Business Studies

How firms can make the most of the recovery

2010-03-20T13:27:00Z

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

It also gives links to the websites which give further help to businesses from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and HMRC to the Federation for Small Businesses and the CBI. It should prove a rich source for students looking at these AQA unit 4 research bullet points
- the long-term strategies and short-term plans adopted by businesses in the recession
- the possible impact of the recession on stakeholders and on relationships between businesses and their stakeholders
- the case for and against different businesses and industries receiving government financial support during a recession.

kulula.com ambushes the World Cup

2010-03-20T12:41:01Z

Fifa is very protective of its image rights and trade marks around the World Cup, and with less than three months to go to kick off on June 11th they have objected to a South African budget airline’s advertising. The advert featured pictures of the stadiums, national flags, vuvuzelas (South African plastic trumpets) and the delightful tag line ‘Unofficial National Carrier for the You-Know-What’. Kulula is know for its quirky adverts and aircraft designs; the one shown above is, they say, part of their ongoing strategy to demystify air travel, and the one below helped them to raise over half a million rand for the charity CHOC (Children’s Haematology Oncology Clinic Childhood Cancer Foundation of South Africa).

Kulula’s spokeswoman said that many people across the country had criticised Fifa’s move, saying that football’s world governing organisation did not own South Africa’s soccer stadiums, soccer balls or vuvuzelas, but that they would respect the complaint and withdraw the advert. Fifa described the advert as ‘ambush marketing’ and that it was the combination of those elements which were banned. Look out for the growing number of adverts by the World Cup’s offical sponsors featuring the tournament and some of its biggest characters from now on - and the number of businesses seeking to take advantage of it with unofficial products and adverts.

Nice visual for the Enlarged EU

2010-03-19T18:32:00Z

I found this nice little link for showing how the EU has grown over time. Perfect for an IWB.

You can access it from here. I let it run in the background whilst I was teaching the class.

Enjoy............

BTEC National Business - Business Videos

2010-03-18T21:26:00Z

At today’s BTEC National conference, I gave a brief presentation showcasing some video resources which can be used to support teaching and learning for the new BTEC National Business specifications from September 2010. I’ll add more details about each one to the blog in the coming days. But for now, here are the links to the videos…

Business Link Videos:

Creating a Brand (Yotel)
Developing new products (Wow Toys)
Profitable Exporting (RC2)

Video Collections: Smarta.com

Will King - Building a Business Using Internet Marketing (King of Shaves)

Video Portfolios for an Industry:

Divine Chocolate:
Reuters News Clip
Presentation by Sophi Tranchell (CEO Divine) - Building a Business with a Conscience

Factory Tours
Nissan Sunderland
Keymer Tiles
Orange Mountain Bikes

Videos that help to make a point
Leadership & motivating staff (Mike Bassett)
Employee communcation & training (David Brent)
Market research and product innovation (Diamond Shreddies)

Marketing at Jaguar (BTEC National 2010)

2010-03-18T21:05:00Z

Just back from our lovely two-day CPD event for BTEC teachers at the stunning Jaguar Visitor Centre at Castle Bromwich. I jotted down the following notes from a great talk given by Adam Henderson from the Jaguar marketing department today - ideal material for the BTEC National marketing units and plenty of crossover too for other business courses…

My notes are transcribed below. We’ll provide a download link to Adam’s excellent presentation on this blog entry as soon as we obtain the file.

Marketing at Jaguar (Adam Henderson)
=============================

Key points
Marketing, sales and service are three equal partners: no one function dominates
“If we don’t sell cars, we don’t exist as a business”
Brand essence - “a racing heart”
Communication strategy -"new fashioned luxury”
Competition - there isn’t a bad car out there, so Jaguar has to differentiate to compete effectively
Marketing via social networks - was an important part of the launch of the XJ
Marketing is split into two sections
(1) Fixed marketing - tradtional advertising & brand promotion activities, which vary depending on which tier they are targeted at
Three tiers ranging from national (brand positioning)l to local (eg dealers)
(2) Variable marketing - tactical work to win individual customers (e.g. offering them individual discounts, extra / special car features) in order to close the sale

Marketing mix
Jaguar uses every technique available - intensive competition
Spend on digital has overtaken traditional advertising
Big focus on search engine optimisation
Track days - experiential marketing in action - very successful
CRM (customer relationship management) - the glue that brings markething together
Events - invest in attending relevant events to reach target customers
Brand partnerships - with other luxury brands
Sales funnel: 1.2million contacts turn into 2000 sales
Case study - takeover of Terminal 5 - targetting high net worth individuals
Train station takeovers are next - targetting environments where their customers are

Q&A
Marketing focus has been about bringing in new customers
Lots of work with the NSPCC
Tata ownership - more drive & enthusiasm; has been great for the business
Do Jaguar target women? Trying to reach women in the city, but brand still predominantly male
Marketing budget is £25million +

The Biz Quiz - 19 March 2010

2010-03-18T19:49:00Z

Here the Biz Quiz for 19 March 2010:

Launch interactive version

Download printable pdf version

Download VLE Import edition (SCORM - zip file)

Ireland asks for your help on St Patrick’s Day

2010-03-17T10:19:00Z

It’s hard to take this one seriously, but perhaps you should give it a try. The Irish president, Mary McAleese, has launched a website asking for your views and ideas that could be developed into new businesses with the aim of creating jobs and “bringing back the feel-good factor” to the struggling country.
Maybe it’s worth a few minutes of business studies time to consider both the nature of Ireland’s problems and to take a strategic view of possible ways forwards. And there is €100,000 for the best ideas…..

