Available online
Description
The video takes a "Day in the Life of...." approach and follows three businesses on a single day to -find out how they are preparing for the single market, why the market is important to ...each of them, and some of the options that confront them. Each of the three businesses is very different. One produces for direct retail to consumers through department stores; the second produces a sub-assembly which it is keen that other manufacturers will incorporate in their product; and the third sells a service. The direct retail company produces video and audio cassette storage cases which it wants to place on the shelves of department stores and good music shops. Europe offers them a chance to utilize their production capacity and maximize the return on their investment in tooling and design costs. Their prime concern is to decide between employing a British based export house or a commission agent in each country or to take on a distributor in each market. The programme follows them to a meeting in Paris with their distributor from which they all go to meet the buyer from the French chain store FNAC. We follow them into the meeting and witness them coming out with their first modest success in France. The second company is CAL electronics from Bedfordshire who make highly precise miniaturized temperature controllers which are used to regulate commercial ovens or enamelling furnaces. For them Europe is a way of exploiting the advantage that they've gained by a large investment in redesign which has led to a product which is proving currently to be a market leader. They have gone to Düsseldorf to support their German agent at a major trade fair. They are also using the fair to gauge the strength of the opposition. The third company is the London based design Consultancy, Grey Matter. They are already exporting their design to Europe indirectly through products like the first company's cassette storage cases, but now, with the decline in British manufacturing they feel the need to expand into Europe in order to gain the quality of work that their reputation requires. They have decided to directly employ someone as a European Marketing director. Three different companies with three reasons for going into Europe employing three differing ways of doing it.
The video takes a "Day in the Life of...." approach and follows three businesses on a single day to -find out how they are preparing for the single market, why the market is important to ...each of them, and some of the options that confront them. Each of the three businesses is very different. One produces for direct retail to consumers through department stores; the second produces a sub-assembly which it is keen that other manufacturers will incorporate in their product; and the third sells a service. The direct retail company produces video and audio cassette storage cases which it wants to place on the shelves of department stores and good music shops. Europe offers them a chance to utilize their production capacity and maximize the return on their investment in tooling and design costs. Their prime concern is to decide between employing a British based export house or a commission agent in each country or to take on a distributor in each market. The programme follows them to a meeting in Paris with their distributor from which they all go to meet the buyer from the French chain store FNAC. We follow them into the meeting and witness them coming out with their first modest success in France. The second company is CAL electronics from Bedfordshire who make highly precise miniaturized temperature controllers which are used to regulate commercial ovens or enamelling furnaces. For them Europe is a way of exploiting the advantage that they've gained by a large investment in redesign which has led to a product which is proving currently to be a market leader. They have gone to Düsseldorf to support their German agent at a major trade fair. They are also using the fair to gauge the strength of the opposition. The third company is the London based design Consultancy, Grey Matter. They are already exporting their design to Europe indirectly through products like the first company's cassette storage cases, but now, with the decline in British manufacturing they feel the need to expand into Europe in order to gain the quality of work that their reputation requires. They have decided to directly employ someone as a European Marketing director. Three different companies with three reasons for going into Europe employing three differing ways of doing it.
| Item code: | B787; 01 |
|---|---|
| First transmission date: | 06-10-1990 |
| Published: | 1990 |
| Rights Statement: | |
| Restrictions on use: | |
| Duration: | 00:25:00 |
| + Show more... | |
| Producer: | Hugh Phillips |
| Contributor: | Peter Hobday |
| Publisher: | BBC Open University |
| Keyword(s): | ACFNC; CAL electronics; European community; FNAC French chain store |
| Master spool number: | HOU6587 |
| Production number: | FOUP366D |
| Videofinder number: | 3676 |
| Available to public: | no |
