TQM

TQM is a specific approach to quality assurance that aims to develop a quality culture throughout the firm. Each sphere of the business is broken into quality chains, which makes it easier to look after each sphere and provide the right enviroment, support, training and supervision in order to achieve zero defect target and products being made 'right first time'.

TQM:
- reduces waste in production and, therefore, reduces costs of production
- quality is improved as well as productivity which is likely to improve selling price, revenues and sales volume
- makes workers feel as a part of the team, therefore, they are more motivated which is likely to reduce labour turnover rates ans increase output and productivity
- improves the image of the business

Japanese management

Japanese management includes:
1. TQM - Total Quality Management, a business quality culture which means approaching high quality in all spheres of a business from finance to management.
2. Theory Z by Ouchy. "A company for life", which trains you, educates you, provides you with a home and you stay with this company all your life.
3. Just in Time approach, which enables to have high stock, because everything is supplied just in time, so you won't feel lack of any materials\products.
4. Production Quality Circle.
5. Ken I D I O T Kaizen - continious improvement. Can be applied to evrything in a business.
6. Lean production improves quality and reduces costs, because it minimised waste.

Video evaluation

The video is weird.
Okok.
The picture. As we can see in this video, it is obviously divided into three different types of video: beautiful scenery, EF facilities\accomodation\study and interviews.
Beutiful scenery is EF Oxford's USP - they are so proud of being located near Oxford university. Yes, the atmosphere, nice views of parks and colleges do their job. Customers like this flaffy stuff. How did you like the girl who was reading dictionary as if it was the latest bestseller from Borders or Waterstones? Lol yeah right, let's show London and Cambridge - they will reduce time that EF will have to spend on talking about studying and EF. Omg, spending more than 40 seconds on showing the dinning hall in Christ Church! lol lol lol brainwashers.
EF Oxford is presented as a big modern school with lots of facilities and great learning opportunities. I got really angry when they showed the rooms in the residence: they filmed them that way that the rooms looked actually much bigger than they are in the real life. And, wow, roommates are nice and clean (lol, how ironical). Look at the activities rooms - wow, a not broken pool table! wow, there are no loud or not very intelligent spanish speaking people in the lounge! And, ahahaha, I like how they presented the 'delicious' cafeteria food - "fish and chips and other international food". I cannot argue with this - cereal is international as well as burger. How on Earth can any food be called not-international?? Hey, look at the grass in the yard! It actually exists lol!
The interviews. Well, ok, teachers are obviously well-prepared. The girl spoke in English really good and I think EF actually paid her.

Well, obviously, EF won't tell anything bad about the school but..
Their advertisement is very good as they turned their disadvantages into advantages and paid a lot og attention to their USP.

Business Studies revision. Chapter 24

Quality

Business Studies revision. Chapter 23

Marketing operational decisions

Notes on blogs

As a part of my dynamic econs\bs\sociology revision, I will be reviewing a couple of blog bosts.

So, Business Ethics and CSR from tutor2u Business Studies blog..
As we all know, ethics is an important part of any business. Entrepreneurs must respect their customers, competitors, suppliers, cultures etc. They also shoul be responsible for their goods and services and make sure that they apply to all rules and do not cross any limitations (legal, ethical, cultural). CSR stands for Corporate Social Responsibility and thus is discussed with Business Ethics. Further explanation of arguments about CSR can be found here.
These things are mentioned a lot when people are talking about externalities or demerit goods or any type of discrimination in business. A good example of a discussion connected with business ethics and csr is a topic of fair trade - when people argue about whether should be suppliers from poor countries\areas be supported and paid a reasonable share of profits. No doubt that exploitation in farms and factories in Asia or Africa or even Russia DOES exist as people are not paid enough for the work they do.
At tutor2u BS blog they usually try to refer to some articles in leading UK newspapers and info sources in order to explain this topic.

heh, I have just finished the whole AQA AS BS workbook.. took me 2 and a half hours to do it.. I should have worked more in it before -___- in that case I wouldn't have had so much to do.. uh.. whatever actually.

The Marketing chapters were the most fun, however, they took me a lot of time to complete.. and refering to case studies is not the best thing in that workbook as well.

