Has anyone made any changes recently with a view to helping the UK economy?

fc123

Thrugelmir wrote: »

The global picture is changing. China is under going fundamental change for one. Over the past 18 months manufacturing in many sectors has suffered. Late deliveries, poor quality, strikes, lack of skilled labour are all hitting hard.

The golden days are over for Western explotiation.

The internet is allowing people to see how others live. What we pay for the goods they make. Not unsurprisingly they want a bigger slice of the cake too.

Not China.......going to Turkey first as they now specialise in jersey garments. I did have a meet up this summer with a Turkish agent but kept putting it off as everything is moving so fast and we have had (and still have) the nightmare scenario of not being able to keep up with demand for what we produce at the mo.....If I could double production units, I could sell it...and we do a lot of export too.

Double worse...I have the £££ in the bank to do it too so it's not even about credit availability.

The internet is the key and is pivotal in our current set up.

It's just not the same as a Real life store where you can touch and feel and connect with your customer on a human level.

But if I hear another UK garment manufacturer moan about how it all died..well I think they may have killed themselves off from what i see and experience.

Damaged

where did you use to shop? what type of stores did your parents shop at?
Let me guess local stores?

If you had kept on doing that instead of chasing the last penny you, you'd probably have more now.

But instead, you're thrifty because you are paid a low amount and the reason you're paid a low amount is to keep prices cheaper, so thrifty people like you can survive.

fc123

SingleSue wrote: »

Greed? Nope, thrift.

If you don't have the pennies, you can't pay the higher prices, no matter how much you would like to support the local economy.

But it can be seen sometimes as a self fulfilling prophecy.....lower prices, lower costs come from lower wages.....which leads to lower prices and so on. Does that make sense?

I wouldn't apologise for seeking the cheaper option at all as we all do in some way or another.


The biggest irony for us is that our garments now sell for about 30% more than when we sold them direct in our own store.....yet as we are involved in a chain known for lowish prices, we are seen as trading at an affordable level.

Thrugelmir

fc123 wrote: »

But if I hear another UK garment manufacturer moan about how it all died..well I think they may have killed themselves off from what i see and experience.

I was merely citing China as its an increasing topic of conversation recently. Constantly hearing tales and directly experiencing the effects.

Listened to a business leader the other day. Who said if a British Company wants to suceed. All they have to do have a high level of customer service. As the markets crying out for same. Customers would flock. As somewhere along the road the UK has lost what is was renowned for.

shaven-monkey

As soon as the banks stop gambling a trillion pounds worth of foreign exchange every hour or pay some tax on those exchanges, I'll think about it.

A._Badger

Thrugelmir wrote: »

I was merely citing China as its an increasing topic of conversation recently. Constantly hearing tales and directly experiencing the effects.

Listened to a business leader the other day. Who said if a British Company wants to suceed. All they have to do have a high level of customer service. As the markets crying out for same. Customers would flock. As somewhere along the road the UK has lost what is was renowned for.

I suspect there's a lot of truth in this. Levels of customer service in the UK are very low. The problem is that the cost of entry is too high for most to compete. How do you go up against a juggernaut like BT, with its tenth rate call centres and generally abysmal levels of service? How do you compete with a rotten train company, or a poor bank?

I'm not even convinced that offering good service necessitates charging higher prices. I think we have got into a very bad spiral in recent years in this regard.

Thrugelmir

A._Badger wrote: »

I'm not even convinced that offering good service necessitates charging higher prices. I think we have got into a very bad spiral in recent years in this regard.

Good service results in repeat business in my mind. Its estimated that it costs a business 20 times the expense to win a new customer, than service an existing one.

I put it down to short term trading. Rather than a longer term view. There's a fixation with a 5 year exit from a project with a huge profit rather than build over 20 years.

A._Badger

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Good service results in repeat business in my mind. Its estimated that it costs a business 20 times the expense to win a new customer, than service an existing one.

