Business Basics Lesson 5

• Citizenship
• Upper Secondary (Key Stage 4)
• BTEC, GCSE

Introduction to business

Lesson 5

Nokia

What did I learn?

List the three most important reasons Nokia 'failed' as a business.

What are your key thoughts having watched this?

Revolution Formula

Strategy + Implementation x Time = Outcome

What was Bezos' strategy at the beginning?

According to Gladwell, when we are born influences our success in life

1860s - 1870s

Finding: In the list of the richest people in history, 14/75 are American’s born during this decade.

Reasoning: This was a time of great change. The industrial revolution was taking off as railways were being built across America. Business was thriving and Wall Street was starting up. People were better equipped to succeed and nurture their children to succeed. 

1935

Finding: Those born in this exact year were likely to get jobs at better firms.

Reasoning: In 1935, there were 600,000 fewer babies born than the average, which meant smaller class sizes across their education. This resulted in overall less competition (and a greater chance) to get a spot on the top sports teams or admission into the top colleges, resulting in getting a good job at one of the better firms.  

1953 to 1956

Finding: All of the Silicon Valley's top IT entrepreneurs were born between these three years. 

Reasoning: January 1975 was when Popular Electronics ran a cover story on an extraordinary do-it-yourself contraption that could be assembled at home. Gladwell notes that this was the dawn of the personal computer age, and those who could innovate off it had to fall in the right age range - they couldn't be too young and not ready, but they couldn't be too far out of college that they had already settled in a house with kids. That left those generally born between 1953 and 1956, such as Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Apple founder Steve Jobs, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt. 

Task

What is your attitude to 'risk'?
Score it out of 10 (1 = low, 10 = high) and give your reasons why.

What questions do you need answered to allow an informed decision?

You decide you are interested in this business proposition, what is the first thing you would want to do?

Homework

Watch the following video: Outliers: Why Some People Succeed and Some Don't 

or read the book Outliers

Homework