Welcome to your new Biz/ed - business education brought to life.

In Focus on Biz/ed

Cover of 'Operations Management: An International Perspective" book.
Measuring Business Performance

'How are we doing?' is a question that lies at the heart of operations management. Quite understandably, everyone concerned with any operation wants to know how well it is performing. 'If you can't measure it, you can’t manage it' is a phrase that encapsulates the role and importance of performance measurement in operations management. The desire to quantify performance is a strong felt need throughout most organizations, especially within the operations function.

Cover of 'Understanding Global Strategy" book.
The Information Economy

The information economy has characteristics quite different from those of the industrial manufacturing economy. This article looks at some of the key characteristics that form the basis of the shift from the traditional industrial economy to a knowledge-based information economy. The creation of the knowledge infrastructure lies in extracting knowledge from the original knowledge providers, encyclopaedia producers, software and telecoms companies, journal article writers and other holders of knowledge.

Cover of 'Marketing: A Brief Introduction' book.
Franchising as a Method of Business Expansion

Franchising is defined as an arrangement in which one party (the franchisor) allows others (the franchisees) to use a business name or sell products in such as way that the franchisees can operate their own legally separate business. Today there is a major distinction between two forms of franchising: product or trademark franchising and business format franchising.

The focus of this extract is on business format franchising.

Cover of text book Purchasing and Supply Chain Management by Arjan J. van Weele
Major Bottlenecks and Problems in the Purchasing Process

Observation of numerous companies and institutions over many years has demonstrated that the purchasing process can be obstructed creating bottlenecks and other problems.

Seven key categories of purchasing bottlenecks and problems have been identified and these are listed below.