Many businesses found that there is shortages of skills amongst adults that are moving from higher education into jobs because results show that 20% of the adult population lacks literacy and numeric skills. Many employees are looking for help with these skills when it comes to working on the tills and communicating to both supplier and customers. So now the employers have turned round to CBI (Confederation of British Industry) who are a collection of employees who meet with the government and discuss about issues, which affect the productivity in the UK businesses in order to stay competitive wit the rest of Europe. From this discussing the government has introduced a new learning scheme called Keyskills that helps student s with basic communication, I.T, numerical and literacy skills. This will affect William Hill positively if more students are trained these skills because they need to employ workers who are experienced communicators and exceptionally good with application of numbers. This not allows William hill to be more competitive due to skilled work force but it allows Britain to be competitive with Europe so workers can be employed form abroad and particularly important in employing Managers because they need to have obtained level 4 Keyskills whereas Cashiers mainly level 3.
A time series shows historical data that can be used and analysed to predict futures trends. The first step in analysing a time series is to isolate and define the underlying trend. Such as looking at trends which show that at Christmas these is a decline in spending in William Hill due to that time of season when money has to be spent on alternative luxury goods which means that William Hill don’t employ much staff during the course of this season due to a slump in sales and to maximise profits labour cost is cut but more promotion could be done to customers. This does cause the Labour Turnover to increase and absence also because no is being kept busy within the shop and motivation decreases also. Whereas during the summer time big races start to take place and more staff need to be employed to even cover night racing starting from April to cope with extra demand of customers and foreign racing especially in such a boom period. Both of these trends are seasonal trends so William Hill know they bound to happen because that is how customers and it is their job to cater to this need however this is subject to increase or decrease depending on the rate of inflation but during night racing more Cashier and Managers are employed to cope with increase of demand.
Extrapolating sales trend is useful due to it allowing analysing past events but the real key to business success is planning for the future. Extrapolation means basing a forecast of the future upon past trends. Market research is used by William Hill to collect data to find out about certain information concerning the Internet for example. Primary research is collection of information that applies to a specific purpose and for personal use that is why William Hill may have to conduct it themselves because it may not exist through various means such as surveying, observing and testing. William Hill use primary research to obtain information about people’s preferences because this would help know how they spend their money espials loyal cutovers who purchase over the net and or even purchase from home. William Hill could question them but these ways don’t always work because no matter how loyal customer may be taking time out to answer a few question is rather hard also it may appear to customers we a annoying them and this may lead to purchase from other rivals. Also if a e-mail is end that can be easily disposed of and it does not guarantee that they have even looked at the mail so its not really effective. Whereas secondary research is using existing published data and information. William Hill look at present sales figures to predict how the future sales will be by doing this will mane that they can compare sales figure form last year and predict what needs to be done now in order to meet that future demand. Also from the figures William hill can see how competitive they were in the previous years and see how they have improved or not but what can be improved to be competitive in their market. However if their sales fall then they have to make some swift unemployment such as less core workers who are not as competent and correspond with the person specification.
William Hill takes into account different aspects when thinking of employing labour. When William Hill do take on workers they also take into account minimum wage if not they have breached a major statue and will have to give monetary compensation to workers. Also more money is given to workers according to the Postcode of your LBO a bit a like London Weighting but this affect William Hill because more labour cost which are tax deductible and probably less bonuses to motivate workers especially managers for the hard work they put into their job. If don’t receive this they may decide to leave and this decreases retention and replacement is not so easy.
William Hill has to be aware of alternatives for Labour such as using technology (machine) to do the work. This in the short run be expensive process for business to set up but once done they will do the job quicker than humans which means William Hill will have more efficient and long run investment and will allow William Hill to benefit from economies of scales. But machinery to be maintained is a very long task and if one breaks down it is not easy to repair or substituted for a peripheral machine. Anyway due to the service that William Hill provides it is quite impossible to sack Cashiers and Mangers and replace them with robots because they cannot give customer satisfaction compared to humans such communication and a smile whereas machines connoted fulfil this role properly because they don’t correspond to the person specification.
Forecasting is prediction of future trends based on past information either from primary or secondary market research, which are vital to a business planning for the future. William Hill like to plan ahead because this allows them to know what will likely happen for instance if sales go down then some peripheral workers would be sacked such as Cashiers and even less Deputy Managers however at the end of the day it is a forecast which is a plan and there is no concrete evidence that will happen so their is no point trying to ration staff to work towards better profit for the future because external factors may have to be accounted for instead of planning a future which business like William Hill don’t have the eyes for i.e. consumer spending. This has currently decreased in the last coming months to Christmas and affected greatly many markets as well as post sales decline occurred.
I have made a forecast, which I believe reasonable for my branch because I shop is currently on Grade 3, which means we take on average 180,000 bets a year
From this I can tell that my William Hill branch at moment is doing very well as they have launched a new computerised games and also Ladbrokes which is 6 doors down has just closed down and therefore William Hill have greater consumers coming to our branch. However I feel this will not last because William Hill aim for the older populated sector and therefore excluding many potential customer who are young and decreasing their market span. Overall I feel that William Hill sales will increase with the right amount of publicity and innovative ideas from the younger generation to entice the same age group and to allow William Hill to gain first to the market advantage of attract new young middle and upper class customers. This decreases competition at first but soon rivals will have obtained William Hill’s idea but because they where there first then have obtained a loyal segment of the betting market to themselves. Also quality of the service could improve if not then my predictions will likely be wrong because Corals could move in straight away and decrease our sales and profit so inevitably workers will have to laid off or assets sold to enable the business to recoup.
William Hill have many opportunities open to them it is wise to invest in a good human resource because they are the hands of the company and make William Hill a success today. Maximising profit could be expanding but in other areas rather than West London because the pool of labour is not as attractive as William Hill want it to be due to very little are skilled to the extent that they should be by the government maybe if William Hill do operate and investment in technology they will come back to West London and employ because they seem very competent and competitive with Information Technology or if needed recruitment for Head Office then William Hill know the best place to come.
