With the Bundesliga in Germany being the first of Europe’s top leagues to return since COVID-19 begun. Credit should be given to the German government and the measures they have taken in order to minimize their deaths and infection rate of coronavirus. Usually, these games would be played in front of thousands and thousands of fans, however, the stadium was eerily quiet. Football without fans will allow some teams to shine and others to head for the relegation zone. Supporters are a drive for all team members to do better this is why football is so unpredictable. Fans are to change the mentality over team meaning that the underdog can win. Borussia Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke mentioned “It’s a bit surreal” none of what has been introduced is normal for anyone. We are all going to have to adapted to the new measures put in place, but football is unlikely to be the same again.

Considerations are being made to cut salaries for football players across the world. Clubs are now making a lot less money (the premier league is expected to make a loss of £1 billion if the season cannot be completed) many players agreed to take pay cuts, although this decision may continue to stay for the foreseeable future. The majority of a club’s expenditure each year is the players wages. And in order to make a profits clubs may need to reconsider where their priorities lie. Still, even when all football’s top leagues where in full operation many clubs still weren’t able to make a profit due to their high expenditure.

As we all know coronavirus is prevalent throughout the world at the moment but the UK economy seems to be one that is greatly affected by this pandemic compared to most. We currently have the most deaths in Europe and the second most in the world! However, is there light at the end of this dark tunnel? The pandemic is likely to cause a recession in the UK. And this could be one of the largest percentage decreases in growth since the credit crunch. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) predicts that this lockdown could cause a 15% to 25% decrease in GDP depending on the length of the lockdown. The financial crisis and total fall over the credit crunch is not comparable with the forecast for the 2nd quarter which runs from April to June. This fall in GDP would be even bigger than the slump of 1921 and the declining growth would be far steeper than anything seen in the Great Depression. Unemployment is likely to increase by double from 1.5 million to 3 million in 2020, however the National Institute of Economics and Social Research predicts that the country will have a raise by another 800,000 in early 2021.

Although a recovery is due and come mid to late 2021, when factories can fire up production and families can do more shopping the economy is likely to recover however this will take a relatively long time to get back to normal. Due to the governments rather large spending habits during this quarantine as a result tax may have to be increased however interest rates will remain low to encourage spending. The UK is likely to have a deeper fall in terms of GDP growth in comparison to many other countries during this period (due to their ageing population and many foreign employees) the rebound is likely to be bigger in 2021. This recession and situation that we are all currently in is very unfortunate and we will be paying it in many years to come.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sophiamatveeva/2019/12/15/leadership-lessons-in-the-age-of-technology/#64472ffe6a8c

The the three core topics brought up in this article were: focus input, as a leader helping people understand themselves and leaders becoming more transparent. There was no main point that the writer was trying to give across. Outlining the points, focusing on inputs discussed the comparison of sport and business. Helping people understand themselves discussed focusing on people’s strength rather than weaknesses, Punter mentioned in his interview from the Sophie Matveeva that there are three main areas “the employee’s skills and talents, their external motivation (money?) and their internal motivation”. Becoming more transparent as a leader was an exploration into the causes of office politics and why leaders need to become more honest and transparent about why rewards are given out.

This article gave me an exploration into what makes a good leader in this ever increasingly technological world, and various insights into how adaptions can be made to businesses in order to maintain high standards in both leadership and technology. I found the article enjoyable to read, the topic raised (Leadership adapting with changes in technology) was very current and interesting. The article raised aspects that of business that related to various individuals including: Students, academic readers and CEO’s. Some of the new efforts to bring technology further into the business world include: new training for students to help apply STEM subjects as a property of their learning as well as, coding bootcamps and online programming courses to create new developers.

Punter brought up an interesting analogy that confined between sport and business. This analogy focused on the inputs vs the outputs, business imitates sport: the better the inputs, the better the results. As for an athlete the ultimate finishing line in first place, but clearly this cannot be done through a bad set of inputs. Just like a business the ultimate finishing line is exponential growth and improvement in all aspects of the company. Good inputs are the fundamental for starting a good business cycle.