Letter, Memo and Itinerary templates for NQ Admin

I have posted templates of letters, memos and itineraries for you to have a look at before your exam on the Intermediate Administration page. You can print these off if you want. Please leave a message if there is anything else you need or want to ask a question. 

Economic downturn hits UK's super-rich

This year's Sunday Times Rich List, a list of the top 1,000 richest people in the UK, shows that the economic downturn has had an effect on the rich as well as the poor. Last year, this group had £413 billion which has now fallen to £285 billion. The richest man in the UK, Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, has seen his wealth fall 61% from 2008 to £10.8 billion, and the overall number of billionaires has fallen from 75 to 43. 

In the 21 years of the Rich List, this is the biggest collective fall in the wealth of the 1,000 richest people. 

The Rich List Top Ten  

1. Lakshmi Mittal and family, steel (£10.88bn)

2. Roman Abramovich, oil and industry (£7bn)

3. The Duke of Westminster, property (£6.5bn)

4. Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli, pharmaceuticals (£5bn)

5. Hans Rausing and family, packaging (£4bn)

6. Sir Philip and Lady Green, retailing (£3.83bn)

7. Charlene and Michel de Carvalho, inheritance, brewing and banking (£2.96bn)

8. Sammy and Eyal Ofer, shipping and property(£2.68bn)

9 = John Fredriksen, shipping (£2.5bn)

9 = David and Simon Reuben, property (£2.5bn)

9 = Kirsten and Jorn Rausing, inheritance and investment(£2.5bn

9 = Joe Lewis, foreign exchange and investment(£2.5bn)

(Source BBC website)

Help with public speaking.....

The BBC have been showing an interesting programme on how to improve your public speaking. In the world of business, communication is vital, whether it is communicating with colleagues, managers or customers. We try and give you taste for public speaking in both Administration and Business Management. 

I have attached a link to the website - The Speaker - under "Interesting Websites" on the right. It provides short video tips on how to improve your preparation, conviction, persuasion and motivation, as well as helping you fight the fear. It is well worth a look!

The importance of costing......

Paula became the 4th contestent 'fired' from The Apprentice this week after a massive error in costing. Despite proving to be a pretty good team leader and ensuring her team came up with well designed, well marketed and well produced products, her failure to manage the costs of the teams product proved to be her downfall. 

Having nominated Ben and Yasmina to do the costs, she got personally involved with Yasmina in choosing the scent. Both of them failed to spot the huge price difference between Sandalwood and Cedarwood and as a result, they spent £700 on fragrances instead of  the £5 they thought they had. 

After a bitter boardroom battle between Ben and Paula, Sir Alan decided she had to take ultimate responsibility. 

Not my choice.......

Speed typing challenge

Found a website called Rank My Typing for checking the speed of your typing. I have put a link to it on both the S2 Administration and Intermediate 2 Administration page. I managed 75 words per minute which I thought was pretty good until a girl in first year managed to get 79 words per minute. Still trying to beat that.

Post a message here and let me know how you get on.

Coke buys stake in Innocent Smoothies

Innocent, the British "smoothie" drink famed for its ethical ethos, has sold a £30m stake in it's business to Coca-Cola. They have said that it's "socially and environmentally-aware" status will not be affected and that the investment buy Coke will allow them to expand further into Europe by providing funds and getting the product out to more people in more places.

Facts about Innocent

• Set up in 1999 by 3 friends who spent £500 of fruit, turned it into smoothies and sold them at a small London music festival
• Employs 275 people
• Turnover of £100m
• Sells 2 million smoothies per week
• Supplies retailers as far afield as Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Austria

Political rebranding

It seems it is not just products and services that can be rebranded in the hope of making them more attractive to consumers. I was watching the Daily Show with John Stewart last night and he reported that the new American administration under Barack Obama has changed the term "Long War" or "Global War on Terror" (GWOT) to "Overseas Contingency Operation". The term "Global War on Terror" was first used by George Bush after the attacks on the Twin Towers on Sept 11.

The importance of proper costing......

Rocky was the 2nd contestant to get fired from the Apprentice and here he discusses where it all went wrong with his costings for the event in London's Gherkin building. As project manager, he sent in his fellow contestant to try and get £65 per head. He based this on an element of guesswork and the lack of competition for the event. Unfortunately, the representative of the business knocked the price back and after some embarrassing "negotiations", the team settled for £15 per head. 

S2 BM "Text Speak" challenge

Check out the attempts of my S2 Business Management class to summarise their Dragons Den project into a 240 character text message on the S2 Business Management page. 

Rebranding the recession

Inspired by an article on BBC's Newswipe programme, I set my S6 Business Management class the task of rebranding the recession to get rid of the negative phrases like recession, depression and slump. They had to come up with a new phrase, a logo and a range of products to sell. Having done this, they then had to present their rebranding to the rest of the class and take questions. Finally, representatives of each group were questioned by a neutral pupil, who then decided who to "fire" Apprentice-style until the winner was chosen.

The winning rebrand was Capital M by Monica Farrell, Emma Kennedy, Sean Connolly and Max Costello. Their idea combined an excellent rebranding of the name and logo - I was particularly impressed by their decision to show the M as a £ sign on its side which also doubled as a representation of a collapsed financial system - with a range of humorous products.

Well done - a career in advertising beckons!