Buying-in to the Facebook culture
Want to buy shares in Facebook? The desire to buy-in to a business which has had such a revolutionary effect on communications will surely be huge. It almost feels like the emotional decision that football fans make when they buy shares in their beloved club. But the canny investor will analyse what they are investing in: is this a business decision in which they can examine the ratios and then the founder’s or directors’ mission statement, in order to assess their chances of gaining a suitable return on their investment?
read more...»Glenstrata - Glencore proposes merger with Xstrata
Yesterday morning’s business news has been dominated by the proposed merger of Glencore and Xstrata. Glencore’s 34% holding of Xstrata shares had made a third party approach for Xstrata very difficult if not impossible.
read more...»PEST - IAG and BMI acquisition
International Airlines Group or BA and Iberia are trying to acquire BMI from Lufthansa.
A move which would allow IAG would gain c. 56 additional take-off and landing slots at Heathrow. Lufthansa had bought up most of BMI’s shares in 2008 but has failed to prevent the group losing money.
Integration, integration, integration
HP is an example of a firm which is struggling to integrate acquisitions, and the perils of diversification.
Strategic choice: What should Facebook do with cash from the IPO?
The business pages are buzzing about the impending flotation of Facebook, with some analysts speculating that the implied valuation of Facebook based on the flotation share price will be up to $100billion. It is thought that Facebook will seek to raise approximately $10billion of new share capital through the IPO. But, what should Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook Board do with the cash raised?
read more...»Who has what it takes for this job description?
Here is a real job description for a job vacancy currently being handled by head hunters. The job? Head Coach for the England Rugby Team. A great example of how the functional areas of a business (in this case HRM) link through the the corporate (or strategic) objectives of an organisation.
read more...»Still more praise for the “John Lewis model”
You’re probably aware that the John Lewis department stores and Waitrose supermarket chain are doing very well at the moment, with sales figures rising strongly whilst retailers elsewhere are struggling. Several commentators have been keen to go beyond the marketing factors behind their success, instead paying closer attention to the firm’s unusual model of ownership and control.
read more...»Tesco’s Big Price Drop - on the Stock Market, or, Porter and Ansoff in action
Such is the importance of Tesco’s and their dominance of the retail market that the effect of a 2.3% drop in their like-for-like sales knocked almost 16% off their share price yesterday. Perhaps not so much a reflection of the figures themselves - although they compare poorly with Morrison’s and Sainsbury’s both of whom managed to increase their sales over the same period - as the admission by the new CEO Philip Clarke that Tesco’s got their strategy wrong, both in the short and the long term.
read more...»Revision Presentation - Operational Objectives
An introductory revision presentation looking at the key operational objectives set by businesses. These include cost and volume targets, quality, efficiency and environmental.
read more...»Revision Presentation - Mission Statements
This new revision presentation provides an introduction to the concept of mission statements and explains how they fit into the hierarchy of business aims and objectives.
read more...»Revision Presentation - Corporate and Functional Objectives
In this new revision presentation, we provide an overview of the hierarchy of business objectives. In particular, we distinguish between corporate objectives (what the business as a whole want to achieve) and functional objectives (what each individual function in the business is required to achieve).
read more...»Strategies to revive the High Street: Mary Portas reports
The woes of the UK High Street had begun long before the Credit Crunch and recession. It seems that a combination of factors (think PEST analysis) have combined to create the difficulties that are squeezing this traditional sector of business activity. Nobody has the answers to saving the High Street, but Mary “Queen of Shops” Portas has given it a go.
Why not try this exercise for yourself?
Firstly, use a form a marketing analysis like PEST or the Porters’ 5 Forces model to identify where the problems lie. Secondly, make 3 recommendations to either firms or governments as to how they might resist the decline (there’s some background here to help). Then read on…
read more...»International operations decisions - Adidas trainers for $1?
This makes an ideal example for students considering the challenges of international location in operations management for which they must consider global
markets, cost reduction and avoidance of trade barriers. Here is my plan for the case study and questions which could be set on it:
Could Adidas make a profit from selling branded trainers for $1? Certainly not in any of their developed markets – but since 2008 they have been working on a market development (Ansoff!) strategy which would give them access to the vast market in rural India with a social enterprise venture at a price that local people can afford. The goal of the project, the firm says, is not to maximise profits but to “tackle social issues” by creating jobs.
read more...»Tottenham Hotspur to switch from public to private limited company
If you’re interested in different types of legal structure for business organisations – or football – you might be intrigued by the decision by football club Tottenham Hotspur to “de-list” its shares from the stock market and “go private”.
read more...»Workforce planning and the risk of excessive cutbacks
As part of their workforce planning, firms try to anticipate their future labour requirements and undertake an analysis of their existing workforce. This helps them see where there are gaps in their human resources and where training priorities need to be addressed.
