With reference to organisations or industries that you know, to what extent do you think that recent changes in the UK economy will have inevitably damaged the long-term profits of businesses that operate in this country? (40 marks)
The UK had recently emerged from the recession 2007-2009, the economy is now recovering. During the recession, many businesses had struggled to survive. The strategies that businesses had taken during recession may affect their long-term profits. For example, as people spend less during the recession, businesses try to reduce their costs and reduce prices in order to encourage customers to buy their product e.g. Primark, M&S etc and many businesses have also closed down branches in order to maintain their
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Demand may be price inelastic - Demand is not very responsive to changes in price. This means revenue will fall.
Another reason that could damage long-term profits is that businesses due to recession had to borrow money from banks which have to be repaid. For example, the car industry was most badly hit by the recession as people could not afford to buy luxury cars and traded down. In fact, GM, the world’s biggest car company was the first one to go for the bankruptcy protection and had to borrow about £21bn of government loan. This means that during times of recovery GM would have to repay their loans with interests which means less profit being made. Once in recovery, the profits made by the business are used to repay loans which lower the firm’s overall profit margin.
However, this is not the case for many other businesses as they see recession as actually creating an opportunity for making long-term profits. The recession has helped businesses to come out stronger than ever. Waitrose had seen sales fall as customers chose to buy from rivals such as Asda/Tesco. In response to that Waitrose launched its 'essential Waitrose' range in an attempt to win over customers that have abandoned the chain in favour of cheaper outlets such as Asda or even Lidl and Aldi. Waitrose has woken up to the recession and they realized that they need to make their value message clearer. The performance of Waitrose,
Due to the recession the company is experiencing a decline in profits, however, the business remains profitable. Potentially, the recession could continue and business may decline further. A proactive plan is better than being reactive in regards to addressing the declining profits. Layoffs are the quickest and easiest solution to the issue.
This will benefit John Lewis as sales for the good quality products would be increasing which furthermore could lead to John Lewis recovering from their losses if they were in one and go into break even or begin to start getting profits. John Lewis would buy more stock from its suppliers at this period of the economic environment as when demand increases you must get more supply to meet that demand. Also John Lewis at the time since they buy in bulk from their suppliers they can benefit from getting more stock at a good price that gives good value for money, as usually suppliers would offer you extra amounts of stock if you buy in large quantities. During this period of time interest rates would be low compared to in recession because there isn’t as much financial institutions to try get as much finance as they can from small amounts of borrowings from their company in this period as customers, business etc intend to borrow more money in this period of time as they are fairly financially stable, so to encourage the businesses and customers to begin taking sources of finance they lower the rates. So John Lewis is more likely to start borrowing sources of finance if needed then in the period of growth.
The UK economy is constantly changing for various reasons such as improvement in medicine and increased globalisation leading to people living longer and the UK economy becoming more diverse culturally. Whether or not it provides an opportunity or a threat to a business will largely depend upon how the management of the business decides to attempt to change because of the change of the demographics.
Recession: - customers continue to spend but overall load fall and product services become more costly. As a result to this businesses are strained to reduce the prices of their items to generate
All of these factors have an enormous impact on my selected business (Barclays) as the economy goes from growth and decline. As well as many others, Barclays is majorly affected as it is in the financial industry. These different factors appear throughout what is called the ‘Business Cycle’. The cycle shows the fluctuation of the activity within the economy over a period of time and consists of 4 main stages; as well as many others,
Everybody in the United Stated was affected by the recession that began in December of 2007 and spanned all the way to June 2009. Even though the recession is over, many people are still being affected by it and have still not been able to recover from the great recession. “The recent recession features the largest decline in output, consumption, and investment, and the largest increase in unemployment, of any post-war recession”. Many people lost their jobs due to the recession and some of them are still having a hard time finding jobs and getting back on their feet. Businesses
TAXATION: The Waitrose is imposed taxes on its business profit and over selling the goods to its customer. This can even affect its strategic plan if there is a fluctuation.
Given the state of the recession and how it might have affected an organisation’s finances, this has a large impact on the employment relationship i.e. due to cuts there be maybe redundancies, therefore leading to loss of jobs.
Recession causes unemployment, this will affect the demand for goods and Tesco profit will drop.
The Government in the UK is relatively stable. We currently have a coalition government as none of the political parties got enough votes to win the majority. Therefore, both of the parties’ manifestos are co-joined so there is a lot more UK businesses need to prepare for. Political decisions can affect businesses
The “Great Recession” is commonly used to explain the massive economic contraction that occurred in the United States during the fourth quarter of 2007. However, the actions of the United States spanned to other nations, leaving massive effect on the global economy. One nation that took on serious financial burden during this recession was the United Kingdom. This nation first faced the effects of the Great Recession beginning in the first quarter of 2008. Overall, the initial mass effects on the nation can be attributed to the nation’s reliance on the financial sector. In fact, after partially stabilizing in 2009, the country struggled with a double-dip recession between 2010-12, and continues to struggle with some of these effects.
The University realises there are many external factors impacting on its business survival. Issues related to Brexit are many and complex with numerous uncertainties.
The Brexit is something that will cause a negative impact economically. Not only in Britain, but around the world. In Britain one element the Brexit effects their Gross Domestic Product(GDP). The UK’s per capita GDP relative to the EU founding members declined steadily from 1945 to 1972. However, it was relatively stable from 1973 to 2010. Reports from the British Treasury, The Bank of England, The IMF, The OECD, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, PWC, Oxford economics, and the Centre of Economic Performance have all predicted a negative effect on the British Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Around 3 million jobs rely on the EU and no one knows just what will happen to them if they leave. Another point is since the Brexit referendum, Britain has fallen into sixth place for the world 's largest economy, they lost their Top AAA credit rating which means the interest rates will be higher, and the pound has fallen to a 31-year low of about 1.27 compared to what it originally was at about 1.50.
Business, consumers and employees are more weak to downturns in the economies of trading partners. For example, recession in the USA leads to decrease in demand for UK’s exports, leading to falling in export incomes, lower GDP and incomes, decrease in domestic demand and rising in unemployment.
Therefore in this case if Sony were to increase the price of the PS3 they would expect to make lower total revenue. This is because the predicted demand for PS3s would be expected to drop more than the percentage increase in price could cover.