Author Archives: Demilade

Demi’s Basic Business Questions: What is Clubhouse?

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“What is Clubhouse?”

That’s a really good question and I can almost guarantee that most of those reading this article are wondering what ‘Clubhouse’ has to do with business. In the following article, I will explore this current phenomenon and whether it does, in fact, have anything to do with business.

Clubhouse is an invite-only social media app ,first rolled out in America. It is an audio exclusive app that has been compared to a live podcast. Users join clubs and rooms where the content is digest through spoken word and user bios. It is also currently only available on the iPhone. As a result of Clubhouse’s perceived value, some people are purchasing iPhones to gain access to, and experience the app.

It came to Ireland late last year and there was a competitive fight for invites. Americans were selling Clubhouse invites for upwards of $20, and as someone from the UK or Ireland, you had two options. The first option was to just wait patiently for more people to join the app here, beginning the process of organic invites, and simultaneously miss out on the conversations that were being discussed extensively on Twitter and described as ‘life-changing’. The second option was to purchase an invite and be one of the first Irish people on the app, getting to the knowledge hub as soon as possible. I politely decline to answer what camp I fell into. 

By my estimation, it was early-mid January when Clubhouse gifted several invites to those who were already on the app. Before long, the incentive to purchase invites decreased as more and more Irish people gained access to the app. The dynamic of Clubhouse has also very much shifted from social to business in terms of the conversations being started in Ireland.

Now the next thing to address is what Clubhouse has to do with business. Primarily influenced by the American experience, there are a lot of Clubhouse rooms based on business-centric topics. These range from business tycoons advising on how to build million-dollar businesses to media experts telling you how to harness the power of social media to maximise the profits of small business. Users are allowed to join the “stage” and ask questions to those who started. This has been one of the most attractive features of Clubhouse. Just last week, Elon Musk – the owner of Tesla – engaged in a room in Clubhouse, which as you can imagine gathered quite the audience.

People who have engaged actively with a business or through a career-focused lens have boasted that it has truly changed their overall perspective. Those hosting rooms have since discussed being approached for paid speaking engagements, people have been offered investments in their ideas and much more. The way that people view their business strategy has changed and I have been offered paid freelancing opportunities from the platform.

However, it is important to note that one builds their own Clubhouse experience. It depends on how you choose to use this app, whether it is the aspect of a social club that appeals to you or its potential as platform for personal and professional development. You can cater your experience depending on who you choose to follow ranging from career coaches, business experts, leaders in different industries to influencers, friends etc.

Thank you for reading Demi’s Basic Business Questions. If you have any Basic Business Questions that you’d like me to address – email me at dadenira@tcd.ie

Yours in Learning,

Demilade

Demi’s Basic Business Questions: What Has Been The Economic Impact of COVID-19 on Trinity?

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We are back to college, after a whirlwind semester of online exams, “No Detriment” campaigns, and a heavy load of correspondence from the Provost, the library, and everyone in between. Students recognize the impact of COVID 19 and how it has affected student learning at Trinity. However, COVID 19 has had an economic impact on Trinity too and it continues to have one.

Firstly, the Book of Kells. Access to the Book of Kells is free for Trinity students, this may lead us to forget the value of it. According to Trinity’s Chief Operating Officer, the Book of Kells makes Trinity on average €12 million per year. This includes the gift shop and ticket admission. Not only this but there are indirect Trinity beneficiaries to this tourism that the Book of Kells attracts. Every Arts student can attest that there is at least a 2:10 tourist to student ratio on the queue to Perch café. The same is for tourists purchasing lunch at the Buttery. Trinity Tours also operates on campus and a large part of the income from these is given to Trinity.

