AQA BUSS4 - ‘with reference to *** plc and your own research ....’
As you have doubtless been told numerous times, success in BUSS4 depends on having carried out your own research - this year, with a particular focus on mergers and acquisitions. Did you realise you cannot get a good grade in the first part WITHOUT explicitly using your research in your response?
read more...»BUSS4 - Keep Calm and Carry On…
Preparing for the BUSS4 exam involves getting yourself right mentally. Many students underestimate the influence that attitude has in determining how well they perform. They focus on learning terminology and concepts and on building a research file but don’t spend enough time getting their psychological approach right. Here are some thoughts on how you can into the right frame of mind to do your best in BUSS4.
read more...»BUSS4 - Mergers & Acquisitions - one that went wrong. BMW and Rover
When BMW met Rover
For the BUSS4 exam this June, it is useful to understand why a merger may fail to work and a retrospective look at BMW’s acquisition of Rover back in 1994 provides a good illustration of several possible pitfalls.
AQA BUSS2 & BUSS4 Revision Workshops in Spring 2013
The dates and locations for our popular programme of intensive one-day revision workshops for AQA BUSS2 and BUSS4 have now been confirmed. Details below. Provisional bookings can now be made using the online form linked below.
Make a provisional booking for AQA BUSS2 & BUSS4 revision workshops in March & April 2013
read more...»AQA BUSS4 Section A Research Online Clinic - Tuesday 1 May 2012
This blog entry hosts an online revision clinic for students preparing for AQA BUSS4 Section A which will start at 9pm and last for an hour. Students who wish to get live support from the tutor2u team will be able to login to the clinic on this blog entry; please use your FB, Twitter or OpenID details to login.
read more...»BUSS4 - Three Ways to Evaluate Emerging Markets
The topic of emerging markets is hugely important for BUSS4 students. The economic growth and large populations of the ‘BRIC’ nations (amongst others) has meant many businesses, including some of the tutor2u twelve: have been targeting these countries as part of their strategies for growth. Examples include Starbucks who plan to have 1,500 coffee shops in China by 2015, and Apple as their Shanghai store sells more iPhones per square foot than any other Apple store in the world.
read more...»Flaws in Tesco’s strategy
BUSS4 students can accumulate some useful evidence about changes in business strategy by examining the reasons for Tesco’s fall in UK profits, and their strategy to reverse the trend. There is an opportunity to do some ‘compare and contrast’ with the strategies of other businesses which are struggling to turnaround disappointing business results such as Nokia and others that have such as BA and Starbucks.
read more...»A detailed look inside Apple’s Foxconn factory
A fascinating and detailed look here at working conditions at Apple’s main supplier in China. This 15 minute video raises a lot of issues which students can develop; particularly useful for any discussion around CSR, but also excellent for operations and HRM. In the video, ABC News Nightline goes behind the scenes of the FoxConn factory - the operation which makes iPads and iPhones.
read more...»BUSS4: The Seven Point Scale for Perfect Paragraphs
This is an idea I’ve developed following the recent tutor2u BUSS4 revision workshops for marking and feeding back to students when building essay skills. Like many of my A2 Business-teaching counterparts, I spent a large proportion of the Easter break marking BUSS4 mock essays. In a bid to help my students develop their paragraph writing skills, I made a note of the common areas for improvement and summarised them into seven key points for writing the ‘perfect’ paragraph:
read more...»Life and leadership at BA after Willie Walsh
This is an interesting article that I came across while looking for updates on how industrial relations and strike threats have been progressing at BA over the last year or so - the article was published last September so apologies if you are already familiar with it, but I think it is well worth reading. When studying leadership for BUSS4 we often use the example of Willie Walsh, and the rather deeply entrenched conflicts that became established with BASSA (the cabin crew branch of Unite). So it is interesting to see what has happened since Walsh moved on from the position of CEO of British Airways at the start of 2011 to become CEO of IAG instead.
read more...»ResearchBuster: Acquisitions
Our ResearchBuster blog posts are designed to help students identify and integrate examples of business strategy for their synoptic essays and exams. This ResearchBuster look at some of the most significant examples of takeovers / acquisitions in recent years…
(updated 8 April 2012 with 9 new entries)
read more...»Move over Apple, Samsung, Sony & Nokia. Here Comes China’s Huawei
A great article here for students researching the competitive environment in the consumer electronics industry. Students should certainly be familiar with the strategies of Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Sony and others. But have they heard of Huawei? It looks like they might soon, if Huawei is successful in its objective of grabbing a significant share of the smartphone and tablet markets.
read more...»Essay writing: turn evidence into analysis
At the recent A2 business studies revision workshops we focused on the need for students to use independent research evidence to help develop their essay points.
