Production Processes (OCR GCSE Business): Exam Questions

Unilever plc

Unilever plc is a multinational company that makes and sells a wide range of quality products including food, cleaning agents and beauty products across 190 countries.

Unilever plc has benefitted from operating in a global marketplace and the majority of its products are international brands. Some of its branded products include Lynx Body Spray, Dove Soap, Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Persil washing machine detergent. All of these products are made in factories all around the globe, some using flow production and others using batch production.

Unilever plc’s average revenue has grown over the last five years. However, the economic climate is becoming more difficult and Unilever plc’s directors are having to adapt to these challenges.

Jaguar Land Rover

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is one of the largest manufacturers of cars in the UK. The business buys some of the parts it uses to make the cars from the UK; other parts are bought from overseas. JLR specialises in producing luxury cars. JLR’s main competitors are German car manufacturers - BMW and Mercedes.

In recent years, sales of JLR cars have been affected by:

• the slowdown of consumer spending in China and Russia

• the increase in consumer spending in Europe.

Zara

Zara is a global fashion brand based in Spain. Zara is best known for the speed and frequency it can get its new clothing ranges into its online shop and 2270 stores. Approximately 50% of Zara’s clothes are manufactured in Spain; the rest come from other European countries, or from Asia and Africa. Like most firms in 2020, Zara experienced a fall in sales. Zara’s global sales revenues in 2019 were €19 954 million, but in 2020 these fell to €14 129 million. However, during this period Zara’s online sales increased by approximately 75%, as consumer buying habits changed in favour of e-commerce.

Zara can get new clothing designed, manufactured and delivered to its stores within 15 days. It does this by buying fabric in large quantities from suppliers in Europe, which helps keep its variable costs low. This means that it is delivered quickly to its factory in Spain, where it can then be made up into the new designs.

Zara’s highly responsive supply chain is central to its business success. This means it can change its clothing designs on average every two weeks, while competitors change their designs every two or three months.

AstraZeneca plc

AstraZeneca plc (AZ) is a multinational pharmaceutical company that operates in over 100 countries around the world. AZ develops treatments for a range of diseases. It sells its medicines and vaccines worldwide. Its headquarters are in Cambridge, England. In 2021 AZ’s sales revenue was £37 417m, from which it made £24 980m gross profit.

AZ has a code of ethics, which is at the centre of everything that it does. The company has approximately 75 000 employees worldwide; 10 000 of these work in its three research and development centres.

AZ uses technology throughout its operations to provide high quality products for its customers. These customers include doctors, hospitals and governments from around the globe.

In the UK, AZ has changed the way it sells its products. Previously, sales staff would visit medical professionals; now it uses a call centre and website where medical professionals can order products and samples. AZ says this means it can now provide a high quality service that meets the needs of its customers at a lower cost.

Barclays plc

Increased globalisation has led to more firms becoming multinational companies. Barclays plc is a multinational banking company. Its headquarters are in London. One of the bank’s core values is integrity – it tries to act fairly, ethically and openly in all it does.

Barclays plc’s personal banking division provides banking services to the general public. These services include providing a place to save and borrow money, as well as a place where customers can obtain advice on financial matters. In 2020 Barclays plc had 24 million UK personal banking customers.

Banks are typically among the first industries to embrace technological advances. Barclays plc has been able to make use of e-commerce by selling loans, savings accounts and insurance through its websites. The bank has also invested in computer technology to provide online banking services to its customers. Online banking services allow customers to access their bank accounts on the Internet. Customers can carry out banking transactions, pay off credit cards or deposit savings 24 hours a day, worldwide. Online banking is one of the fastest growing areas of Internet activities, see Fig. 1, below.

Pukka Pies Ltd

Pukka Pies Ltd is a family-owned business with approximately 360 employees. It makes a range of high-quality savoury pies, including steak, chicken and mushroom, and chicken balti, in batches at its factory in Leicester, England. Pukka Pies are sold in more than 4000 food stores nationwide as well as in sports stadiums, fish and chip shops and cafés across the country.

Three of Pukka Pies Ltd’s key values are recruiting people who are ambitious, delighting customers with quality pies, and building trust with suppliers through food safety. Each of these values helps the business meet the requirements of consumer law.

The success of Pukka Pies Ltd is affected by many factors, including its logistical and supply chain decisions. Pukka Pies Ltd procures the ingredients for its pies from businesses across the UK and overseas; consequently its supply chain is long. Nevertheless, all of these ingredients need to arrive in good condition and, therefore, its logistics are time-critical. Unemployment levels also have a significant impact on Pukka Pies Ltd.

Pukka Pies Ltd considers its environmental impact across all aspects of business activity. It has already replaced some of the non-recyclable plastics used in its packaging with alternatives that can be recycled. In addition, none of the company’s waste goes to landfill.

Costa Coffee

Costa Coffee is a British multinational coffee shop company owned by Coca-Cola. It is the second largest coffeehouse chain in the world behind Starbucks, and the largest in the UK. It has over 2100 branches in the UK and over 1200 branches in the rest of the world including Dubai, China and Poland.

Costa Coffee has recently opened a new branch in Welshpool. It is located in the town centre on the high street near lots of other businesses, including offices and shops. There were only two other coffee shops in the town before they opened.

Costa Coffee takes ethics very seriously and it has switched to environmentally-friendly coffee beans to make its supply chain more sustainable. Now all its stores worldwide use beans from Rainforest Alliance-certified suppliers, who meet ethical and environmental standards for the sustainable supply of coffee beans.

In order to be successful, Costa Coffee sells a wide range of products and constantly invests in updating this product range as well as refurbishing its shops. Recently it has invested heavily in updating its computer software to assist its many functional areas such as finance.

Marks and Spencer plc

Marks and Spencer (M&S) is one of the UK’s leading retailers. It is committed to making every moment special for its customers, through its high quality, own-brand food, clothing & home products.

M&S has an ethical programme called ‘Plan A’. This was relaunched in 2017 with three new objectives for 2025:

1. ‘Nourishing our wellbeing’ – including looking after staff and their needs.

2. ‘Transforming local communities’ – including supporting staff who want to volunteer in charities.

3. ‘Caring for the planet we share’ – including developing better recycling for packaging.

In 2017, 60% of M&S’s revenue came from the sale of food, which it sells through its 1025 UK stores as well as through e-commerce on its website.

The majority of the food it sells comes from one of its 283 ‘food factories’ located around the country. The Montana Bakery is one of these factories. It produces speciality breads, rolls, garlic breads and pizza bases for retailers and sandwich makers. The bakery has grown and has moved to a larger factory, where it is considering switching from batch production to flow production and automating some of the production.