Bad Weather - Good for business

Easyjet recent encouraging financial results ( end of July 12 ) have been attributed partly to wet English summer ( admittedly the weather has improved lately )

Other factors include the weak state of the Euro, cheap prices ( as ever ), and decreased airport delays.

Chief Executive Carolyn McCall recently announced this good news about the Luton based carrier. For more stories relating to this, and the budget air market in general, check out this name on Newsbank

Recession on the High Street...a new government strategy

12 UK towns have recently been awarded £100k to help revive their ailing town centres.

These so called Portas Pilots include Wolverhampton as well as smaller towns such as Lizkeard (Cornwall) and Market Rasen (Lincolnshire)

Luton ( pictured left ) , Dunstable and Bedford have not made the list.
It will be interesting to see what initiatives are suggested and whether these towns can overcome the threats of :

• internet shopping
• penniless customers 
• successful out of town centres 

Radio 4 recently featured the plight of Dunstable's Quadrant Shopping Centre. The Council are anxious to buy the site but cannot afford the price demanded by the owners ( Southend Property Holdings ) who feel that they are sitting on a goldmine.

Mixed news for BAE Systems

One of the companies studied by business management students is BAE Systems. There has recently been mixed news for this company.

On one hand the US Air Force has recently purchased a contract to supply 350 training planes.

It is thought that these will be the Hawk jets pictured left.

Worse news if you are employed in a shipyard however. Govan and the historic shipyards of Portsmouth still face closure.

For further reliable and impartial news on the company I recommend our Newsbank and Marketline databases

Latest Financial Results...

Financial performance doesn't just depend on sales. Wetherspoons, which announces it's financial position this week grapples with  a huge tax increase of 50 million pounds.

If you are looking at a PEST analysis of a company this might count as a political factor.

Wetherspoons recently attacked cost pressures from government legislation , including increases in excise duty, business rates and carbon tax.

Their total tax bill in the current financial year will be around 500 million.

(Daily Express, Monday July 9th, p.47)

Corporate Governance

Those students regularly looking for information on corporate governance ( or lack of it ) should have no difficulty in finding case studies this year. Although it was once uncommon to read about the concept of CG  in the press you will find that combining the words Murdoch and Corporate Governance on the Newsbank database  gives us a choice of 151 stories this year.

Up until the 7th May that is....

Just a Minute Videos

Films available on a variety of topics - including use of our journals and how to search them effectively. Available through LR Web for students, staff and everyone else...

http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/libraryservices/whoweare/videos

Eastex & Alexon

Despite my upbeat posts about 'Made in England' brands such as Eastex and Alexon both firms are now in severe financial straits. Eastex has been bought out and Alexon is facing 'severe funding problems'

In Luton the situation can't have been helped by the closure of Guildford Street whilst the new busway is being constructed. This has restricted access to both firms retail outlets in the town at this difficult time.

Case study research for business

Case Study Research for Business

Jillian Farquhar

This book is a vital addition to the LRC. Designed for business and management students. It covers definitions about what is meant by case study research as well as chapters of collecting, managing and analysing data.

Game Over in Luton

Another closure in the Luton Mall. GAME the computer games retailer has closed with the company in grave danger

Suppliers of new games were so worried about the company's prospects that they were unwilling to deal with the company.

Most gamers today seem to buy products and services online.

Bad news for the Luton staff. The Mall branch is one of 280 to close. A further 333 stores remain in the UK.

Another Mall Store Closes

Another familiar brand has disappeared from the Luton Mall recently with the closure of Millets.

As a seller of outdoor wear, particularly waterproofs for camping and walking, it would be perhaps possible to blame the recent good weather !

Millets fortunes however have been in decline for a while. Blacks Leisure who own the company has faced a 9% decline in sales. A takeover by JD Sports has not worked out and maybe Luton just doesn't have enough campers and walkers.

