Abstract
Choosing the type of business ownership that a particular organisation is going to be characterised by is an essential step towards starting a business. Unless every single factor is taken into account when locating the type of business ownership for a particular entrepreneurship, the latter is unlikely to thrive in the inimical environment of the global economy.
Of all types of business ownership that are especially popular in the 21st century, private limited companies and franchises deserve a specific mentioning. Though both have their pros and cons, the advantages that an Ltd. organisation has to offer seem to outweigh the ones of a franchise in terms of the control that the company leader has over the operational, financial and organisational processes within the firm, as well as the opportunities that the specified type of business provides.
The toilsome experience that the Rubber Road ltd. meant for its leaders encapsulates the risks and problems that one has to face once the type of business is chosen wrong. What could have worked once established as a franchise and promoted as such turned out a major mess once turned into an Ltd. with a much more complicated setup including a huge increase in formalities and less controllable organisational and production processes.
Introduction
With the concepts o f global economy having become ubiquitous over the past few years and affecting every single company from a SME to a large enterprise consistently, the choice of a type of business ownership has become more than merely a mode of operating within a particular environment.
While the conditions for organisations to evolve in have become admittedly more pliable once the area of companies’ operations was stretched to global levels, the factors that might possibly become the reason for a company’s rapid detriment have also been enhanced; among the key problems that most organisations face nowadays in the realm of global economy, high competition rates and rather terse deadlines for completing the key goals of the action plan established.
As a result, the success of an entrepreneurship often hinges on the type of the business chosen, i.e., the set of liabilities that the organisation accepts, the structure, in accordance with which the company is going to be built, and the assets, which the company wants to utilise in the specified realm.
Though private limited companies (Ltd.) and franchises are often viewed as similar concepts and admittedly have a lot in common, each type still has a set of unique advantages and disadvantages, which makes the choice between the two in the realm of the UK market rather difficult.
Rubber Road, Ltd.: A Brief History and Official Record
History
Though being a comparatively new entrant in the gaming industry market and having a rather impressive potential, Rubber Road, Ltd. has been a major flop so far. The company was founded in 2012 by Ben Grant and Matt Precious, who used to take the executive’s chair in GAME. The organisation is located in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, UK and has been attempting at gaining the position of a mother company to numerous companies in the industry.
Inspired by The Beatles’ two famous albums, Rubber soul and Abbey road, the title of the company has failed to become a household name, yet its founders expect their profits to rise exponentially, as the company not only offers support to the existing games related companies, but also investigate the existing pricing options for their clients, engage in applications development, have developed an interface for watching movies online (Nutskull), and have a unique nomenclature of new and used products to offer their customers (‘Other business’ 2014).
SWOT
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the efficacy of each type of entrepreneurship, as well as assess their viability in the realm of the 21st-century, based on the example of a particular Ltd. company. In addition, the opportunities for both a private limited company and a franchise will be evaluated as applied to the economic and financial environment of the United Kingdom.
There is no need to stress that the success of running a company depends on a variety of factors, including both the internal ones (e.g., the type of business organisation) and the external ones (e.g., the economic climate of a country, the type of market that the company enters in, the amount of competitors, etc.). Therefore, it will be crucial to incorporate the key features of the UK economy into the analysis.
According to the existing data, there are a range of factors that can be viewed as rather favourable for the evolution of SMEs and larger entrepreneurships in the country. Particularly, the growth of the GDP rates (British Chambers of Commerce 2014) must be mentioned (2.5% from 2013 to 2014). In addition, the average number of hours per worker has increased, which, along with reductions of unemployment rates, can be viewed as an upgrade of the state economy (Cohen & Kietzman 2014).
Therefore, the economic environment of Great Britain can be viewed as overall auspicious for the development of a private business. However, the specified characteristics of the British economy may become a major obstacle in promoting an organisation in the environment of the global market and an enhanced competition.
The insouciance of a company that has been accustomed to a relatively calm and nonthreatening world of the British economy may reduce the company’s chances for success in a more challenging environment (Bretani et al. 2010).
Scope
When it comes to defining the scope of the report, one must mention that the focus is going to be on the companies that are identified as the British ones, yet the analysis of their operations is going to be taken to the level of the global economy. In other words, the necessity to evaluate and compare the efficacy of the specified types of businesses emerges.
In order to create the environment that is auspicious to the evolution of a company, one will have to encompass not only the effects of the global factors, but also the impact of the country specific ones, British in the case in point. Hence, the necessity to carry out a vast analysis emerges.
