Dr. Jonathan Owens discusses post covid supply chain trends

What are the post-covid supply chain trends that will remain after we finally unlock? This is a question of great interest to me as we reach the 23rd of March 2021, the anniversary of the UK’s first lockdown.  You might remember, like me, how the Supply Chain was one of the first things to be noticeably affected when the handbrake was applied twelve months ago.  But, why was this, and what can we learn from this for the future?

At the beginning, most people, even myself, began to  follow the stockpiling mindset and let us get extra of everything “just-in-case”, because at that time, we were entering a period of uncertainty of not knowing  how long it would last and fear of possible rationing like the war years may be reintroduced. The stockpiling mindset was reflected through huge abnormal and spikes for lots of different products all over the country and many parts of the world.  In the UK, many retailers were unable to redeploy surplus stock from region to region as they had done in the past, because every region was in high demand.  During the early days of the pandemic, we found the most products were available somewhere in the supply chain, it was just a simple case they could not keep up with this unprecedented, constant, and continuous demand by the customer.

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“The rise of fractal politics” was first submitted to the Nine Dots Prize in response to the question, “Are digital technologies making politics impossible?” The essay was written as a thought piece prior to the announcement of the 2017 UK General Election.

Dr Gordon Fletcher

Fractal Politics

In this essay “the rise of fractal politics” describes the current state of development in advanced capitalist economies. This is a development that has been accelerated by digital technologies while also describing wider ranging changes in contemporary society and politics (Marcuse 2002). Equally, many of these social and political changes have themselves become possible because of digital technologies (Rosa 2013). This is the ever-present reminder that technology is both a product of the society that produces it and a key agent for its change (Laszio 1992).

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Dr Aleksej Heinze

This year has offered some dramatic lessons in the power of social media. Twice, people have confounded predictions to vote for ideas which have targeted emotional responses.

Now we have President Donald Trump, and the UK Government scrambling to navigate a path out of the European Union.

As 2016 draws to a close, a shooting in Washington at a pizza restaurant – the so-called pizzagate incident – exposed just how dangerous and how effective those emotional appeals on social media can be.

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Dr Gordon Fletcher asks is the Social Media Bubble about to burst?

Social Media Bubble questions resurface whenever Social Media attracts bad press. For example, claims that paid ads receive low levels of engagement, or that social media is a waste of time for marketers are contributing to this thinking.

These statements appear to have practical support. Twitter recently announced redundancies and as a result its panicked users feared that the service was shutting down. One of Twitter’s headline purchases, the video service Vine, was also recently closed. A decision that, for some, served to reconfirm their fears.

Can this combination of actions be seen as signal that the social media bubble is bursting?

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Ian McHale, Professor of Sports Analytics

Now that SAM’s predictions for Premier League matches are on the BBC website every week, I am getting asked three questions a lot:

1. What is SAM?
2. How does SAM work?
3. Is SAM any good?

In this blog I hope to give pretty simple answers to these questions, and point the interested reader in the right direction to get more information.

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The vote this week on whether to leave the EU is one of the biggest decisions we will face in a generation. Here a series of experts from the University of Salford give their views on what the ramifications in areas such as employment, health, travel and the economy could be.

It might just help you make up your mind when you reach the ballot box. None of these individuals tell you how to vote but all support the view that the decision either way will have major repercussions for all UK residents and beyond.

Whatever your view – vote and make your voice heard on the 23^rd!

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What is a Raspberry Pi? #PUPRU

A number of technology innovations have been recently enabled through Raspberry Pi. What is Raspberry Pi?

In a nutshell, it is a low cost, credit-card sized computer that you can plug into a computer monitor or TV, and use standard keyboard and mouse to work with it.

These Raspberry Pi devices are enabling people of all ages to explore computing, and learn programming in languages like Scratch and Python. They can do many things that you can do with a traditional computer, such as browsing the internet, play high-definition video, make spreadsheets, word-processing, and play games. Originally, they were designed to be used in education for creative teaching and learning.

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Dr Maria Kutar

Salford Business Submarine made its second appearance on Sunday 8^th May 2016, entering the team’s second ever Salford Dragon Boat Festival.

The team competed for the first time in 2015, where their main aim was to keep out of the water and to make it to the end of the course. Having easily achieved their 2015 target the team set their sights higher for 2016. This year, we wanted to raise even more money for Kidscan – a Children’s Cancer Research charity – and of course we were aiming not just to keep out of the water, but also to win a race! Have we been able to achieve our ambition this year?

Most importantly the team were rowing to raise funds for Kidscan. Cancer is the leading cause of death in children in the UK; 25% of children diagnosed with cancer won’t make it to their 30th birthday. Through groundbreaking research, Kidscan is striving to change that, giving every child with cancer the treatment they need to survive.

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A team from Salford Business School, is travelling to Bangalore which is known as the Silicon Valley of India. Bangalore is the centre of digital innovation in India and this month we will take the next step to building better relationships in its tech and education sectors. India is seen as a key market due to ambitious plans by the Indian Government for 30% of its young people to go on to higher education by 2020.

Along with my fellow colleague Simon Ireland – International Partnerships & Business Coordinator, we will visit Bangalore on 24th May for a week.

Bangalore is well known as the Silicon Valley of India, due to its concentration of technology companies. We plan to tap into the expertise in the region, as well as assess how the University of Salford and its graduates can contribute and show Indian students interested in completing a degree in the UK, what Salford has to offer.

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Alex Fenton

Each year, our Students Union (SU) arrange the Salford Teaching Awards. These awards are run completely by the SU and are voted for by students. This year, there were over 400 nominations for 150 staff from across the University.

At the Business School, we are absolutely dedicated to our students and to teaching excellence. We have been very successful in attracting industry and teaching awards and accreditations in recent years.

The special thing about the SU teaching awards however is that, it is not colleagues or externals that are judging, it is our students, who are ultimately at the heart of everything we do. At this year’s SU Teaching awards, the Business School were incredibly successful, winning in many of the categories as follows:

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