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Archive for November, 2011


Are the BRIC nations building a wall?

Published on: 30 Nov 2011

10 years ago today the term “BRIC nations” was introduced by Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs It represents an acronym for the 4 largest developing countries that have the potential to become some of the world’s most influential economies and whilst the people of Burundi, Rwanda, Iceland and Costa Rica may well hope that one [...]


Listen – your pets can make their own purchase decisions…

Published on: 28 Nov 2011

Who makes the purchase decisions in your household? Is it you, your husband or wife, or perhaps your dog? Nestle, one of the world’s largest producers of pet food recently undertook an interesting marketing approach by producing adverts aimed directly at the pet as opposed to the owner. TV commercials screened on Austrian television used [...]


Will passing your ACCA or CIMA exams make you slimmer?

Published on: 25 Nov 2011

According to a report released yesterday by Eurostat, if you’re in the UK and you’re speaking to a woman then there is a 24% chance that she is obese (or to use less technical terminology, she is very fat). At the other end of the “fat scale” are ladies from Romania who have the privilege [...]


So are they top or bottom of the league?

Published on: 23 Nov 2011

In most industries if a company had revenue of £153m and a wage bill of £174m there would be serious questions asked. Manchester City are the current leaders of the Premier league in the UK and they have just released their annual financial results. The figures show that as well as being top of the [...]


ACCA exam tips released today but don’t do what this person did…

Published on: 21 Nov 2011

There’s a saying that studying for professional exams is a marathon and not a sprint. In other words, it’s a long hard journey to reach the exam finish line and not just a quick sprint to exam glory. Anyone that has qualified as an accountant will fully appreciate that it’s hard work and certainly feels [...]


Are the young ones always smaller?

Published on: 18 Nov 2011

I’m willing to bet that nearly all of you have used a Microsoft product. Probably an equally high proportion have used Google and a reasonably significant number of you will own an Apple product. What about LinkedIn? Most of you have no doubt heard of it and a number of you will be registered with [...]


It’s not a Lamborghini it’s a Volkswagen…

Published on: 16 Nov 2011

When it comes to cars, things used to be simple. Most brands were known for a certain type of car. For example, Mercedes produced luxury limousine cars, Porsche produced sports cars, Toyota produced mid range cars and Land Rover made 4×4 off road cars. But that was a while ago and things have changed dramatically [...]


I don’t think your customers are as loyal as this one…

Published on: 14 Nov 2011

A lot of companies seem to mistakenly focus most of their effort on getting new clients rather than looking after their existing ones. Some companies are so concerned with getting new clients that they forget about their existing clients and they end up winning one new client but losing two existing ones. The benefits of [...]


Was this as easy as 1,2,… (now what was the next one)?

Published on: 11 Nov 2011

There’s a well known technique in public speaking of batching topics in groups of three. The general idea is that it helps with the flow of the presentation and it’s easier for the audience to remember. Unfortunately for US presidential hopeful Rick Perry, three topics were one too many when he spoke last night at [...]


Which companies do you think are most likely to bribe?

Published on: 09 Nov 2011

Here’s a quick question for you: Companies from which of the following countries are most likely to bribe when doing business abroad? Is it China, Netherlands, Russia or Switzerland? My feeling is that a lot of you will probably be able to guess the correct answer but in case you’re struggling to identify which ones [...]