The motivation chapters were so boring. Kinda ironic, isn't it? I was the least motivated on the motivation chapters lol.

The calculus questions for sure will be in my nightmares for the next 3-5 days.

Anyway, now I have some sociology to do in order to finish my brain completely (FATALITY!!! Academic Mortal Kombat lol)

A Beautiful Mind

If we all go for the blonde and block each other, not a single one of us is going to get her. So then we go for her friends, but they will all give us the cold shoulder because no on likes to be second choice. But what if none of us goes for the blonde? We won't get in each other's way and we won't insult the other girls. It's the only way to win. It's the only way we all get laid (c) John Nash, from a film "A Beautiful Mind".

John Forbes Nash, Jr. (born June 13, 1928), is an American mathematician and economist whose works in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations provided insight into the forces that govern chance and events inside complex systems in daily life. His theories are still used today in market economics, computing, accounting and military theory. Serving as a Senior Research Mathematician at Princeton University during the later part of his life, he shared the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with game theorists Reinhard Selten and John Harsanyi.

In game theory, Nash equilibrium is a solution concept of a game involving two or more players, in which each player is assumed to know the equilibrium strategies of the other players, and no player has anything to gain by changing only his or her own strategy unilaterally. If each player has chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing his or her strategy while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium.

The Nash equillibrium concept can be applied in economics.Economists have long used game theory to analyze a wide array of economic phenomena, including auctions, bargaining, duopolies, fair division, oligopolies, social network formation, and voting systems. This research usually focuses on particular sets of strategies known as equilibria in games. These "solution concepts" are usually based on what is required by norms of rationality. In non-cooperative games, the most famous of these is the Nash equilibrium. A set of strategies is a Nash equilibrium if each represents a best response to the other strategies. So, if all the players are playing the strategies in a Nash equilibrium, they have no unilateral incentive to deviate, since their strategy is the best they can do given what others are doing.

So, to keep it simple, the game theory (on which the Nash equillibrum concept is based on) is an analysis of optimal decision in competitive situations. John Nash proposed that the optimal decision would not be the best decision for one person, but a decision based on predicting decisions of others as well and taking them into account. This concept is widely used in many spheres of life, including economics and business. Many companies are planning their strategies, using the Nash equillibrium concept.

Source:
Wikipedia

A2 Business Studies essay

With reference to organisations, markets or industries that you know, to what extent do you think that the internet is a threat rather than an opportunity for business?

We live in the age of a digital progress, which is spreading all over the world with an unbelievable speed. Every day thousands of people get access to the internet and, therefore, are able to shop online. This makes running an online business very attractive to many entrepreneurs: the internet gives them many opportnities, which are unavailable for the so called 'offline' businesses. Online businesses are easier to start up and manage, the costs are much lower (no need to pay for the rent or electricity, labour costs are also low compared to real businesses) and the internet by itself means more extended market. With a correct and successful marketing campaign, any online business can fastly develop, cover all start up costs and start to make actual profits. That's why the number of online businesses grows each day. For some businesses switching to 'online' mode may help avoiding failure. The famous example of this is the network of shops Woolworths, which became bancrupt over Christmas, but after that 'reincarnated' online. It seems that online businesses are much better than the real ones. But is this actually the truth?
Online businesses have their 'dark sides'. Shopping online means that customers have to leave their confidentional info like address, phone numbers and other contact information as well as credit card numbers and bank accounts information. Online shops are trying to protect this information, however, they do not succeed all the time. As a result, the customers may find that somebody is using their credit card or their e-mails are full of spam and viruses. If a business wants to succeed online, it has to provide a high level of security to protect their customer's information or they will lose all customers and may even be closed down. Other security problem is hackers, which may take over the website and all the stock, account and customer information, and there is nothing that an entrepreneur can do with this. Providing a high level of security costs a lot. However, hackers and virus programmes are becoming stronger and more complecated, therefore, no-one's information is safe in the internet. Other thing that may stop businesses from developing and making profits is very tough competition. No doubt that all online markets are taken over by monopolies like microsoft, amazon or e-bay, because they were started a long time ago and had a huge place to develop as they were first online. Competing with those online giants might be impossible for small unnoticable businesses. Even very interesting business find it difficult to take a small part of market share just because of consumers' lack of information. Also it is difficult to do an accurate market research, as online people tend to use fake identitites and lie about their interests.
The internet might be a threat for many ambitious businesses which aim to make profits because of tough competition, lack of security provision and information failure about an online market that they want to enter.

