps not so much a reflection of the figures themselves - although they compare poorly with Morrison’s and Sainsbury’s both of whom managed to increase their sales over the same period - as the admission by the new CEO Philip Clarke that Tesco’s got their strategy wrong, both in the short and the long term.
read more...»