As recent researches show, the British environment incorporates a range of unique features that may either vivify the operational and production processes within an organisation, or to put it to a complete halt, reducing the chances for the specified company to ever succeed (Ladiges 2013).
Indeed, while the British market provides an entrepreneur with enough freedom in their choice of the proper environment for enhancing the performance of their organisations, a large amount of risks that incorporates makes the process of performance enhancing rather toilsome for a range of efficient companies, and nearly impossible for those, whose design is flawed.
Analysis
First and foremost, one must mention that the British market represents a mixed economy, i.e., the one, in which the coexistence of different types of entrepreneurships is possible (Hodgson & Zaborsky 2002). Therefore, the competition rates are most likely to be quite high for the companies belonging to most industries.
In the specified environment, both a private limited company and a franchise stumble upon a range of obstacles on their way to success and at the same time have a plethora of opportunities to explore in the realm of the British market. The same, in fact, can be said about their performance in the global market; however, it should be born in mind that the choice of the organisation type also depends heavily on the assets of the firm in question, as well as the capabilities of its leader.
The company viewed below is a rather sad yet very graphic example of what may occur once priorities are not set straight in a private limited company and the key requirements imposed on the founders by the format chosen are not met. As a concept, Rubber Road, Ltd. was a perfectly viable venture; more to the point, it could have been turned into an incredibly successful project because of the transfer of gaming into the online territory and, therefore, the increase in the opportunities for attracting a larger amount of customers. Grant and Precious, the company’s co-founders, however, preferred the private limited company design to that one of a franchise, therefore, reducing the chances for the organisation to become successful drastically.
Key features of a private limited company
As it has been stressed above, there is a major gap between a franchise and a private limited company, even though the two traditionally belong to the same realm of private entrepreneurship. However, a closer look at the specifics of a private limited company will reveal that, in fact, the latter has little to nothing to do with a franchise outside of being a company structure.
Indeed, the Ltd. organisation is traditionally characterised by the unlimited number of owners. The latter, in fact, are not called as such – traditionally, the people at the helm of an Ltd. organisation are called shareholders. In addition, from a legal perspective, the company exists outside of the influence of its owners and is recognised as a separate legal object.
Seeing that the organisation of the specified type can have more than one leader, it is controlled by a Board of Directors. As far as the management processes and the supervision of the company’s processes are concerned, though, the managing director is traditionally assigned with the task of controlling the specified processes, thus, facilitating the quality of the product.
The last, but definitely not the least, the fact that a private limited company is legally governed by the Memorandum of Association and the Articles of Association deserves to be mentioned (Riswan et al. 2014). The former is usually defined as the document that is signed by the co-creators of the organisation (subscribers) and is basically a statement of agreement made by the people in question to form an Ltd. The latter, in their turn, incorporate the rules and regulations, in accordance with which the company will be governed.
Key features of a franchise
A franchise, on the contrary, can be viewed as the organisation that pays an extremely close attention to its “exterior” and, therefore, puts a major emphasis on the promotional part of its marketing process. For instance, it is typical of a franchise to have a project in development, which has a brand name and is going to represent the organisation in question in the global market.
In fact, the specified brand name traditionally is not restricted to a specific product and extends to a range of accessories and the goods that are somewhat related to the brand product in question. In addition to the marketing issues, a franchise has very distinct rules about the number of people that can be in charge of it.
While in most organisations, the number of leaders at the helm of a company is not limited, for a franchise, the amount of characters controlling the business is not supposed to exceed two. It could be argued, though, that the specified number presupposes that specific people or groups of people should play the part of the franchisee (Capelli & Harmoni 2008) and the franchiser within a particular organisation, whereas the actual number of the people that partake in governing the firm may remain abstract (Moran-Goodrich 2014).
Finally, a franchise can be characterised by a relatively simple manner of navigating the company’s business and especially financing processes. Traditionally, investors consider the aforementioned characteristics coupled with the fact that the organisation already has a brand name to promote to the target audience as a huge advantage, whereas the lack thereof is traditionally considered a potential detriment; as a result, the preference is usually given to the organisation that already has its priorities in line (Gordon 2014).
The last, but definitely not the least, the fact that a franchise traditionally takes an already existing business and operates under its name deserves to be mentioned. In other words, the product must become poplar before an organisation is formed. Though this characteristic is far from necessary, it still constitutes a major part of a franchise.
