Viewing the World category, page 1
Fuel prices seem to have started to hike upwards again, diesel at our local garage is now 104.9p/litre. This seems to have no bearing on the price of crude oil.
The power of the ‘giants’, Texaco, Shell, Tesco, Asda etc should be kept in check by government (don’t ask me how, I am not on ‘expenses’) or we shall have a repeat of the uncontrolled financial system that has dumped the world economy into an almost bankrupt situation.
We expect all companies big & small to be able to make profits to capitalise their business and given a return to the investors, but as we all share the planet, perhaps the word ‘reasonable’ should be added to the giants’ dictionary.
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Being a business, GRS Sign Company Ltd., has to consider a variety of options when conducting every day operations. Primary among those are the financial options, of course. Businesses wouldn’t do well by losing money all the time, so the primary purpose is of course, to make money. At the end of the day after paying employees, paying bills, and taking in money for jobs, it is ultimately the aim to have some money left over.
That seems pretty straightforward, I’d say.
The last year has been a bit shaky in the financial markets, and to be fair it’s not really getting any better. Prices are steadily rising, not just of our raw materials but for everything: taxes, food, clothes, mortgages etc., Some affect the business, some don’t. Indirectly of course, they all do – the employees have to factor in food, clothes and so on, whereas the company (directly) wouldn’t have to.
Some businesses expect you to maintain the lowest price possible, some even complain when you raise prices a little to counter the effects of rising prices, but most are in the same boat.
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It may not appear that way but the global/world trade in aluminium affects GRS Sign Company Ltd. directly. How so? We use aluminium composite and 11g aluminium blanks in our work. In fact another way the aluminium trade affects us is with aluminium dioxide as a white pigment, which can directly affect all of the vinyls we use (which is a significant amount) as well as the white paint sprayed on slatz and other materials we consume on a daily basis.
So what are the advantages? It’s cheaper, that has to be the main selling point (excuse the pun).
Getting over that rather large elephant in the room (price), we do have to look at the disadvantages. Well they are unfortunately, many:
- Many britons are, or would be, put out of a job as a direct result of cheaper aluminium from China (which is where the majority of it comes from).
- China is stronger and Britain is weaker, because of the global trade
imbalance. - There is a moral issue at play – the chinese workers don’t get paid an equal amount to workers elsewhere in the world, say, Australia, Canada, or Russia (which are the other large aluminium producing nations).
Should we pay for a lower-priced product knowing these disadvantages, to make more of a profit? Or should we go for a higher profit, believing in the rhetoric the World Trade Organisation would like us to believe?
Tricky issue isn’t it?
Interestingly, recent figures suggest daily production of primary aluminium stands at 104,200 tonnes. Yes, that’s daily – the world uses a lot of aluminium.
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Don’t we all think of ourselves as “normal”?
I know I think I am. I know every friend I have thinks they are. But then again, we’re all different. Our hair is different colours, styles, lengths, thicknesses, curliness etc., Our eyes are all different, even if we are the same general colour. Our heights are different, our builds are different, our voices are different, our accents may even vary even in the same area.
So if we really think about it, we’re all different from one another. Not so “normal” as you might think. Generally, we have two arms, two legs, torso, head and so on, so if we go by that definition we’re all the same, and thus “normal”.
But it isn’t the similarities (which are few) that make us “normal”, it’s those other things which although we know are different we equate as being similar. Then there are the tangible possessions to consider: we all live in a house, we all work, we all wear clothes, we all eat and so on. The “abnormal” ones are then a bit difficult to filter out, don’t you think? Could it be that someone who is from another country is not “normal”? But then again they have the same similarities and differences don’t they?
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A question was posed by a member of the management, and over the weekend I have had time to give it a bit of thought.
Strange question though it may be, it was one that gets you thinking and brings all sorts of different problems to mind.
Is desperation for dentists causing us as a nation to get substandard treatments from practicising professionals not from the UK?
The thing is here, none of us really like going to the dentist. I won’t use the analogy “it’s like pulling teeth” but it is close. Most of us only really go when we absolutely have to, desperation in another sense pushing us to pick up the phone or walk to the dentist’s surgery. I hate going, but two years ago I had to, had a tooth fixed and three pulled (ouch). But afterwards I felt like it was seemingly nothing, no problems whatsoever. The anaesthetic numbed any pain (thank goodness!) and it was a doddle, in and out in a few hours altogether. It felt weird having the teeth pulled though, you could “feel” the roots coming out, hear it too, but there was no pain.
