Pearsonstyle.com

Blog

  • Draft beer success: creating a workable programme

    If you are considering adding beer to your restaurant or bar menu, draft beer could be a choice that pleases customers and is good for business. Tap beer is extremely popular and can be fresher and offer more flavour than bottled beer. It also gives patrons something the off-licence does not and creates another reason for customers to spend time in your establishment.

    Image Credit

    Need to know

    There are a number of factors to keep in mind when selecting a draft beer. It is worth thinking about what kind of beer will complement your atmosphere and how to balance the profits against the storage and maintenance of the tap beer system.

    Bottom line benefits

    Draft beer can be a boon for business, drawing people to your bar and turning them into devoted customers. If the draft beer menu keeps expanding, beer aficionados will return consistently to sample what is new. With commercial bottle coolers in supermarkets and off-licences offering such a big range of cheap alcohol, give your clientele a reason to come back and spend their money with you.

    The practicalities

    There are a number of draft beer set-ups, with the focus being on keeping the beer cold and getting it easily from keg to customer. The simplest and most common system is direct draw, whereby the keg is cooled a few feet from service and dispensed using carbon dioxide (CO2) to push the fluid through tubing.

    An air-cooled system, which needs a walk-in cooler and a fan to circulate cold air, could be a good option when offering a variety of beers. Glycol cooling, a sensible choice when the keg is further than 25 feet from the bar, keeps the beer cold by circulating propylene glycol around the beer lines.

    Cleanliness is vital in maintaining a draft beer system, as highlighted in a report in the Telegraph. Refrigeration is also critical and companies such as FFD supply commercial chest freezers to ensure your draft beer is kept at the correct temperature.

    Gas is also important. Beer generally contains CO2, although some also contain nitrogen. CO2, and possibly nitrogen, is necessary to deliver the beer and maintain its gas content. Get to know your beer and the right pressure and mix of gas to ensure that it reaches your customers in the best possible condition.

  • Is personal debt at critical levels for society’s most vulnerable?

    The impact of the credit crunch has continued to be felt ever since 2008, and for the most vulnerable in society, the threat of personal debt is becoming increasingly critical. At risk groups include students, low earners, the elderly and the self-employed.

    Image Credit

    Serious problems in society

    Research carried out by the ACCA, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, found that ethical lending and financial education for young people were two key priorities to halt the problem.

    The vulnerable are struggling

    In their report, ‘Britain’s Debt’, they warn that levels of consumer credit have been rocketing since 2008, and that worrying levels of debt are now causing significant problems for Britain’s vulnerable groups, particularly where there is an over-reliance on credit cards and diminished savings.

    Changing trends fuelling debt

    Digital access is also making it easier to access credit – and then get into difficulty with it. Consumers need to gain financial understanding to better manage their finances, and access to reputable schemes and products to help them get out of any existing financial difficulty. Many people have no emergency savings funds for example, so they struggle if their income disappears or lessens, or bills increase.

    Remedial steps

    However, for those who have already experienced financial distress, there are, happily, ways of finding a solution. Those already experiencing existing serious debt are increasingly looking at options for sorting their financial problems once and for all, and getting back onto a steady footing. Customers who look at an IVA from Carrington Dean often find that it can help them to start afresh.

    With this option, people with debt can consolidate everything into a single, pre-agreed monthly payment that is affordable. They can manage everything through the scheme administrator rather than individual creditors, and can avoid more serious alternatives such as bankruptcy, or dubious schemes such as payday loans. IVA’s typically last for 5 years and bring certainty, manageability and simplification back into the individual’s life. Rather than being hassled by creditors, the scheme administrator does all of the negotiating and processing – removing a significant source of stress.

    If those consumers can combine debt management and consolidation programmes with financial education on basics such as budgeting and saving, then they can enjoy a brighter financial future without worry or stress.

  • Taking Professional Rugby to the USA: Key Challenges

    There’s no doubt about it, the USA is big on sport. Basketball, baseball, football, now to an extent even soccer, but for New York Financier, Doug Schoninger, there was one big name missing from the list of professional sports in the US: rugby.

    Image Credit

    Rugby is popular in many countries and is big business, but in the United States it has remained an amateur game. Until now.

    In April this year Schoninger launched PRO Rugby, the first professional rugby league in the country. He’s starting small with only five teams for this inaugural season, but each of the teams has been practising their rugby drills frantically in preparation.

    Small Steps

    By starting small, Schoninger believes the sport will grow and should return a profit on his modest investment once advertising, broadcasting, sponsorship and merchandising begin to take off. He is realistic enough to understand that won’t happen immediately. He is currently the only investor, but believes that will change soon as interest builds.

