Rising to the top of the milk
Two cooperative firms Milk Link (Moo milk, Gervik, Caradog cheese) and Arla Foods (brands include Cravendale, Lurpak and Anchor) are to merge.
read more...»6 Essential M&A Cases: Tata Group buys Jaguar Land Rover
The Tata acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover is a superb example to include in research notes on takeovers and mergers. At the time (early 2008), Tata’s investment in JLR seemed to be poorly timed and there were many critics who questioned the strategic logic of the move as well as its timing. Shortly after the takeover, demand in the global market for luxury cars collapsed as a result of the financial crisis and Tata was forced to refinance to support its investment.
Several years later, however, the takeover appears to be a compelling example of a successful acquisition which is generating substantial shareholder value for Tata as well as continued support from JLR’s many stakeholder groups in the UK.
read more...»Who owns who?
Sniper or Machine Gunner?
One of the major difficulties with the BUSS4 paper is managing time effectively. Students- understandably under pressure- regularly neglect to take the time to understand the question before they start writing. They are unsure how best to address the essay and so try to reproduce their text book, hoping that some of their knowledge will hit the target. Another error from those who have learned the syllabus, and/or built up a vast portfolio of information on the research theme, often feel obliged to ‘show off’ in the exam room. Rather than scoring highly, however, their essays tend to read like a list of bullet points, interspersed with ‘stories’ about businesses they have studied.
read more...»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...»Takeovers and Mergers - A Casino Gamble?
Hot on the heels of the Vue takeover of Apollo Cinema Group, here is another significant takeover in the UK leisure sector. This one will certainly attract the attention of the competition regulators. Two of the UK’s largest operators of casinos are being brought together as Rank buys Gala Coral’s casino business for £205m.
read more...»Takeovers and Mergers - Vue on the Growth Trail!
News of a £20m takeover here which will be particularly relevant to colleagues and students who joined us recently for the BUSS4 revision workshops at cinemas around the UK…
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.
Takeovers and Mergers - the failed takeover behind Clinton Cards’ Collapse
The collapse of Clinton Cards has been widely predicted for some time as its new CEO (recruited from Starbucks UK) attempted to achieve a turnaround and restructuring in recent months. Clinton’s administration is one of the biggest UK retail failures wince Woolworths and much of the press analysis will focus on the competitive pressures that the retail chain faced from online operators like Moonpig and Funky Pigeon, as well as the effect of weak consumer confidence and spending.
Eagle-eyed A2 students, however, will also spot that a strategic mistake back in 2004 is at the root of many of Clinton Cards problems. The mistake - buying Birthdays Group in 2004.
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...»Vodafone and Cable and Wireless Worldwide
Cable and Wireless Worldwide has 20,500km of fibre-optic cables in the UK, owning this would mean that Vodafone doesn’t have develop a network from scratch, estimated at £5bn. Vodafone like other mobile operators needs additional capacity to cope with the increased use of smartphones - downloads of music, video, photos etc.
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...»Vodafone takes over Cable and Wireless Worldwide
Last week the share price of Cable and Wireless Worldwide C&WW, slumped, after the Indian conglomerate Tata withdrew its bid for the company.
read more...»6 Essential M&A Cases: BA & Iberia Merge to Form IAG
This M&A briefing note provides an overview of the merger of British Airways and Iberia which led to the formation of a new firm - International Airlines Group (“IAG”)
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...»Effective evaluation for A2 business: the “halo effect”
The most important skill that candidates need to show off in their AS/A2 exams is an ability to effectively evaluate. Evaluation statements put candidates in the top mark band on most of the bigger questions.
For this reason, I’m always on the lookout for ways in which the quality of evaluation in student responses can be improved. When I was reading at the weekend I came across a new term (for me, anyway) that I thought would be worth adding to my list of tips – a so-called ‘halo effect’.
read more...»It’s all going wrong for Nokia - big losses in Q1 (2012)
Nokia has just announced some very poor financial results for the first three months of 2012, raising concerns that Stephen Elop’s turnaround strategy for the once market-leading mobile phone producer may be running into further trouble.
read more...»Easy ride for Audi?
