NickelsMcHughMcHugh - McGraw-Hill Introduction to Business

Silicon Valley Cooks up the Future of Food

April 21, 2015

California’s Silicon Valley is known the world over as a hub of technological innovation. Along with established giants like Google and Facebook, the Bay Area suburb is home to countless startups hoping to launch the next big social network or app. But not every entrepreneur in the Valley is a code-focused Mark Zuckerburg-type. In one burgeoning industry, scientists at several startups are cooking up revolutionary ways to use plants as meat substitutes in food.

These aren’t like the bean Continue reading →

Ethics, Food, Silicon Valley, Product Development, Innovation

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Chapter 16: Place and Promotion, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law

Disney Switches from Rereleasing to Reimagining

April 18, 2015

NickelsMcHughMcHugh

For years Walt Disney Studios thrived by strategically reissuing its catalogue of animated classics on home video. Starting out on VHS and continuing with DVD and Blu-ray, the company rereleased a movie every seven years, updating the special features and packaging into something new for consumers to purchase. With digital downloads rising and DVD sales on the downturn, however, Disney’s longtime cash cow is starting to run dry. As a result, the Mouse has switched focus to reimagining its past Continue reading →

Marketing, Product Development, Entertainment, Disney, Product Distribution

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Chapter 16: Place and Promotion

[VIDEO] Guns, Drugs and Money

April 15, 2015

NickelsMcHughMcHugh

From The New York Times

Growers and sellers in Colorado’s legal marijuana industry may only deal in cash, leading to major problems with banking and security.

https://nyti.ms/1zchdUI

Questions:

With cannabis legal in Colorado, why can’t banks deal with merchants?

Is there a double standard merchants face in the cannabis industry?

From The New York Times

Operations Management, Ethics, Security, Marijuana, Colorado

Videos

Marketing to All Five Senses

April 15, 2015

NickelsMcHughMcHugh

The mission of marketers is to make a product appealing to customers. To accomplish this task, ads often depend on eye-popping visual imagery or memorable music in order to form a quick impression. But as many marketers are beginning to realize, consumers have three more senses to stimulate besides sight and sound. Anything from a pleasing smell to a feeling of warmth can make people more receptive to buy, leading a number of companies to ramp up their sensory marketing Continue reading →

Marketing, Branding, Promotions, Consumer Research, Product Distribution, Dunkin’ Donuts, Abercrombie & Fitch

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Chapter 16: Place and Promotion, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law

Getting More with Less Pushy Apps

April 13, 2015

NickelsMcHughMcHugh

Americans may differ from one another in innumerable ways, but there’s at least one thing that unites most of us: our phones. Ninety-one percent of adults in the U.S. used a mobile phone in 2013, including 77 percent of Americans older than 65. Furthermore, people from around the globe are just as attached to their phones as we are. All told, the estimated number of mobile subscribers worldwide hovers somewhere around 4.5 billion people. In fact, mobile penetration is Continue reading →

Marketing, Product Development, Innovation, Smartphones, Mobile, The North Face

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Chapter 16: Place and Promotion, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Nielsen’s Struggle with Measuring New Media

April 11, 2015

NickelsMcHughMcHugh

Although the TV viewing habits of Americans have changed many times over the years, the statistics company Nielsen has remained a prime mover in the industry since the 1950s. The service uses various methods to measure the popularity of television shows, allowing media companies to come up with appropriate prices to charge advertisers for airtime. Each year, Nielsen provides the data that ultimately determines the allocation of more than $100 billion in ad spending.

With the rise of digital video Continue reading →

Entertainment, Consumer Research, Data Mining, Mobile, Nielsen, New Media

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 13: Marketing, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Chapter 16: Place and Promotion, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law

Costly Drug Development Could Curb Innovation

April 5, 2015

NickelsMcHughMcHugh

Each year the pharmaceutical industry develops new drugs that go a long way towards fighting some of the world’s worst diseases. For instance, Bristol-Meyers Squibb recently received FDA (Food & Drug Administration) approval for Opdivo, a drug that significantly boosts the survival rate for sufferers of advanced melanoma. However, one major obstacle stands in the way of Opdivo’s ability to help patients: price. One year of treatment with the drug costs $150,000 per patient, an impossibly tall order for many Continue reading →

Ethics, Product Development, Innovation, Regulation, Health, Pharmaceuticals

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law, Bonus Chapter D: Personal Finance

Lumber Liquidators Comes up Short

April 2, 2015

NickelsMcHughMcHugh

To many amateur investors, a company that brings in more than $1 billion in annual sales would seem like a pretty safe bet. But these numbers didn’t impress Wall Street hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson when he noticed them in a report about Lumber Liquidators. From his professional perspective, this small flooring retailer should not have been enjoying such large profit margins. Suspecting that the company was cutting corners in some way, he advised his clients to sell the company Continue reading →

Ethics, Manufacturing, Product Development, Finance, Regulation, Product Distribution, Lumber Liquidators

Chapter 3: Globalization, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 9: Production and Operations Management, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law

[VIDEO] That Film About Money

April 1, 2015

NickelsMcHughMcHugh

This video takes a look at the nature of money and why some people’s preconceptions about cash might be incorrect.

Questions:

Can banks vary the amount of interest they charge borrowers?

What’s the key reason why Federal Reserve regulates the money supply?

From We The Economy

Economics, Currency, Banking, Federal Reserve, Money

Videos

Wisconsin Becomes a Right-to-Work State

March 30, 2015

NickelsMcHughMcHugh

Near the end of February, the Wisconsin legislature passed a controversial bill that could change the face of labor in the state. Under the new “right-to-work” law, employees in unionized, private sector workplaces can choose whether or not to pay their union dues. According to Governor Scott Walker and his supporters, the law grants more freedom for individuals to choose where they work. “This legislation will ensure that Wisconsin’s workers have the sole power to determine whether they wish to Continue reading →

Ethics, Unions, Labor Relations, Compensation, Regulation, Right-to-Work, Wisconsin

Chapter 2: Economics, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 10: Motivation, Chapter 12: Labor Management and Unions, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law