My students have been going through this using the example of the HR implications of business expansion in the UK supermarket sector.
Of course, workforce planning for growth is one thing. Maybe more current is the depressing necessity for many firms to cut back on staffing. But this can go too far, as I read in a piece on Kellogg’s.
read more...»Unilever hit by rising costs
Here is a good example of a global giant in consumer products whose profitability has been affected by external headwinds over which it has little control.
The Anglo-Dutch business Unilever - the world’s second-biggest consumer-goods company – has announced that profitability might fall in 2011 even after it increased prices to offset soaring costs for the commodities used to make its products.
read more...»PepsiCo: economies or diseconomies of scale?
Recently I blogged about how PepsiCo are trying to control diseconomies of scale. The topic is worth returning to, as there seems to be an ongoing debate that appears in the Economist which wonders if PepsiCo are big enough to enjoy economies of scale – but have maybe reached the size where diseconomies are really mounting up.
read more...»Lesson Worksheet - Stakeholders in a Business
This lesson worksheet addresses the key topic of stakeholders in a business. Who are the internal and external stakeholders? What is the difference between shareholders and stakeholders? To what extent might stakeholders have different and conflicting objectives?
Download lesson worksheet on stakeholders
Stakeholders gripped by the bad news coming from BAE Systems
Bad news this week from Britain’s second biggest manufacturing employer (the biggest is here), BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace). The company is threatening to cut 3,000 jobs, many of them in highly skilled and technical roles making aircraft.
The reasons for this are interesting enough, but I was drawn to an article because I’d been thinking about business stakeholders. Bad business news – on this scale – reveals just how many people have a stake in the business.
Waitrose Strategy Essay
This afternoon I made use of Jim and Tom’s recent blogs relating to Waitrose to have a fascinating strategy discussion with my A2 students.
read more...»Coming to a petrol station near you - Little Waitrose
A good example here of how an established brand can pursue an organic growth strategy by targeting new locations which serve a new customer base…
read more...»Revision Presentation - Risks and Rewards to Enterprise
Entrepreneurs taking calculated risks expect to enjoy suitable rewards for their endeavour. But what are these risks and rewards? And how can an entrepreneur minimise risk? This updated revision presentation provides an overview…
read more...»Revision Presentation - Objectives of New Businesses
This updated revision presentation looks at the different objectives that might be set by the entrepreneurs when they set up a new business…
read more...»Revision Presentation - What is a Business?
This revision presentation asks a simple, but fundamental question - what is a business?
read more...»Tesco pulls out of Japan
Even the might of Tesco cannot overcome the cultural differences between the UK market and the Japanese market for groceries. They moved into the Japanese market in 2003, as part of their objective of global growth, but have now decided that they cannot grow big enough there to generate the economies of scale that they need to make the business profitable - and with the change of focus in their objectives away from growth and towards greater profitability, this no longer fits with their strategy.
The reasons for the difficulty of gaining the growth that they need seem to be due to big differences in the way that people do their grocery shopping in Japan. Gavin Rothwell, research manager at groceries analyst IGD, is quoted as saying “The retail market is fragmented and there are many strong regional players, often family-owned. Convenience stores dominate, particularly in the city centres, and a culture of ‘immediacy’ supports large numbers of vending machines/kiosks.”. Tescos are not the only major western retailer to have failed to break these habits, as Carrefour and Boots have also tried to break into the market but pulled out, and Wal-Mart are reportedly struggling. So this story emphasises the risks that businesses take when they try to use the market development sector of Ansoff’s matrix to sell a well-established product into a new and unfamiliar market - and suggests that some markets are more impervious to globalisation than others,
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...»Revealed - the best Premier League Club in terms of results per pound spent
Robert Peston’s BBC Business Blog led today with this interesting article on the spending by Premier League Clubs, especially on player wages. He reveals the most successful club measured upon league position in relation to spend on player wages for 2009/10….but who is it?
read more...»ResearchBuster: Organic Growth
This ResearchBuster provides some details and links to businesses that have focused their growth strategy on organic (or internal) growth rather than external growth. We’ll add further examples and evidence over the coming weeks and months, so please bookmark the blog entry for future reference.
read more...»Organic growth strategy - the benefits if firms “believe in better”
The growth of BSkyB in the UK is a classic example of how to build a business using internal (or organic) growth methods rather than relying on acquisitions. It makes for excellent research-based evidence for students who need to provide examiners with relevant examples of growth strategy.
read more...»Tesco’s overseas strategy: next steps
You may have already taken an interest in Tesco’s strategy in the US and an article has come up in The Guardian in which it describes Tesco looking to overseas markets in order to make a ‘change of gear’.
read more...»
