Applied Business Unit 3: Investigating Marketing (Intro)

Introduction to Marketing

View more presentations from mattbentley34.

Starbucks - 15 Amazing Facts

Click here for 15 facts about Starbucks that may impress you.....

Unit 4: Strategies: Export or Not? Cheesemaker in a Pickle

A year or so old, but still useful nonetheless. Click here to access this neat case study on a cheese producer in Yorkshire!
Shepherds Purse Cheeses is a niche food producer that was set up as a classic diversification strategy by a Yorkshire farm and it has clearly been a success, with the product range of cheese being expanded.

The owners face a challenge though. The business has become quite reliant on sales of cheese to the major supermarket retailers and is tempted to expand into the (potentially) more lucrative US market.

This poses significant logistical issues for a product with a relatively short shelf-life. Should they go ahead? The business owners explain the potential opportunity and difficulties, before getting some interesting advice from the business advisers reading the case. Excellent evaluative comments that will help you guys when looking at decisions Morissons has to make....
I decided to look into this company and founf not only does it have a blog!!!, but also a facebook page....classic example of trying to reach out to new markets and consumers!

http://shepherdspurse.co.uk/blog/

This is why I teach!

Unit 3/4: CSR - Visioning the Future (Great Videos)

I really recommend all students to take a few minutes out to watch this new video series from the BITC which has just launched “Visioning the Future”. Business studies gold dust!


Here is the short 2-minute introductory video;



This longer (12 minute) video showcases some of the CSR activities of firms in the UK. Lots of great examples of CSR in action here (e.g. Greggs) and some easy-to-spot evidence for Unit 3/4 questions:

Unit 4: Business Strategy; Northern Foods & Porters 5 Forces.

Check out this excellent strategy case study from the Economist in Feb 2011. It briefly analyses the strategic position of Northern Foods, a UK-based food manufacturer that has built its business around supplying own-label processed food products (e.g. ready meals) for the supermarkets.

The article is useful for many reasons, including capacity management, reasons for Mergers & Acquisitions, supplier relationships, profit margins.

It is also a great example to use when explaining Porter’s Five Forces Model, using the references to the different bargaining power wielded by the major supermarket groups and by multinational food brands like Nestle and Kraft.

Leadership Resource - Every Little Helps

Click here is a link to a great video and some resource material on Sir Terry Leahy. This makes a great introduction to leadership. The video is from the London Business Forum and Sir Terry is in fine form.


At around 8 minutes, it is perfect for the classroom.

Enjoy…

Unit 3: Clash of Culture, Barbie shop closes in China

The Barbie ‘concept store’ in Shanghai has closed down after just two years. It serves to illustrate how hard it can be to transfer brands and business models internationally.

The business blog covered the opening of the store back in 2009, when Mattel, the manufacturer, was hoping to offset falling sales in traditional markets hit by the financial crisis. According to the BBC sales failed to meet expectations and the firm was forced to cut its targets within the first eight months of the store’s existence.

“Barbie in the US has a very long history, people grow up with the brand, their parents grow up with the brand, so brand recognition is very high. In China, though, nobody really knew what Barbie stood for,” said an analyst with China Market Research.

International firms have been using Shanghai as a test market for their expansion into China and Mattel is not the only retailer to have had difficulty in adjusting to the Shanghai marketplace. In February, electronics retailer Best Buy closed all of its brand name stores in Shanghai and will instead focus on its local group of stores.

“What it definitely says is that it is a challenging market… for foreign retailers, it is a very hard market to get correct. They either don’t change quickly enough or they are not patient enough to be successful here,” said China Market Research.

Unit 4: Ratio Analysis Presentation

Unit 4: Ratio Analysis

View more presentations from mattbentley34.

Motivation at work - it's not all about money!!

A really good video interview here with Daniel Pink, the author of Drive. Students will certainly get a different view on the topic of motivation at work from watching and discussing this....


Pink goes big on non-financial methods of motivation, drawing on decades of scientific research to identify what makes us truly happy at work. Hint about the conclusion It’s not all about the money.

Unit 4: Accounts information

Click on the links below to access notes on the accounting information you will require for unit 4.

Profit and loss account

Balance sheets

Liquidity Ratios

Profitabilty Ratios

Gearing Ratio

Efficiency Ratios

Shareholder Ratios

The Politics bit of PEST analysis

When most students try to think in a PEST framework, they are usually pretty confident when it comes to the bit on social and technological trends. Economics is a bit more tricky (to begin with) but the really hard part seems to be politics. It shouldn’t be really – politics is going on all around us, often in the form of changes to the legal and regulatory environment. Sometimes it’s on an even bigger scale than that, especially on an international level.

Click here the Economist reports how business in Egypt has been rocked by turmoil in recent weeks which extends way beyond the tourism industry. Western companies that cultivated many of the links they had there have wasted their time and money. Multinational companies especially have long known that regional and national political differences and issues have a great importance.

