The scales of......The Recession (Part 2)

So here's the follow up. Now we'll look to show you more local, individual company and personal UK based examples of the recession, starting with our local - Leicester.

The Local Scale
In the previous post we used an article relating to empty store space in the UK, so what better way to link into our local area of Leicester than look at the same issue in this fine city. 'One in seven shops in city centre empty' was an article released by the Leicester Mercury in May 2009. At the same time there has been huge investment in the old Shires shopping centre, now The High Cross which has brought more big name stores into the city. In the majority of cases the common pattern has been the closure of small independent stores coupled with the introduction or often expansion of larger chains. On this local scale, as well as the previous national scale you can observe small scale stores being lost while larger scale players are able to stave off the challenges of the recession far better. As such, scale appears to play a key role in succesful business in times of economic hardship.

The Individual Store
One independent store lost in Leicester's city centre however, was one store within the UK's largest independent entertainment retailers chain, Zavvi. This web based electrical entertainment retailer which bought out Virgin records high street store chain had 114 stores stores in the UK plus 11 in Ireland. However, 'The end of the road for Zavvi stores', came despite the scale of Zavvi's operation. Zavvi as a high street store is no more across the UK, now just maintaining its original web-based operation.

The Individual Person

So what could possibly be the individual example that can tie all this together I hear you cry? After a long search no obvious examples jumped out, then I had a think. I graduated with a lovely degree in Geography in the summer 2008 to be greeted by a job market in my home town of Cambridge saturated with brighter individuals than myself from the charming University and many people with better CV's due to the levels of lay offs across all sectors. I had an interview with the bank Northern Rock, but after my first interview the company suspended all hiring as the recession hit harder on them than most at the time. At this point I looked to the high street shops for short term work, but as the previous examples display why, this was not fruitful. So I did what any person my age would do faced with a lack of jobs, emptied my savings and left the country to travel around Eastern Europe.

Overview

So here we go..... there I was, unable to find work due to high street store closures, taking life savings away from the UK that had I spent at home may have aided UK stores such as Zavvi by buying DVD's and other things I don't need. Instead my money got spattered across Europe, as did many others from the UK in similar positions who I met along the way. Using planes, trains and automobiles (a title from an awesome film if you get the chance) I am fairly sure I upped my carbon footprint for the year which has Global implications as was discussed in part 1.

Hopefully we have displayed a useful personal insight with this example showing the varying scales and finally the interconnections between them all through my experience.

In the next case study we will look to show you some different aspects of scale in, The Scales of Disaster!

Olly