Nearest stores are now Hitchin ( 7.5 miles away ) Hemel ( 9 miles ) and St Albans (9.5 )

Success on the High Street - it's a piece of cake

When I moved to Luton in 1990 the shopping centre ( then called the Arndale ) had two branches of Our Price, as well as an HMV. The Luton Mall still has an HMV but two GREGGS.

Greggs recently announced their final year figures. Profits are up by 15 % and there are 84 new outlets in the UK. This strong performance is based on cheap sausage rolls and coffee. Many shops have installed their own coffee machines.

The Wetherspoons Pub chain has also realised that the British love their coffee but are not always prepared to pay Starbucks (or Costa) prices.

Leisure Centre Membership

When the Luton Business Students (level 1) were doing their first piece of work on Vauxhall Leisure Centre we talked about the fact that annual leisure centre membership is less popular at the moment than pay-as-you-go arrangements.

This has been shown recently with a story reported in many papers. The ONS ( Office of National Statistics ) maintain a 'basket' of goods used to work out the UK Inflation figure.

A recent review of 'basket' has omitted leisure centre fees, whilst including the purchase of i-Pads and other tablet devices...

Use Newsbank Database to find stories on this....

Textile Manufacture in the UK

Image provided by :
tutor2u.net/.../manufacturing/textiles.htm

It was Fashion student who this week asked me in the Park Square LRC to help find some information on the decline of the British textile industry. It was an unusual request because the student wanted to look at this topic over a long period, and not just the state of the industry now.

There were several articles on Business Source Premier, but in a way these were a little too detailed. Newsbank database was better for this purpose. Many of the Financial Times stories included a historical overview of the topic.

Here are a couple of facts which charted the decline :
(a) As long ago as 1990 one hundred jobs were lost each day in the UK textile industry
(b) Compare this with the 1900's when 25% of the world's textile trade was UK based

My keywords "textile industry", decline and britain ( in three separate search boxes )

FAME to Live Forever

Recent survey of business librarians (stay awake at the back there) has found FAME ( Financial Analysis Made Easy ) to be their favourite database. I had always considered it to be mainly of use to Accounting and Finance students. Obviously the remit is much wider. Great, for example, to use it to track HMV's fortunes....

Here's a quoute from the survey....




In relation to the question I posed asking what financial database/s you couldn’t live without, of the 10 Librarians who responded to this questions eight said FAME.

Sports Sponsorship

Watching Liverpool win the Carling Cup Final on Sunday reminded of something that a representative of the drinks company once said about the marketing of their product.

Young men are interested in four things.

Carling sell them one directly (alcohol) and sponsor two of the others; music
(through venues like the Carling Academy)and sport ( eg the Carling Cup )

What can the fourth thing be though ?

BP's image ...

It can take a while to recover from major damage to a company's image as BP is currently discovering. The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico took place nearly two years ago now (April 2010)when 5 million barrels of oil leaked into the sea with huge ecological conseqeuences.

The case has only come to court this week however, and reporting of the proceedings is unlikely to enhance the company's reputation.

Manny websites about the disaster are politically motivated, and hardly unbiased. Some seem to have withdrawn comments where the company has threatened legal action. There are some good reports on the Newsbank database.

The State of the Economy

Facing a long train journey on Monday I bought a couple of newspapers ( I can usually manage the Daily Express Crossword, and complete about three clues from the Telegraph )

Look at the difference in the stories on the economy though ( both based on the same sets of government figures )The Express talks of modest growth ( falling inflation, rising house prices ) and the Daily Telegraph repeats a comment made when Labour left power that there was no money left.

The next Budget is on March 21st. Should be interesting to see how that gets reported in the UK Press.

Currency, Reliability, Authority and Purpose

Many of you will have heard Peter Godwin (above) talk about looking at the purpose of a newspaper or journal article.

I was reminded of his point this week when reading in the Daily Express about how successful Channel 5 has been lately. Channel 5 and the Daily Express are of course part of the same corporation ( Northern & Shell ) and they therefore constantly promote each other.

Here's an example from last week...

