Business Examples Flashcards
Bosch environmental / R&D investment:
Bosch invests 50% of its R&D budget in technologies supporting environmental protection
Bosch eXchange program:
Bosch eXchange program remanufactures used car components, generating 23,000 metric tons less carbon dioxide annually compared to new production
Starbucks Sustainable Coffe Challenge:
Starbucks has committed to providing one million coffee trees to farmers as a partner in Conservation International’s ‘Sustainable Coffee Challenge’
- Plan to hire 10,000 refugees across 75 countries in the next five years
Iceland palm oil campaign:
Iceland announced they would stop manufacturing product containing palm oil to draw attention to tropical deforestation
Virgin employee motivation:
Richard Branson puts his employees over customers - he collects feedback from employees by walking around the cabin and talking directly to staff during flights
- “In the end shareholders do well, the customers do better, and your staff remains happy”
Huawei market growth:
Huawei’s market share reached 15% (Samsung is market leader with 17%)
- Consumers in China are turning to cheaper brands for smartphones
Tesla customer service:
Tesla goes to the customer’s home to fix car issues rather than making the customer go to the repair shop in their time
Harley Davison after-sales service:
When a customer purchases a Harley Davidson, they are encouraged to join the Harley Owners Group which connects riders and the brand and also helps with maintenance and bike issues
Aldi sales growth:
Aldi now have a market share of around 7.5% as opposed to 3% in 2012.
Amazon hard HRM:
Amazon accused of treating staff like robots as it emerged that ambulances had been called out 600 times to the UK warehouses in the past three years.
- Employees told “it’s not what you want, it is what we decide”
- Pregnant woman made to stand 10 hours without a chair
Amazon R&D:
Amazon topped the list of US company spending on R&D in 2017 with $22.6 billion to produce products such as Alexa
Primark only selling in store:
Primark does not sell online - their low prices means low profit margins and going online would mean absorbing shipping costs or passing them to the consumer
Sea World reputation:
Sea World’s public image was damaged after a documentary brought to light the conditions that they keep their Orca whales in - their stock fell 33% as a result
Tesco quality control:
Tesco burgers found to contain horse meat leading to their value falling by nearly £300 million
Nike advertisement:
Nike ‘Just Do It’ campaign resulted in their sales going from $800 million in 1988 to $2 billion within a decade
- Nike got support from athletes including Michael Jordan and turned the brand into a fashion statement rather than just sportswear
Debenhams retrenchment:
Debenhams plan to cut 50 stores after £492 million annual loss with up to 5,000 jobs at risk
Unilever shareholder influence:
Unilever cancels plans to move headquarters from London to Rotterdam due to pressure of shareholders
Kleenex pressure groups:
Kleenex ‘mansize’ tissue boxes renamed ‘extra large’ in response to criticism from customers and feminist campaigners
Walmart innovation:
Walmart applied for a patent for smart shopping carts to give store feedback about shopping habits
- Shopping carts are equipped with sensors that can read pulse, palm temperature and walking speed in order to understand how customers feel in the store
Thomas Cook primary research:
Thomas Cook considers introducing pre-bookable sun-beds after survey finds 1 in 10 are in favour of the idea
Premier Inn product development:
Premier Inn new Zip rooms that are 8.5 square metres starting from £19
New look failed international expansion:
New Look abandons Chinese operation as they try to find new tenants for their 130 stores in China
Hoversurf technological change:
Dubai Police started training on Hoversurf hover bikes, costing £114,000, to help attent emergencies quicker
Apple product life cycle:
Apple are no longer supporting the iPhone 5 as it is now considered vintage
John Lewis product life cycle / technological change:
John Lewis will not longer be selling DVD players as sales of product plunged by 40% over the last year following increasing popularity of streaming services such as Netflix
Honda JIT:
Honda Swindon assembly plant retains just an hours worth of parts at the production line - it requires 350 trucks’ worth of components delivered everyday
NHS cyber-crime:
NHS hit with a £92 million bill following fallout of the WannaCry cyber attack which disrupted services and left thousands of appointments cancelled
- Health department agreed £150 million of investment in cyber security over next three years
Dominoes market penetration:
Dominoes use notifications through e-commerce to encourage existing customers to buy more pizza
Amazon technology creating jobs:
Amazon creates 600 research and development jobs in Manchester for workers to focus on software development
Facebook data protection:
Facebook fined £500,000 over Cambridge Analytica scandal for breaches of data protection law
- Data belonging to 87 million users were improperly accessed
Lidl quality control:
Lidl shopper finds dead mouse in rice packet leaving house smelling of cooked mouse
Apple soft HRM:
Apple voted best private sector firm to work for in the UK according to new survey
- They employ around 6,500 people in the UK
Amazon Herzberg hygiene factors:
Amazon warehouse workers have sent emails directly to boss Jeff Bezos urging him to restore their employee share schemes, which were cut to fund a promised pay rise.