Cross border acquisitions allow a firm to reach new markets, or to add to their portfolios of brands. This morning’s business stories included Audi’s announcement that it has taken over the Italian Ducati Compnay.
read more...»Strategy - How Nokia was overtaken by Apple and Samsung
I like this short article from Channel 4 News which examines how Nokia’s competitive position has been severely weakened by the success of firms like Apple and Nokia.
read more...»Apple under fire for e-book deals
A great example here of the role of competition legislation and regulation here - which involves everyone’s favourite A2 case study - Apple…
read more...»Takeovers and Mergers - Cost Synergies in Action at BMI
This is desperately bad news for the employees and local community involved, but it serves as a good example for students to understand the nature of cost synergies in a takeover or merger. This local newspaper report covers the announcement of hundreds of job losses at the headquarters of BMI, which has recently been acquired by British Airways from Lufthansa.
read more...»Leadership - meet the new boss of Starbucks UK
Just catching up on some research on Starbucks and I came across this nice short interview with Kris Engskov who has recently taken over as Managing Director of Starbucks UK…
read more...»Takeovers and Mergers: Facebook & Instagram in News Clips
The Facebook takeover of Instagram for $1bn has generated a huge amount of media interest. The takeover is a great topical example for A2 business students looking at takeovers, and these video clips provide all they could possibly need in terms of looking at the motives for the deal and also the potential revenue synergies for Facebook.
read more...»CSR & Ethics: Damaging Allegations for Adidas and the London Olympics 2012
On the face of it, the findings of the Independent newspaper’s investigations into the sourcing of the official London Olympics GB team kit are very damaging for both LOCOG and the supplier - Adidas. You can read the full report here.
read more...»Strategy & Technological Change - Whatever Happened to BlackBerry?
The revenues achieved in 2011 by RIM, the owner of BlackBerry, fell by 25% compared with 2010. It looks like customers have fallen out of love with BlackBerry. Apple, HTC, Samsung and other operator have grabbed a large share of BlackBerry’s customer base, so it must be that BlackBerry has seen its competitiveness deteriorate.
This excellent video from the FT examines some key strategic issues facing Rim and its BlackBerry brand. Could the business be a takeover target now that the firm is trying to achieve a turnaround? But, if so, who would want to buy it? Can new product development save BlackBerry before it loses further market share in key markets like the US? A fantastic lesson resource for A2 students…
read more...»Sony - Hirai’s Turnaround Strategy - in Video Clips
At our A2 Business revision workshops in March we predicted that Sony would quickly become an essential research case study for students in 2012 and perhaps beyond, as we anticipated the strategic review being carried out by Hirai Kazou as he took over as CEO of Sony from Sir Howard Stringer. Events over recent days have supported that view. Sony’s plight - and proposed turnaround strategy - is packed full with fantastic business strategy materials. Perfect for comparing and contrasting with the likes of Apple, Samsung, Google & HTC.
Hirai’s announcement has been well covered in all the business media, particularly the online business television channels. Here is a selection of clips which help explain the strategy and also provide some examples of experts analysing and evaluating the likely success of the turnaround:
Update: BBC news, May 2012: Sony shares tumble to 31-year low amid record losses
read more...»Instagram - the business with no revenues, worth $1bn
Simply stunning. There’s no other way to describe the takeover by Facebook of Instagram…for a cool $1bn. This takeover has really made the technology market sit up and notice.
read more...»Organisational culture, strategy and performance in fewer than 1000 words
Tuning into the news last week I was not surprised to see the Met Police once again under the spotlight for all the wrong reasons (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17636776). Described as suffering from ‘institutional racism’ by the MacPherson Report in 1999 it appears not a lot has changed at the Met police in the almost 20 years since the racially motivated murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence. So what exactly is going on?
read more...»
