My Big Fat Revision

Starbucks is an American coffee company and chain, first founded in Seattle in 1971. It started with more basic beverages but has since expanded and moved into new products – an act of diversification. This is important because the coffee industry is very crowded and so Starbucks has lots of companies to compete with. Although Starbucks’ market share of the U.S. coffee chain industry stands at a pretty might 39.8%, the brand still requires differentiation as it does not adopt a cost leadership or focus approach. For the Ansoff Matrix, Starbucks mostly stuck to market penetration in its early years to establish itself in the market. They gave customers the products they knew and loved: coffees, cappuccinos and espressos. They also write their customers’ names on the cup which gives service a more personal touch. The intention of this is to increase sales as customers become more satisfied with the service. The coffee shop market is very saturated for market penetr...

To patent or not to patent? A passage from an 1851 issue of The Economist said that the patent system “excited fraud, stimulates men to run after schemes that may enable them to levy a tax on the public, begets disputes and quarrels betwixt inventors, provokes endless lawsuits [and] bestows rewards on the wrong persons”. This was written over 150 years ago, yet it is certainly still capable of doing all of those things today. The supposed evidence that the current patent system encourages investment into research that leads to innovation is actually weak. A large amount of recent in research years, including a 2004 study by America’s National Academy of Sciences, suggests that with a few exceptions such as medicine, society as a whole might actually benefit without patents. This is because there are issues and ethical objections regarding patents and the high prices for medication that they enable creators to change. The people who need these drugs most – namely...

Explain how different wave types result in different beach profiles [6 marks] Different wave types can result in different beach profiles. Waves can either be constructive or destructive and this depends on the strength of their swash and backwash. When the swash is bigger than the backwash, it is a constructive wave; when the backwash is bigger than the swash, it is a destructive wave. Destructive waves have larger backwash than swash, meaning that more material is removed from the beach than added. They are usually formed where there is a large fetch during storms, meaning they are powerful and tall, and have a high frequency. An example of a place that gets destructive waves is Cornwall. Destructive waves remove material from the beach and produce a steeper beach profile because of this. They carry material out to sea which means the gradient of the beach is likely to be more vertical. Destructive waves can form a storm beach which happens when waves have a...