BARCELONA, A COSMOPOLITAN CITY WITH COMERCIAL SOLUTIONS

Nowadays, Barcelona is a huge city that is trying to lead other cities in the world. In fact is trying to develop new strategies and to surpass itself by making new things.

Today we are going to explain you one of its newest concepts that every time more and more cities are trying to carry out.

Do you ever feel really hungry that want to go urgently to a bakery? Or, do you ever forget your friend’s present? Now, it is not a problem because there are several cities that have some shops and restaurants that are opened all the day.

Barcelona is trying to develop the same strategy. The city is trying to be one of these future towns. Barcelona, is implementing a new standard shift in order to maintain the most “primary shops”, as restaurants, bakeries and sport centres which are opened a minimum of 18 hours but they are usually 24 hours, indeed. In fact is possible to eat a baked croissant, photocopy some documents, buy some fresh fish or to make your service car at midnight.

This new timetable is not so different than Barcelona’s subway, because is opened without interruption all the weekend. This sum up a total of 43 hours.

This new concept came from the shop phenomenon with less than 150 metres square full of people until dawn. Nowadays, there are lots of these shops in Ciutat Vella and l’Eixample. In fact, these new type of shops with that new strategy tries to gain people attention so they will probably come two times during the day; if is a bakery, for breakfast and to buy a snack at midnight. Is a new strategy that will capture people interest for sure.

So if you want to eat a muffin, to print some documents or to be fit you only have to leave your home and do it, even at night. 

If you want to read all the article you can have a look:

http://www.elperiodico.com/es/noticias/barcelona/una-ciudad-horarios-xxl-4018295

Noma

Noma restaurant created by René Redzepi, is now proclaimed as the number one of the list “The world's 50 best Restaurants”.

Redzepi snatches the culinary world leadership at El Celler de Can Roca, family business belonging to Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca brothers. The funny part is that Redzepei performed an internship at El Bulli, in the summer of 1999 and was recognized as a crucial career step in Ferran Adrià's restaurant in Cala Montjoi (Girona) by Redzepi.

He decided to open his own business together with Claus Mayer in 2004 and since then has had a powerful promotion. The "Noma" restaurant is housed in an old converted warehouse full of charm: its dining room overlooking the harbor and 45 seats, has a 100% Nordic look that matches the culinary identity Redzepi. It can be said that its strategic plan is based on after passing through the Bulli, he developed his own culinary style: a kitchen of Nordic art, which is committed to the use of products in Scandinavia and is true to the roots, subtle and delicate aesthetic dishes. But while this chef likes to take risks, and it shows in their native insects including dishes such ingredients.

It is certainly a radical commitment in many ways but this entrepreneur has managed to place its business at number 33 ranking and gradually emerged climbs to establish itself as the number one restaurant in the world from 2010 to 2012. In 2013 the leadership was for the Spanish restaurant "El Celler de Can Roca" but in 2014, Noma regains its leadership.

Sony & its new business strategy

The famous technological company Sony has just revealed its new business strategy, with a financial objective of achieving an operating profit of at least $4.3 billion in the company's 2017 fiscal year. But how is the company planning to reach this goal?

Sony has decided to focus on a narrower band of products. This means, that it will concentrate on business areas that really bring profits. During the last years the company had to struggle a lot with the intense competition of dominant companies such as Apple and Samsung, which is why Sony will no longer concentrate of growing in the business area of smartphones. According to Porter’s Five Forces Model the rivalry is stronger when one or two rivals have powerful strategies and other rivals are scrambling to stay in the game. This is exactly the case of Apple and Samsung confronting Sony. Obviously, the Sony can response to the rivalry with lower product prices, higher levels of advertising, higher quality or other strategies. Nevertheless, it is very difficult to compete against these giants and so Sony has decided to focus on other production areas.

The strategy will therefore see Sony shift to more profitable business areas, such as camera sensors, videogames and entertainment products. Sony will employ aggressive capital investment in these areas, with the aim of achieving sales growth and profit expansion.