And yes, it was a foreign dentist, swedish I believe. Quite good care I must say, very professional.
Does it matter whether the dentist is “english” or say, “polish,” or “lithuanian”? Are their standards lower than our own? For that matter, are our standards higher than theirs? For all we know they may have excellent dentistry standards that put ours to shame (I feel most nations’ health services, at least in dentistry, put ours to shame).
The poll’s question is – are the dentists from other nations as good as “english” dentists?
{democracy:7}
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To remain competitive in the business world you need to be on top of your game. Not just that though, you need to hit your target market in such a way that they look at you first for your product, and not a rival. To achieve this you need:
- :to be able to give an efficient service
- :to be competitively (not necessarily the lowest however) priced
-
ffer the best product - :to be able to sell your product
Simple rules to follow right? With prices rising rapidly though, that is a little bit difficult to attain and sustain.
One example is the price of postmix, recently driven upwards 40p per bag. Quite a lot really when you consider they were just over £3 a bag, so that’s a 10%+ rise in price. Should this be passed onto the customer as is or should a small amount be added to account for time, storage, use and so on?
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A question was asked recently, which has brought prices into sharp focus.
Has the see-saw prices of fuel affected the business in the past year or two? If the price of petrol, heating oil, gas, etc., rises, should the business raise prices to accommodate that knock-on effect? Similarly the question could be asked – should the business lower prices to match a lower fuel price?
It is a sad fact of life that fuel prices generally are always on the increase. Petrol is a valuable and widely used commodity and is always increasing all year round, every year. It should be mentioned that in fact, the Government has recently added more tax (two pence per litre) to petrol, making the price per litre rise over £1 for the first time. It is not the fuel industry adding the money here!
This is due to the price per barrel of oil touching $100, and jitters in the financial world about the oncoming winter, fuel stocks, prices, and so on. Again, nothing new. We always worry about having enough fuel for winter.
But petrol is not the only fuel. There is natural gas, dwindling supplies in the North Sea mean that the UK is now importing natural gas from Russia, dependant on another nation for our fuel supplies. Something to consider these days, is wind power, of which Lincolnshire (being a flat county) has an abundance of – we have a new windfarm being developed at Fen Farm in Conisholme by Ecotricity.
Also coal, and wood, admittedly not major fuels these days, but still something to consider.
Now on the other side of the story, we should consider that after Winter, come Spring and Summer, prices generally start falling as people tend to use less fuels (less need for heating houses). There is a nice chart showing the falling energy prices at SimplySwitch. This is a fine balance that we actually tend to ignore, since we notice the increases but seem to minimize the decreases.
Speaking from a business point of view, a similar effect could be noticed, as heating is not needed and we do not use energy on air conditioning (in the UK we don’t need it!).
So, would it be pointless to include energy and fuel prices in general sign prices as the rise and fall of fuel prices is both predictable (and therefore can be built into a sign price as a fixed median amount)? Or would it be a pertinent bit of the puzzle when figuring out how much a single sign, or indeed multiple signs, would cost? If the price of petrol, natural gas, and any other fuels continue rising above the rate of inflation should we raise prices accordingly?
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It is easy to say that a person’s private life is clearly separated from their work life. But we all know that the line is not so clear-cut, or that the separation is so simple.
Examples abound but imagine the member of staff that must depart from work quickly for a family emergency. The work schedule must change for that person, the people they work with, and the business as a whole.
The activities we all enjoy can also have quite an impact on your job. Sports are not just limited to shuffleboard or dominoes; at the far end of that spectrum is rugby, a notoriously physical and sometimes violent (albeit unintentional) sport. Cricket may be considered genteel but being hit by a cricket ball at 100mph can crush bones. There are many more examples of sports and the injuries one can suffer playing them.
All of these things have an effect in a person’s work life that they may not have intended, or not have considered at the time. Breaking limbs playing sport, or putting up roofing tiles, may mean the loss of a significant portion of the worker’s wages as they go onto statutory sick pay. Their family may suffer especially if there is just one worker in the family.
So even though the bosses may say they don’t want to know what happens in an employee’s life, they still may be concerned, or profer advice and cautionary counsel.
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