Smart(?) Stamps February 5, 2009
Posted by townsend51 in UK, post office, royal mail, smart stamps, subscription.add a comment
I came across a service from the Royal Mail today which allows customers to print off their own stamped labels. It costs £4.99 a month for a subscription, but this is reduced if paid on an annual basis. The subscription is purely for the liberty of using the service, and doesn’t include the cost of postage itself, but even so, it’s still likely to be much cheaper than a franking machine.
As you can probably tell, I’m impressed by it. In particular, I find the thought of not having to queue up in line for hours on end particularly appealing. But the point of this post is to reach out to anyone who has used the service, to see what their opinions are. A worthwhile investment? Or a waste of money?
For me at least, only time will tell.
Innovation in the UK January 17, 2009
Posted by townsend51 in UK, fight the downturn, fund, innovations, nesta, report, spin off, university, vc.add a comment
Here’s an interesting report on the role of innovation in combatting the global recession. It was published by NESTA, the organisation reponsible for promoting innovation in the UK, so the report can be considered a useful indication of future policy.
There’s been rumours of a new fund, overseen by NESTA, to help cash starved university spin offs, and other key start ups, weather the storm of the global recession. Undoubtedly, these businesses will have an important role in the future prosperity of the UK, but the size of the proposed fund is mind boggling: £1 billion.
This might not seem much compared to the bank bail outs, but we’re talking about pre-revenue companies here, whose cost base it likely to be incredibly small. Even if 1000 start ups were deemed to be on the brink, that’s £1,000,000 each! Companies with greater funding requirements are likely to have already found it, not least because long term companies must plan at least 2 years ahead.
It remains to be seen whether such a fund will be created. But for small business owners who won’t be inline for such a hand out, it will be hard to palate.
The British Automotive Industry December 24, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in UK, bailout, car industry, credit crunch, government, jaguar, landrover, recession.add a comment
Jaguar Landrover has just requested a £667 million loan from the British Government in order to continue operations in the current dire economic climate. I’ve spoken to a number of people on the matter, and what emerged was two wholly divergent opinions. One was that they should receive no support whatsoever. And the other was that not only was a support package a good idea, it was nothing more than common sense.
I will examine each in turn, but first lets consider why the automotive industry has found itself in such a difficult position.
Car production is a high volume, low margin business, in common with other highly commoditised products. But unlike other sectors, where premium products enjoy much healthier margins than their cheaper, less sophisticated counterparts, cars are always low margin. Porsche enjoy the greatest margins at around 8%, but most other manufacturers border around the 2-5% mark. In order to make such a business work, the volumes have to be tremendous, and lets not forget, we’re talking about expensive products here. When demand drops, the profitibility is disproportionally affected, because unless the producer can maintain economies of scale, the margins are negligible. This is why many factories close down for short periods, because it makes no sense to keep them open unless they’re running at near to maximum capacity.
But this ’survival mode’ also incurrs costs, without offering anything in the way of profitability. Unless a manufacturer is sitting on huge cash reserves, this might not even be a choice, and even if it is, it can only last for so long.
This is where Jaguar Landrover come in. Their core markets have been heavily hit by the credit crunch, and they certainly aren’t cash rich.
The Government could be accused of showing favouritism by backing the car industry, whilst ignoring other areas of the economy which are struggling; but the car industry is important. It employs close to a million people in the UK in directly related activities. And in turn, the wealth generated helps to support local communities, and other businesses. If those jobs were to disappear, then there’d be a huge rise in unemployment benefit claims in the short term. And once manufacturing jobs are lost to lower cost economies they will never return: the seed capital required, and prohibitive planning laws, would make it impossible. The largest growth area in the UK economy is the creative sector, but there’s no way that it could absorb thousands of new workers. Indeed, nothing short of a bold new power plant build program would come close to providing enough skilled jobs.
On the other hand, £667 million is a lot of money, and at recent profitibility levels, it is unlikely that Jaguar Landrover will ever be able to pay it back, even at low interest. And the days of state owned British Leyland are long gone: the Government is under no obligation to financially support private enterprise. Some may argue that the money would be better spent elsewhere, or indeed not spent at all.