As well as this, the inevitability of the reduction in international students will have a significant economic impact on Trinity. Currently, international students pay fees of almost €19,000 per year. International students may be discouraged from coming abroad due to fears of contracting the virus through their travels or because of a lack of exposure to the college over the course of the last academic year. Even prospective students may have intended to visit Trinity and get a deeper understanding of the culture on campus, but COVID 19 disrupted this. A point was made by the University Times about the competitiveness of Irish universities, including Trinity being impacted by online learning. They reference the fact that the chair of Science Foundation Ireland argues that online learning is not as strong in Ireland as it is elsewhere. With this continued emphasis on online teaching all around the world, if Trinity is not seen as a world leader from that vantage point, Trinity will lose admission from international students who saw themselves at Trinity due to its world-class teaching, as they are no longer world leaders in that area.

Lastly, the effect on accommodation is another economic impact of COVID 19 on Trinity. Students were instructed last semester before the summer break to vacate student accommodation unless they had to stay on due to the risk of homelessness or for critical research. This measure lost Trinity revenue as residents of Trinity Halls and Trinity campus rooms were given a lump sum to compensate for this. Trinity earns revenue through renting out its accommodation to young people visiting Ireland to learn Irish. For example, students of ATC Language school were due to be housed in Trinity Halls for their summer English-learning program, with Trinity earning income from this venture.

To conclude, not only has COVID 19 had an academic impact on Trinity, it has had an economic impact soon. In the coming months, let us hope that the situation improves.

If you have any basic business questions you are interested in me tackling, please do not hesitate to send me an email: dadenira@tcd.ie

Yours in Learning,

Demilade

Demi’s Basic Business Questions: What is Economics?

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Welcome back to college and the first of “Demi’s Basic Business Questions” for this academic year. This week we’re going to be taking a look at uncovering one of the various “business” subjects and make them a mystery no more. Who knows? Maybe knowing the difference between all of them will encourage you to join me in my Intermediate Economics module this semester or go for that Big 4 Assurance internship position.

The textbook definition for Economics is the study of how society uses its scarce resources. What are our scarce resources you may ask? Our money is scarce. Our time is scarce. Land is scarce. So much is scarce. Economics, in studying our choices, is studying human behaviour; Economics is a social science and therefore it is unpredictable. 

Economics is split into two parts – macroeconomics and microeconomics. 

Macroeconomics concerns the big players. That’s our government, that’s the European Union, the World Trade Organisation. Macroeconomics looks at how these big players make decisions in relation to their money. It studies the benefits of international trade, it suggests metrics for measuring how well the economy in a country is doing (GDP, GNP etc. etc. ) and reminds us that the solution is not to print more money. Microeconomics looks at how businesses make decisions in relation to money and how they interact with consumers. 

Microeconomics has a very strong focus on individual behaviour. It makes you open your eyes a bit too. Take for example the law of diminishing marginal utility. It tells us that when you eat several chocolate bars in a certain period of time, let’s say an hour, it gets to the point where eating subsequent bars is less satisfying. Practically, it gives us a textbook evidence for why we instinctively know when to “save it for later”. It also talks us through how hand sanitisers could cost up to 16 euro at the start of lockdown. Supply and demand. As demand increases, price increases. Prices are rarely based solely on the worth of a good. Microeconomics teaches us about perfect competition and how if you increase the price of your oranges on your Moore Street stand, you’re in trouble.

Working as an economist can mean so much. It can mean devoting yourself to academia and producing memorable work like “The Economics of Happiness”. It can mean working within a tech company and advising on how the company can work best to maximise their profits while in competition with other sellers. Economists can work in economic think tanks, predict trends such as unemployment and recession. Economists can advise the government on their spending (Budget 2021 anyone?). In short, economists can do a lot. 

To conclude, Economics is quite cool.

If you have any basic business questions you are interested in me tackling, please do not hesitate to send me on an email: dadenira@tcd.ie

Yours in Learning,

Demilade

Demi’s Basic Business Questions: What is Commercial Awareness?

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This week instead of looking to myself for the answer to your questions, I looked to you for the answer to the meaning of Commercial Awareness. Commercial awareness is a phrase I’ve been seeing lately all over commercial law applications and all over financial and professional services sectors too. My idea of commercial awareness has always been wishy-washy and recently I’ve wanted to gain a more succinct definition.