- Share scheme entitles them to one share - worth around £1,500 - for every year they work at Amazon
WHSmith retrenchment:
WHSmith closing six stores after reporting a fall in yearly profits by £2 million
- Moving staff at closing stores to other stores to prevent losses
M&S retrenchment:
M&S total revenue for clothing and home department down 2.7%
- Planning to shut 100 sites by 2022
Ryanair ethics:
Man filmed being racist on a Ryanair flight - Ryanair should have removed him from the flight but moved the victim instead
BBC ethics:
BBC female editor found out she was being paid two thirds less than male co-worker doing same job
Primark environment / contingency planning:
Fashion industry is a major source of greenhouse gases and discarded clothes are piling up in landfill sites
- Clothes are now being made to last and customers are encouraged to return unwanted clothes for reuse
Healthcare Environmental Services environment / regulation:
Healthcare Environmental Services site held excess waste five times its capacity, equalling 350 tonnes including infectious fluids
- HES has been served with termination notices by 15 NHS trusts
McDonalds legislation / environment:
EU proposal to cut down on single-use plastics so McDonalds tests paper straws in Britain
Starbucks innovation:
Starbucks opened a store in Taiwan built from 29 recycled shipping containers
Edinburgh tax:
Edinburgh plans to introduce a tourist tax
- Transient visitor levy with draft proposals suggesting visitors pay £2 a night, capped at seven nights
- Could bring £11 million annually to the city
Independent Can Co tariffs:
Trump announced steep tariffs on foreign steel and aluminium
- Independent Can Co relies on tin-plated steel from Europe to make products such as biscuit tines
- Tariffs expected to add about $1.5 million in expense this year
Argos technological change:
In 2012 Argos closed 75 stores.
- It changed its corporate objective in late 2012 to reinvest itself as ‘a digital retail leader’
- Over 2012-2013 winter season the firms ‘check and reserve’ ordering service grew its share of total sales from 28% to 31%, orders placed online via mobiles doubled, and 42% of Argos’s business was now done online
Scottish Power environment / USP:
Scottish Power becoming the first major UK energy company to generate its electricity from wind power instead of coal and gas
- Plans to invest £5.2 billion over four years to double its renewables capacity
Pret A Manger quality control / supply chain:
Pret A Manger accused of supplying a contaminated yoghurt suspected to have caused a death
- CoYo yoghurt brand mis-sold to Pret a guaranteed dairy-free yoghurt found to contain dairy protein
- Pret terminated its relationship with CoYO
McDonalds ethics:
McDonalds refused firefighters free drinks after they were tackling a fire as they had no cash on them
Cadbury market penetration:
Cadbury repackage their standard chocolates into Christmas selection box
Lego market development:
Lego produce new colours of Lego to sell into female market
HMV diversification / failed venture:
HMV diversified into the live entertainment market with £40m purchase of live music venues but exited market soon after
Bic diversification:
Bic sell razors, pens, lighters and surfboards
Zavvi management buy-out:
The managers of Richard Branson’s Virgin Megastores bought him out to create Zavvi
Kraft conglomerate integration:
Kraft took over Cadbury for £11.5 billion
Facebook horizontal integration:
Facebook took over instagram for $1 billion
Daimler and Chrysler failed merger:
$36 billion Daimler and Chrysler merger failed due to cultural differences and overestimating synergies
Unilever corporate ventures:
Unilever invested in Brainjuicer when they had one employee
- They helped them expand into new markets
- When they left the company it operated in 11 countries with approximately 140 employees
- Unilever achieved a 17 x growth on its initial investment
VW cost reduction:
VW demand discounts from their component suppliers to reduce average unit cost per car
Sainsbury’s synergies:
Sainsbury’s £1.3 billion takeover of Home Retail Group (parent company of Argos)
- Announced the potential for an estimate of £120 million of annual synergies
- £60 million from Argos concessions
- £40 million from cost synergies (removing duplicate functions
- £20 million from revenue synergies (selling Sainsbury’s clothing through existing Argos network)
Santander synergies:
Santander delivered £300 million of cost synergies from Abbey National which it bought for £9.6 billion
Dyson R&D / innovation:
Dyson announced in 2014 that it would be investing £1.5 billion in long term innovation
