Sample B2B versus B2C

Commodity trading

Commodities are primary (or raw) products. They are physical products which fall into 4 categories: Energy (like Oil or Coal), Metals (Gold, Platinum etc), Agriculture (edible items like Coffee and Sugar, or inedible products such as Cotton) and Livestock (live animals).
Historically, animals and crops would have been physically bought and sold at an Agricultural market. The Chicago Board of Trade was established in 1848 and now contracts are exchanged instead. On the Commodities market, the ownership of oil barrels could change several times whilst they travel by ship from one country to another.
Commodities have a high value – with a growing population, natural resources are in high demand. However, the market is volatile; a bad harvest means higher grain prices, but the discovery of a new oil field could lead to a drop in oil prices.
Wars, government regulations and consumer trends all trigger changes in Commodity prices.


Digital Detox
Parents often worry about children having too much “screen time”, but it is often the adults who are worse!
Most of us work with computers, so to calculate our daily “screen time” we must consider our working hours, plus the time spent on our smartphones, watching television, and even using the GPS in our car.
Taking a “Digital Detox” is becoming more popular. A digital detox is spending an evening, a day or a weekend completely without screens.
Before starting a full Detox, it is first suggested that we remove notifications and alerts from our telephones. Another idea is to change the phone settings to black and white, to make our phones appear less interesting.
A study shows that the average adult will spend 3 hours looking at their personal phone, every day. The interruption of personal phones at work can mean up to 12% of lost productivity.

Internet of Things (IOT)

We all use the Internet, but what is the Internet of Things (IOT)?
IOT is the name for a network of physical objects (or “things”) that are connected to the Internet. They send and receive data from other devices or systems. Sophisticated chips are embedded in the objects to allow them to transmit data.
Smart homes use the IOT. We can have lights, heating and security systems in our homes that we control via our smart phones. For example, a radiator contains an IOT device which connects to your phone via the Internet. You can send instructions to tell the radiator to switch on or off at certain times. You receive information from the radiator about the current temperature in the room.
This rapidly growing Industry is the basis for new technology like self-driving cars or planes. It is also used in machinery to monitor if it is running efficiently.