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To What Extent Is Embracing Technological Change The Most Significant Factor In The Future Success Of UK Manufacturing Businesses

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To What Extent Is Embracing Technological Change The Most Significant Factor In The Future Success Of UK Manufacturing Businesses
To what extent is embracing technological change the most significant factor in the future success of UK manufacturing businesses? Justify your answer with reference to your own research and the item above. (40 marks)

Technology is the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry. It can be argued that skills and other factors are considerably more important than technological change, for the future success of UK manufacturing businesses. Yet I disagree, I view technological change to be the most significant. In this essay, I am going to talk about several companies in which technology is vital.

Firstly, within the Food sectors, technology is absolutely essential. This is due to the need to adapt, not only to changes in demand, but from a business perspective too. As in the food sector, technology allows for food manufacturers to lower costs, by having machinery doing menial tasks such as filling cans or producing such items such as Walkers Crisps. Walkers factory in Leicester is amongst the largest crisp production plants in the world, producing over 11 million bags of crisps per day and using 800 tons of potatoes. This process mostly uses machinery to cook, flavour and package the crisps, as humans would not be able to withstand the amount of work needed to fulfil the demand. Technology has allowed Walkers to move from hand-sliced and fried potatoes in the 1880s, to mass machinery production. This shows that technology has allowed them to produce new products, and with this change has provided investment allowing the business to further grow into a market leader. It is not only within the production of food stuffs that technology has changed businesses, but in selling the goods too, as Tesco and Asda, have also implemented technology into their processes. The large supermarkets use technology to implement processes such as lean production, which encompasses the “Just In Time” technique. Tesco's have been able to use this

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