Strategy - The Challenges Facing Nokia
We’ve recommended that AQA A2 centres follow Nokia during 2010/11 as part of their business/industry research for BUSS4 - and here is a really useful short video from the BBC which helps introduce the strategic challenges facing the new CEO Stephen Elop. Some other relevant research links are also provided at the foot of the blog entry.
read more...»Advertising booms (but not if you’re a newspaper)
When the recession came along, advertising expenditure plummeted. The worrying question for the ad agencies was if this was a temporary state of affairs, or the sign of something deeper. Would marketing money return to all media, or just a few? The answers are becoming clearer.
read more...»Making the FT Brand Sweat!
The Guardian’s media page reports that the new iPad app for the Financial Times has already brought in more than £1 million in advertising revenue. For most newspapers, an age of falling circulation and a migration towards online advertising is hitting their long-established revenue streams from adverts in print editions.
The FT has been hugely active in finding extra revenues - from raising their cover price to £2 (demand is price inelastic) to organising live events and exploring digital opportunities including a pay wall for their online news and analysis. The app was launched in May and serves more than 400,000 paying subscribers. Interestingly the FT iPad app seems to be more popular and lucrative than the iPhone equivalent. The deep penetration of the iPad among leading corporates (alluded to by Steve Jobs in an analysts’ conference call yesterday) may have something to do with this. Lots of executives seem to have added the FT app to their portfolio. Have they added the New York Times? Perhaps now they will - it has been redesigned and industry insiders claim that Steve Jobs was a driving force behind the revamp! More here.
tutor2u on Smarta - An Interview with Jim
The video of my interview with the lovely people at Smarta.com s now avaialable and can be seen by clicking below…
read more...»Google, Profits and Diversification
I love this video below. It works for business studies lessons at some many levels…
read more...»Business and the blogosphere
Firms can’t ignore Twitter, Facebook and the rest any longer. There’s a great BBC page all about how firms watch our online moves with ever greater interest. There has been a huge shift taking in place in the balance of stakeholder power. As the article begins, “once upon a time companies could afford to be rude. Unhappy customers would grumble to a few friends, withdraw their custom, but there was little else they could do. Today, they still tell their friends, but they do it online, using social media websites like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter”.
read more...»Bankrupt Blockbuster: what went wrong?
You may have seen it coming some way off, but the US parent company of the Blockbuster rental company has gone into bankruptcy. Here are some ideas of what went wrong.
read more...»Leadership & Strategy - “Welcome to Nokia”
Love this special report from Reuters which provides a rich source of student material if they decide to use Nokia to demonstrate evidence of real-life business strategy.
We mentioned a couple of weeks ago on the Business Studies Blog that Nokia has a new CEO - Stephen Elop. This Reuters article highlights the strategic challenges and issues facing Elop. Since the start of 2000, Nokia shareholders have seen the value of their company fall to just 15% of its peak, as it has been overtaken by rivals such as Apple and RIM (Blackberry).
Some great strategy material in here which students could consider and debate further, including:
- The impact of technological change on market leaders
- The cultural & change management issues of a non-Finn CEO taking over for the first time in Nokia’s 145 year history
- Whether Elop has the right leadership capabilities to turn Nokia’s fortunes around
I am sure students can see other interesting questions linked to this article
The Business Studies Blog on the iPad
I’m enjoying experiementing with various news readers on the iPad. There are some great apps out there which make keeping up-to-date on breaking business stories or specialist topics both a pleasure and a breeze.
read more...»100 topical examples of business innovation
If you ever need to point students to some real-life examples of technological innovation in action, use this new list produced by the Guardian. Some great case studies here of how technology can be used to identify new value-added services for consumers & businesses, as well as challenge the existing business models of market leaders.
The underlying theme seems to be that technology is enabling these businesses to overcome barriers to entry in a market and quickly become quite disruptive to the established operators. Not all of these businesses will survive and thrive, but some (e.g. Spotify) are already household names and others may soon achieve that status.
Fashion retailing finds its home online
A fantastic video here which can be used to illustrate the changing distribution patterns in fashion retailing. This is a topic which will be highly relevant to (and popular with) so many students - and it is a great example of how a retailing market can be changed fundamentally by a combination of improving technology and changing consumer (buyer) behaviour.
read more...»Fighting for a share of the fast-growth tablet market
Everyone is getting excited about tablet computers. Apple has grabbed the lead with its iPad and now the other global consumer electronic brands are racing like mad to catch up and enter the market.
read more...»When is a Ping not a Ping? When its an Apple
The latest big announcement from Apple brings with it a great example of trademark protection in action. Its a good one to use with students, since it illustrates the potential commercial value from licensing a trademarked-brand name.
read more...»The Social Network - the Facebook Business Story
Coming to cinemas later this year - The Social Network - tells the story of Facebook and the challenges faced by Mark Zuckerberg along the way.
The trailer below gives you some idea about the style of the film. Looks like it could be helpful for teaching protection of intellectual property at the very least!
read more...»The most successful Dragons’ Den pitch so far?
