Strategy Video - Innovation through technology at Fern Howard

A fantastic video here for A level business students - packed full with relevant concepts. You’ll want to use this again and again.

Fern Howard, a Hampshire-based manufacture of energy-efficient light fittings. The business has to handle intense competition from China - so it has to find other ways to compete effectively.

The company’s CEO and Founder Peter Scott tells the Telegraph how adapting to a more automated production line, as well as holding stock in a state of sub-assembly, rather than as finished products, has given Fern-Howard the possibility of competing on price with products made overseas.

This video could be used at several stages in the teaching of GCE/IB business, including:
- Stock control & lean production
- USPs for an SME competing against firms with significant economies of scale
- Impact of competition from emerging markets
- Use of innovative technology in manufacturing
- Price competition
- Partnerships with customers in product development
- Investment in automation to reduce labour costs
- Modular manufacturing processes