Leadership, Culture and Trust - A Letter from Sir Richard Branson
Many thanks to Louise Lucas who has alerted me to this fabulous resource which can be used to help teach a variety of topics, including leadership, employee relations, corporate culture etc.
read more...»Hardship on the High Street – what’s the problem?
We’re currently receiving daily reminders of the problems on the UK High Street. Today it’s Thorntons, following on from Jane Norman, TJ Hughes and Homeform, which controls Möben Kitchens, Sharps Bedrooms and Dolphin Bathrooms. Habitat, HMV, Waterstones – the list goes on and on. Do these high profile business failures threaten the High Street? And what is behind their problems?
read more...»Retrenchment for Thorntons following strategic review
The words “strategic review” should be enough to alert all business teachers to a potentially rich seam of teaching material. And today’s announcement of a significant retrenchment by Thorntons is no exception.
“Strategic reviews” almost inevitably follow the appointment of a new CEO. The process of a new leader evaluating the competitive position of a firm and its products/brands provides very often results in a shift in strategic direction (particularly where the new CEO has been appointed with a mandate to effect change).
read more...»Nokia and Strategic Change - the Essential A2 Business Case
I can’t think of a better case study than Nokia for students to research as an essential part of their advanced business studies. Nokia is a global brand, a market leader and a firm rich in heritage. But it faces a strategic crisis which is caused by a range of external and internal factors that are core to A2 and similar business strategy specifications. In this note, we’ve outlined some of the main strategic issues facing Nokia and linked to recent supporting resources which students should examine. A well-prepared student getting ready to wow the examiner with relevant evidence-based research in an essay should be ready to include Nokia in an answer!
read more...»CSR & Strategy - Why the Cooperative Group changed to survive
A brilliant article here from the excellent UK team at Ernst & Young which features an interview with Peter Marks, the CEO of The Co-operative Group. Perfect for last minute revision for AQA BUSS4 students…
read more...»Corporate longevity: the lessons from IBM’s 100th birthday
There’s lots of press coverage of this corporate milestone, with commentators wondering what conclusions can be drawn from the exceptionally long life of this business giant. In particular, it’s interesting to think which of today’s technology champions will be around in 100 years.
read more...»Stop Press - Business Nightmares on TV
I have just seen details of a new series starting on BBC tonight, in which “Evan Davis uncovers the scarcely believable stories of how some of the world’s most successful businesses have made monumental mistakes.”
In the first episode, titled Doomed Designs, they are looking at “changing the formula of one of the world’s favourite soft drinks (Coke), launching a detergent so powerful that tests showed it shredded consumers’ clothes (Persil), and pricing a certain car model too low (Mini)” - some more background on these three stories here. Contributors to the programme include Sir James Dyson and Sir Richard Branson - if you miss it tonight (BBC2 at 8pm) it will be on again overnight on Thursday - times shown in the link here. The second episode next week is to be called Marketing Mess-ups.
Sounds like essential progamming for A2 students in particular - perhaps as a good break from revision? And of course that other business nightmare, The Apprentice, starts again on Tuesday at 9 on BBC1.
If you can spare the time between past papers, there was another good programme last night, Lord Sugar Tackles Football. The BBC blurb about it says “Lord Sugar, one of the country’s leading entrepreneurs and a football fan, investigates the business side of the beautiful game. Despite generating billions in TV and other income, the professional English game is struggling to make ends meet. Most Premier League clubs are in the red, and debt stands at 3.3 billion pounds. Lord Sugar interviews bosses, owners, agents and players and asks what has gone wrong, who is to blame and what can be done. In typically forthright fashion, he delivers his verdict and his own business blueprint designed to help the game he has followed since childhood.” I heard him being interviewed about it yesterday morning and it did sound worth setting the recorder for - repeated on BBC2 at 23.30 on Tuesday 10th.
AQA unit 4 - some really good evidence here
Wake up to Money, which is broadcast every morning at 5.30 on Radio 5, is often a good source of stories and anecdotes. It was particularly good today - and the excellent news is that you don’t have to set the alarm for that unearthly hour to hear it as you can download the Podcast. It will be well worthwhile for all AQA unit 4 students spending 20 minutes taking notes from today’s programme - they will start with a useful preview of the release of the updated GDP figure for quarter 4 of 2010, giving some good background data.
The interview that follows, with the CEO of Pret a Manger is gold dust - he talks about the figures that Pret have just released which show a big rise in sales and profits, despite rising commodity prices and a tough climate on the high street. His description of the relations with suppliers and marketing mix strategies that Pret have followed to allow them to achieve this through the recession should be noted and quoted as evidence in BUSS4 essays.
Finally, figures out this morning from the Internet Advertising Bureau show online advertising grew nearly 13% last year and now accounts for 25% of all advertising spending in the UK, and some more background is given for that data. Here is another little nugget that could be useful to prove to the examiner that candidates really know what they are talking about when it comes to strategic management - so please do use the links below!
Wake up to Money 29th March on i-player - available for 6 days from now
Wake up to Money podcast
Brief TV interview with Clive Schlee of Pret a Manger (...but the radio interview covers more ground)
Report about the study by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB)
Japanese earthquake – business aftershocks
As Japan struggles to get to grips with the scale of the human tragedy and the long term damage to its infrastructure, you may be thinking through some of the more immediate impacts on business.
read more...»Change management - Kraft and Cadbury One Year On (FT)
It is a year since Kraft Foods completed its takeover of Cadbury plc. At the time of the acquisition, there were many fears raised about how Kraft would manage the integration process. What has happened?
read more...»Takeovers: What happens next?