There have been several notable moments in Dragons’ Den over the years, many of which have caught the eye of Business students and teachers. This one is exciting simply because of the amount of financial interest it has generated….
read more...»ITV returns to profitability
I’ve watched ITV’s ‘inevitable’ decline over the last few years with considerable interest, from a Business Studies perspective. What factors are behind its bounce back into profitability? A handy BBC video clip takes us through some key points.
read more...»The technological wave in television - who will win the 3D battle?
3D television seems likely to be the next big technological change in our television viewing and this market will provide some excellent stimulus material for our business students over the next few years…
read more...»Retail banking through the ages - a pictoral guide
On the day that Metro Bank launches in the London - the first new retail bank for 100 years - the Telegraph has produced this slideshow which illustrates how retail banking has changed over the years. Some good examples in here of the changing face of customer service as well as the ways in which retailing in financial services has altered over the decades.
Retail banking has seen much technological innovation - from the introduction of computerised transaction processing, to the cashpoint machine and smart card. I’m not sure that the reputation of banking (and bankers) has improved much over the years though. Most entrepreneurs I speak to don’t have a good word to say about the banking sector currently. Maybe the launch of Metro will herald a new era when banks start taking their customer seriously rather than patronising and ripping them off in equal measure 
Sony’s Product Development Timeline
Here is a superb graphical illustration which summarises the key product innovations introduced by Sony over the years. Whilst Sony perhaps doesn’t have the same reputation for innovation as it used to (certainly compared with Apple), the graphic is a great way of illustrating examples of new product development in consumer electronics. Would also be useful on the IWB for a lesson on product life cycle.
The uncertain future for cash
Cash has lasted a surprisingly long time, and its demise has been predicted for at least twenty years as electronic payment methods have grown and developed. There was even a debate if euro notes and coins should be produced when the single currency came to life in 2002. But fanciful predictions have a way of becoming fact and as festival season approaches there’s a BBC article suggesting that cash is to be axed from UK festivals.
read more...»Alliances - benefits of scale without the risks?
Is there the potential for some firms to enjoy economies of scale and the benefits of size, without risking a potentially disastrous merger? The boss of Renault Nissan thinks so and is continuing to hype his alliance model as the way forward in the car industry. We’ve heard about ‘co-opetition’ before: how would it work out this business?
read more...»BUSS4 - Dyson’s Success is a Great Example to Use in Section A Essays
A terrific article on Dyson in The Guardian today which is pure gold dust for AQA BUSS4 students preparing for the Section A essays on the recent recession in the UK…
read more...»Time wasters of the world unite
Are you finding that Facebook is eating up time when you’re at home when you should be revising? Perhaps it’s as well that most schools try to block the site and that way we get some work done. One recent blog looked at how firms might try to monitor their employees that work from home and here’s a couple of other observations about ICT time wasting.
read more...»Some facinating data on research & development data at Apple, Google & Microsoft
Few business teachers and students would argue against the view that Apple is a very innovative as well as successful firm. Its record on new product development in the consumer electronics industry is probably second to none. So how much do you think Apple spends on research and development (measured as a percentage of revenues)? Do you think it is more, or less than competitors such as Microsoft, Google?
read more...»Can the Dell Streak Find a Large Enough Gap in the Market?
The rapid pace of product innovation in the mobile computing market continues with Dell’s launch of a new handheld device - the Dell Streak. The marketing challenge for Dell is to find a suitable and sufficiently large market segment into which the Streak can be launched successfully.
read more...»How IT is changing the jobs market
Some futuristic ideas take a long time to arrive. There have been predictions for perhaps 20 years that soon a huge number of people will be working from home using ICT – an idea often referred to as ‘teleworking’ or ‘telecommuting’. Now there’s evidence that as the web blooms and the recession bites, it might really start happening.
read more...»Is cinema now the fastest-growing and most innovative part of the film business?
It wasn’t supposed to be like this: people of my age were brought up during the decline of cinema. Audiences were drifting away to TV, then video and DVD. Add in the rise of video gaming and the internet and the future of the cinema seemed clear: long run decline. But the cinema business is in good health. Why is this?
read more...»Container shipping: the greatest business innovation of the 20th Century?
I was totally caught up in BBC4’s The Box That Changed Britain - an absolute must for business and economics students. This fantastic programme covered business costs, logistics, retail, business location, productive efficiency, human resource management, trade and globalisation. Nearly everyone is busy at the moment with revision, but if you want a pause for thought (or a resource for debate after the exams) this is it.
And I’m hard pressed to think of any other innovation that has had such a significant impact on business in the last 50 years. Ideas anyone?
Twitter decides to sell advertising
Can Twitter make money? That simple but vital question has dogged almost every exciting internet business of the last 10 years. An earlier blog from last September described how Facebook makes a profit. Now Twitter is out to prove that they can too. An article from The Economist tells the story, which is outlined in brief from here.
read more...»Example of student research - Role IT in Walmart
A big hat tip to Richard Smith at Bedford Modern for passing on this great example of student research from YouTube…
read more...»
