Cash flow Clue-doh! The Mystery is Revealed…

Over 1,500 colleagues have now downloaded our cash-flow murder mystery activity - Cash Flow Clue-doh! And we’re getting an increasing number of enquiries asking what the solution is!

Rated: (5/5), based on 2 reviews

Brompton Bicycles - Guardian Profile

Terrific news for Edexcel Unit 4a students - the Guardian has a feature article today looking at the growth and strategy of Brompton Bicycles.  Its a really useful article which focuses on the added value that Brompton provide to its growing customer base.  Some great examples in too there on the role and benefits of staff training, the challenges of retail distribution and on production capacity.

There’s a great quote too from the Managing Director:

“Our patent ran out nine years ago, and if we were making this bike in Taiwan, staff turnover would mean that knowledge would be lost. Years of love have gone into our staff,”

Auto Warriors - the Capacity Management Reality Show

Some wicked humour from the the Onion provides an alternative entry point into teaching capacity rationalisation and retrenchment.  Lots of HRM in here too!

Rated: (4/5), based on 2 reviews

Q&A - How are businesses affected by unemployment?

Businesses are affected in a variety of ways depending on whether unemployment is high or low, and rising or falling.

Managing Cash Flow - Beware the Economic Recovery

An excellent recent article in the ACCA magazine examines an interesting phenomenon - more businesses collapse at the beginning of a recovery than during the depths of a recession. Its all to do with working capital…

Rated: (5/5), based on 2 reviews

Entrepreneur takes advantage of the postal strike

As the turkeys at the Royal Mail officially vote for Christmas, entrepreneurs are quick off the mark spotting opportunities to build a business from the Royal Mail’s dissatisfied customers.  Here is a terrific video which is packed full of full with key business studies terms - even though it only lasts just over a minute!

Rated: (5/5), based on 2 reviews

Strategic business decision-making - Network Rail

Network Rail’s proposed £34bn development of a high-speed rail line from London to Scotland could prove to be a great example to use with students over the next few years.

Network Rail has just published Strategic Business Case for New Lines.  It attempts to justify the business case for both adding new rail lines and also releasing capacity on the existing rail network.  There is lots of useful information in the publication relating to:

- Stategic objectives
- Stakeholders and the impact of investment on them
- Investment appraisal
- Capacity management
- Forecasting revenue and demand
- Environmental considerations
- Sources of finance (who pays?)

Flexible working thrives in the recession

A very useful article in the Guardian takes a look at how flexible working arrangements have thrived during the UK recession as employers have tried to find ways of reducing production capacity and operating costs without always resorting to compulsory redundancies…

Standing room only - on Ryanair?

The undisputed kings of publicity are at it again.  The Telegraph is reporting a story in the Sun (an interesting decision in itself) that Ryanair is considering offering standing room options rather than seats on some of its flights.  Apparently it can increase the passenger capacity by up to 50% and reduce costs (unit costs per passenger?) by 20% by doing this.  A good example to use with students who might want to consider the +’s and -’s from various business perspectives…

Spare capacity prompts a fall in business investment

The recession is creating a growing amount of spare productive capacity across many different markets and industries. From container ships to hotels and from steel plants to airlines, the fall in demand has lowered capacity utilisation and put a big squeeze on profits. That pressure on profit margins comes not just from weaker revenues. Keep in mind that many businesses have a large fixed cost component such as the overhead costs of operating a network. Thus when output is contracting, the average fixed costs of production increase.

Declining demand and rising productive slack inevitably cause a fall in planned investment spending - economists term this a negative accelerator effect. BBC news reports that British Airways is cutting capital spending in response to the slump in demand and mounting losses. “The airline said it had cut spending by 20% to £580m ($952m) from £725m, and had lengthened its schedule of orders for 12 Airbus A380 aircraft.”

Further evidence for the reverse accelerator affect comes from Japan where Japanese firms cut their capital spending by a record level in the first quarter of 2009. In contrast Stagecoach is increasing investment in a fleet of greener buses.