When taking into account that internal combustion engines vehicles sales will be banned in the UK by 2040, the question of what will the multimillion-dollar industry of fuel retail do, springs to mind. This case study examines the how the concept of service stations is changing to take advantage of new opportunities and build a business model that will survive the decrease in fuel retail.

Retail will experience significant change over the coming years. Some brands holding a large number of physical stores have struggled against the rise of pure online enterprises. Success for some has been found through creating highly adaptable business models.

A key area for major retailers is next-day delivery services, and these are likely to reform in response to rising discontent concerning employment regulations. Elsewhere technological advances are predicted to not only change how consumers shop but how the underlying business structure functions too. Retail companies are en...

Some major new trends are sweeping through the beverage industry and they are having a major impact on both manufacturers and consumers. For the soft drinks industry sugar has now become a dirty word and sugar taxes have forced companies to create new formulas and diversify away from carbonates as that segment begins to decline. For the enhanced water segment new opportunities are developing as consumers are moving towards bottled water and away from sugar and this means a great deal of innovation is happening with new enhanced water healthy ingredients. For the hot drinks industry conve...

Some major new trends are sweeping through the beverage industry and they are having a major impact on both manufacturers and consumers. For the soft drinks industry sugar has now become a dirty word and sugar taxes have forced companies to create new formulas and diversify away from carbonates as that segment begins to decline. For the enhanced water segment new opportunities are developing as consumers are moving towards bottled water and away from sugar and this means a great deal of innovation is happening with new enhanced water healthy ingredients. For the hot drinks industry conve...

Some major new trends are sweeping through the beverage industry and they are having a major impact on both manufacturers and consumers. For the soft drinks industry sugar has now become a dirty word and sugar taxes have forced companies to create new formulas and diversify away from carbonates as that segment begins to decline. For the enhanced water segment new opportunities are developing as consumers are moving towards bottled water and away from sugar and this means a great deal of innovation is happening with new enhanced water healthy ingredients. For the hot drinks industry conve...

Some major new trends are sweeping through the beverage industry and they are having a major impact on both manufacturers and consumers. For the soft drinks industry sugar has now become a dirty word and sugar taxes have forced companies to create new formulas and diversify away from carbonates as that segment begins to decline. For the enhanced water segment new opportunities are developing as consumers are moving towards bottled water and away from sugar and this means a great deal of innovation is happening with new enhanced water healthy ingredients. For the hot drinks industry conve...

The construction industry is experiencing change. Prefabrication, new technology, robotics, green buildings and consolidation are trends leading companies must stay ahead of in the near future to be prosperous.

Having been accused of being reticent to change, construction is now ripe for development. Leading companies will increasingly use technology to improve the efficiency of operations, enabling them to create more with the same resources.

Construction firms will also have to adapt to changing government policies which are geared towards sustainability. Trends are changin...

Power generation is experiencing a series of trends which will shape the market for decades to come. Coal is seemingly on a terminal decline, to be replaced by natural gas, and renewable energy is making substantial strides to become more commercially relevant.

Advances ensure new power sources are moving closer to becoming part of the mainstream, with problems such as using renewable energy on demand now being solved. Leading companies in power generation must stay ahead of the development curve in these areas – failure to do so will mean allowing rivals to gain crucial competitiv...

Heralded as the future of personalized transport, autonomous cars have caused much excitement among car companies, industry journalists and some segments of the public and government. Unquestionably major advances have been made but the future in which drivers are redundant remains some distance away.

Despite the expected wait, a lot is changing. China is maneuvering to become the leading global player, catching up to rivals in the US. New infrastructure is being discussed and the regulatory environment is undergoing significant reform. Yet doubts remain as to how soon any promises...

Over the past couple of decades China has become a leading story in the economic development of Africa. Through loans, grants and direct investment, Beijing has established a huge presence in countries which traditionally fall outside of major western interests. Yet for all the touted economic gains, problems have emerged; debt levels in some African states are alarmingly high.

However, some countries have done well out of China, playing a clever game of international diplomacy. China has benefited from a relative lack of attention given to Africa by western powers, but that is beg...

In the increasingly competitive world of retail, department stores are struggling. This case study takes a close look at the major trends which have transformed the landscape in which department stores operate, how this has ultimately led to their downfall and whether they will be able to bounce back in the future.

Very large organizations are usually shaped by the style of leadership imposed by the CEO. Structures and cultures vary according to the person at the very top of a company. Some CEOs thrive when working in one area of the economy but then fail in others, unable to adapt. Others, typically those leading a group of companies, have found success by concentrating on company culture, granting power to those lower in the hierarchy to take meaningful decisions.

