Cramer being scowled at the daily show

Cramer and the Stock Market.
Look at the following video and tell us what you think.

The Daily Show
Daily Show Full Episodes,  More Daily Show Videos,  Comedy Central Full Episodes

The Daily Show
Daily Show Full Episodes,  More Daily Show Videos,  Comedy Central Full Episodes

Shopping Secrets When Buying in Bulk

Shopping Secrets When Buying in Bulk.

Extra Work: Buying in Bulk (in your CD).

Video in your I-pod: "Shopping Secrets: Buying in Bulk".
Video name on your CD: "Shopping Secrets: Buying in Bulk" Mpeg4 file.

Exercise.
Watch the video and answer the questions below.

Questions about Context
1. What does Teresa have to say about shopping at Costco?

2. What did Professor Brian Wansink find out about consumer behavior from warehouse club shoppers?

3. What are the 5 pieces of advice from experts about shopping in warehouse clubs?

Vocabulary
Divide up. Verb.

Overeat. Verb.

Partner. Verb.
Slap. Verb. Open.

Use up. Verb.

Useful Phrases.
A bundle.

Buddy system.

Go bad.

Hard earned.
In bulk.

Membership card.

Register.

So she says.

The savings.

Tub of Mayonnaise.

Warehouse club.

Way over my budget.

Legos and How to Survive in Business

Legos and How to Survive in Business.

Lesson 21.

Extra Work.

Audio name on I-tunes and the I-pod: "LEGO - how to survive in business (intermediate)".

Audio name on your CD: "LEGO - how to survive in business (intermediate).mp3".

Exercise.

Listen to this audio about Lego and answer the questions down below.

Vocabulary.

Danish. Something or someone from Denmark.

Profitability. Noun

Blame. Verb.

Diversify. Verb. 

Expressions.

Supply chain.

Make a loss.

Questions about Context.

1. When was it founded?

2. What does lego mean?

3. What's lego's motto?

4. How much did they sell back in 2003?

5. What do they do besides the famous bricks?

6. Where are the amusement parks?

7. What happened in 2004?

8. Tell us the main reasons why they started to lose money.

9. Tell us what they did to stop losing money and go back to profit.

Disruptive Innovations

Disruptive Innovations.

Activity.
Listen to this podcast from Harvard Business Review and answer the questions below.

Audio name on I-tunes and the I-pod: "Reinventing Your Business Model".
Audio name on your CD: "Reinventing Your Business Model.mp3".

Cottage industry. An industry where the creation of products and services is home-based, rather than factory-based. While products and services created by cottage industry are often unique and distinctive given the fact that they are usually not mass-produced, producers in this sector often face numerous disadvantages when trying to compete with much larger factory-based companies.

Telegraph.

Mainframe computers.

Breakthrough. Noun. A sudden advance especially in knowledge or technique. “This new drug turned out to be a medical breaktrhrough”.

Formerly. Adverb. Previously.

Cost effectively. Adverb.

Overhead intensive. With very high fixed costs.

Flop.

Value proposition. A value proposition is a promise of value to be delivered and a belief from the customer that that value will be experienced.

Overhead costs. In business, overhead or overhead expense refers to an ongoing expense of operating a business; it is also known as an "operating expense"

Gross margins.

Gross margin (as a percentage of Revenue)

Most people find it easier to work with gross margin because it directly tells you how much of the sales revenue, or price, is profit. In reference to the two examples above:

The $200 price that includes a 100% markup represents a 50% gross margin. Gross margin is just the percentage of the selling price that is profit. In this case 50% of the price is profit, or $100.

In the more complex example of selling price $339, a mark up of 66% represents approximately a 40% gross margin. This means that 40% of the $339 is profit. Again, gross margin is just the direct percentage of profit in the sale price.

In accounting, the gross margin refers to sales minus cost of goods sold. It is not necessarily profit as other expenses such as sales, administrative, and financial must be deducted. And it means companies are reducing their cost of production or passing their cost to customers. The higher the ratio, the better.

Source: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_margin )

Assets. In financial accounting, assets are economic resources. Anything tangible or intangible that is capable of being owned or controlled to produce value and that is held to have positive economic value is considered an asset. Simply stated, assets represent value ofownership that can be converted into cash (although cash itself is also considered an asset)

Profitably. Adverb.

Get in the way. Interfere.

Paradigm. Noun.

Sunk cost. In economics and business decision-making, a sunk cost is a retrospective (past) cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered.

Fixed cost

Marginal cost

Marginal revenue

Leverage. Verb. Exploit.

Beat the incumbent. In business the term "incumbent" is used for the largest company in a certain industry, for instance the traditional phone company in telecommunications, typically called the "incumbent operator". In a sales process, such as public tender, incumbent may also refer to the vendor that has the largest existing commercial relationship with the issuer of the tender. Source: Wikipedia.

Questions about Context.

1. What’s a disruptive innovation?

2. What’s the main key to provide a disruptive innovation?

3. Mention the four steps to start a new business model.

         

4. Describe the example of a company successfully facing disruptive innovations.

5. What gets in the way for companies to face disruptive innovations successfully?

6. Describe an example of an industry having trouble facing disruptive innovations.

- Traditional Newspaper vs digital Newspaper

- Wireline phones vs Voice over IP

- Netflix versus Blockbuster

- Kodak vs digital photography

- Sony walkman and discman vs i-pod