Corruption in Russia makes it a Tough Emerging Market for International Brands
This short BBC video highlights the issue of corruption in Russian business life - a potentially major concern for international businesses looking to enter and expand into a huge potental market.
View BBC video on Russian business corruption
Howard Schultz on Starbuck’s Growth Prospects in China
Can Starbucks succeed in China in the same way as it has in almost every other major developed or developing economy. Howard Schultz (CEO) speaks about the challenges in this brief video…
read more...»BUSS4 UK Recession - Strategies in a Downturn
This is a streamed version of the presentation that was used in our BUSS4 revision workshops in April/May where we looked at two examples of the detailed strategies adopted by businesses in the recession. We focused on Dominos UK and ITV plc - businesses that experienced contrasting fortunes during the recession. The second link below is to a brief video resource that was used during the session.
View BUSS4 Strategies in the Recession presentation
BUSS4 UK Recession - Data Burn
Just under 3,000 BUSS4 students joined us last month for an intensive day preparing for the BUSS4 exam in June 2010. In the first session in the workshop we took a guided tour through the key macroeconomic changes in the UK economy during the recession, and the evidence of overall business response. The streamed presentation below was used during the session, alongside a series of quickfire revision activities. Obviously most of the key learning during the workshop was through the speaker commentary and student practice, but hopefully the presentation might be useful for other BUSS4 students ahead of the exam.
BUSS4 Revision Workshop - Session 1 UK Data Burn
UK Recession - Hotels Suffer Despite the Trend towards Staycations
A hat tip to Geoff for spotting this useful BBC report on the problems being experienced by the overall UK hotel sector. 2009 saw a sharp rise in the number of hotel insolvencies in the UK, despite what many thought would be a helpful trend - UK consumers prefering to stay here in Britain for their holidays.
One issue was a drop in demand from overseas visitors, which fell by 6% in 2009. But it looks like the bigger reason was simply customers trading down and reducing their average hotel spend per visit. Guests ordered fewer hotel extras, and the important high-margin conference trade also suffered as businesses looked to reduce they spent on hotel meetings. One winner from this trend, which we reported on a few months ago, was branded coffee shop chains. Meeting customers and clients at a Starbucks or Costa Coffee has become more popular rather than hiring expensive (and often poorly equipped) hotel meeting rooms.
Why Coffee Shops did so well during the UK Recession
Students researching how the recent recession provided opportunities as well as threats would do well to watch this brief video from the BBC on why coffee shops (particularly the branded chains) seemed to turn the recession to their advantage.
Some additional links further below provide some extra background research reading.
A good example to use when explaining what firms do as they come out of a recession
Students of the recent recession in the UK will know that the UK advertising industry declined sharply during the downturn as businesses (on balance) trimmed their advertising spend to conserve cash and reduce costs. What might students expect to see as the economy exits the recession phase?
read more...»Cash flow problems persist after the recession
This short one-minute video report explains very clearly the problems a small or medium sized business faces when customers delay payments. It coincides with a report from BACS Payment Systems which says that typically businesses are receiving payment 41 days late - with many payments running over 90 days late. This means that businesses are effectively bank-rolling their customers, and are particularly worried as they find that increasingly the delay is caused not so much by a desire to pay later, but because of an inabilty to pay at all. One issue is the cost of administrative time spent chasing those customers, and another is the need to add an extra 20 and 30 days-worth of cash to the cash flow. All making it increasingly hard to businesses which have survived the recession to survive the recovery as well.
Girl Power
There is no doubt that the recent recession has been a painful time for most businesses - but some have managed to come out on top. Here is a great article about four female entrepreneurs who have been recognised for their outstanding achievement over the last year and nominated for Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the Year Award and four case study exam style questions for you to practice with.
read more...»Corus chief calls for more government funds for the economy
Any students who are investigating Corus as part of their preparation for the AQA BUSS4 paper in June should read this interview with Kirby Adams, the Managing Director and CEO of Corus in Europe.
There is analysis of the mothballing of the Corus plant in Teesside, the state of demand for steel in Europe as manufactuing closes down in this part of the globe, and the lack of investment in infrastructure in the UK.
For example, Adams is an American who says ‘I’ve lived in London for a year, and I travel around, and the one thing that strikes me is the aweinspiring investment in infrastructure that the Victorians made — isn’t it time for renewal?’
The article is from the Sunday Times - which is still free for download now, but won’t be later this year - and should be seen as a key addition to the resources about Corus suggested by Jim in his blog last month.
AQA BUSS4 - Research Toolkit for June 2010 & Jan 2011
Over 600 AQA centres have now purchased our AQA BUSS4 research toolkit - the essential teaching and revision solution for the AQA BUSS4 exams in June 2010 and January 2011. Described by a senior AQA examiner recently as an “awesome piece of work”, the BUSS4 toolkit aims to support teachers and students by focusing their research on the UK recession, providing detailed guidance on exam technique for Section A, and explaining point by point how effective answers can be developed in this tough, new exam.
The BUSS4 Toolkit for June 2010 / January 2011 can be ordered in several ways:
Order using our AQA Business Studies Resource Order Form
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Recession Survival Strategies Cost UK SMEs £16bn
A fascinating research report came out this morning which is really useful for students researching the UK recession and for teachers who want to top up their understanding of what really goes on inside small and medium-sized businesses in the UK…
read more...»UK Recession - What Happened to Redundancies?