    US Rugby CEO, Nigel Melville, agreed with Schoninger that starting small would be the preferred option, and in April 2015, PRO Rugby was officially sanctioned by USA Rugby.

    Key Challenges

    Schoninger’s business, Stadium Capital Financing Group, provides finance to build or renovate stadia, but this is his first step into funding a team. That means he’ll be taking advice from experts with coaching experience to build up programmes for the squads, using examples from organisations such as Sport Plan http://www.sportplan.net/.

    Future investment could yet prove difficult. Investors want to see a ‘product’ before they part with their cash, but there won’t be much to see until there is more money, so unless someone sees the potential Schoninger and Melville can, it could backfire.

    There is also a risk that the players beginning to show flair are ‘poached’ by the NFL or rugby playing clubs outside the US, tempted by far bigger salaries. Without the talent, the game will not get a chance to get off the ground in the USA.

    For all the details on the new USA league, visit the PRO Rugby website or the official website of USA Rugby and get the lowdown on all the teams.

    With a little luck, the investment will pay off and the USA will join the great rugby-playing nations of the world.

  • Planning A Successful Knowledge Transfer

    How can you make a knowledge transfer a good thing for everyone involved?  Obviously transferring the knowledge of an expert in your company to another employee within the company is certainly great for your company. But, how can it be fun for both the expert and the person to whom the knowledge is being transferred? (more…)

  • Why Asus Rog 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop, Black Is The Best Choice For Gaming?

    Asus Rog 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop, Black is an extremely mobile gaming power of an Intel Core i7 CPU and GeForce NVIDIA graphics chip within a sleek brushed aluminum frame. Asus Rog 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop, Black can provide the user the best gaming experience. With a 15.6 inches Full HD display and advanced cooling design, the user can play the games at 1080p with no compromise at all times and never worry about losing your cool. (more…)

  • The Wonders of Uganda’s National Parks

    Uganda – the country that Winston Churchill called The Pearl of Africa, is home to some of Africa’s most fabulous flora and fauna, as well as stunningly beautiful bird life. Mountains, impenetrable rainforest, savannah, fast moving rivers, colour, sound – Uganda has it all.

    Image Credit

    With many wonderful national parks, there are numerous reasons to visit this awe-inspiring country. Here are just a few:

    Wildlife

    The country’s major draw is Bwindi National, to take part in a gorilla trekking holiday. Individuals can spend time with these magnificent animals, in their natural habitat. Where there are gorillas, monkeys and chimpanzees are not usually far away. Follow troops of endangered chimpanzees at Kyambura Gorge or Kibale Forest as they swing through the trees overhead, feed, and play.

    Queen Elizabeth National Park is the country’s most popular national park, and certainly offers stunning scenery. Flanked by crater dotted foothills of the Rwenzoris in the north, along the shores of Lake Edward to the remote Ishasha River in the south you can expect to see a variety of four-legged friends along the way. Among them tree-climbing lions, buffaloes, a variety of antelopes and over 600 bird species. Game drives and organised trips by experts like steppestravel.co.uk Uganda help make this a trip of a lifetime.

    Natural attractions

    In close proximity to the colourful city of Jinja lies a waterfall which is now submerged beneath the Owen Falls dam. This is the source of Africa’s mightiest of rivers, the Nile. Many tourists find a visit here to be a poignant yet inspiring moment, especially for those who have perhaps seen the river as it flows past the many wondrous ancient sites downstream. Wildlife enthusiasts and photographers alike will not be disappointed either. The river is home to thousands of hippos and enormous gaping crocodiles. Visitors may also choose to try their hand at kayaking, rafting or fishing, but perhaps not in the same area as the crocs!

    No visit would be complete without exploring the Rwenzori Mountains National Park, also known as The Mountains of the Moon, due their extraordinary landscape. Here, Uganda boasts Africa’s third highest snow-capped peak. You can find a wealth of advice at http://www.ugandatravelguide.com/ugandanationalparks on how to reach this amazing sight.

    Whichever national park you choose, and however many times you visit, you will always remember Uganda.