I suddenly realised that I have not enough knowledge of online industries and failures to write a good essay. But it's a good practise anyway.

50 lessons

50 lessons of successful management and leading your business to success. I found this site very interesting and helpful. It's like a millionare CD but much more preсize.

Business Studies vocabulary

ok, high-quality blog concept is almost completely developed.. starting of later on today. While I'm finishing off my taxation essay (yes, it DOES exist!) I'm also trying to keep up doing my daily blog..

Market segmentation - analysing the market the identify different types of consumers.

Brand positioning - the distinctive position that a brand adopts in its competitive environment to ensure that individuals in its target market can tell the brand apart from others.

Advertising elasticity - measures the extend to which change in AD spending affects demand (%change in demand /% change in AD spending)

Cash flow - the difference between incashflow and outcashflow.

Loss leader - product sold at less than cost to attract consumer to a product range.

Adverse variance - a change from a budgeted figure that leads to lower than expected profit.

Net profit margin - net profit, which is a percetage of the sales revenue.

Organisation structure - the relationship between different people and functions within an organisation.

Off-the-job training - training provided by not the place of work

On-the-job training - provided by a company you work in to actually gain required skills for doing a job

Person specification - a set of characteristics by which a person is picked for a particular job

Induction - an introductory training programme designed to familiarise new recruits with their place of work and co-workers

Empowering employees - giving employees some responsibility and power (not over a company acually)

Job enrichment - where the job is expanded vertically by giving the worker more responsibility

Job enlargement - expanding the number of tasks completed by an employee

Capacity utilisation - the percetage of a firm`s total possible production level that is being reached

Rationalisation - reorganising resources in order to cut costs

Quality control - based on inspection of the product or a sample of products

Quality assurance - a system of agreeing and meeting quality standards at each stage of production to ensure consumer satisfaction

Productivity - output per person per a period of time

Product portfolio analysis - analysing the existing product mix to help develop a balanced range of goods and services

Price taker - a firm which sets its prices at the same or similar level to those of the dominant firm in the industry

Business Studies revision course

Ok guys..
Mr. Chris suggested me to run another revision course on study week, this time it will be Business Studies revision course.

We will cover the most important topics (which you will choose) and it will be not more than 40-45 minutes a day. It will be run on Wednesday and Thursday at our school.

If you are interested, please write a comment.

Outlining the importance of perception in Business Studies

First of all, what is perception? In psychology and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information. In other words, our perception of an object is how we understand it, feel it and what we think about it. We percieve everything in this world, and our perception determines our actions and feelings. But, as we all know, our perception may trick us sometimes - not all that we see and feel is true.

Why is it important to pay attention to perception in Business Studies? Well, obviously, to sell a product. The perception of a product by a consumer determines the sales. Nowadays many producers try to create correct and profitable perception of a product by branding.

According to the Model of Brand, to have a famous name of a product doesn't mean that you have a brand. A brand means correct understanding and perception of a name, because brand includes not only symbols but also associations and expiriences. There is no such thing as a loyality to a name, but there is a loyality to brand. Perception plays the key role in the distinguishing a name and a brand. However, how the perception of a name appears? According to the model, the perception of a product appears due to experience of using the product. This should also be taken in account.
Secondly, perception is a part of measuring a brand - both Saussure and Peirce used it as a part of their brand-measuring models. Brand perception is a level of expectancy of customers to a brand achieved or, in other words, an image of the brand created.

Perception could be tricked - and it is used a lot in advertising and marketing. Subliminal messages in TV advertisements, hidden pictures and images, fashion - all these influence our perception. To create proper perception of a product I would do a market research and use well-planned marketing mix, which will increase the chances of the creation of the right (needed) perception of a product.


uh.. i hope it's 300 words..