In our opinion, Sony does a great job in changing strategies and focusing on the segments, where the company is really good at, the videogames and entertainment. Apple and Samsung are the leading companies in the mobile industry and lots of other mobile business had to shut down, due to the intense rivalry. We believe, that the companies should prepare themselves for this, finding new strategies in order to not only to survive, but to obtain greater profits. 

Think globally, act locally

In today's article we would like to mention a small Catalan company whose development model is totally different to all the companies we have written before.

La Fageda is a Catalan cooperative in Olot that sells dairy products like yogurt, milk or ice cream.

It is completely different from the other companies, since its activity is developed at the regional level in Catalonia and their production techniques are traditional. In other words, they avoid the mass production of large companies.

Furthermore, another characteristic point of La Fageda is the integration of people with physical and mental disabilities to their workforce, having a great representation of this group in the entire company.

La Fageda creates an image of closeness brand that is committed to the environment and social problems. The added value of their products is easily identifiable and adapts to current market trends in which all the features listed above are rewarded.

As a negative point of this business model, we should say that it is difficult to grow and create many more jobs. But really, this is not what they are looking for, because it is a business model that does not search the continued growth. Their objective is be integrated as an element of the way of life of people, respecting the principles of ecology and corporate responsibility.

Summing up, we believe that large corporations have much to learn from La Fageda. Maybe we should stop living in constant growth and competition among companies to start living in a way of life where cooperation and the human side of the companies are the main actors.

Y O I G O

It is the fourth mobile phone operator with an own network in Spain. Last year, Yoigo was the only company who did not lose any customer. In this industry of mobile technology, where the competition is increasing, this is an important fact.

Yoigo is positioned in the market as a dynamic company, because they are continually updating their rates; nearby, for the simplicity and transparency of its rates; and low -cost as the prices are the main key. The target of Yoigo is mainly the young people, so all campaigns are directed towards them and the rates are according to their needs. They offer just what this segment of public want, without complications or small letter. A good example is the incorporation of 4G technology on its rates.

The promotion and advertisings is the most important weapon in its strategy and the results confirm this. Nowadays the brand recognition is between 70% and 80%. They create advertising campaigns that appeal to users. In this way they achieve consumers to remember and talk about the company. As a result they reach a larger market share.

Refering to the sales network, Yoigo signed an agreement with The Phone for the distribution of their products in physical shops, while making most of their sales at their online shop.


In conclusion, the simplicity and cheap prices that its company offer, have made it quite a success. The Company surpass their expectations during the first months and it is still growing.

COULD YOU EVER IMAGINE A BUSINESS REACHING THE SPACE?

"Have your grandparents or parents thought to fly into the space ever?"

Now is available because one of the most important American business, Virgin Galactic, could realise your dreams. In fact, this company is trying to develop new spaceships able to travel to space with some people that are able to pay a huge amount of money.

Virgin Galactic is a company that came from Virgin Group, founded by Sir Richard Branson. This international business is linked with some different areas like music, mobile phone companies, books, sports, etc. It decided to launch onto the market and try different types of business areas. In 2004 Virgin started a new concept called tourism space. 

The modern “aircrafts-spaceships” are built with carbon fiber and imagination to transport tourists from 96 kilometers high to the edge of the space. The Virgin Galactic could harbour six passengers and two pilots. It will also have lots of windows at the ceiling and it will be a combination throw a rocket and a parachute. The spacecraft will be connected with a powerful plane called WhiteKnightTwo that will transport the ship about 15 kilometers.

When the spacecraft starts creates a G force that could arrive up to 4,000 kilometers per hour. Once the ship reach the space the engines are turned off and the passengers are allowed to be without the belts. They could feel the weightlessness as same as the astronauts. 

1.       Can we called them astronauts?
No. In fact, Virgin Galactic called their customers as “astronaut passengers”.

2.       Will be Google joined together with Virgin Galactic?
Doug Messier, parabolicarc.com’s manager speculate that Virgin Galactic and Google could be linked in a future, just because Google is trying to develop itself into the space area and is trying to improve some new technology to fly with eolian turbines. 

Virgin Galactic is going to be opened to the public in 2015, so why don't you try it and leave a comment explaining us your experience? Just only if you have the sufficient amount of money to realise this new concept of travelling!

