The Reasons for Trends
Businesses are attracted towards profitable activities and away from unprofitable activities.
Customer tastes and preferences change just like fashion etc. Number of people employed in an activity will vary as people are getting put out of jobs and also things are now made by robots to make cars eg the Picasso Car advertisement. The value of different goods and services can change like at the start when a new gadget comes out there is usually a demand for the item but it decreases as time goes on.
Identifying Business activities
There are three mains groupings:
- Primary
- Secondary
- Tertiary aka Services
Tertiary aka Services are subdivided into
- Wholesalers and retailers
- Other Services
The other services include services such as health, education, banks, insurance, leisure etc. The business provides a service directly to a client.
There is also a non-client service such as haulage companies, radio and television companies it is a service which is provided but not usually face to face with a client.
Core Business Activity
The definition of Core Business Activity is the main activity on which the whole business depends. Promethean’s core activity is to manufacture and sell of Interactive Whiteboards. Blackburn Rovers core activity is to play football, Rovers full business depends on football, and everything else is an extra.
Promethean
Promethean is a secondary and tertiary businesses because they make and sell their products.
The demands of customers for Interactive Whiteboards have changed over the years, for example, around 2001-2002 there was the odd classroom which had interactive whiteboards, but as time moved on there’s a demand for interactive whiteboards because technology becomes more advanced. Now literally every class room would have interactive whiteboards. But as time moves on technology improves, and also old technology goes out of date, so Promethean make a profit like this; they provide new projectors.
Prometheans core target market is Promethean is schools, although other people and companies buy interactive whiteboards and associated peripherals.
Promethean conducts its business in the offices and factories at the industrial estate at Whitebirk. Promethean have a website which you can view products but you can not buy products online.
The way Promethean operates its business is that in Blackburn there are 420 staff working at Promethean, these workers work a 24 hour shift pattern excluding Christmas as Promethean is closed for maintenance.
The number of people involved in Promethean has risen over the years as there is a higher demand on their products.
Promethean have made a profit over time as customer demand increased. The UK benchmark for 2004 is £52m from the government to schools. Promethean got the majority from schools. There market shares are 40%, they are number 2 in the worldwide market.
In 2002 Promethean won the Lancashire Evening Telegraph Business of the Year 2002, and Promethean also won the Queen’s Award for Innovation 2003. Promethean were voted the Hottest UK Technology Prospect in the annual UK Technology Innovation and Growth Awards for 2005. More than 50 000 of Prometheans ACTIVboards are installed in classrooms around the world-sourced by Lancashire Evening Telegraph 2005.