  • Chronic Back Pain

    Constant and unbearable back pain over a period of time is often referred as chronic back pain. Over the counter medications to treat this type of condition, will give you temporary relief. Painkillers cannot level your back pain area. They can restrain it for a while and give you the joy you sought for, for a short duration. Then again you are back to square one- back pain. Chronic back pain is a condition that can describe as aching or blazing pain at the backside or drifting into the legs. Many patients may suffer with burning, numbness, tingling or no sensation in legs. People, who suffer with chronic back pain, are not able to do their regular activities. They always do their work with great difficulty even that work is little. It will continue thought the life that effects with that. No medical treatment for chronic back pain to recover permanently. Only medicine available for controlling the Chronic back pain. (more…)

  • Home Improvement Loan Information

    Having a house of their own is the dream of each and every individual. There would be varying thoughts for every one to decorate their house and living in such a well decorated and wonderful house is something beyond expectations and a joy that would last forever. Getting in such a wonderful house is something that could be explained beyond words. The satisfaction that you get in decorating your house is really a wonderful experience. But all that you need is money and nothing else. For those who are in financial crisis or less with money it might prove to be difficult to manage such a huge amount to decorate the house. (more…)

  • Determining Credit worthiness – Predicting Bankruptcy

    Assessing the credit worthiness of a customer and deciding how much credit to provide a customer is very important to safeguard the interests of your business. For the safety of your business it is important that you know the credit worthiness of the prospective customer before granting credit.

    The year 2002 saw approximately 191 public companies going bankrupt. If your money also has gone down with them then you are in a difficult financial crisis. Therefore, it becomes very important to understand the situation of each client before granting credit.

    The year 2001 saw the highest number of bankruptcies in the history of the United States since the year 1980. The year 2002 saw the number come down to 2002 but this was still higher as compare to the average of the years from 1986-2000, which worked out to 113. This trend does not show very healthy signs and is a cause for concern.

    The matter of concern is not only the number of companies that have filed bankruptcy but also the fact that most companies going bankrupt in the last few years are large companies. From the 1970s the trend of big companies going bankrupt is getting to be a common feature. The sad part is that of the 191 public companies that went bankrupt in the year 2002, 34 were companies with $1 billion worth of assets.

    The following table shows the five largest bankruptcies since the year 1980(of US Public Companies), three of the bankruptcies have been reported during the last fifteen months, which is an alarming fact.

    Five Largest Bankruptcies of U. S. Public Companies

    Bankruptcy declared by a company can have far reaching impacts in the economy and is real bad news for those who have been having business relations with the company. If the company declaring bankruptcy is a large company then all the more reasons for panic because there would be several suppliers who totally depend on the company (especially other small businesses) and also that in case of a large company the number of individuals and other businesses affected is a large number.

    The example of the bankruptcy of the company “WorldCom” is an example, which explains this phenomenon. WorldCom had contracts which went on up to the year 2006 and this definitely means that the business partners of the company would not be able to derive any kind of income from their business contracts.

    This is a really serious situation for the concerned companies as many of them would have even incurred huge expenses for the execution of the contracts but there is going to be only loss for them on this count.

    In such a scenario where the number of large companies declaring bankruptcy is on the rise, the professionals must see to it that a careful study about the future or prospective client is made before signing on the dotted line. The bankruptcy prediction models need to be used wisely and the results interpreted must be accurate. One of the widely used and most popular models in this field is the one proposed by Edward Altman – The Z-score model. A good understanding of the model would help make the necessary decisions based on the facts.

    Z-Score Model- Edward Altman

    Research has been going on for many years for deriving a ratio that would be an indicator for making predictions regarding bankruptcy. The studies by William Beaver led to the conclusion that the cash flow to debt ratio was the best suited to make predictions regarding bankruptcies.

    The breakthrough in the field came with the studies and conclusions laid down by Edward Altman who instead of basing all the decisions on a single ratio decided to venture further and formulate a comprehensive statistical model which used the multiple discriminant analysis or MDA. The model helped the people using it to work out details and thus, divide the companies into two important groups based on the study namely, the companies that went bankrupt and those that did.

    For this study Edward Altman chose a sample size of 33. These were manufacturing companies that had gone bankrupt during the period from 1946 and 1965 and also took another 33 companies that were chosen on a random basis.

    With the aid of 22 ratios that would be of help to make bankruptcy predictions Edward Altman started his calculations. With every round of studies he kept eliminating ratios one by one. The ratios that made the least contribution in helping the studies progress were eliminated at each stage.

    When all the useful ratios (which were in all 5 in number) were put together as per the MDA technique, he got a standard, which he could use, for deriving further conclusions. This was called the Z-score. The Z-score was set at 2.675 initially and companies that were below this laid down standard were the ones that belonged to the category of companies which were bankrupt or soon there and the ones which were above the standard mark were the non-bankrupt companies.

    This Z-score model proved useful in his studies and Edward Altman was able to accurately point out 94% of bankrupt companies and 97% non-bankrupt that too a year before the companies declared bankruptcy. A decision making exercise to predict this two years in advance did not yield as accurate results as we was able to predict only 72% bankrupt companies and 94% non-bankrupt companies to years in advance.

    The Z-score model was constructed for using in case of public manufacturing companies. Edward Altman has developed two other models namely the Z’ (for use in case of private manufacturing companies) and Z” (in case of non-manufacturing companies).

