Any organisation that can create a barrier to entry which prevents new competitors entering the market can, in theory, keep prices high. Economies of scale (think Airbus or Boeing), branding (think Apple) and distribution channels (think Coke) are all excellent examples of barriers to entry but one of the toughest barriers to break through are [...]

Have you ever been to lunch with a colleague? My guess is that unless (a) you work by yourself, (b) nobody likes you , or (c) you have a serious body odour problem then the chances are that you have had lunch with a colleague. Now let me guess. What did you talk about over [...]

You’ve all used a computer and the “qwerty” style keyboards which are named after the first row of the letters of the top row of the keyboard are things that we currently take for granted. The interesting thing though is that 20 years ago they weren’t very common and my feeling is that in 20 [...]

It never ceases to amaze me. You’re at an airport, you check-in and then wave goodbye to your luggage. When you arrive at your destination you expect your luggage to arrive on the luggage carousel at the same time you. I met an old friend last week who was telling me about a situation he [...]

Michael Porter is arguably the world’s most famous management theorist. His theories such as the 5 forces model and Value Chain Analysis are key parts of the syllabus for several ACCA and CIMA papers. His generic strategy approach of “differentiation” and “cost leadership” has been around for a number of years and whilst there is [...]

I guess we’ve all done it at some time or another. We’ve woken up one morning and due to too much work (or too much drink…) you look in the mirror and think “oh dear” (or some similar but slightly stronger words). Well step forward Mr Ed Moyse and Mr Ross Harper who when they [...]

The majority of you have no doubt attended an interview for a job at some stage. Some of you have also probably done the interviewing. So, what do you think are reasonable questions to ask at an interview? There are classic interview questions such as “What are your weaknesses?” (in my view the obvious answer [...]

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are ways of measuring Critical Success Factors in a business (Critical Success Factors are in effect items which an organisation has to get right in order to survive). Could a t-shirt be part of a KPI though? It’s not just commercial companies that need to focus on KPIs. Not for profit [...]

Here’s an interesting question – if you were asked whether you wanted more paid holiday or not, what would you say? The standard amount of paid holiday in most European countries is 4 weeks. Over in Switzerland though there was a national referendum recently which amongst other things asked people to vote on increasing the [...]

We get a weekly report on the phrases that people are searching for when they visit our website. As well as the search terms that would be expected on our site such as “ACCA courses” or “CIMA courses” there are also some more unusual ones. One recent such unusual search term was “How do I [...]