Teaching takeovers or change management?
read more...»Nokia: a business culture problem?
As Jim points out in his blog, there’s plenty of material in Nokia’s recent announcements to keep business students busy. I’ve picked up on a link that looks at their problems and presents them as a case study in a failing business culture.
read more...»Starbucks and our hostility to rebranding
I doubt I can say anything new about the Starbuck’s rebranding exercise (that Michael Owen covered here) but there has been some interesting coverage discussing why consumers seem to get be so enraged when rebranding occurs and new logos are launched.
read more...»What strategy should HMV employ next?
The most recent financial reports on HMV are pretty grim. As The Guardian reports, its like-for-like sales in the music stores fell 13% in the last five weeks of the year and snow explains only a few percentage points of the decline. The problem is basic: HMV has too many shops and too many fierce online competitors.
read more...»Business secrets and Wikileaks
It’s not just governments that fear the widespread sharing of secrets. Firms are beginning to realise that their confidential information is at risk too.
We’ve heard about the recent problems at Santander who have inadvertently distributed account details to the wider public. That was the result of a mishap. But what if companies begin to find that it becomes increasingly difficult to keep hold of sensitive information?
Bonus system to encourage safety improvements at BP
After the disastrous events they have experienced since the summer, due to the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig leak in the Gulf, you can quite see why BP would want their staff’s chief focus to be on safety at present. On Monday Bob Dudley, the UK oil group’s new chief executive, told staff that bonuses for the fourth quarter for BP staff will be based solely on how employees perform in terms of safety and risk management. Mr Dudley has vowed to improve BP’s safety culture, saying he is committed to ensuring that “a low-probability, high-impact incident” such as the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico never happens again. The FT reported the change in the article here.
Culture & Change - The Challenge Facing Nokia
This has to be one of the best newspaper articles for a Year 13 business student in many a long year…
read more...»Is your business too nice? Reflections on Corporate Culture
Corporate “culture” refers to the accepted codes of behaviour within business organisations. If you’re interested in this topic there’s an amusing blog in the Harvard Business Review which argues that many firms have got a problem because they are too nice.
read more...»Private sector or public sector: what is the future for the Royal Mail?
Many students will be thinking at the moment about ways of ‘classifying’ business. One crucial distinction is between the public and private sectors of the economy. It looks like the Royal Mail is about to be privatised – and start a new life as a private sector organisation.
read more...»Undercover Boss - Thursday 15th July C4 9pm
David Clarke, Chief Executive of mid-range hotel chain Best Western, goes on an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of his company, with mixed results.
read more...»High profile organisation seeks HR advisors
The Board of Management of the FA have decided to announce now that they will keep Fabio Capello in his job as England manager, in spite of their announcement on Monday that they would spend the next two weeks deciding whether or not England’s sorry showing in the World Cup was down to Fabio Capello, and whether or not to sack him. Students who have completed the first year of a Business Studies A level should be quite capable of identifying the People Management issues involved! As we enter the last few weeks of term, I suggest this (rather tongue-in-cheek) as a Business Studies exercise for your students. You may wish to shorten the suggested list of terms or to add to it as you see fit.
read more...»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...»AQA BUSS4 Section B Practice Question - British Airways
Question 2: Cultural Resistance to Change
Willie Walsh, the combative CEO of British Airways, has faced significant industrial action as he implements a change programme designed to improve the competitiveness of the airline. To what extent do you agree that resistance to change is largely determined by the prevailing culture in an organisation? Justify your answer with reference to British Airways and/or other businesses you know. (40 marks).
read more...»Profit seeking paradoxes in an oblique world
John Kay gave a stimulating talk at the London School of Economics last week, one of a series of appearances to showcase his long-awaited new book Obliquity. A large audience were treated to a deeply thoughtful and perceptive discussion of the nature of obliquity and how it affects our personal lives and the decisions and strategies taken by businesses and other organisations in a complex and uncertain world.
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...»A useful resource on leadership and management
I’ve come across this helpful resource from the Wall Street Journal management blog which features a series of guides to the key topics of leadership & management…
read more...»Starbucks - the Famous Strategic Change Memo from 2007
We’re working closely on the issues of leadership, change management and organisational culture at the BUSS4 workshops next week and as part of the prep I came across this terrific memo from the CEO of Starbucks back in early 2007…
read more...»Cadburys diversification goes back to its roots
Here is a story of a major business which is diversifying, by turning full circle back to where they started from.
John Cadbury started his business in 1824 in a shop selling tea, coffee and chocolate based drinks, which he manufactured himself. In those days chocolate was only afforded by the wealthy, as it was subject to a very high import tax, but when this was reduced in the 1850’s it became a mass market product, and the business prospered. You can read some more detail of the history here, about the strong heritage the company build up through the development of the Bourneville factory and village with housing, education , training, medical facilities and pension schemes for employees. The heritage also relied on the product though, with pioneering experiments working with cocoa and chocolate which John and his descendants carried out, for example producing their first filled egg product in 1923.
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.
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