    After further studies based on samples, Edward Altman lowered his standard of the Z-score from the earlier 2.675 to 1.81. A Z-score between the two was considered a “gray area” for which one could not give accurate conclusions. A company with a Z-score that fell in the “gray area” was one, which could go both ways either could go bankrupt but this could be confirmed fully.

    Altman’s studies showed that in the year 1999, showed that out of the companies studied in Compustat data tapes20% had Z-scores below the standard of 1.81, which explains the high rate of bankruptcies in the year 2001-2002.

    The Power of Z-score

    An analysis of each of the five ratios in the Z-score model would go to prove as what makes this model or system so effective in making predictions regarding bankruptcies.

    X1 (Working Capital/Total Assets): Working capital can be derived by subtracting the current liabilities from the current assets (Working Capital = currents assets- current liabilities). Current assets refer to assets that can be converted into cash in a time period of a year like cash, stock, accounts receivables and the like.
    On the other hand current liabilities refer to payments in cash that have to be made within a time period of one year like accounts payable. Therefore, on calculating the working capital if you end up with a negative figure it goes to show that the company would not be in a position to meet its immediate need of cash, as the current assets are not enough to meet the current liabilities.

    Alternatively, a company having a good working capital shows healthy signs as it goes to show that it would be able to make its payments on time.

    X2 (Retained Earnings/Total Assets): Retained Earnings refers to the profits of the previous years that are not distributed to the shareholders as dividends. A high amount of retained earnings shows that the company has sufficient funds to fall back on. In case of losses for a short period also the company would not fall into a bad financial crisis situation. On the other hand, low retained earnings shows that any kind of loss can throw things off balance, as the company does not have sufficient funds to fall back on.
    X3 (Earnings before Interest and Taxes/Total Assets): This ratio indicates the firm’s earning potential. EBIT refers to earnings before interest and taxes and this shows the income or the earnings of the company which is to be distributed between three major groups namely, the shareholders (in the form of dividends), the creditors (as principal and interest) and to the government in the form of taxes.
    X4 (Market Value of Equity/Book Value of Total Liabilities): Market value of Equity or market capitalization is a ratio to determine the market value or the value of the firm in the stock market. In case of the firm going bankrupt the market value of its share is going to dip drastically, thus, a high market value indicated the public confidence in the financial position of the company.
    If a stock has a high market value then in case of any financial crisis, issuing more shares and generating money from the market would not be an issue for the company. A further issue would benefit the creditors as they are now sure that the company is in a position to repay their money but on the other hand this would reduce the earnings of the existing shareholders.

    X5 (Sales/Total Assets): This ratio is known as asset turnover ratio and is an indicator of how efficient the company is in using its assets and thus, generating income or sales.
    Unreliable Books

    The Z-score can be affected by situations where the books of the company are not maintained accurately or properly. Like for example, in the case of “WorldCom” the management of the company made a mistake and ended up recording few billions as capital expenditure when it had to actually figure under the heading of “operating expenses”.

    Such an entry in the books would have two significant effects; it would result in overstating the assets of the company and also overstating the earnings. The X3 ratio would be affected by the overstated earnings whereas on the other hand the ratios like X1, X2 and X5 would be affected by overstated assets. These accounting problems will lead to a situation of lowering the Z-score of the company.

    Testing the condition with WorldCom

    The applying of the Z-score model on the WorldCom Company for the years 1999, 2000 and 2001 goes to show that the Z-score of WorldCom has been falling rapidly. This goes to show how the accounting abnormalities can adversely affect the Z-score.

    A Test Using WorldCom

    Significance

    Edward Altman’s model is very different from the initial studies made, which were based all on a single ratio. His Z-score model that he developed is a comprehensive study that involves conclusions drawn on the basis of five ratios.

    The five ratios study the various aspects of the company and are good indicators of the company’s financial condition and are thus, useful in predicting bankruptcy. At the time there were several doubts and queries regarding the effectiveness of the Z-score model in being able to predict bankruptcy.

    There were several other models that were proposed by experts in the field like Fischer Black, Myron Scholes, Robert Merton and the like. Although there was several other models proposed yet the Z-score model proposed by Edward Altman continues to remain the best-tried and tested formula for ascertaining the credit worthiness of the company.

  • Pregnancy Back Pain

    Pregnancy back pain is a common problem during pregnancy and more than 50% pregnant women suffering from it. There are several physical reasons for back pain in pregnancy, some of which include: Pregnancy hormones soften ligaments causing joints to move more than usual an in some cases the ligaments can be strained. Postural problems caused by the rising uterus. Position of baby (particularly towards the end of pregnancy) can compress stress and cause back pain. A small percentage of women will suffer from backache during pregnancy. (more…)