Here’s a great chart from our Economics bloggers which is really useful in helping students researching the recent recession in the UK…
read more...»Global technology giants are hoarding their cash
I came across a fascinating graphic which illustrates just how strong the cash flows are of the world’s leading technology businesses like Apple, Google, Cisco and Microsoft…
read more...»Unilever in the recession - the CEO on strategy
Here’s a neat 4 minute video with Paul Polman (CEO of Unilever) which would be useful for BUSS4 students researching recession strategies + perhaps some stronger AQA GCSE (legacy) candidates looking at the pre-released case study on Unilever plc…
read more...»How firms can make the most of the recovery
I have just found this article on the BBC website which offers advice to small and medium sized businesses about strategies to help them to emerge from the recession into a fragile recovery in a strong and healthy state. It gives guidance about a range of government-backed schemes under these headings:
General advice
Delaying tax payments
How to handle redundancies
Securing a bank loan
Winning contracts
Securing payment from other firms
read more...»
Measuring changing shopping habits and inflation
As students learn about the impact of external economic influences such as inflation, it might be helpful to look at the changes the Office of National Statistics have just made to the way in which they calculate the average level of inflation for the UK. Each year they review the so-called ‘typical basket of goods’ that is bought by households, so that they can measure changes in the price of those goods over the coming year. This enables them to make sure that the prices they are monitoring are for the goods which are most relevant to the average household in the UK – the aim is to update the basket to reflect changes in our pattern of spending.
Wipeout Challenge - UK Recession
Here is a new version of Wipeout challenge. This time the task is for students to identify the businesses that entered administration during 2008-2009. A nice little lesson starter. The follow-up could be to discuss why the businesses that did go bust failed..and what happened to them since (not all disappeared altogether)
UK_Recession_Wipeout_Challenge.ppt
Motivation and management at John Lewis
These news reports about the 10% rise in profits at John Lewis are valuable for students preparing for AQA BUSS 4, as they give plenty of material about how the group turned poor half year results into splendid full year profits in the midst of the recession and decline in high street spending. The report in the Guardian is particularly interesting as it examines the advantages brought by the unusual corporate structure, and the quality of management of the company which it concludes isn’t the best-run in Britain. While the article in Management Today compares the profits with those of Morrisons, and contrasts the growth strategies of the two businesses.
They are equally valuable for those preparing for the AS unit 2 papers, as they examine the way in which John Lewis uses profit sharing as a means of financial motivation, alongside a wide range of other fringe benefits, and in return have a labour turnover which is half that of most of their competitors. They should be viewed alongside the BBC’s series of three programmes about John Lewis and will be of greatest interest of all to any students who have part-time jobs at Waitrose or the department stores, as they stand to gain a 15% profit sharing bonus!
BBC News - John Lewis profits top £306m as staff share big bonus
The Guardian - At John Lewis, ‘happiness’ beats profit
Management Today - Booming Waitrose powers John Lewis to bumper profits
Data watch - what happened to consumer spending in the UK recession?
Putting to one side all the newspaper and tv stories of how consumers behaved during the recent recession in the UK, what does the data show? What were the real trends and how did consumers behave compared with the long preceding period of economic growth in the UK?
read more...»BUSS4 Research - a Corus of Disapproval
One more suggestion for colleagues looking to encourage students to pick a relevant case study for their BUSS4 research on the recent recession in the UK. Take a look at the Corus story over the last 18-24 months.
read more...»Strategy in a recession - stakeholders & cutting labour costs
During the recent recession in the UK, many firms looked to reduce their operating costs by implementing short-time working, overtime bans and temporary cuts in production capacity. What were the stakeholder implications of this? A key issue was what effect these actions had on employer/employee relations, and I came across this neat 4 minute video which addresses the issue. In the video, the General Secretary of the TUC discusses how trade unions felt about labour cost-minimisation strategies. Some good points for students to pick up in here:
View video interview with Brendan Barber (TUC) [source BBC Daily Politics]
Whiteboard Challenge - Drawing UK GDP
Here’s a simple lesson activity which might get students thinking about the UK recession in the context of the longer-term performance of the economy. It might add a bit of spicy competition to the start of a lesson too..
read more...»Recession strategy - what happens when a market dives by 30%+?
Hays Group plc is a great case study example to use with students if you want to look at a recession strategy where market demand falls significantly. We’ve put some numbers together which will help you use Hays as a lesson resource.
read more...»Management pay is squeezed during the recession
There have been some interesting surveys on the effects of the recession on people management in the last couple of months. This one from Hay Group is useful for students in that it highlights one of the operational effects of the recession - this time on the remuneration of senior business management.
read more...»HRM priorities as firms exit the recession
What should a firm’s people management priorities be as the UK & global economy slowly emerges from recession? The Institute of Employment studies has just published its suggestions…
read more...»Global branding in emerging markets - Ikea tolerates window shoppers
A big hat tip to Steve Storey for spotting this fantastic video from the FT on the Ikea store in Beijing. For those who you with an FT.com subscription which gets you past the paywall, this is one to show the students!
read more...»Strategy in a recession - cost optimisation not cost minimisation
The quick fix is easy. The economy worsens and customer confidence plummets. Monthly sales begin to decline; fewer customers respond to the direct mail shot or visit the shops. The word goes out after the latest board meeting. All functional budgets are to be cut by 10% as a strategic response to the economic crisis. But does it work? Or should a business take a much more strategic approach to cost management?
read more...»An interesting way to describe the Business Cycle
Not really an activity but I asked my students to think about how they would describe the Business Cycle to a 10 year old. One student came up with this brilliant description…
read more...»Strategy in a recession - Don’t Panic Mr Mainwaring!
One of the key lessons from the recent recession is a need for firms to take a much closer look at how their business really operates. Those that really knew their business - their strengths and weaknesses (their competitive position) - have usually been able to respond successfully. Those that were caught by surprise have been badly hurt, or worse.
read more...»