Meanwhile, other CEOs run their businesses according to harsh financial reality - Mike Ashley being a well-known example - due t...

The trade war between the United States and China began as an attempt by US President Donald Trump to correct what he saw as an unbalanced trading relationship with the second largest economy in the world. However, retaliatory tariffs from China were meted out. Both countries to varying extents, and in different parts of their respective economies, are under pressure due to trade barriers.

Some economic benefits and problems can be attributed to tariffs. For the most part, however, the trade war has exacerbated existing trends. Beyond inflicting some hurt on another economy, the fu...

By 2019, the Pharmacy Benefit Management market is forecast to grow to $283bn. Acting as the ‘middle men’ of America’s healthcare system, PBMs process and coordinate the delivery of prescription drugs, and act as intermediaries between payers and other value chain constituents. It is one of the least regulated sectors of the health care system, lacking transparency, choice, and ripe with conflicts of interest.

It is known that PBMs actively engage in conduct that harms the American consumer. Yet, there is increasing pressure on the industry both from healthcare buyers and politicia...

HTC, a Taiwanese tech firm, was once a smartphone market leader after experiencing rapid growth internationally - yet its time at the top proved fleeting. The company experienced a precipitous decline in sales and quickly vanished from the imagination of many smartphone consumers. Now management are pinning hopes on a turnaround plan, though correcting fundamental problems of the business will not be easy.

HTC declined at speed thanks to poor marketing, a confusing product range, foreign competition, bad business decisions and other related factors. For a brief period, the smartpho...

For many years legal services was a market in which meaningful change was largely absent. Now that is changing. Advances in technology are driving reform in areas such as virtual law, smart contracts and artificial intelligence.

Big legal firms are most adaptable, having the most resources, but competition to utilize cutting-edge technology is intense. Even for the casual user of legal services, the future is going to look very different to the traditional model. However, other trends are less attractive. Fake lawyers remain a big problem and frequently target migrants and other vu...

The cannabis market has great potential for generating more profits for investors and companies in the future. The industry has grown massively following the legalization of recreational cannabis use in Canada, making the country the trading center for legal marijuana in the world. At the moment, there are not many companies involved with marijuana exclusively making the competition fierce, leading the industry to grow even bigger.

The three leading companies, Canopy, Aurora and Tilray, which are involved with marijuana exclusively, will lead the market to new levels; however, comp...

According to the UN, a megacity is a city which has exceeded 10m in population and the number of megacities is accelerating dramatically. In today’s world, megacities and their surrounding economic areas are so pivotal to the global economy that they are being seen more like the city states of old. Some megacities today have economic outputs far in advance of entire countries and their global influence as a result makes them more important in many respects. Increasingly these cities are run in an autonomous fashion with their own governing bodies and budgets and as a result some are expe...

Accounting has been marred by a wave of failures, and in the wake of this the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has conducted a review of the market. A range of proposals have been put forward to combat challenges within the industry, in which the four largest auditors dominate and multiple barriers to entry prevent challenger firms from gaining a foothold. Concurrently, accounting as a discipline looks less and less effective at accurately reflecting modern businesses, and the field looks ready for reform.

Key Highlights

- Provides an outline of a number of recent f...

Saudi Arabia has attempted to wean the economy of being heavily reliant on oil for a while. Previous iterations of economic reform have come and gone, yet there has been little progress to report.

Now, however, the Vision 2030 strategy (originally announced in 2016) is being enacted in what is an extremely ambitious attempt at not only creating a sizable non-oil based economy but shifting the country from being mainly public sector to private sector. Vast sums of money are being invested and big social changes are taking place. However, major problems must be overcome for success t...

Over the past decade the number of zombie companies – generally recognized as enterprises unable to pay interest on debts and being over 10 years old – has soared. Now they represent a serious problem to the global economy. A problem seemingly devoid of easy solutions, closing zombies and allowing more profitable and vibrant firms to fill the resultant gap demands widespread reform.

Traditionally associated with Chinese state-backed firms flushed with cheap credit and guaranteed contracts, the problem extends around the world and would be a serious danger in the event of another re...

Current estimates suggest that by 2050 the global population will reach 10bn. With so many mouths to feed, the task of producing more food with the limited resources that we have whilst simultaneously trying to reduce our carbon emissions to protect the environment and the crops we are trying to grow seems almost impossible. However, despite this uncertainty, there are some options and choices available to help deal with problem. These include reducing spoilage, protecting soil, increasing efficiency through technology, fairer distribution of resources, better education, protecting bio d...

