S2 Business Management Entrepreneur Presentations

Simon Cowell

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My S2 Business Management class have just completed a short project in which they had to research the life of an entrepreneur. They then had to present their research to the rest of the class. Click on the Pupil Work link on the menu bar to see some of the best work produced in the class.

entrepreneur presentation5

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A good time to start a business?

Despite the news that we may be moving out of a recession, surely now is not the time to start a new business. But a new series starting on Radio 4 called A Small Business says this might just be the time.

The Federation of Small Businesses has produced statistics saying that 120 small to medium sized businesses (SMEs) are closing every day. But for every one that closes, 11 new ones start up. This works out at nearly 500,000 new SMEs in 2009.

The majority are one person businesses, not scared of taking a risk, taking on little debt and not employing anyone else at the start. They won't have much of an impact on reducing the unemployment numbers!

But why are people taking a risk. Well, there are several possible factors:

• Savings interest rates are so low that people are more willing to take the risk.
• People don't want to work all hours for a lavish lifestyle - a reasonable income to support themselves and time for the family.
• People are afraid that their pensions may not support them so they want to keep working.
• Good deals are available on empty premises and from suppliers.
• Some people have a dream and being made redundant may have been the push they needed.

Of the 4.7 million firms in the UK, only 6,000 are big businesses and SMEs employ nearly 60% of the workforce - shopkeepers, taxi firms, hairdressers, plumbers etc.

To listen to the radio programme, click on the link below:

Radio 4 - A Small Business

Happy 25th birthday to Powerpoint

On August 14, 1984, Powerpoint was born, the brainchild of Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin. Initially called Presentation, it was originally developed just for Apple Macintosh. It was renamed PowerPoint in 1987 due to a trademark problem and in August that year, Microsoft bought the company the two inventors worked for. It was initially aimed at managers, professionals and salespeople but it has become the standard tool for anyone to explain something using a projector. Some interesting facts:

• The first PowerPoint presentation took place in Paris on February 25, 1992, to Microsoft employees.
• By 1993, it had become a market leader in PC presentation programmes.
• It is now estimated to have 95% share of the presentation software market with 500 million users wordlwide.
• Annual sales are now estimated of over $100m.
• 30 million PowerPoint presentations are made by businesses globally on a daily basis.

However, despite this success, PowerPoint has some critics.

• Presentations can be boring and just full of bullet points
• Information can be too simplified
• It makes communication presentation-orientated, not audience orientated.

Click on the link below to read through the problems of using PowerPoint in presentations and how you can overcome them.

The Problem with PowerPoint

Trip to New York

I have just returned from a week long visit to New York and I made sure I headed down to the financial district. It was really interesting to see first hand all the sites that have dominated the news over the last year with the economic downturn. Here are a few of the photos from my trip:

America's National Debt Clock

Site of the World Trade Centre towers

Me and the Wall Street Bull

New York Stock Exchange

The famous Wall Street

Well done!

I have spent the day reading over the exam results for S4, S5 and S6 and just wanted to say well done to everyone. The results look fantastic and are real evidence that with a combination of hard work on your part and good teaching by the Business Studies Department, we can achieve the excellent results we strive for. Well done!