Toyota's strategy

Ok, I'm sitting in the business studies room with Lex in front of a HUUUUUGE screen (bigger than 5 Lexes) and doing a task that Mr. Chris gave as. We are supposed to create a possible strategy for Toyota as its sales are falling because of the current economics situation. Credit crunch, you know, we are all gonna die from hunger and low income, our children are not going to have a bright future and etc... awful picture. It's even worse than going to Torquay.

So, going back to Toyota topic.

Ok, sales are falling, what are they going to do? We dunno for sure, but me and Lex had a long discussion (15 seconds long) about possible ways of improving the situation and came up with some interesting points.

1. Get money from various sources of finance. They can borrow money from a bank, as many banks in different countries (for example, the UK) are trying to increase confidence by offering a big amount of loans. Even in England, the MPC has reduced interest rates to 1% recently. Or, as an alternative, sell shares or assets. By selling assets I mean selling some machinery in one branch of Toyota in Japan, for example.
2.There is a possibility of a merge. But I don't mean a vertical or a horisontal type of merging cuz it will cause the diseconomies of scale (the average cost will rise). I'm talking about lateral or diversifying types.
3. Postpone the introduction of new products such as electro-hybrid cars. They cost, on average, 3000-5000$ more than usual fuel-using cars. People dun have money anyway and oil prices are lower now, so people will not buy it. And Toyota will have to advertise this new type of cars as well to avoid information failure. If we look at Ansoff Matrix, it will be a new product in an already existing market:

Ok, finished for this week today.

Oxford markets

Today our business studies group went on a study trip to the center of Oxford to compare two markets: the Covered Market and the Gloucester Green Wednesday Market!

The Covered Market
The Covered Market is really popular in Oxford - it has many shops, which offer a variety of different goods: food, clothes, decoration stuff etc. The food prices are lower than in Sainsbury's or Tesco's, however, I would rather buy food for a higher price in a shop then in this market. I don't know why, but I suppose it's because of my stereotype about markets, as in Russia we have really awful ones where the quality of goods isn't worth even trying. But I can't deny that there are some really good places there - mmm, the cake shop is precious (and expensive :( )! The place is located in the center of the city and has a big area, but it's also so dirty and on weekends it's full of people.

The Gloucester Green Wednesday Market
The Gloucester Green Wednesday Market didn't impress me at all and I saw it before only once - in September. It works only on Wednesdays, that's why I don't think that it's possible to compare the two markets: obviously, the covered one is much more profitable.
This market is full of people and goods, I had a terrible headache while being there. It is outside on the street, so it was really cold there.
The only advantage of this market is its low prices.

But still, I enjoyed our trip a lot and I think that it's important to have some practical tasks in Business Studies such as this trip!

Evaluation!

Haven't done this for ages! loveitloveitloveit!!!

okok, what do we have here? oh, eco-consultants!

ok, nowadays more and more people want to live the so-called 'green life'. they want to save the enviroment for their children and grandchildren, they become vegans and vegeterians, they recycle things.. their enthusiasm is so enormous, that it has become very popular and those people, who don't actually care about the enviroment, do this only because it's popular.

I might say that all the house makeovers tend to be income elastic, as people are likely to do the refurnishing or a house makeover when their income increases and they want a better place to live in. Plus, the popularity of an 'eco-life' makes it almost price inelastic, therefore, it's a very profitable business in theory. BUT!

The price of this service makes me suspect something strange. Where have you seen a makeover PLUS 90 minute consultation for 99$? On 99$ in Russia a can buy a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, that's all! Maybe the entrereneur lowered the price to attract more customers? Maybe, but this means that his market research:

a) is primary and is totally inaccurate

b) is secondary and now it's useless as lot's of things have changed since it was carried out

c) is not done at all

Because he would knew that his product is highly demanded and even might be permanently price inelastic so he wouldn't put that funny psychological price - 99$!

Ok, maybe the materials are cheap or the amount of work is not so big (but it depends on each customer - some already have almost 'eco' houses, some have totally enviroment-unfriendly houses, therefore, different amounts of work should be done), but consultations.. uh, there is something wrong here. A consultation involving expectation of a house, looking through the bills etc cannot be effective if it's only an hour and a half long! A good consultation requires a good specialist, a good specialist requires a good wage.. therefore, either the company has 1-2 consultants or it has enormous costs! Price cannot be so low, otherwise the business will fail after a week or so. Even more, they are training consultants - more costs! uh!