Any unrest in the Middle East is likely to impact on oil prices – and from there, the impact on petrol prices are felt by all firms and households. Economic growth and the best market opportunities are not always to be had in the most politically stable places. BP who have bounced from the politics of Washington (after their Gulf of Mexico oil spill) are now bogged down in difficult negotiations with the politically fragile Russian government regarding exploration in the arctic.

Doing business in China is always a sensitive area for negotiation. In fact, operating in any emerging market involves huge risks and gambles regarding the political climate – and not just abroad. Many western governments are tightening up how their firms must behave when dealing in highly corrupt business environments, for instance when paying bribes to secure contracts is commonplace. Executives who adopt what they regard as “local” rules in Thailand or Indonesia can find themselves facing prison sentences back home.

How do companies cope? There are no simple rules. Countries that are lumped together as emerging markets have very different political regimes. Local politics add yet more complexity. Perhaps firms need to look more carefully at the whole issue and to be less impressed by the appearance of stability. The rapid collapse of Egypt’s government should be food for thought for companies that have bet big on China (with its appearance of order) rather than India (with its messy democracy).

IGCSE Business: ICT in Business

The number of self-service checkouts in supermarkets could double in the next year, despite concerns from customers and unions alike.


The machines are supposed to speed up the process, but a survey suggests almost half of consumers have been delayed while using them.

Click here to access a bbc video clip showing the issues they may face.

Harry's College Homework: The Use of ICT in Business

7 Billion people in the World. Are you Typical?

Unit 4: McDonalds and CSR

Here are some suggested links to video resources which help us strike a balance when using McDonalds as part of teaching corporate social responsibility.


The first video below is a five minute official review of McDonalds’ CSR activities and programmes. As Ian points out, the video is clearly one-sided, but could spark some debate as to the extent to which students feel the reality matches up to the standards portrayed. Loads of stimulus for community engagement, working with suppliers, reacting to NGO campaigns and changing consumer tastes/expectations. Failing that, just admire the embroidered animals on the blouse of the Animal Welfare Professor!


The second clip is the one which is likely to provoke quite a lively response and hopefully some useful discussion.

Unit 3: Tesco’s strategy in the US

The world’s third biggest retailer, Tesco, has been open for business in the United States since 2007, trading under the brand name ‘Fresh and Easy’.

Tesco’s entrance into the US market was a long time coming, with the company studying US shopping habits for 20 years. The team even sent out researchers to live with 60 American families for two weeks to discover the products they bought and they food they ate.

Tesco is showing faith in the (currently) loss-making chain by announcing a store opening spree in northern California.

Priding itself on offering gourmet-style produce, Fresh and Easy launched before the credit crunch, branding itself around the trendy theme of ‘environmental awareness’ - the stores are painted green and there is parking for hybrid cars along with bike racks. Its new distribution centre in Riverside in California - where it makes its salads and ready meals - has one of the largest solar-panelled roofs in the US.

Britons abroad hoping to stock up on Branston Pickle and Marmite will be disappointed - the stores are designed for American consumers. Tesco thinks it has got it right sales formula: the stores aim to cater for time-starved shoppers who want fresh, healthy food - including ready meals - at “affordable prices”. The company is promising to locate some of its outlets in areas that desperately need them. Many low-income, high-poverty areas have become so-called “food deserts”: areas that lack access to fresh, healthy, affordable food.

The idea of restricting choice is also a very interesting innovation. (Try this exercise for yourself. The next time you see the word ‘choice’, replace it with ‘decision’ and see if it’s so great). Fresh & Easy have modelled their west coast outlets on the 800 Tesco Express stores in Britain. Each outlet employs between 20 and 30 people and are much smaller than the typical US supermarket. This will help minimise competition with giant US retailers like Wal-Mart (Asda in Britain).

Tesco has made a sizable investment into the strategy. The plan was to spend around £800m between 2007 and 2010 before achieving breakeven. It hasn’t quite got there yet. According to The Guardian the failure to crack the US market is the one ‘blot on the copybook’ of former chief executive Sir Terry Leahy (see the ‘Tesco Question’ - the boss steps down).

The business is now not predicted to break even until the financial year 2012/13 and the number of store openings still lags well behind the target set when it entered the market in 2007. Last year it announced plans to mothball 13 stores in Nevada and Arizona because of the severity of the sub-prime property crash. The chain made a loss of £95m on sales of £247m in the six months to 28 August 2010. But maybe the tide is turning. According to the head of US operations: “We opened our first stores in 2007 with the goal of creating a modern, 21st-century grocery store. Fast forward to today, and we have 166 stores and more than 4,500 employees”. He added that the extra store openings would bring “welcome volume” to the factories and help to reduce the start-up’s heavy overheads.

But ambitions have scaled back, a bit. The outgoing Tesco boss hinted at the possibility that the chain could end up being “hundreds” rather than “thousands” of Fresh & Easy stores. It may be a while before the size of the US operation reaches the scale it has achieved in the UK.

See more on diversity - a tough issue for international business.

Unit 4: Decision Trees Powerpoint

Decision Trees Powerpoint

View more presentations from mattbentley34.