Lingfield College Business

Share Save Save There are many myths about success in business. This week I thought I’d tackle a few of them. •  Overrated  Ideas — anyone can think up a new product or service, but very few can build a business. I get at least one amazing new food concept suggested to me every week, and the vast majority go nowhere. Often it is not the pioneer who reaps the rewards of innovation, but a latecomer who learns from their predecessor’s mistakes and does it better. In his book Zero to One, Peter Thiel calls this the “last mover advantage”. Underrated  Execution — actually carrying out a plan and delivering on a hypothesis separates the few winners from the many losers. Running a company is a gritty, demanding task, which is why so many fail. •  Overrated  Passion — millions of people are passionate about something, but zeal is not sufficient to ensure a profitable business. Do not mistake blind enthusiasm for a practical proposition.  Underrated...

Pink Panther wafers become first corporate victim of Brexit Deirdre Hipwell, Retail Editor December 16 2016, 12:01am,  The Times The fall in the pound was the last straw  Brexit claimed its first corporate victim yesterday as the maker of Pink Panther wafer biscuits plunged into administration after a sharp rise in costs following the fall in the pound. Rivington Biscuits made 99 of its 123 staff redundant yesterday. The remaining staff will stay on to keep the business running and to fulfil Christmas and new year orders while the administrator FRP Advisory tries to sell the business as a going concern. The company is based in Wigan but is owned by Van Delft, one of the largest biscuit manufacturers in the Netherlands. Its products also include Count Down granola bars, but it is best-known for its wafers sold under the Pink Panther brand. The manufacturer also makes close to 1.4 million wafers a day for supermarket own-label brands. It is under...

UNDERCOVER REPORT The real cost of your gifts from Amazon this year The retail giant recruits an army of temporary staff in the run-up to Christmas at its biggest UK distribution centre. One undercover reporter joined them to see how the slick operation works; what she found was a soulless world of back-breaking toil, petty rules, low pay and Orwellian surveillance Mary O’Connor December 11 2016, 12:01am,  The Sunday Times Amazon sold 7.4m items on Black Friday last year GERENME/GETTY My journey to the heart of Britain’s booming online economy began with a wake-up alarm at 4am and a nervous 20-minute trek along empty streets to a Glasgow bus stop. There I stood in the biting cold with a half-awake group of ashen-faced workers awaiting the 75-minute transfer to a 21st-century El Dorado — the vast warehouse in Dunfermline, Fife, that serves as Amazon UK’s biggest distribution centre. We boarded the bus at 5.15am and settled into our seats, desperate to sn...

In what is described as Coca-Cola's most significant product launch in the UK for 10 years, a Coca-Cola brand is being renamed and re-launched - all due to market research. This article in the Guardian describes how Coca-Cola Zero is being re-launched as Coca-Cola Zero Sugar after market research found that many potential customers didn't know that Coca-Cola Zero has zero sugar. That research finding was bad news for Coca-Cola, particularly following the announcement of a Sugar Tax on sugary drinks announced by the UK government in March 2016. The product formulation of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar is also being changed to make the product taste "more like Coke". The objective is to make Coca-Cola's zero and other low sugar brands achieve a 50% market share.

Website with useful material for the BUSS3 course: http://economicsandbusinessstudies.weebly.com/buss3.html

This website has numerous links to material useful for the BUSS4 syllabus. http://economicsandbusinessstudies.weebly.com/section-a---pre-release-research.html

http://economicsandbusinessstudies.weebly.com/theme-2.html As per theme 1, browse the material her for ideas to use in application to Theme 2 questions.

http://economicsandbusinessstudies.weebly.com/theme-1.html This valuable resource has articles, videos and links to resources for the Theme 1 material. Browse it for useful material to extend your knowledge and application of key concepts.

Quite in-depth, but anyone who wants to look at how a real MNC handled a liquidity problem during the 2008/9 downturn, this tells a very full story. Very useful as an example in long answer questions: Source: http://www.nissan-global.com/EN/IR/INSIDE/INSIDE-SP/FCF/index.html In the latter half of FY 2008, Nissan, like other global companies, faced three challenges- the financial crisis, severe economic downturn and volatile exchange rates. However, Nissan continued investing and developing its brand, products and technologies, so that the company would be prepared for the post-crisis period and future. Nissan focused on free cash-flow management to address not only the current economic climate but also the major shifts occurring in the automotive industry, as a result of global environmental issues. Part 1: What is Free Cash Flow? The statement of cash flows is one of three financial statements, along with the balance sheet, the income statement. The cash flow statement rep...

On a lighter note, how Starbucks is trying to steal a march on rivals; in the newspaper there is a poll at the end - do the poll to see whether the readership thinks it will work! Making money from new parents is like taking candy from a baby Starbucks has smartly sussed that ladies with babies, reluctant to relinquish old habits, are keener than ever to visit cafes and restaurants   Facebook 3 Twitter Pinterest 0 LinkedIn 0 Share 3 Email Sweet smell of success: Catering to parents with children makes good business sense.   Photo: Alamy         By Jemima Lewis   03 Mar 2016 Two things that Starbucks has sussed about mothers: first, our bodies are 90 per cent made up of milky coffee, which requires constant replenishing; and second, we very much want to be wanted. Hence, its new “pa...

BHS stores threatened with closure as troubled retailer seeks rent cuts BHS is battling landlords to reduce its rent costs Credit: ALAMY Christopher Williams , Chief Business Correspondent 3 March 2016   B HS has appealed to creditors for permission to enter a form of insolvency that could lead to the closure of dozens of stores and loss of hundreds of jobs, as the High Street stalwart fights for survival. The retailer has submitted proposals to the High Court for a Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) in an attempt to drive down rent costs for 87 of its 164 stores. Preparations for the proposals, made by BHS on advice from KPMG, were revealed by The Telegraph last month . BHS said that under a CVA it would seek “substantial” rent reductions at 40 stores that will otherwise be closed after a minimum period of 10 months. KPMG said the retailer will pay 25pc of the rent due on the stores. The retailer’s attempts to negotiate cuts with institut...

part of a larger article that can be found here: The New China Playbook - BCG Perspectives The Three Forces of Change           To understand the implications of the three forces that are changing China’s consumer economy, BCG and AliResearch analyzed the relationships of demographic, social, and technological trends and consumption. One key finding: a two-speed consumer economy is emerging in China. (See Exhibit 2.) High-speed growth is occurring in upper-income brackets, among the younger generation, and in e-commerce channels, but consumption growth is decelerating among lower-income and older-generation consumers and in traditional retail channels. The Rise of the Upper-Middle Class. During the past few decades, China’s consumer economy has been powered by the ascent of hundreds of millions of people from poverty to an emerging-middle class, which includes households with annual disposable income of $10,001 to $16,000, and to the mid...