Technology market worth £140bn in UK

grizzly1911

The UK ICT Market

The UK offers companies one of the largest ICT markets in Europe with the largest consumer expenditure per head and an overall spend of £140 billion per annum of which the UK public sector contributes £18 billion.
The UK is a strong market for new technology and design with a sophisticated consumer base. UK consumers are early adopters of new technologies and design making the UK market an excellent ‘test bed’ for ICT companies.
The UK also has the strongest ICT skills in Europe and the highest number of ICT graduates in the whole of Western Europe. In Addition the UK has flexible labour laws that ensure direct and contract staff can be employed under fair terms that will allow flexibility as your business develops.



http://www.ukti.gov.uk/investintheuk/sectoropportunities/ict.html


I found this figure quite surprising. I heard it referred to by a John Lewis Technology Buyer, at the Las Vegas CES, on ITV news.


It sounded like retail consumers on the news but applies to the market as a whole.

It sounds a staggering amount but I guess with all those smart phones, tablets and flat screens we like to keep upgrading perhaps not.

OLED TVs £7500 and 4K (UHDTV) "affordable" screens form Sony screens. (84" at c. $25K but the cheaper ones will be in 65/55"). with 4 times the 1080p resolution.

The p standing for progressive not permanent unfortunately.

And we wonder why money is just draining away?

I thought the bit about us having a flexible labour force was positive, just not flexible enough for some.

Generali

grizzly1911 wrote: »

I thought the bit about us having a flexible labour force was positive, just not flexible enough for some.

The way I view it, there is a trade off between a flexible labour force, strong welfare state etc. and the country's GDP being higher. Labour try to pretend that there is no cost to redistribution but there is a very real one. The Tories try to hide the reason they want to reduce welfare under the guise of 'fairness'.

It would be better for politicians to debate this stuff openly but unfortunately the electorate aren't up to it.

Wookster

Generali wrote: »

The way I view it, there is a trade off between a flexible labour force, strong welfare state etc. and the country's GDP being higher. Labour try to pretend that there is no cost to redistribution but there is a very real one. The Tories try to hide the reason they want to reduce welfare under the guise of 'fairness'.

It would be better for politicians to debate this stuff openly but unfortunately the electorate aren't up to it.

I agree with you.

Out of curiosity though, how does Germany do it? They don't have a hugely flexible workforce as I understand.

epz_2

Wookster wrote: »

I agree with you.

Out of curiosity though, how does Germany do it? They don't have a hugely flexible workforce as I understand.

My understanding is the two main reasons Germany does well is the integration of SENSIBLE unions at business level and the large amount of family owned SME.

Both of these leads to long term strategic growth rather than the sort of quarter by quarter company behaviour that can result in short term decisions that are against the long term interest of the company.

It also helps they have a hell of an engineering culture at a time when a lot of the world is industrialising.

grizzly1911

epz wrote: »

My understanding is the two main reasons Germany does well is the integration of SENSIBLE unions at business level and the large amount of family owned SME.

Both of these leads to long term strategic growth rather than the sort of quarter by quarter company behaviour that can result in short term decisions that are against the long term interest of the company.

It also helps they have a hell of an engineering culture at a time when a lot of the world is industrialising.

Though lack of a "common" language it is more difficult to offshore elements of the service industry in effect natural protectionism?

Generali

Wookster wrote: »

I agree with you.

Out of curiosity though, how does Germany do it? They don't have a hugely flexible workforce as I understand.

Four things I think:

- Culturally, Germany doesn't suffer welfarism
- The German system encourages very high levels of education: you may not be able to get a job but you can get an education so you may as well get educated
- Germany generally has very high levels of unemployment (lower right now but traditionally at about 8% of the workforce)
- Germans are prepared to live in a situation where they live as a surplus society, i.e. they consume a lot less than they make. That may seem attractive on the face of it but it ultimately relies on others consuming more than they make and clearly that is unsustainable. If your customers can't sustain buying your goods then what happens next...?

Conrad

I have a modest business interest in Germany. My view;

1) In c 1920 a rigorous national quality standard was introduced. This is key in the story of how Germany became the engineers to the world


2) They are a more proud nation not so liable to sell off companies to foreigners in the way we have for 30 years

3) Huge numbers of SME's

4) A greater propensity for a firm to do it's core activity really well and not diversify so much

5) Less consumerist in my experience. I often found well off people had really very basic houses, not palaces of consumerism

6) Long term managment style. Promoting from within, people who started on the engineering floor 25 years hence.

NOT victim to the cult of the big jock good talking business BA holder that can apparantly run any type of business based on these virtues alone


7) In early 2000's they did deregulate thier labour markets hugley. Something they've been urging SPain and France to do ever since.