Rarely in business history have UK companies been as profitable as they are now. Figure 1 shows the dramatic improvement since the pre-recession quarter: autumn 2007. Yet a series of large companies have collapsed, and several other major ones are under severe financial and operational pressure, notably Marks and Spencer and Debenhams.
The reason is that the boundary between being competitive and uncompetitive is narrowing. Companies can be darlings one moment and dogs the next. The businesses that have collapsed, such as Maplin, struggled to stay competitive in tricky markets. Competitiveness must be won when opening a restaurant — and then fought for constantly.
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