Category
In the News
'Unconscious bias' training day at Starbucks
This is the day when Starbucks will close 8,000 stores in the US in order to give all its staff a four-hour anti-bias training seminar. This follows the scandal when the firm had to apologise over...
Have we reached peak prosecco?
This could be a great example of a brand becoming overexposed and overstocked. The growth in demand for prosecco has been phenomenal, as it became the inexpensive way of celebrating, an affordable...
Dairy Crest to invest £85m to help meet overseas demand
Crumbs – this is almost the perfect A Level Business news story – it has it all!
Tesco Direct to close!
This has everything. Economies of scale; competitive advantage; Porter (both theories), marketing mix...and more. Not even Tesco had the buying power and scale to compete with Amazon in the sale of...
Global issues - measuring life expectancy
It can be very hard to measure the impact of government spending on healthcare, and the effect that it has on the living standards in a country. New data from the Institute of Health Metrics and...
With weddings very much in the news this week, here is a video 'How to dress a royal groom', showing the one-off or job production of a military uniform - featuring the tailors who produced the...
Vanilla ice cream makers feel the heat
Scheduling production of ice cream for the UK market must be one of the biggest operational management challenges - volatile weather means you can't plan far in advance, and when temperatures rise...
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, is one of those business leaders who is frequently in the news - this morning, this is because he refused to answer financial questions from analysts on a routine 'earnings...
Sainsbury's suppliers and Porter's Five Forces
Not surprisingly, one of the responses to the news of the potential merger between Sainsbury's and Asda comes from their suppliers, who fear that it would make their life very difficult....
Confectionery market - Mondelez sales and profits up
Mondelez have just released results for the last quarter of the year which show that their sales rose 5.5% to $6.77 billion, which was higher than expected and has resulted in a rise in their share...
Sainsburys set for mega merger with Asda
Sainsburys is in advanced talks to acquire Asda which is owned by US retail giant Walmart. There is no doubt that a horizontal merger would attract the attention of the competition authorities...
The difficulties of digital marketing in 2018
Digital marketing is, by its very nature, a dynamic environment. Many businesses have come to base a huge proportion of their marketing communications on digital and social media, and it is...
Barclays boss faces penalty for 'conduct breach'
If you are looking at the impact of external, government regulation on businesses, the news that Barclays boss Jes Staley is facing a fine by UK regulators is a great example to use. This summary...
What happened to the winners of The Apprentice?
If, like me, you sometimes wonder whatever happens to those 'entrepreneurs' who win The Apprentice, look no further - Mail Online (which I confess I would never usually recommend to my students!!)...
Coffee in the news - discrimination, recycling and market trends
Starbucks is hitting the headlines today, with the announcement that they will close more than 8,000 company-owned branches in the US for an afternoon next month to carry out "racial bias"...
Yesterday, Brussels proposed a crackdown on powerful food buyers that force predatory terms on small suppliers. As reported on AgriLand, a news portal for Irish farming industry, the objective is...
The sugar tax and minimum pricing for alcohol: how are businesses affected by government policy?
This important aspect of External Influences comes into sharp focus this week, as the new Sugar Tax comes into force on April 6th, and Scotland introduces a minimum price for alcohol of 50p per...
A Level & GCSE Business Exam Board Market Shares for 2017
Here is our analysis of the DfE data which shows the number of candidates entered for A Level and GCSE Business in England in summer 2017 and the resulting exam board market share.
Sears - The Slow Decline of a Retail Giant
Here is a superb video on the decline of a retail giant. Sears, once the largest retailer in the United States, is struggling to stay afloat.
Trade Wars
After the US imposed tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium, it was inevitable that China would retaliate fast. They have introduced duties of up to 25% on 128 American imports worth $3bn...
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