One analogy we used was thinking of examples (evidence) as the seasoning in an essay hot-pot or casserole. The seasoning is there to make the meal taste great; but you also need the raw ingredients! An essay point that is developed to a good depth will always score better with the examiners than answers which are littered with too many examples.
Let’s take a look at how we can use a recent business example to help develop a point.
read more...»Revision Presentation - Business Culture
This updated revision presentation provides an overview of the concept of business culture, specifically in the context of strategic decision-making and change management.
read more...»ResearchBuster: Retrenchment
Most businesses aim to grow - but not all succeed - and many are forced to reduce the scale and scope of their business activities as a deliberate act of strategy. This is known as “retrenchment” and A2 students should have an understanding of some examples of retrenchment in action. Which firms / brands were involved? What happened? And why? Here are some suggestions that students could add to their notes:
read more...»IAG bid for BMI receives approval
International Airlines Group, IAG or BA/Iberia has secured EU approval for its purchase of BMI from Lufthansa. The purchase price is c. £172.5m. The quid quo pro is the insistence by the EU regulators that IAG gives up 14/56 of BMI’s slots at Heathrow.
read more...»“Strategy is Choice” - Takeovers are Just One Option
In my previous life in mergers and acquisitions, I was fortunate to work alongside Dr John Wells (before he moved back to Harvard Business School) as we negotiated takeovers, investments, strategic partnerships and the like for a quoted travel company.
It was a chaotic period (right in the middle of the dot-com boom) and we probably had more misses than hits. However I always remember that period for a three-word phrase that became our mantra as we evaluated the best options for the Board.
The phrase was simply “strategy is choice”. Simple, and extremely powerful for students who need to write about external growth strategy.
read more...»BUSS2 and BUSS4 Comes to the Olympics!
We’re now entering the third week of our AQA BUSS2 and BUSS4 revision workshops and we’ve been delighted to meet many thousands of students and teachers who are preparing for these two exams in May & June 2012. After a short break for Easter, we then reprise the BUSS2 and BUSS4 workshops at a new venue for tutor2u - the stunning Vue Cinema at Westfield Stratford - right next door to the London Olympic Park! This is the most advanced cinema in Europe and situated right in the heart of a stunning new shopping and leisure centre. It should be amazing.
read more...»Women & Leadership
Here is a really interesting article on the qualities women offer as leaders and why research by two contributors to Harvard Business Review suggests they make better leaders than their male counterparts.
read more...»UK manufacturing - GlaxoSmithKline invests in 1,000 new jobs
The relationship between business and the government - one important element of this is government support for business investment through fiscal policy (taxation), regulation and legislation. Yesterday Glaxo announced that they were investing £500mn in a new factory in Cumbria which will provide 1,000 much needed jobs. And this extract from the BBC article about this shows how government has helped to bring this about:
Glaxo said it was motivated specifically by Chancellor George Osborne’s confirmation in the Budget on Wednesday that the government would introduce so-called patent boxes.
These allow corporations to pay a lower rate of tax on profits generated from UK-owned intellectual property.
“The introduction of the patent box has transformed the way in which we view the UK as a location for new investments, ensuring that the medicines of the future will not only be discovered, but can also continue to be made here in Britain,” said Glaxo chief executive Sir Andrew Witty.
“Consequently, we can confirm that we will build GSK’s first new UK factory for almost 40 years.”
A useful little piece of evidence to use if writing BUSS4 essays on this topic.
BUSS4 2012 - Keeping in Touch using the #BUSS4 Hashtag
We’re now into our AQA BUSS2 and BUSS4 revision workshop tour and it’s really encouraging how many students and teachers are including Twitter as part of the their revision and teaching support package. The BUSS4 hashtag (#buss4) is well worth following so that you can see new resources being shared by the AQA business community. It’s also a great way for students to ask short questions or request help as they embark on their research activities. Here is the link to the hashtag and also to our tutor2u twitter account which features BUSS4 postings on a daily basis.
read more...»Introducing the tutor2u Twelve for 2012
After a relatively successful series of picks last year, we’ve now come up with our suggestions for twelve firms to follow for A2 business students wanting to deepen their understanding of real businesses as they prepare for their final exam papers this summer.
read more...»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...»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.
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...»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...»