Just a final word on Jaguar Landrover as a company. It isn’t gross mismanagement that has led them in to this situation. Even Toyota reported a loss for the first time in 70 years. These are exceptional times, and any decisions should be treated as such. I just hope that any action is decisive, and that it comes before it’s too late.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/transport/3900248/Jaguar-bail-out-must-come-in-days-not-weeks-warns-union.html
The UK’s Detrimental Dependence on Gas August 1, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in UK, electricity, energy, fuel bills, gas, global warming, globalisation, politics, renewable, sustainable.add a comment
For years the UK was an energy rich country, with extensive untapped oil and gas reserves in the North Sea, but since 1999, when production peaked, output has been falling at a steady rate of ten percent a year. Initially this was not too much of a problem. Energy exports had buoyed the UK economy since the 80’s, and the companies who’d reaped the rewards were now global players, who sourced a sizeable chunk of their supply from far afield. And even though the UK began to import gas in larger and larger quantities, fossil fuel derived energy was still relatively cheap and abundant.
The energy policy of the UK government relied on this. When the UK signed up to the Kyoto Protocol it wasn’t gambling with the affordability of domestic supply because the targets set were eminently achievable. The agreement didn’t stimulate a raft of renewable developments, as some people had hoped, but instead it further increased our dependence on gas.
A gas turbine releases less greenhouse gases per unit of energy than any other fossil fuel derived energy source. Additionally, gas fired power stations are relatively compact, cheap, and reliable. There is no need for fleets of trucks ferrying in fuel; it can all be piped in, and surplus kept in storage. In all respects, gas is a very attractive way to generate electricity.
So it comes as no surprise that the UK Government turned to gas in the face of increasing electricity demand. In most respects it was the perfect solution, particularly for politicians who were able to avoid the tough decisions involved with commissioning the next generation of nuclear power stations. But the increasing demand for gas ensured our dependence on imports, and married with the UK’s meagre gas storage capacity, makes the UK much more vulnerable to disruptions of supply.
But it’s only in the last few weeks where gas has become a real political hot house. Creeping energy prices were blamed on globalisation, but some of the blame lies with our own politicians with their short sighted energy policy. Any increase in the price of wholesale gas has the twin effects of increasing the cost to direct consumers of gas, and to consumers of electricity, due to the huge number of gas turbines which feed the grid.
The focus of energy policy has been to wean the western world off oil. But for the UK in particular, moving away from gas and towards nuclear is much more important. If we fail to do so, huge increases in energy bills may become all too familiar.
The UK’s Detrimental Dependence on Gas can be found on Scribd.
Post-Industrial Myth May 5, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in 20th Century, UK, canary wharf, city, dyson, economy, industrial revolution, industry, manufacturing, post industrial, products, regeneration.add a comment
Here is my most recent article. Its been formatted like a book, which explains the rather strange lay out – it makes more sense when the pages are displayed side by side.
Everyone has an opinion on the economy nowadays – and this is mine. It lacks the impartial tone and raft of references that you’d usually find in articles like this, but that’s something I make no apologies for. Hopefully it will be of interest to general readers, amongst which I count myself, and will help stimulate debate about the direction of the economy, and an appreciation of how it can affect our everyday lives.
UK video game industry May 3, 2008
Posted by townsend51 in Liverpool, UK, animation, creative economy, economy, gaming, programming, video game.add a comment
I’ve been looking into the game development scene in the UK, and found some welcome results. I’d always believed that game developers were largely based in London, with the exception of Rockstar and a few others. In reality, there is a much more even spread. Sure, the companies tend to nucleate around hubs, but as far as the distribution of these goes, its all very positive. For instance, I’ve always had aspirations of working in Liverpool when I graduate, because I’ve always liked the place, and its very close to home. I’m sure other people will have found themselves in a similar position, and even though I’ve lived in London for the last couple of years, I have little intention of staying here indefinitely.
This isn’t just confined to the games sector either; there are also opportunities for other digital creatives. These companies didn’t spring up overnight, so why do they keep such a low profile? I would have been interested to know about the employment prospects when I was a young whipper snapper, who through the tyrannies of the world, came to believe that computer games were bad.
During my brief foray into this area, I’ve encountered some useful on line resources (see the bottom of the post).
- Advice for budding animators (Independent Newspaper)
- Info for animators (Prospects)
- Bizarre Creations Fantastic Liverpool based developer (Project Gotham Racing, Geometry Wars)
- List of game developers (only large ones – doesn’t include subsidiaries):
- Skillset (perhaps the greatest asset for a budding game programmer or artist)