A franchise, therefore, can be interpreted as a company that becomes preeminent by putting its all stakes on a specific brand and sells a range of versatile products under the specified name. While this strategy does allow for gaining an impressively huge amount of money within a relatively short amount of time, it does put a pressure on the company in terms of the production quality and the quality of customer service; once either of the two fails, the negative impression will be immediately spread to the entire brand, enveloping every single product and, therefore, jeopardising the success of the entire organisation.
Similarities
Though the two concepts in question may seem entirely different, a closer look at them will help reveal a specific and very strong synapse between them. For instance, both franchises and private limited companies presuppose that the liabilities pertaining to the ownership of the organisation in question should be split among several partners and should not be given to a single leader.
While seemingly restrictive, these similarities give reasons for adumbrating on the enhancement of security that the specified types of entrepreneurship provide. Indeed, handling a large amount of liabilities requires that special attention should be paid to the development of the security system that a company is going to operate in.
As a result, the need to choose an appropriate insurance strategy emerges and is quenched with the choice of such approaches as the products liability insurance, personal liability insurance, etc. (Rejda & McNamara 2014, p. 28), in order to manage the related risks.
In fact, the idea of security as the basis for a private limited company is so strong that the latter is often confused for an insurance policy (Zachary et al. 2011). The franchise form of entrepreneurship can be characterised by the same aptitude for addressing the liability issues by reducing the risks within the organisation, particularly, the area of security and finance.
While the specified feature is one of the few that the specified types of ownership share, it, in fact, allows for pre-empting and, therefore, preventing a variety of financial conflicts, thus, creating premises for safe and secure entrepreneurship. The nature of the security in both entrepreneurship types is, thus, similar in each case (Spandorf et al. 2014).
Differences: where the concepts of an Ltd. and a franchise do not cross
One must bear in mind, though, that, despite the above-mentioned similarities, there is a rather big gap between the two types of entrepreneurship. On a larger scale, the discrepancies between the two types of companies can be viewed as the difference between a franchise and a partnership (Mohammed 2013).
Indeed, apart from the enhanced security, the two types of organisational structure have very few common elements. Unlike an Ltd., a franchise has a limited number of stakeholders; to be more specific, the amount of key stakeholders can be reduced to two key people, i.e., the franchisor (the person owning the name of the company or a specific brand produced by it) and the franchisee.
The specified difference can be traced down in the example considered above; failing to come up with an authentic and marketable product that could have a memorable brand name, the Rubber Road, Ltd. has to choose a private limited company design for its daily operations.
Allegedly, by developing a concept that could allow the organisation promote itself to the target audience, i.e., a specific brand, such as a new tool for testing gaming sounds (Appey Studios), production of officially licensed games and the related goods (Yellow Dog), etc. While the organisation has a range of brand names that are associated with a variety of services, and rather good ones at that, none of them has been marketed efficiently enough to have been finally cemented in people’s memory.
It seems that the specified failure can be viewed is a fault of the type of entrepreneurship chosen by the company leaders. Indeed, by picking a franchise as the means to promote their services, the leaders of the organisation would have made their products easily recognisable.
Advantages and disadvantages of a private limited company
Like any other form of business organisation, a private limited company has its advantages and drawbacks. Though the owners of the Rubber Road, Ltd. are being reasonably reticent about the issues that they have had to deal with over the course of managing a British Ltd. in the global environment, it is obvious that they have stumbled upon a few major issues that could have been detected at the very start if they had given their idea a second thought.
First and most obvious, by choosing the business design in question, the leaders have committed to complying with all the legal formalities related to the specified type, these formalities being quite numerous and rather excruciating. The complexities that one has to go through in order to set up an Ltd. company are rather tedious and traditionally include signing the Memorandum of Association, the articles of association, arranging the issues related to the Corporation Tax, defining shares and shareholders, appointing the company directors and secretaries, as well as distributing responsibilities among them, etc. (Burr 2012).
As a result, the choice of a private limited company as a business design might seem somewhat flawed a solution. In addition, much like a franchise, the Ltd. does not presuppose that its owner should be in possession of the entire control of the company; instead, a private limited company offers a greater amount of liberty in terms of the corporate governance (Lamoreaux 2009).
To be more specific, the solution to one of the key problems that the Running Road has encountered recently hinges on the delegation of power and proper distribution of roles and responsibilities within the company. However, it would be wrong to deny a private limited company some of its positive characteristics merely because it proved inefficient for the Running Road Company.
For instance, an Ltd. company allows for a more efficient use of the financial assets that are at the disposal of the company’s leader. Indeed, unlike a franchise, in which the leader’s control of the financial resources can be described as evanescent, whereas with a private limited company, the leader is perfectly capable of being at the helm of most financial transactions carried out by the organisation in question, as well as the allocation of the corresponding financial resources to the designated departments.