I put it down to short term trading. Rather than a longer term view. There's a fixation with a 5 year exit from a project with a huge profit rather than build over 20 years.

I wish someone had drummed that into the heads of the idiots who have been responsible for the running-down of British industry in the past 40 years!

And, actually, I believe that is the root of the problem - short-termism starts at the top, where managers are appointed by (usually institutional) owners on a very temporary basis. They are also drawn from a caste where an MBA (designed and examined by academics who have rarely run so much as a whelk stall) counts for more than a few years running a start-up - where hey might have actually gained some useful experience.

Short-termism rules in British business - and the ruins are all round us to see.

SingleSue

Damaged wrote: »

where did you use to shop? what type of stores did your parents shop at?
Let me guess local stores?

If you had kept on doing that instead of chasing the last penny you, you'd probably have more now.

But instead, you're thrifty because you are paid a low amount and the reason you're paid a low amount is to keep prices cheaper, so thrifty people like you can survive.

I'm thrifty because I am a carer to disabled children and thus, there are not the pennies to go around to pay for more expensive foods/goods.

It would be no good and I would not be a very good parent if I blew our food budget in more expensive places which just happened to be local producers, if that food then only lasted 3 days instead of 7.

I do support this country, I have always had my holiday here even when I was a high rate tax payer (yes I was one once)...it's just I cannot afford (quite literally) to pay higher prices now. In years gone by, we did go for the more expensive foods, the better quality clothes etc but the money is just not there to do that now.

Saying that, we do on occasions (once a year) go to the local farm shop for fruit picking as a family treat. We also visit Jimmy's Farm at least twice a year to support what he has been doing for our local economy....not that we buy any of the food there though as it is mucho pennies!

Pennywise

So many points to agree with here.

People WILL pay for better customer service - trouble is a lot of firms can't see it. My customers could get the job done cheaper but they stay with me - for quality of customer service. Just last year, I put up my prices for a batch of client by about 25% - only 1 walked away!

Re UK manufacturing, yes, it's dire. I completely agree about lack of service and lack of IT. One of my clients who's just gone bankrupt had manufactured kitchen units for about 30 years. When MFI took over the market, he whinged about them taking his trade. When MFI went bankrupt, he whinged about taxes being to blame for his losses (why worry about tax he wasn't liable to pay as he was making losses is a mystery!). When he first became I client, I tried my best to give him advice, but he always had a come-back as to why he couldn't do it. He didn't even have a website. He didn't have any printed brochures. He had absolutely zilch marketing. The quality was exceptional and the price was right, but he just couldn't sell and he was his own worst enemy - an hour spent with him and you wanted to go and jump onto the fastlane - and he was the salesman! But when it went bankrupt, it was everyone else's fault! In reality, it was his - he just couldn't move on from being successful 30 years ago - just couldn't adapt and change.

Re MBAs and career managers - couldn't agree more. I spent 2 years as finance director of a growing high tec design & manufacture firm. I'd been their accountant for years. All the "managers" at first where people who'd worked their way up through the ranks - the business grew, almost doubling every year, highly profitable, happy customers, etc. Then the owners wanted to wind down and they put in a career MD - he immediately started to replace the home grown managers with graduates - the home-growns were marginalised and most left - customer happiness took a nose dive - suddenly deadlines were missed, goods were rejected, etc. Within 2 years, the company was on its knees. Trouble was that the "on paper" targets the new MD had set were being met - trouble was none of the targets were customer focussed - they were all artificial internal targets that the managers created and managed themselves. I lived through it, I saw the damage being done by the career managers who'd probably not even know where the shop floor was, never mind what happened there. Things got so bad, it was sold out to a competitor who immediately sacked all the management and asbsorbed the design office and shop floor into its own management structure - within a year, customer service was back to prior levels and the company was highly successful again. Someone with real life experience at the coal face is worth a dozen graduates who've only ever learned from academics - it's a lesson that the Uk has failed to learn.