Channel 5 is football ratings hit
Express,Saturday, February 18, 2012
Author: Sarah Westcott

CHANNEL 5 scored a knockout this week after action-packed Europa League football pulled in record viewing figures .

A total of 8.2 million people tuned in to watch Manchester United defeat Ajax 2-0 in Amsterdam on Thursday.

The programme peaked at 4.62 million viewers during the 135-minute programme and held an average audience of 2.7 million, according to Channel 5 figures .

The peak audience beat that of ITV1's Porto versus Manchester City match later in the evening, which could muster only 4.57 million.

The Channel 5 game also helped it to claim a 9.91 per cent audience share of families.

Me in a Suit ( Made in Britain )

Well fancy that, with a family wedding coming up I've managed to squeeze into my suit. I last wore this to Chris Whitfield's wedding over 2 years ago. Chris is another of the academic liaison librarians here at Luton.

Even more surprises were in store when we found out that not only the suit but also Kathy's wedding outfit were made in the UK. In fact the dress which Kathy ordered online was made right here in Luton ( by Alexon Brands Limited ). It's hung up behind me in the photograph. Alexon - Eastex based in Guildford Street seems to be prospering quite nicely, and is one of the town's oldest firms.

Needing only a posh hat now we ended up in a shop which stoked boaters also made in Luton ( by the Olney Hat Company )Hardly suitable for a wedding though.

Who says UK manufacturing is dead !

Elsevier Profits Up

The Dutch publishing house Elsevier (nowadays Elsevier Reed) continues to prosper, and this week announced pre-tax profits up 9% ( despite the fact that sales of publications decreased during the same period )

Many academics at the University would like a subscription to the flagship Science Direct service. But as they say "pricing models" make this difficult, and we subscribe rather to individual journal titles at the moment.

Elsevier publishes highly prized journals such as New Scientist and the Lancet

The performance of the legal database Lexis-Nexis, much valued by our students, has given some cause for concern, and it was feared that this part of the company might be sold off. This has not happened however and chief executive Erik Engstrom is keen to keep all parts of the company together.

For details on the nature of Elsevier publications our Mediatel database may be of interest.

Made in Britain ( my trainers )

Imagine my surprise when I realised that my new running shoes ( New Balance ) had been made in the UK. Unusually enough the label on the which announced this was in French. Nonetheless perhaps this is what Chancellor George Osborne meant when speaking about the march of the makers in last years budget.

Could be a good example of UK Manufacturing for those studying this topic.

Clouds gather over BAE

One of the companies studied by Business Management students BAE Systems ( British Aerospace ) announces it's financial figures this Thursday. News is not expected to be good. With American withdrawal from Iraq and the delay in a Saudi deal for the Eurofighter profits are expected to fall by 10 %.

Further bad news ....the predicted closure of a Portsmouth shipyard, and rivalry from a French Company (Dassault) in manufacture of fighter planes for India

For these, and other reliable news about the company use our Newsbank database.

Prospering in a Recession

For those business students working on industries which are prospering despite the recession brewing might be worth looking at. As well as the continuing good fortunes of Wetherspoons Marstons pre-tax profits are up 9.4 % with solid performances in directly run and rented-out pubs.

Pubs and brewers employ 1 million people in the UK and Marstons are still opening ne pubs. The emphasis is on those premises large enough for kitchens. An average customer spends £6 on food.



Johnson, A. (2012) Pubs boss Ralph has the right pedigree Daily Express 11th February p.79

Olympic Legacy

Some statistics on the economic effect of the games (Business Management Students did a project on this recently)

Games (from 27th July to 12th August)......expected to raise £5.1 bn for UK
Consumer spending during that period.......£750 m
53 companies acting as corporate sponsors (of differing degrees)

Too early to judge the economic effect in full yet of course. Plenty of evidence available on Business Source Premier database to demonstrate previous effects on host cities / nations.






MacInnes, D.(2012)Olympics by numbers, Independent [i version] 29th January, p.49