Here you have the link to read more about the article:

http://mexico.cnn.com/tecnologia/2014/06/13/virgin-galactic-abre-los-viajes-al-espacio-en-2015-y-asi-sera-el-tour

BCG Matrix – Apple Inc.

Today we are going to analyse the Boston Consulting Group Matrix on an example such as Apple Inc. Apple was founded in 1976 in California and counts today as a multinational corporation that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, online services, and personal computers. It is one of the most famous electronic company in the world. Offering a diverse range of products, Apple has to identify the role of each, in order to obtain more benefits.

We can classify the products in four different types of classes: the iPhone and iPads, the Mac computers, the iPods and the Apple TV.

In the question mark quadrant we can find Apple TV. There's no real evidence of growth yet, but there is some fruitfulness. The company sells few of these products and it has not earned lots of money with it yet. Now, Apple has to decide, whether to invest in this product or not.

Apple’s star products are definitely the iPhones and iPads. The company is selling lots of these products and they bring them great money. The demand is so high (and it keeps growing) that the company cannot produce enough of these products.

In addition, the mature Mac computers are considered as the company’s cash cows. This type of product is still growing, but not as much as the star product. Its limits of potential growth are insight. Nevertheless, Apple earns lots of profits through the computers, which is why the company has to “milk” it as long as it is successful.

The last definition of products after the Boston Consulting group are the dogs. Here we talk about products that once were a star but now they are not growing or producing any fruit. In the case of Apple these are the iPods. The era of the iPods is fading and almost nobody buys them anymore. The company should be aware of this and not investing more in this product.

For every company, who offers different types of products, it is important to elaborate a BCG-matrix. Only then, you know in what position your products are. 

DAEWOO

Daewoo was one of the major chaebol in South Korea. It is important to understand what is a chaebol? It is a business model that emerged specifically in South Korea and consists of large clusters in different economic sectors. And companies that exhibit this business model is because they have strong growth, technological development, diversification and a strong entrepreneurial dimension.

That is why Daewoo besides being known worldwide for its extensive efforts in the automotive industry and have been classified as the sixth largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world, also became known for the construction of defense products, helicopters, civilian aircraft without leaving aside the shipbuilding industry will soon earned a reputation for producing ships at competitive prices.

However in the late 90s due to the Asian financial crisis coupled with poor management of the company made Daewoo went bankrupt, undoubtedly one of the largest corporate failures in history. 

The factors or reasons that led to the collapse of the company is partly due to government intervention, another factor was the labor market as workers began to demand shorter working hours (because years ago the days were long and low remuneration), the operate in a global economy, since they have protectionists laws and asked to include free trade, another point to consider is the quality of the product in Korea and that many products were considered low quality.

In 2005, General Motors announced that Daewoo in Europe change its name to Chevrolet, but in late 2013, the company informed through the media that Chevrolet will leave Europe in late 2015. And unfortunately caused the economic slowdown in 2007 caused a decline in European demand, Chevrolet responded by lowering their prices and introducing more luxurious models that led him to face very prestigious brands.

The strategy adopted by Chevrolet was theoretically correct but in practice the result was the opposite as we again had to be facing another crisis but this time within the European Union.

MWC 2015

This week is celebrated the Mobile World Congress, an international technological event that takes place in Fira de Barcelona. It is the most important event in its industry.

The MWC is usually the place where big companies like eBay, Ford, Fujitsu, HTC, Intel, LG, Nokia, Samsung show their advances in wireless and mobile communications.

Unfortunately Apple is one of the most important absentees. This company never attends international events in order to present its devices. They prefer to hold their own events. However, the company usually posts during those days some news about improvements of their products.

This is an important event for both the companies to see the new products and market trends and for the exhibitors who promote and publicize its latest innovations.

Something to keep in mind is that the cheapest entrance ticket costs 700 euros. For that reason there are a lot of companies who visit the event but hardly any individuals. There are also other rates like the VIP which costs over 5000 euros.

Therefore, Barcelona hosts this annual event which is the most important in this sector with leading companies and professionals .This also has an impact in the economy of approximately 397 million euros, and the creation of 12,361 jobs.