The Rubber Road’s major problem concerned not the unavailability of the monetary resources, but a complete lack of understanding how to distribute them efficiently (Beurskens & Noack 2011). Moreover, a private limited company traditionally presupposes that the extent, to which the leader of the company is liable, is reduced slightly. As a result, the threat of incurring major losses is also brought down a few notches.
The reason for the specified characteristics not to work with the Rubber Road Company, though, is that its leaders obviously lacked both care and understanding of the proper measures for promoting safety within an organisation. For instance, the insurance principle, which the organisation’s financial policies align with, is beyond fatuous – judging by the balance sheet that the company made public in 2014, the company owes around 72,000 GBP to the insurance company (‘Rubber Road Ltd. annual accounts’ 2013).
It seems that the Rubber Road, Ltd. should reconsider the idea at the basis of its insurance policy and limit the latter to liability and causality insurance types (‘Rubber Road Ltd. annual accounts’ 2013). As a result, it will become possible for the organisation to save on the costs that are traditionally spared for the insurance related purposes, at the same time maintaining the level of security high.
Advantages and disadvantages of a franchise
The possibility for creating a brand name and, therefore, becoming the household names for the target audience is definitely the greatest asset of a franchise company design. A closer look at the Running Road, Ltd. will reveal that the lack of a recognisable image is one of the company’s greatest weaknesses.
Certainly, the company did have its problems from the very start, but it could have been rejuvenated with the introduction of a powerful brand into the range of services suggested by the organisation to its clients. After all, created in the environment that can be viewed as rather harsh in terms of rivalry, financing and other economic challenges, as well as supported by a set of strong corporate values that they are based on, British organisations are mostly resilient to the intermittent conditions of the global market (Hawkins 2012).
Another nonetheless essential point in the characteristics of a franchise, the premises for a rapid and consistent growth deserve to be mentioned among the key reasons why it would have been a better choice for the case in point. While admittedly providing fewer options and less safety for an organisation in terms of financial strategy in general and the insurance issues in particular (Carlson 2008), the specified scenario for a company’s development is much viable as a pattern for a British company to operate within the realm of the global economy.
If the company leaders had adopted the company design known as franchise they would have been able to split some of the liabilities with their partners, which would have allowed them to adopt a more flexible financial policy (Bueno 2011).
Grant and Precious could have avoided the imminent economic regression of their company if they had taken into account the fact concerning the chance for a possible upgrade in the company’s reputation that could ensue from creating a partnership with a precarious franchisee. Seeing that at present, their situation is viewed as dreary, the Rubber Road could use some financial support from a wealthy franchiser in order to attract more customers with splendid promotion campaign.
However, it should be noted that the adoption of the franchise structure does not mean that an immediate triumph should ensue (Maureen & Ropen 2011). The last and by far the most dreaded consequence of creating a franchise with an untrustworthy partner, the threat of losing control and allowing an avaricious co-owner to be at the helm of the company is clearly a major disadvantage of a franchise as a concept.
Speaking of the Rubber Road, this is a serious argument against using the specified design in the arrangement of their business, as their organisation has already incurred major losses and does need any other risks that could put it beyond the bankruptcy threshold (Kavaliauskė & Vaiginienė 2011).
Results and Their Discussion
The analysis carried out above shows that the choice of a company type, especially for the organisation that evolved in a naturally sustainable environment of the British economy and was then encouraged for developing in the realm of the global economy, depends heavily on the assets of an organisation in question.
Relying on a stroke of luck and assuming that each type of entrepreneurship listed above can be suitable for setting a company in the environment of global economy is not only unreasonable, but also fraught with serious consequences, down to the destruction of a company and its further elimination from the market (Aliouche & Schlentrich 2011).
One must not consider one of the types of entrepreneurship described above as superior to another one; instead, they should be viewed as the alternatives that can be adopted on par with other entrepreneurship designs and that can be chosen based on the specifics of the company in question. A close observation of the performance that the Running Road, Ltd. Company has been delivering over the past year has shown that the frameworks in question are not the end in itself and should be chosen based on the assets of a specific company.
An analysis of the characteristics of a private limited company and a franchise has proven that the approaches making the basis for each of the strategies are founded on entirely different principles (the separate existence from owners in the former case and the emphasis on promotion and branding in the latter one) (Hsu 2013).