According to the BBC a trawl through some of the ideas on the site reveals some wordy and weighty suggestions about how to get Ireland working again - but also more ambitious and left-field pitches, such as converting the country into one big amusement park. Others include practical and environmental solutions such as promoting wind turbines, while another proposes using cattle urine as an alternative energy source.

The country is among the worst-hit by the European recession and has seen its unemployment figures jump to 12.7%, their highest level since 1995. Incomes are stagnant and falling, a huge property crash looms and as members of the euro, Ireland hasn’t had the relief of a falling exchange rate to cushion the blow.

How about doing ten minutes on this?

What should be Ireland’s aims and goals? What should be the objectives any campaign tries to support over the next few years?
Where are Ireland’s problems? How can you analyse their current plight?
What practical steps might you propose for business development (perhaps try to avoid the ‘joke’ ones for now!)
What problems might you anticipate in pursuing your proposals?

If you come up with anything worthwhile, why not visit the your country, your call website.

Measuring changing shopping habits and inflation

2010-03-15T21:45:00Z

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.

The composition of the basket is therefore a useful source of secondary research for businesses, as it should accurately reflect broad changes in preferences amongst UK consumers. The 2010 version shows an increased interest in personal health, with bottles of water replacing cans of fizzy drink and the introduction of cereal bars and allergy tablets as important elements of spending. Lipgloss replaces lipstick, hair stylers replace hair dryers and computer games consoles replace squash court hire – analysis of this sort of data could be very useful for all kinds of companies as evidence of changes in the market.

This BBC news article gives a useful description of how the inflation rate is calculated, as background to A2 external influences.

Wipeout Challenge - UK Recession

2010-03-15T18:40:00Z

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

The tax on companies

2010-03-15T16:39:00Z

Anyone following the news knows that tax and government spending are the main issues facing firms and households in the forthcoming general election. The bottom line: spending is likely to fall and taxation is likely to rise. Whilst most of us can get our heads around income tax and VAT – mainly effecting households - what are the main tax issues facing firms?

A current article in The Economist covers the following points:

Several firms are moving out of Britain, or are threatening to do so because of the impact of changes to company taxes. Whilst company tax is crucially important, it’s hard to get right. Some even go so far as to say that corporate tax should be abolished. After all, the profits of untaxed companies should reappear as taxable proceeds elsewhere in the economy (in the form of higher incomes, perhaps). But, even though corporate taxes in Britain account for only 13% of total tax revenues, no government is likely to take that risk now.

In 2008 the Labour government reduced the corporate-tax rate on profits from 30% to 28%. The real struggle now is shifting from taxing companies globally to taxing them on earnings made in or sent back to Britain. That has been a big change.

The Conservatives have said that, if elected, they will slash corporate tax to 25%. They think that such a cut might repair some of the damage done by recent government moves to Britain’s attractiveness as a place to do business. In December banks were alarmed when a ‘windfall tax’ of 50% on any bank bonuses above £25,000 was announced. In April the top personal tax rate will go up to 50% on salaries above £150,000, and employers’ pension contributions will be taxable for employees earning more than £130,000. Although these measures hit people, not firms, they threaten to add weight to corporate decisions not to locate in Britain, or to move from it.

Britain’s corporate taxes are in fact not all that high, according to a study by the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers, an accounting firm, which looks at the percentage of earnings that companies pay overall.

The Institute of Directors which represents 45,000 mainly smaller businesses, says that, to attract new businesses, it would like a government pledge to reduce the rate gradually to 15% over seven to ten years.

That is unlikely to happen. Offering special incentives is just too tempting, politically, and it may even be helpful in some areas. The Tories will keep at least part of the current system of tax credits for research and development (R&D). On the latest OECD numbers, Britain spends a puny 1.8% of GDP on R&D, less than France (2.1%), Germany (2.5%) or America (2.7%).

So the picture remains complex. Perhaps some small cuts to the main tax on profits may come, but a dizzying array of incentives of tax credits and subsidies will remain….. and the fortunes of many firms will still be strongly influenced by the spending habits of households – and the taxes they pay.

Into the clouds - is this the end of the life cycle for pen drives?

2010-03-14T20:56:01Z

Time was when I simple couldn’t bear to be separated from my motley collection of USB pen drives.

But now I’ve joined the rapidly growing group of people who have stuck their heads into the “clouds” for an alternative way of saving, sharing and backing up data…

Cloud computing is nothing new (relatively). But if you’ve already come across a service like Google Docs, then you may already have experienced an introduction to the cloud. However, you can now take cloud computing to an even better level than Google Docs.

