The United Kingdom

Macro environment

A business needs to be sensitive to the changes in its environment.  Taken from a macro perspective, the environment will have an impact on any business as it commands the trends of the society.  

Identica is now an international firm, but was first founded in London, UK.  We therefore have chosen to evaluate UK’s macro environment as well as design industry.

Economic

The United Kingdom is an economic power, with one of the strongest GDP in Western Europe. However, UK has been strongly affected by the economic downturn and experienced an estimated GDP decrease of 4,3% in 2009 . UK being of the industrialised power of today’s world, its service sector occupies a very strong place in the economy with 75% of the GDP in 2009 even though the industry has shown important decline in 2009, so did the public finances and employment.

Social

With more than 60M people, 90% of the United Kingdom’s population lives in urban centers. There is very little ethnic diversity with more than 90% white people and more than two thirds are in 15 to 64 years old.

Cultural

The British popular culture is well known all around the world for the 60s British invasion phenomenon, as well as the high fashion culture of its capital, London.

Technological

The United Kingdom as been known for its engineering and design skills, as well as high value manufacturing.  It is recognized as attracting the most high-tech foreign investments, after the United-States, and 25% of its exports are considered high-tech. 

The main weakness in that area is that UK hasn’t shown much investment in commercialising their skills to the world in order to benefit from their achievement. The country would win from spending more energy on showing off what they’ve got in that sector.

Political-Legal

The UK has a liberalised economy, and commerce is facilitated by low taxation and regulation.

Furthermore, as part of the European Union, the UK has access to the whole European market where goods, services, people and capital can move without barriers.

Global

The global environment has been characterised by the recent economic downturn which affected the whole planet as relations and commerce are now more interconnected than ever. The global economy is led by the liberalisation trend and economic unions as the European Union make exchanges easier.  We live in a world where access to information is easier and faster than ever, as technology gets more and more accessible to everyone.