Vericle Integration

A great article for Business students, whether it be at AS or A2 level. Businesses are always looking to cut costs in one shape or another. Cutting costs can be a short or long term plan. One of the ways is to merge with other companies and therefore cut costs and share the marketplace and expertise.
Delta Airways has just done this by buying a refinery, thereby providing themselves with stable priced fuel. It will cost in the short term but in the long term it should be a win win. Opportunity cost, investment appraisal, cash flow and many more key terms can be brought out of this article. A great example of strategy. Read article here.

Intellectual Property

Whether you are starting up a business, watching Dragons Den or sat in a Business Studies lesson learning about Entrepreneurship, patents, trademarks and copyright are nearly always mentioned. Intellectual Property is a complex thing which is set up to protect the owner of the innovations and processes but unfortunately does not always work. In some countries in the world it is not enforceable and in other instances it is really expensive to guard against. Just look at all the counterfeit goods sold on markets -fake football tops are one really big example.Counterfeiting is really big business but I always thought it was a low level thing, but when I read this I was shocked. I had heard that there were fake Apple shops but setting up a Primark in Dubai which is actually a fake shop had me shaking my head in disbelief at the brazen attempt to defraud Primark and its customers. Read for yourself

Roaming

Its Spring break in the US and approaching the summer in the UK, holidays will be planned and foreign destinations may well be visited. Whilst on holiday, people like to stay in touch with their friends and family back home and therefore take their phones with them. Not many know about the pitfalls of leaving their phones on roaming and switched on whilst traveling. I watched an episode of The Idiot Abroad featuring Ricky Gervais. He had sent "the Idiot" to India and if memory serves me right, he sent a message and all it said was 67p. This was the cost of him receiving a text from the UK. Please read this article and save yourself some money.

Cat cafe

I had heard a while ago that in Japan, a study was undertaken proving that patting dogs in an office was a good way of de-stressing. Fast forward a couple of years and a little bit of extra thought on that idea and there are cat cafes where people go to drink coffee and pat the cats. Animal rights have now jumped on board and the end may well be near. Make up your own mind whether this is right or wrong. See article

Supply and Demand

This is a great one for Business Students. Marks and Spencer have advertised, proven their worth and predicted their sales. The staff know the product and the message has got across successfully to the consumer. Only problem is that they were short of stock on one of their main lines and thereby undone all their hard work.This causes takings to be lower than like for like sales and as a result the share price has dipped. See article

Foie gras

Over the years there have been many debates amongst my circle of friends about Veganism, Vegetarianism and every other ism out there. We say we need protein in our diet and I will never turn into a Vegetarian simply because I love the taste and smell of Beef. Having said that the process of slaughtering is far more humane than it has been in the past and there is pressure to ensure that it stays that way.

One thing that I cannot get my head around is the manufacturing of foie gras and how it is reaped. I have seen videos of it and I am appalled by how it is done. Top chefs like to serve it in their restaurants and we often go on about ethics. Where are they now?

In order to manufacture foie gras, tubes are inserted into the ducks and geese throats and force fed. For more information read here

Pound shops

Whether in the UK, shopping at Poundland or in the US shopping at the 97 cents store I have often wondered how they manage to make  profit. I had often thought that it is all about buying in volume, thereby experiencing and benefiting from economies of scale. It also made me think about the mark up of comparable goods being sold elsewhere. Whilst thinking about this I had realised that the shops had huge amounts of stock, a narrow product range, very little room in the isles, products generally poorly displayed and not many tills at the exit.

After reading the article it also made sense that there were other savings in the one price for all strategy, thereby not having to individually price which means you basically need shelve stackers who double up as checkout cashiers. Other similar stores don't provide carrier bags as you are expected to bring your own thereby keeping costs down. For more information, read here.