To achieve my objective, I asked a few students from Trinity and UCD how they would define commercial awareness. 

I spoke to students from business backgrounds who gave exhaustive responses:

 “Being cognisant of the way businesses operate and affect our lives and how we affect businesses” (1st Year BESS), 

“..being able to tack together different current affair stories and making real sense of them for your industry,” (2nd Year Law and Business)

“..understanding the external environment that impacts the specific industry, i.e the Political. Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental factors (PESTLE)..” (1st Year Global Business)

I also spoke to law students like myself, who kept things short and simple:

“..an understanding of how businesses work”

“Knowledge of a business or company, which is important if you want to get recruited by that company!”

I spoke to older students whose responses were.. interesting, to say the least:

“It means being aware, commercially of course.” (3rd Year Biomedical Sciences)

“Being able to tell the difference between all the ads or commercials on TV” (3rd Year Children’s and General Nursing)

Not only was I able to get student insight, I was able to get some industry perspective on commercial awareness too. My application for Legal Cheek’s Commercial Awareness Question Time with Matheson, Barbri, Pinsent Masons and Arthur Cox was successful so I was invited to attend the event at the Law Society.

The Commercial Awareness Question Time taught me the wide range of issues that commercial awareness encompasses. It ranges from having an in-depth knowledge of what the implications of Brexit are on the legal sector to knowing that a company is a brand that has to sell and distinguish itself from competitors. 

Nearing the end of my search for “commercial awareness”, I’ve come to the realization that commercial awareness is as broad or as succinct a definition as we want it to be. It really is as simple as taking a little time out of your week to become “..aware, commercially of course” by following some financial institutions, newspapers or even keeping up with my Basic Business Questions.

If you have any more Basic Business Questions you are interested in me tackling, please do not hesitate to email me at dadenira@tcd.ie

Yours in Learning,

Demilade

Demi’s Basic Business Questions: What is Corporation Tax?

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We often see headlines about Ireland’s low corporation tax – some are critical, others ecstatic about it. A pretty common question people have is what exactly is corporation tax, and how does the tax big corporations like Google and Facebook pay affect someone like me, the average college student. The aim of the following article is to give a bite-sized introduction to corporation tax and give some guidance on whether it is to be loved or hated.

Firstly, a definition. Corporation tax is the tax companies pay in countries they are resident in on the profit they earn from their business. In Ireland, the tax is at 12.5%, significantly lower than other countries. The average corporation tax rate in Europe is 25.3%, for example. 

Similarly to when we looked at why it is not feasible to print more money in order to combat financial crises, we are brought back to one of the fundamentals of economics – the law of demand. Generally, when something costs more money, less people want it. When something costs less, more people want it. Pretty reasonable, right?

The law of demand can easily be applied to our low corporation tax scenario. If it costs less money to make profits in Ireland (due to the low corporation tax), more corporations will want to set up here. It is argued that this is a positive phenomenon as it leads to Ireland becoming an international hub for multinational companies. Where there are increased companies, there are increased jobs. This reduces the number of skilled young people, university graduates etc. emigrating in search of work. Increased employment boosts the Irish economy and is often something to smile about. 

However, on the other side of the coin, those who are against our competitively low corporation tax level make strong arguments. They point to the profits that corporations such as Twitter and Facebook make and suggest better use for those profits, such as contributing to social welfare schemes. It is also argued that we are putting ourselves at an advantage at the expense of fellow European countries. The discrepancy between corporation tax rates is so high that it is a significant challenge for them to compete. This can be seen as unethical. 

There are numerous points to be made on either side of the debate but it is up to you decide where your opinions lie. 

If you have any more Basic Business Questions you are interested in me tackling, please do not hesitate to email me at dadenira@tcd.ie

Yours in Learning,

Demilade

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