Essay on Graduate Employability Prospects and UK SMEs in Business

This essay delves into two key areas: graduate employability and the impact of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) on the UK economy. The first section examines the essential skills graduates need to succeed in the job market, emphasizing communication, critical thinking, decision-making, and adaptability. It highlights how these skills are crucial for initial employment and career progression. The second section focuses on SMEs, their significant contribution to the UK economy, and the challenges they face, including global expansion, lack of resources, and the impact of external factors like regulations and finance. The essay also touches upon government support for SMEs and the importance of market analysis for sustainable business operations, concluding with the importance of these two topics in the business world.

Essay - Understanding Business

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.......................................................................................................................................3
Essay Title 1: Graduate employability prospects.............................................................................3
Essay Title 2: Impact of the external world on business decision making - SMEs.........................4
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
This report contains two sections firslty explaining employability prospects of individual
and secondly the SME and their impact on the economy of UK. The employability of graduate
students requires them to possess some different skills in order to stand out in the market and
selected in the organisation. SME means the business operating at small scale, SMEs have been
very important for the UK economy and the government there are very supportive toward them.
(DaSilva, 2018.)
MAIN BODY
Essay Title 1: Graduate employability prospects
Employability means that a person which is attributed to gain and maintain the employment,
the term employability is being related to the work environment which includes the ability of
gaining the employment for the first time. Gaining the employment for the first time helps the
individual in their key competencies, they will know about their career which they need to focus on
meaning in which field they are interested to work and see their future. (DaSilva, 2018.)Hence, they
will understand the working environment embedded in different organisation they are planning to
go in to. Employability also includes the ability of an individual to maintain their employment
status and make some transition between different jobs in order to explore their potential and gain
new knowledge. The concept of employability helps in obtaining new employment opportunities
which will help the individual in their long term growth. Employability continues to develop once
the individual has completed their graduation and then started to work. Employability skills are
general skills that are necessary for success in the labour market at all employment levels and in all
sectors.
For gaining employment the individual must have some key employability skills in order to stand
out in the market. As the employers have so many options available for them they need to make
sure that they get the best available, therefore in order to gain employment an individual should
have skills like good communication skills, critical thinking capabilities, he or she must be able to
solve any problems they face, and some managerial skills if the job requires so. This list of skills
may seem to be daunting but the individual must have faced this problem for a variety of time in
their life and they have dealt with. So the individual must use their experience to get in to the
corporate world and progress in the area of interest. One of the most important area to focus upon is

that one must have very good communication skill irrespective of any work environment they are
planning to work in as this is a very important personal attribute and initially the employer will
judge the individual upon these attributes because if the person cannot even communicate properly
then their first impression will be very disappointing. Also, with communication listening is
important too because if the individual do not listen to the instructions then they will mess up their
work.(Boyle and Kelly, 2016) Another important attribute that the individual must have is they must
have the ability to make decisions, although this is not very common in every individual but they
must at least have some decision making capabilities.
For developing these personal attributes and skills the individual can practice, the communication
skills will keep on increasing, the individual must think before they speak as this will increase the
chances of processing the information that they have received and then answer accordingly. With
the help of good communication the individual will have a good impression on the employer which
will increase the chances of getting the employment. The decision making skills can be gained and
improved by taking the daily life decision, the individual must not be dependent upon another
person for making decision in there life. If the individual is able to make the common decision then
they can improve there decision making ability. The employer will prefer them if they have these
quality over the other people. Being able to make informed and logical decisions and to be able to
apply decisions effectively at a group and personal level will be very effective in gaining good
employment opportunities. These skills will not only help the individual with one employment they
will help them in the future employments too as every employer wants these basic skills so
wherever the individual go these skills will help them in making a good impression on them. Other
skills that the individual should also try to gain is the general awareness about the working
environment, numeracy skill, good interpersonal skills like they should have an excellent personal
appearance, self confidence etc. so that they can be confident enough to work.(Basole 2015 )
Essay Title 2: Impact of the external world on business decision making - SMEs
Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are those organisations which falls below some limits.
A SME is a company whose revenue is less than €50 million and they employ less than 250
employees in the organisation and there gross asset is less than €12.5 million. If any of these criteria
is satisfied than a company is classified as a SME. SME has a great contribution to the economy of
United Kingdom as the SME employs a very large number of people living in United Kingdom. The
report of the department of Business Innovation and skills shows that around 99.3% of the United
Kingdom private sector companies were SMEs and they accounted a turnover of arounf €1.6 trillion
which shows more than 45% of the private sector turnover. The government of United Kingdom are
supporting the SMEs by forming a variety of initiatives for them like providing subsides in order to

support them, providing loan at cheap rates to start the business etc. with the help of these the SME
are growing at a fast rate in the United Kingdom.
Despite all these, SMEs are facing challenges in going global as setting up a business and then
going global requires a large amount of investment and risk as if the company fails than they might
have to liquidate and shut their business down.(Badgett, 2016.) SME have lack of experience and
knowledge in the area of their work, they do not know each and every thing which the other global
player already know giving them an advantage over these SMEs. These include like the global rules
and regulation, like if a SME is operating in the United Kingdom and they wanted to diversify their
business in Australia then they will have to gain knowledge about the laws and regulation of that
country too so that they do not face any problems operating there, but to do this the company need
to invest and take a lot of risk before and not all the owners of the SMEs are ready to do so. Also,
these rules and regulations keeps on changing which require the SMEs to be keep updated with the
current knowledge of them and they do not have much of the resources to manage there business
nationally as well as internationally as other MNCs. Other challenge which SMEs faces is that they
do not have enough resources like proper finance to operate internationally and the expert human
resources which will take the business to the global level. The company need to pay the additional
tariffs and the export fees to supply their product to other countries. (Lambe, 2015)
The UK SMEs accounts for numerous company operating in the private sectors so the government
must support them to make sure that they operate efficiently. They should be provided with the
source which they can use to expand there business internationally. Finance should me made
available at cheap rates of interest so that they can use these funds in order to operate and pay the
export fees, duties, hire the right human resource required to get the things done. SMEs should
themselves evaluate their business environment by using tools like SWOT analysis PESTLE
analysis so that they get an idea about the feasibility of the market. This will save a large amount of
cost to the SMEs as they will not diversify their operation if the markets are not feasible. If the
company do not analyse the market then they will have to face the long term implications. (Storey,
2016)
CONCLUSION
From this report we have come to a conclusion about the employability and the SMEs of the United
Kingdom. This report includes two different essays firstly on the graduate employability prospects
and the next is on the Impact of the external world on SMEs business decision making. The
employability prospects says that the employees must have some skills which increases their
chances of selection. The next Section shows that SME's are very important for UK economy and
the challenges which are being faced by them.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Badgett, K., 2016. School-Business Partnerships: Understanding Business Perspectives. School
Community Journal, 26(2), pp.83-105.
Basole, R.C., and et.al., 2015. Understanding business ecosystem dynamics: A data-driven
approach. ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (TMIS), 6(2), p.6.
Boyle, R. and Kelly, L.W., 2016. The television entrepreneurs: social change and public
understanding of business. Routledge.
DaSilva, C.M., 2018. Understanding business model innovation from a practitioner perspective.
Journal of business models, 6(2), pp.19-24.
Graw, S., and et.al., 2019. Understanding business law. LexisNexis Butterworths.
Lambe, C.J., 2015. Qualitative Research Acumen as a Core Resource for Understanding Business
Markets. Always Ahead im Marketing: Offensiv, digital, strategisch, p.377.
Storey, D.J., 2016. Understanding the small business sector. Routledge.