- £1 billion spent on R&D, with a further £250 million to be spent on a technology campus
- Hope to launch 100 new products over the next four years
- Aim to invest a third of its profits on research into new products
GB Cycling team Kaizen:
GB cycling team used Kaizen to improve each element that goes into cycling by 1% to achieve larger gains
- They won 6 gold medals in 2016 olympics
Google patents / takeover:
In 2011, Google bought Motorola for $12.5 billion, and secured around 17,000 patents with it which it needed for the Android system
- In 2014, it sold Motorola to Lenovo for $2.91 billion without the patents
BMW counterfeits:
Chinese car manufacturer Shuanghuan launched the CEO, which is an almost identical copy of the BMW X5
- BMW brought them to court and lost the case
Lego patent / innovation:
Lego lost the patent on the design of the bricks, allowing other companies to produce similar items. It innovated in three ways as a response:
- Lego with friends range (new demographic segment)
- Collaborations with brands like The Simpson’s (licensing agreements)
- New products such as Ninjago (original IP)
B&Q failed international expansion:
B&Q failed in China as the tradition in China is that the business you buy the paint from then does the decorating for you - there is no concept of DIY
Pampers failed international expansion:
Pampers disposable nappies failed in China because Chinese families have no tradition of using disposable nappies
Tesco failed international expansion:
Tesco failed in the USA as supermarkets in the US sell a wide variety of products rather than just food
Dyson international production / labour costs:
Dyson moved its manufacturing to the Far East with the loss of about 800 UK jobs
- James Dyson said it was due to lower manufacturing costs as well as being closer to the suppliers
Golden Wonder international production / speed to market:
Golden Wonder announced that its Pot Noodles would no longer be made in China and shipped 10,000 miles back to the UK
- It moved manufacturing to Leeds creating 50 jobs
- It cost £3,000 to send a container of noodles to the UK from China
Tesco and Samsung alliance:
In 1999 Tesco created an alliance with Samsung to open ‘Home Plus’ - a series of supermarkets in South Korea
- Tesco brought knowledge of the industry, Samsung brought local knowledge
Aviva delayering:
Aviva removed the regional management layer from its structure
- Expected to result in annual cost savings of around £100m
Play Doh marketing / myth:
Play Doh was accidentally invented whilst trying to make a wallpaper cleaner
Nordstrom customer service:
Nordstrom shoe store does not have a customer service department, rather it is embedded in all aspects of their culture
Morrison changing market:
Morrison sparked talk of industry price war after it posted its lowest profit for five years and said it would invest £1 billion in price cuts over three years in a bid to recover market share lost to discount stores such as Aldi
Nokia rate of technological change:
Nokia used to be a market leader but is battling for survival in a crisis caused by a range of factors:
- Missed the smartphone revolution
- Continued to focus on mobile devises rather than mobile phone applications
- Intense competition
M&S e-commerce / R&D:
M&S spent £150m improving its website in 2014
Uber dynamic pricing:
Uber use ‘surge pricing’ - when demand for cars is greater than supply, prices rise to encourage more drivers to offer services
NyQuil emergent strategy / repositioning:
When testing NyQuil, they realised the regular cold medicine kept putting people to sleep so they repositioned the product as a night-time cold remedy
McDonalds CSR / environment:
McDonald’s Planet Champion Programme trains employees to find ways of reducing the environmental impact of the company as well as daily litter picking controls.
Subway franchising:
Subway increased the number of its fast-food restaurants in UK and Ireland from 100 in 2002 to over 2000 by 2015 through franchising
Amazon process innovation:
Amazon introduced Amazon Prime which provides one-day delivery for an annual fee
Uber market share strategy:
Uber are valued at $90 billion but are yet to make a profit as they prioritise increasing market share
WeWork flexible working / capacity utilisation:
WeWork offers shared office space allowing clients to shrink or grow their number of desks
Beyond Meat innovation / environment / CSR pyramid:
Beyond Meat is an ethical plant-based burger business with investments from Bill Gates and Leonardo DiCaprio - they have admitted they may be unable to achieve or sustain profitability so shows that achieving ethical level on CSR pyramid is not always worth it