Retrieving the information concerning the principles of a private limited company framework from an obviously belying source, the owners of the Running Road entrepreneurship have failed to understand that they have chosen the wrong framework and, as a result, failed to attain success in the first year of the company’s operation. The case in point, thus, is a graphic example of confusing the similar concepts of a private limited company and a franchise (Santos & Caetano 2014).
When a private limited company type should be chosen
A brief analysis of the issue has shown that the specified design of an entrepreneurship should be used for managing the organisation that is owned by several (more than two) legal persons. As a result, the aforementioned complex concept of organisation existence as a separate entity can be facilitated.
A framework that is far more complex than a franchise, a private limited company can be viewed as an option in case the company in question has been in the home market long enough to have developed certain resilience to the hostile environment of global competition and is governed by several legal persons.
As a result, the premises for expansion are created with the help of a laissez-faire leadership approach and a rather loose set of principles that a company is governed by (Roger 2013). A private limited company, therefore, should be chosen only in case the founder of the organisation is supported by at least fifty other people, who are capable of joining the former in the process of managing the company.
As a result, a specific continuity is created, with each member of the board of directors contributing to the economic, financial and communicational choices made for the evolution of the company. In other words, the limited liability of each of the participants is what holds the value of the entrepreneurship for each of the latter.
Franchise as a successful start of a private business
A franchise, in its turn, can be considered one of the safest ways for a promising and innovative project started in the United Kingdom to become popular worldwide and attract new crowd (Stern 2012). Despite the fact that entrepreneurship often needs to have a specific set of limitations for marking the boundaries of its creative opportunities and operational possibilities, it is the lack of limitations and the chance for indulging in creative liberties that a new entry into the global market needs to attain success.
Thus, it is the franchise that helps locate the watershed moment of a company recognising the upper limit of its creative potential and promotes the feature that will later on become the company’s hallmark among the potential customers (Hui-Heng 2010).
In hindsight, Ben Grant and Matt Precious should have chosen a franchise as the type of their gaming entrepreneurship. To the credit of the very concept of a private limited company, it does provide a range of opportunities for an organisation that is going to enter the global market; however, it only works for the organisation that is entirely secure in terms of the restrictions that the specified entrepreneurial framework imposes on them.
While admittedly more secure, it is also more rigid and does not allow for as much flexibility as a franchise does; more to the point, the possibilities for promotion drop considerably for the organisation that has chosen an Ltd. design. Herein the major failure of the running Road, Ltd. lies; the company’s assets. i.e., the capability of generate potentially trendy products, was not taken into account when choosing the company design (Massey & Rustin 2014).
As a result, what seemed to be a promising and invigorating idea in the gaming industry turned out to be a jejune concept that had worn out its welcome even before it was introduced to the target market.
Conclusion: Business Ownership in the United Kingdom
As an overview of the current situation concerning the Running Road and the adoption of franchise/private limited company design in Great Britain for entering the global market in general, one must admit that business ownership in Great Britain faces very few obstacles, which inhibits its further promotion into the global economy.
This is especially true for the organisations, which have decided to put a stronger emphasis on the leadership issues and the distribution of roles and responsibilities within a company rather than on the promotion of their goods and services to the new target demographics within an entirely alien economic environment.
It is not that the former actions are unnecessary – quite on the contrary, defining the structure of a company is an indispensable element of managing an entrepreneurship. However, addressing the outside factors is an essential requirement for an organisation to succeed.
Recommendations
As hard as it is to admit the ultimate failure of the Rubber Road, Ltd. to become the household name for the very phenomenon of online gaming, the organisation obviously needs to start anew. Because of incredibly high competition rates within the realm of global economy, it is essential for an organisation to be moulded as a franchise and put the stake on a certain brand product that will later on be associated with the firm.
Thus, as far as the recommendations for the Rubber Road, Inc. are concerned, one may suggest a complete renovation of the company’s orientation, including the goals, the number of partners, the distribution of roles and liabilities, etc., as well as the shift in the emphasis regarding the production process.
Once the Running Road, Ltd. focuses on a certain product and turn it into a brand with a series of advertisements promoting it to the target customers, it will be possible to expect certain success. One could argue, however, that a change in the design of the company may not be required, after all; instead, major changes should be made in the arrangement of the production, promotion and communication processes in the Running Road, Ltd. Indeed, the firm might possibly work as a private limited company as long as Grant and Precious set their priorities straight and focus on developing a proper security system for the company to rely on.
By identifying the proper insurance methods, locating the most affordable security upgrades and creating the environment for fast information exchange, Grant and precious might retain the initial design of the company and benefit from it.
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