Rare earth elements (REE) are now essential to produce a plethora of high-tech goods, from jet engine turbine blades to smartphones and sophisticated batteries contained in electric cars. Demand is soaring, and the need for companies and countries around the world to gain a suitable supply is shining a light on developments in the REE mining industry. China continues to dominate consumption and production of rare earth elements, but signs production is expanding outside of the leading Asian economy are growing in number. Yet this has helped to create a tense geopolitical global environme...

The economic decline of Venezuela ranks among the most severe in modern times, even when economies engaged in protracted warfare are considered. Failed economic policies caused hyperinflation, mass closure of businesses, soaring poverty and a plethora of other issues that have reduced the economic performance of the country drastically under the presidencies of Chavez and Maduro. The means by which Venezuela has been governed is primarily blame. Even as severe problems developed, policies such as price controls, heavy subsidization, and exceptionally large increases in minimum wage serve...

Despite a slowdown in economic growth in multiple markets, the global luxury goods market has remained in healthy growth in recent years. Chinese buyers are now one of the most important groups in the global luxury market, in fact the Asia Pacific region as a whole is the fastest growing market globally and will play an increasingly important role in the coming years. A number of brands have reported positive results in 2017-2018 and as a result of this there has been a period of significant merger and acquisition activity, with a number of high value deals taking place.

As a new g...

Unicorns are start-up companies, typically in the tech and finance space that have reached the advantageous position of over a $1bn market capitalization and remain in privately owned hands. These are effectively the cream of the crop of start-up opportunities and many have been serious disruptors in their traditional industries, rising rapidly to become very large businesses in what is often a short period of time.

Unicorns get a great deal of publicity not least because of their size, but also many are often preparing for stock market listing and trying to display the superiority...

The rising demand for flexible space or co-working space has emerged in recent years, sparking a revolution in the global commercial real estate market. An increasing number of global corporations and start-up companies are in pursuit of favorable working environments in order to attract the next generation of talented employees. WeWork is one company that is leading the flex-space revolution providing innovative working areas for corporations and desk and office spaces for small start-ups and free lancers. The company has expanded at a prolific rate, however in the past year encountered...

In recent years, moves by NASA to privatize aspects of its operations has sparked a new interest in space travel and new space opportunities for many businesses. The most clear of those opportunities has come from the private rocket industry as they snapped up NASA and commercial contracts to deliver equipment such as satellites into space. As NASA continues to commercialize its assets and refocus, it is becoming increasingly clear that there are many challenges and obstacles for companies that want to move into the new Space sector. The most important of all of them, from a business per...

The global chemical industry has for a long time suffered from being one of the most polluting industries. Now that is changing. Leading players are, for various reasons, seeking to improve sustainability across an industry that produces a vast range of products. Almost every saleable item at some point involves chemicals. Much change is being motivated by consumer demand and government regulation. Chemical manufacturers are having to adapt to the need to produce more substances but at a lower environmental cost and eradicate adverse health implications consumers may experience. Despite ...

Perhaps the most notable trend which has impacted the global containers and packaging market in recent years is sustainability. At present, consumers, manufacturers, retailers, advocacy groups and world governments are encouraging environmentally friendly packaging, which has had a huge impact on the dynamics of the market. Consumers are increasingly attentive to all aspects of the production process, from the sustainable sourcing of raw ingredients, through to the carbon footprint associated with production processes, and most importantly, the environmental credentials of a product'...

The inverted yield curve is feared by many investors in the world as many claim that is a signal that a recession in the economy will soon take place. On the other hand, many argue that is “false advertisement” as it is only indicating the movements of long-term bond yields against short-term bond yields. However, that as its own is a big indicator of something is happening in the economy. The inverted yield curve and the term spread, the different between long-term interest rates and short-term interest rates have been indicators of slowdowns in the US economy over 60 years now, and in ...

September 2019 saw Google pay $170m to settle a case with the Federal Trade Commission, after another revelation about the extent of its data-gathering. Such revelations have brought the programmatic marketing model behind the success of Google, Facebook and others under intense scrutiny, with regulatory pressure, heavy fines and consumer revolts. There are companies offering many of the same products and services as the so-called ‘tech giants’, but with different business models that emphasize data privacy. The ways in which these companies have monetized their services, and even become...