To my opinion, the business idea is very good, but the business plan should be redone and something should be done to the price. Maybe some market research to find out the ideal price and to bring some improvements into a business, and some advertisement to attract more customers perhaps?

Outstanding homework BS, Economics and Sociology - parts 11, 12 and 13 out of 28

Homework (Business Studies). Parts 11, 12 and 13 out of 13.

Part 11:

Evaluation questions on my blog:

1

2

3

4

5

Part 12:

did a dipity timeline :)

Part 13:

So, something must be done. The question is - what?

Just put the hardworking ones in one group and lazy loosers in another, and everything will be ok. If someone 'gifted' starts to bring the dynamic group down, just send him to Torquay the second group. If someone realises how miserable he is and starts to work hard, he can be moved to the enthusiastic group. ^^

Outstanding homework BS, Economics and Sociology - parts 8, 9 and 10 out of 28

Homework (Business Studies). Parts 8, 9 and 10 out of 13.

Part 8:

I have looked through the one of the Business and Management introduction topics and read about business culture here.

12 factors that affect business culture:

- the influence of a dominant leader – the vision, management style and personality of the founder or leader in a business often has a significant influence on the values that the business tries to promote; 
- the history and tradition of the business – how things have always been done (and why); 
the type of technology used by the business and the types of goods and/or services it produces; 
- which industry or sector the business is in, and how much and what type of competition it faces; 
- the customers of the business – who they are and what they expect; 
- company expectations – based to a large extent on past performance; 
- the types of information and control systems used; 
- the legislation and wider business environment; 
- the procedures and policies within the business – ever-evolving, but often a good indicator of underlying values;
- the reward systems and the measurement of performance; 
- how the business is organised and resourced; 
- goals, values and beliefs – reflected in objects, actions and language, that is, in Trice and Beyer's symbols.

Part 9:

check this out

and this

and this

Part 10:

Question 29 from (RRRBRB) Robin Rinat Red Bull Revision Blog:

What is the percentage difference between the £12,000 a week asked for and the average Championship wage?

they usually get 3.000-4.000, which are 25-33.3% of 12.000. therefore, the difference is 67.7-75%

What is the annual salary of someone on £12,000 a week?

52 weeks. 52x12.000 = 624.000

Calculate the hourly wage of someone on £3000 a week assuming a 24-hour day.

7x24=168

3000/168 = 17.85 per hour

Outstanding homework BS, Economics and Sociology - parts 4, 5, 6 and 7 out of 28

Homework (Business Studies). Parts 4, 5, 6 and 7 out of 13.

Part 4: 

I have read this aricle about using an alternative of factoring - invoice discounting, where debts to supplier are paid but under the supervision of a bank manager. I didn't quite get it, but, as I see it, banks buy supplyer's goods with a discount and then sell it to a consumer at a full price. So, if a consumer doesn't pay, suppliers will still get money.. something like this. 

Part 5:

i dun like giving my coordinates to unknown websites like this.

Part 6:

I have tried listening to 49 minutes (!!!) podcast, but then understood that it's not necessary as I got the main idea right. So, this podcast was an interview with a successful blogger Alborz Fallah, who started with nothing, but now his blog is valued more than 5 million dollars. His CarsAdvice blog is really popular in Australia and even competes with some australian media giants! This guy earns a lot of money on this blog, and he does his blog despite he has a full-time job.

So, in this interview he was talking about differents things: what topic for blog to choose, how to blog successfully, some details and general advice..

but seriously, that guy earned some money just because he was paid by the guys who placed advertisements on his blog. I mean come on - car advice blog.. hey, it's just because all men are crazy about cars.. pff.

Part 7:

revised all the AQA BS Unit 1 on tutor2u BS blog here.

Outstanding homework BS, Economics and Sociology - part 3 out of 27..uh, now 28!

Homework (Business Studies). Part 3 out of 12.

Mnemonics

S - PPP - LL (types of pricing) - SPPP(E)LL

Skimming - penetration - predatory - psychological - loss leader