Ryanair

Ryanair, it seems, is very good at attracting negative publicity every time it comes up with a cost-cutting measure to "decrease the air fare for all its customers". Its latest one is a plan to charge its passengers £1 for each time they want to use the in-flight toilet.

It doesn't look as if it really makes commercial sense for Ryanair though. After all, it doesn't give free drinks on board its flights, passengers are expected to pay for them. That means that consumption of liquids is decreased in the first place, which means less number of people would be using the toilets anyways. Or as Rochelle Turner from Which?Holiday pointed out, passengers may end up buying less over-priced drinks on board because they will then be charged to relieve themselves of it. This would make the move counter-productive.

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I am sure it would cost a considerable sum of money to install a coin slot machine in each of its toilets on each of its flights. How many £1 paying people would it take for them to cover that cost? And if the whole idea is to lower the air fare, how much would it lower it? Its not as if the maintenance cost of the toilets depends on the number of times it is used. The toilets would cost the same if they were used ten times or just twice. The only variable cost, if Ryanair is really counting its pennies, would be stuff like the toilet paper and soap. So why not just save their passengers the hassle and the negative publicity and offer them for free, like what all airlines do currently?

Ryanair's spokesman was quick to reassure that they had no immediate plan to implement this, but felt that their move was justified since passengers were already used to paying for toilets at bus and train stations. Well, toilets at bus and train stations are used by more people than a toilet on a plane. And in addition to generating enough revenue for maintenance, another reason why passengers are charged at stations is to discourage misuse of the facilities.

Last week Ryanair announced that by the end of this year, it would be replacing the check-in counters at the airports with manned baggage drop-in area. All customers instead would be expected to check-in online. According to Ryanair, about 75% of its customers are checking-in online currently. In that case, it does make commercial sense to get rid of check-in counters since only 25% of the passengers are using it. The cost saved on staff could genuinely help reduce the fares.

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Ryanair is by now used to being in the news for all the wrong reasons. The most recent one being its staff engaging in an unpleasant exchange with a blogger who thought he had found a bug on Ryanair's website. Rather than apologize to the blogger, Ryanair instead said that they had no time for "idiot bloggers". Idiot or not, that is not the best way for an organisation to talk to its stakeholders. Of course, this all wont result in passengers suddenly switching Ryanair for another airline. Far from it. In these though times, more people would be attracted to the cheap price and not the customer service. Still, those within Ryanair that come up with the cost cutting measures should spend some time now pondering over their public relations.

"Spend a pound to spend a penny" said Michael O'Leary yesterday. If they don't learn where to draw the line for the cost cutting, it may end up being "Penny wise and Pound fool" for Ryanair.

BizEasy

Hidden Cost of Redundancies

The number of people unemployed is rising everyday due to firms going bankrupt or businesses making some of their staff redundant as part of a "cost-cutting measure". However, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) warned yesterday that redundancies could in fact prove to be a false economy for businesses.

It estimates that the actual cost of redundancy could reach up to £16,000 for each employee made redundant. This figure takes into account the redundancy payment and the costs involved in recruiting and training replacement staff. But, redundancies can also lead to lower staff morale because when employees see some of their colleagues being made redundant, they fear about the security of their own jobs. This leads to a drop in their productivity which in some cases would lead to the business losing its competitive edge over a period of time. The CIPD's figures doesn't take these factors into account.

For most businesses redundancies are the most straight forward ways of cutting down costs in the short term. Less staff means less wages to be paid each month. Although analysts and bankers and politicians cannot agree on how long it will take for the economic condition to improve, they all agree that it will improve in the near future.

When the situation does improve, a business should be in a position to meet the upsurge in demand if it wants a share of the increasing market. This does not only mean having enough number of staff, but staff that are properly trained and equipped with necessary skills to help them do their jobs to the best of their abilities and be efficient. So, when employees are made redundant, they take the skills that they have acquired at the firm's expense with them and this is another indirect cost to the business.

When the economy is booming, there is demand for staff from businesses who want to grow. For those businesses that require staff with special skills, this could prove to be a costly affair because people with those specific skills might be hard to find. Also, if people with a particular skill are in high demand, the business would have to be prepared to pay a higher salary or offer lucrative perks or else the prospective employee might end up working for the competitor.

Most businesses have a Human Resources Department which looks at the company's long term objectives and then works out the staffing needs like the kind of staff required, the kind of skills required, etc., to achieve these objectives. Rather than just making staff redundant, businesses looking to grow in the near future should perhaps evaluate their long term goals and view the currently unemployed people as a pool of highly skilled employees and recruit them cheaply to make the best of the up turn. To help realise the true cost of redundancy, the CIPD has created a formula for employers.

Real cost of redundancy = (n ×R) + (x ×H) + (x ×T) + ny(H + T) + Wz(P - n)

Where:
• n = number of people made redundant
• R = redundancy payments
• x = number of people subsequently hired
• H = hiring costs
• T = induction/training cost
• y = percentage quitting post redundancy
• W= average monthly staff salary
• z = percentage reduction in output per worker caused by lower morale
• P = number of people employed prior to redundancies

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First the Chancellor giveth, then the Chancellor taketh away.

Yesterday, the Chancellor Alistair Darling announced in his Pre-Budget Report the much talked about 2.5% cut in the VAT, bringing it down to 15% from 17.5%. In the same breath, he also announced an increase in income tax for those earning £140,000 and above. From April 2011, people falling into this income bracket will have to pay income tax at the rate of 45p.

The cut in VAT is to come into effect from the 1^st of December. This leaves ample time for businesses to revise their prices and change the all the labels in the stores, but at the same time, being just in time before the Christmas shopping.