In a way, cloud computing is yet another example of outsourcing. The cost and hassle of managing data servers is handed over to specialists. The difference is that not only are businesses of every size and shape turning to the cloud, but so too are individuals.

For knowledge workers like teachers, lecturers (and students) I’m coming round to the view that cloud computing will soon be part of everyday life - just like those little USB pen drives used to be.

My collection of pen drives is now in a drawer. I’m not expecting to use them again. Why? Because cloud computing provides everything I could want in terms of storage, backup and sharing.

Take our upcoming revision workshops for Business & Economics. When the content team met last week, we created a series of content outlines in Word and PowerPoint and immediately posted them to a collaborative folder on Dropbox - perhaps the best cloud computing service available.

As we worked on those files, the cloud was updating and synchronising the files on each computer we’ve loaded the Dropbox software. Thats an up-to-date version of the file available for everyone to use, read etc (including a backup of previous versions in case we need to revert back). No more emailing people the latest version, or getting confused about which file has the latest changes.

Imagine you are working on a lesson plan or starter activity worksheet at home on a Sunday evening. You create the document on your laptop in the lounge, with a glass of red wine in hand and Dancing on Ice in the background. You save the file. Thats it. The file is saved to the cloud, and your departmental PC at school is updated too. You can also simply login to the synchronised online account to retrieve the file. As long as you are online, you can grab the latest version of the file from the cloud.

Its a huge boost to productivity - and a safer way of backing up important files too. A copy of each file is kept on the cloud (servers hosted and managed by Dropbox), as well as on each nominated laptop, desktop, iPhone or whatever.

The cost? With something like Dropbox the price is free for the first 2GB of cloud storage - which should be more than enough for most people. I’ve gone for a 100GB storage, but then we’re supporting a team of over 40 authors and presenters who need to access a pretty diverse collection of materials.

A few weeks in and I wonder (a) what I would do without cloud computing and (b) why I bought all those pesky USB pen drives that I can never remember what is saved on them…

The internet and business - 10 years after the dot.com crash

2010-03-12T16:18:00Z

It’s 10 years since the dot.com crash and the internet has become a daily feature of life and business activity. For those of you too young to remember, there was a lot of internet hype in the years leading up to 2000. Everyone sensed that the internet was going to be big, but few firms had actually worked out ways of making money from the web. A lorry load of cash was thrown at Net-based start-ups – much of it was lost. That was the dot.com crash. Fast forward a decade and a terrific tool from the BBC can show you at a glance where much internet traffic is headed.

You can use this page to see the biggest sites on the internet, the top social networks, search engines, retailers and media channels. There are also tabs so you can see a ‘rich list’ of internet moguls and follow the explosive growth of the web.

Motivation and management at John Lewis

2010-03-12T00:20:01Z

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

The Biz Quiz - 12 March 2010

2010-03-11T21:51:00Z

The latest edition of The Biz Quiz is now available.

Launch interactive version of The Biz Qiz - 12 March 2010

Download printable handout version (pdf)

Download VLE import version (SCORM zip file)

AQA Revision Workshops Ready to Go

2010-03-10T11:13:00Z

Its been quiet on the blogging front for a few days whilst we got the BUSS4 Research Toolkit out of the door and then locked ourselves away for two days to work on the Revision Workshop programme for April & May. Still - it was worth it. Michelle and the team have come up with some cracking sessions for our intensive pre-exam days…

We create our workshop materials from scratch every time - building on what has worked best in the past, and taking into account suggestions from our examiner team. Its a touch challenge - trying to find a way to structure sessions and content to address as many of the key AQA spec topics as possible during four intensive revision hours. But we’re pretty pleased with the BUSS2 and BUSS4 materials for this time around. As always, though, the proof of the pudding…

We’ve picked a new selection of case study firms and industries to use during the workshops. In each session, we work through a series of exam-style activities, building the necessary exam skills with a combination of quizzes, writing frames, and discussion tasks. We’ve got lots of video clips and interactive resources too, making use of the superb cinema settings.

For BUSS2, examples of workshop case studies we’re using include

- Greggs (competitive marketing)
- Thorntons (improving profit margin & cash flows)
- Premier Prepared Foods (capacity utilisation & quality)
- Travel Tavern (organisation structure + workforce effectiveness)
- Apple Inc (winning exam teachnique).

For BUSS4, we’ll be dipping into:

- ITV & Lidl (Section A - UK Recession)
- EBay (Leadership & Cultural Change)
- Kraft / Cadbury (Managing Change / Strategic Decision-Making)
- Primark (Ethics & CSR)

The highlight of the workshops? We’ll have to wait and see. With packed houses at every venue (we’re currently 1,200 seats overbooked) we never quite know which sessions will go down best.

But my money is on the Chocolate or Cheese Challenge in BUSS4. We’ve created a quick quiz challenge using Handy’s culture model which offers students the choice of two prizes. Will they choose the basket of Cadbury Creme Eggs, or will they prefer the selection of Kraft Cheese Slices? My money is on the cheese…