Chelsea’s purchase by the billionaire Roman Abramovich is perhaps the most famous private investment in a football club and marks the beginning of a new era not just for Chelsea but for the sport. When Abramovich first bought Chelsea in 2003 the European press argued that the reason for this involvement was more of a hobby-type of activity then a business action. Many of the top English football clubs are currently in large debts and soon after Abramovich injected extremely large sums of money into Chelsea it was of popular belief that it would be very hard for the Russian investor to see financial statements breaking even and profiting.

Chelsea’s 2011/2012 season ended like no other before for the Blues. The fans of the club watched captain John Terry lift their first European trophy after an intense match against Bayern Munich in their home field. In less than one month from the reaching the highest place an European team can reach, the club released to the press their success outside the field. For the first time in the club’s new era the financial year ended with a 1.4 million pound profit.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/20270934

image: http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/manchester-united-boss-alex-ferguson-1155592

Japan’s largest vehicle maker and the owner of the world’s most popular hybrid car, Toyota, is under current threat to its well deserved reputation. A problem found in the steering wheel of nine different models Toyota has put in the market in 2012 may be crucial to the loss of customer loyalty to the 75 year old card manufacturer. In the year of 2009 Toyota was forced to recall 12 million vehicles and since then they have been trying to regain the consumer’s trust. The current recall may damage even more the already hurt customer base of Toyota. Although Koichi Sugimoto, auto analyst, has said that ‘nobody is perfect’ in a way of diminishing the trouble the recall may cause, the very competitive car industry may enlarge a threat. Hybrid cars have grown in popularity and have changed the current auto scenario. Toyota is no longer the only ‘pro-environment’ manufacturer, which means they are no longer unique. The customer’s trust seems to be affected by the recent recalls and Toyota should aware that any future trouble that they may have with their vehicles could lead to an irreparable damage to the company’s name.

Recent news published by the BBC and the Financial Times shows how the cell phone market is exposed to constant changes. Both media hubs have stated that HTC, a Taiwanese smart phone maker, has had a significant drop of 79% in its profits. The BBC attributes the notable fall in profits of HTC to the fast growing popularity and success of its competitors, Apple and Samsung. Both rivals recently released their new smart phones that seem to be taking over the market. What is interesting about this news is that it portrays how business’ and mainly cell phone business change. Early this semester we were encouraged to read a and article from The Economist that emphasized the fast growing popularity and high profits of the same company, HTC. The article published in April of 2012 described the high number of sales happening then that seem to be gone now. From this comparison we are able to understand how important it is for a company to stay up to date with products that can fulfill the needs of the consumer and compete with other brands because the lack of these elements can lead to a loss of almost three thirds in profits.

Image: http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/

United Health, largest American health insurer, has bought 60% of Brazil’s Amil for $4.9bn. According to the BBC, United Heath is looking to expand overseas and Amil’s $5bn annual profit motivated the American company to begin its expansion.

The most interesting aspect of the news were not the fact that United Health will own, by the first half of 2013, 90% of Amil’s shares but the reason behind why United Health decided to expand, and the role that a SWOT analysis could have played in making this decision. The part of the grid we will be focusing on is the ‘opportunity’ one.

The BBC mentions in their report of United’s purchase that the Brazilian middle class is growing. By a quick research we can see that it represents more than 50% of the country’s population. We can draw the conclusion that United Health was not just looking to fulfill the demand of health care in Brazil but settle in a country that is going through a significant growth in potential consumers. Such opportunity could have been included in a simple SWOT grid that would list the growing market of another country as an external factor.

The changes in football driven by globalization motivated the arrival of private capital from foreign investors into EU football clubs. The way in which investors acted upon the clubs was very much like any other business. The first step taken by the clubs was to expand their markets, looking for consumers outside Europe. East and Southeast Asia were the main target of clubs. Membership, gear, TV broadcasting of matches and even special channels focused exclusively in one club (Ex: Chelsea TV) and even pre season tours where teams would fly into several countries playing friendlies and giving the consumers the opportunity of getting close to the club were attributes that each club needed to have in order to match competitors (PoP).

Manchester United in in the summer of 2005 stood out from the rest by purchasing Park Ji-Sung, Korean footballer. If Man U chose to buy Park in order to profit is an ongoing debate but the result of this transfer was a growth in popularity and consumers in the Asian market. Due to the presence of Park in United’s squad, consumers could associate themselves with the brand unlike any other (PoD). Although Park left United’s squad after six years the club signed with Shinji Kagawa, Japanese midfielder, in the 2012 transfer window.

image: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1273360/Champions-League-finalists-Bayern-Munich-target-Manchester-Uniteds-7m-Ji-Sung-Park.html

The world’s largest food company, ‘Nestle’, has been recently accused by the Fair Labor Association (FLA) of violating its own supplier code by using children in its production of cocoa, the primary source for the production of chocolate. According to the article published by BBC, the misuse of labour in cocoa production was found in its first stages. Although Nestle purchases their product from other corporations that agree to the company’s code, they were fully aware that the production of cocoa had primary stages that would most likely involve the use of child labour. The FLA president, Auret Van Herdeen, mentions that Nestle will be held accountable for misusing labour in their cocoa production.

The unethical issue dealt in this post was the use of children in the production of an extremely important resource for one of the most influential company’s in the world. Although Nestle has a code that specifies immoral actions that go against the company’s beliefs, the fact that the chocolate sold by Nestle is primarily produced by children in west Africa qualifies it as an unethical.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18644870