THE COMMERCIAL YEAR 2016-17
What lies ahead? Let’s conclude this round-up by focusing on the legal profession itself, which is also facing challenges presented by both technological progress and changing client demands in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. For one commercial solicitor we spoke to, the next few years will be defined by those commercial challenges, but also the opportunities that they offer: “Historically solicitors’ firms have been slow to modernise and there is a real threat to our market share posed by new entrants to the market. We have to be more outward facing and ask ourselves more challenging and probing questions about the ways in which our clients want us to deliver services. Improvements in technology year on year mean that we can find efficiencies – we need to get the pricing right. We are not the best at communicating why we charge the fees that we do. New entrants to the market who can provide certain services in a way that outwardly appears to be better are causing us significant challenges. Those challenges are good – they keep us sharp and reinforce that we must always modernise.” Continued change is guaranteed in the next few years – potentially at a faster rate than has ever been seen before. But now that you are armed with a sense of what is happening in several key sectors, you should be in a good position to analyse and learn from the developments of the next 12 months. Until next time!
Apple and Nokia have buried the hatchet in their long-running patent row over smartphone technology. The companies have now agreed to cooperate, with Apple paying to use the technology and stocking Nokia’s digital health products in its retail stores. Elsewhere, one of the flotations of the year was that of mobile app Snapchat, whose share prices leaped 40% when it debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in March, making it worth more than £24 billion. Aviation In June regional airline Flybe hit turbulence, running up nearly £20 million in losses after previous expansion plans proved too ambitious. The airline’s costly mistakes included running too many loss-making routes and a series of failed joint ventures. In response, Flybe said that it would start to reduce the size of its fleet after it saw slowing growth in consumer demand. However, it insisted that the current year was going well and that efforts to turn a profit again were well underway. British Airways has decided to outsource its call centres to Capita after a disastrous IT meltdown in May, which stranded 75,000 passengers and resulted in severe criticism for the airline’s beleaguered customer services. The latest move suggests that BA bosses are trying to kill two birds with one stone, continuing their cost-cutting plans and abrogating themselves of responsibility for a function at which the company does not appear to excel.
and thus benefit from the associated rights and protections. It is clear that employment law has thus far failed to keep pace and adapt to modern trends and working methods brought about by rapid advances in technology. There will no doubt be further employment tribunal cases in the year ahead and there is potential for new legislation in the area stemming from the Taylor Review. The only thing that seems certain for the gig economy is that further developments are on the way. breaking fine of more than €2.4 billion from the European Union over alleged abuse of its market dominance. European regulators said that by artificially and illegally promoting its own price comparison service in searches, Google denied both its consumers real choice and rival firms the ability to compete on a level playing field. While Google licks its wounds, Tech It has been a mixed year for tech companies. The most pre-eminent of them all, Google, received a record-
By Josh Richman
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