Analysis of Decline and Rise of Various Business Activities in the U.K. Essay

In this task, I will need to decide what the core activity is in each of my two businesses and whether they are dealing with products, services or both. In the UK some of these business activities are becoming more common and others are becoming less common. I will need to find out the broad trends for these business activities and how they affect the businesses that I am investigating. The legal status of Freelance Audio Productions is an equal partnership between Martin and Nikki Rider. The company was set up in 1986, but has only been trading as Freelance Audio Productions for four years. The company doesn’t make a product, the service it provides is audio production based which includes performance arts, supplying of equipment and supplying of production services and facilities. FAP falls into the category of the Tertiary Sector. There are many departments that operate within FAP, but there are two departments that control most of Freelance Audio Productions. These are Sta ge sound and Showbiz. Stage Sound. FAP Stage Sound has been in operation for fourteen years but has only been working under Freelance Audio Productions for the last four years. FAP Stage Sound specialises in renting out sound equipment and educating young trainees. FAP Stage Sound is a continuously growing business which is also shown in the trend of the tertiary sector. Showbiz. FAP Showbiz controls all of the private singing and dancing lessons and the Pop School. FAP Pop School is the newest addition to Freelance Audio Productions. The main target of this is to educate people, mainly children, form the ages of two upwards in the field of music and dance. Girls and boys of all ages learn to sing and dance and put together routines. Shows are then put on as large events where many tickets are sold but little profit is made. Graph showing the Tertiary sector total. (See Appendix 1) FAP and connections with the sectors. Freelance Audio Productions works under the tertiary sector in the departments of other services and education. The Stage Sound aspect of FAP comes under other services, and the private lessons and Pop School comes under education. (See Appendix 2) Freelance Audio has no direct connections with any of the other sectors, but, the other departments in the Tertiary Sector play a large part in the success or failure of FAP. Martin Rider has a community web site on the Internet, and does a lot of theatrical work. As the Internet industry is doing very well at the moment, and FAP is hoping to spread all over the UK, communications help a lot to promote this business. The best way to promote the business locally is while shows are going on. The department leisure includes theatre and public events, and locally, FAP is involved with all theatrical work and most public events. Leisure is one of the fastest growing industries in the tertiary sector which gives an indication on how well FAP should be doing. (Appendix 4) FAP can be affected by the secondary sector. The only way that FAP is affected by any other sectors is the fluctuations in manufacturing of electrical goods in the secondary sector. This can cause problems when attempting to purchase specialised equipment for shows or upgrading the current range of products. Conclusion. Although currently small, Freelance Audio Productions is growing very fast as a result of the tertiary sector departments that it is part of. Over the next few years, new contacts with other businesses in the UK will be made, and maybe other sectors will come as a part of the company. The legal status of Lantra is a charitable limited company. Lantra is owned and run by a board of directors. If Lantra goes ‘bust’ or ‘bankrupt’, each director has a liability of one pound. Lantra has a very complicated range of services. Most of the services is education, training and policy work for the government. Most of the work is in the land based sector, which is to do with farming, agriculture and environmental conservation. Lantra sets the standards that the GNVQs are set upon. The GNVQs for land based studies is set by Lantra. There are three operating Companies which work under the ‘umbrella’ company, Lantra. These are called, Lantra Awards, Lantra National Training Organisation and Lantra Agenda. These are explained in depth in the following text. Lantra Awards. Lantra Awards is a new organisation within the Lantra. The aim of this company is to ‘provide an innovative and responsive awarding service’. Lantra Awards assesses trainees, and if the needed standards are met, appropri ate awards are rewarded to them. The awards given are recognised by the government and can help acquire a job or an apprenticeship. Lantra Agenda. Lantra Agenda training specialises in management training and consultancy services and the co-ordination of work based training. Agenda courses range from increasing personal dynamics and communication effectiveness to waste management and include a range of health, safety and quality assurance courses. Below are some of the services that Lantra Agenda Provide. Although some are training, they are referred to as a product as they are sold to external agencies also. Management training and business consultancy – Business development consultancy – Benchmarking – Management and supervisory training – Train the trainer programmes Vocational Programmes – National Traineeships – Modern Apprenticeships (Skillseekers in Scotland) – Approves centre for N/SVQs – Assessment and certification in key skills, hazardous operations and safety training and management. Lantra National Training Organisation (Lantra NTO). Lantra NTO has a wide ranging selection of activities which spans from conducting labour market research to supporting local training providers. The key role of Lantra NOT is to link government and industry. There are eleven industry groups that work in Lantra NTO. These are: – agricultural crops – agricultural livestock – production horticulture – landscaping – environmental conservation – game conservation – fish farming – agricultural and garden machinery – fencing – floristry – professions allied to veterinary science Graph showing the Tertiary sector total. (See Appendix 1) Lantra and connections with the sectors. Lantra is a peculiar organisation as it is based in not only the tertiary sector, but the primary sector also. Lantra is primarily based in the tertiary sector as it deals with training, education, and the selling of a product, retail. Previously, Lantra was a primary sector, land based organisation. As recent trends show, the primary sector is in rapid decline (Appendix 3) so the company had to think up a new idea to save the business. This is when selling training courses as a product and the company Lantra Awards came into play. These two ideas brought Lantra into the Tertiary sector which is an overall higher earning sector (Appendix 1). This would have both increased the companies value and broadened the types of customers. If the Primary sector decreases, Lantra will be injured as the company still relies mainly on the land based agricultural departments. If the need for more farms arrives, this would be perfect for the training aspect of Lantra as the business would rocket. Conclusion. Even though Lantra is in the primary sector, which is decreasing, the departments which are in the tertiary sector provide a safety net and a higher income. I think that Awards and Agenda will take over and NTO will slowly disappear as the need for agricultural based activities is in decline.