So, how will the change affect the prices? Will a loaf of bread or a bunch of carrots be any cheaper? No, because food products do not attract VAT. Surely, utility bills as a result will go down. Sadly, no because the VAT on utilities such as gas and electricity already have a lower rate of VAT charged at 5%. A cut of 2.5% doesn’t look as if it will make a huge difference in prices, especially compared to the generous 20%, 35%, 40% discounts offered by the retailers already.

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Then, the motive behind the cut is to give confidence to the consumers to go out and spend. But, confidence cannot be used to pay for a brand new PlayStation 3, can it? You need something else, namely, money. The primary reason why people are spending less money on the high street is because they have very little surplus left over after paying the high utility and food bills. And those who have enough surplus choose to save it for a rainy day.

That’s because it’s almost impossible to see a news report nowadays without it mentioning yet another company announcing job cuts. This creates uncertainty among those who are employed about the security of their jobs. Those who have recently been made redundant have no choice but to save money. But those who have a job also save since they don’t know how they are going to put food on the table next month or meet their mortgage repayments.

Another thing that’s hard to miss in a news report is an interview with the boss of a SME (Small & Medium Enterprise) business who has been denied a loan from his bank, or has had his overdraft facility cancelled. This leads to cash flow problems which means the business cant pay its staff, pay its utility bills, or even buy raw materials to maintain production. In addition, creditors, who owe money to the business, are unable or reluctant to part with their money. As a result, staff numbers have to be cut down adding to the number of unemployed across the country.

How can such news create confidence?

Perhaps, the Chancellor should look at reducing the VAT temporarily on utilities, or even get rid of them for the time being. More importantly perhaps, he should make sure that SMEs, who are perfectly healthy, should have access to loans and overdrafts at a reasonable cost to maintain their cash flow. After all, the SMEs are not asking for charity, just for funds which they are prepared to pay back with due interest. It makes sense for the Government to ensure that businesses that are perfectly sound to not go bankrupt just because they do not have enough cash or credit to meet their current liabilities. After all, the SMEs employ a lot of people in the private sector of the economy and contribute to the Treasury in the form of National Insurance and Corporation Tax. Since people are employed, it saves the Government the trouble of have to pay job seekers allowance, hence reducing its outflow.

So, it is perhaps job security and income security that will encourage the consumers to go out and spend, as Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown along with countless retailers are eagerly hoping, fingers crossed.

But it seems highly unlikely that the cut in VAT will have the intended purpose of instilling confidence among the consumers and going on a spending spree, but for the sake of the economy and the countless people who are unemployed, lets hope its not all in vain. The high earners are certainly hoping for it, since they are going to be paying for it, come 2011.

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Keynes way of kick starting the economy

Home Retail Group, the company that owns the DIY store Homebase and retailer Argos, reported a loss of £450 million in its half-year operating profit. The reason for this loss is attributed not only to consumers restricting their spending, but also the weakening of the Pound which means that it costs more to import products from other countries, add to that the increase in the cost of raw materials, production and transportation. Products that are seen as a luxury have seen their sales and consecutively their profits drop as consumers switch to cheaper value-for-money products. Budget stores, as a result, have seen their sales and profits increase rapidly, in cases like Poundland, even double.

However, a drop in sales at Argos, which is not exactly an upmarket store, should create a little more than just a flutter amongst businesses operating in similar sectors. This is because it suggests that not only have consumers changed their shopping habits and switched to cheaper stores, they have stopped spending altogether on items they deem unnecessary. There are concerns about unemployment as many are worried that they would lose their jobs. The utility bills and mortgage repayments are rising. All this creates an atmosphere of uncertainity and leaves people preferring to save any surplus rather than spend it as they did before.

According to John Maynard Keynes, a well-known British economist, who lived during the Great Depression of the 1930’s, the only way to give the economy a kick-start, is to spend and spend and spend. This is because a recession is caused by a fall in demand, not by the fall in supply. Demand has fell quite a lot recently because the credit that backed it no longer exists. Although Governments around the world have injected banks with capital, banks in turn have effectively turned off the tap of credit. Keynes believed that in the event of consumer spending decreasing, the Government should maintain or even increase its spending rather than cutting back. The people employed in the sectors where the Government spends its money would in turn spend their wages benefiting the local businesses who in turn spend and make investments and that gets the whole economy moving again. That way, a downward spiral of recession could be turned into an upward spiral of growth.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is adopting Keynes’s ideas. He said that the Government would increase its spending on large scale projects. In the long term, it means increasing the national debt as the Government has to borrow money to keep up its spending. So be it. Keynes said that Governments should think of the short term, because, as he put it, "in the long run we are all dead".

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Tesco's first half profit up 11%.

Supermarket giant Tesco today announced a 11% rise in its half-year pre-tax profits which rose to £1.44 billion from £1.29 billion last year with sales rising 13% to £25.6 billion. Like-for-like sales grew by about 7% which seems very good especially since consumers are cutting back on their spending and discount retailers like Aldi, Lidl, Netto, Iceland, Wilkinsons, etc. are attracting customers from large supermarkets.

It was reported earlier this month that Tesco's market share had decreased by 0.2% to 31.5%. However, it still has a much greater market share when compared to stores such as Aldi which has 2.9% market share which allows Tesco to benefit from economies of scale. This means it can buy its stock in relatively large numbers at lower cost which would normally allow it to increase its profit margin, but in the current financial situation, it allows Tesco to reduce its prices thereby attracting shoppers looking to reduce their grocery bills.
Tesco introduced a new discount range of about 400 products aptly named "Discount Range" with the aim to compete with discount stores and offer customers value for money. Tesco's chief executive Sir Terry Laehy claimed that sales of its discount range was rising faster than that of Aldi or Lidl.