Analysis of France and Phoenix Insurance Company - Term Paper Example

Analysis of France and Phoenix Insurance Company Introduction France is one of European Union countries. It is located in the Western part of Europe. It has several overseas territories as well as regions. It is the largest country in the entire Western Europe. It is also the third largest country in the continent of Europe. This is a country known to be a major power with highly strong military, cultural, political as well as economic influence within Europe as well as in the world. In the whole world, France comes second as an exclusive economic zone. This assignment conducts a social, legal, economic, political, technological, infrastructure as well as competition analysis of France. The second section indicates the barriers as well as opportunities that one can identify for the U.K or Irish company. Analysis of France France’s culture as well as that of the French is shaped mainly by geography, foreign forces, internal forces as well as its historical events. France is the center of decorative arts and high culture. This is from the 17th century. First it was in Europe and by the 19th century, it was in the entire world. France has played a highly significant role in cuisine, cinema and fashion. The main significance of the culture and social life in France has over the years been waned and waxed. This depends on its military, political as well as economic importance. French culture currently is characterized by its great role in both the socioeconomic as well as regional differences. It is also characterized by its muscular unifying tendencies (Larsen 1997). In terms of technology, France has greatly developed. France is a world’s main exporter of highly advanced technologies’ nuclear technology. As a result of technology, France has come up with a developed commercial plant used in disposing radioactive wastes. This is done by integrating the wastes in a special glass and then later on they are encased in a stainless glass for burial. France has several colleges and universities. They offer courses in applied and basic sciences. There is a national centre for scientific research. It is also known as CNRS and it was opened in 1939. This centre is in control of over 1,370 laboratories as well as research centers that deal with improvising new technologies every other time. During the year 1996, CNRS employed 19,392 engineers as well as researchers. It also employed 7,263 administrative staff as well as technicians. There were over 150 technological as well as scientific academies, research institutes as well as learned societies (Larsen 1997). An analysis of France’s economy is also important. The French economy is currently for the third time on a row in steep recession. Things like household consumption, fixed investment as well as net exports dragged on the country’s GDP a lot. The outcome was bad than it was expected. An analysis was conducted by Bloomberg market as well as Moody’s Analytics and the consensus showed that there was a steep recession on the country’s economy. The economy therefore remained under pressure during the coming quarters. This arose from higher taxation, rising unemployment as well as tight credit. The current analysis shows that the economic analysis is frankly alarming. Unemployment is currently claimed to be at a low rate of close to ten percent. France’s government spent a 4.8% deficit of GDP for the country’s official figures (Skocpol 1999). Legal analysis of the country centers mainly on the judicial aspect. Judicial law mainly includes civil law as well as criminal law. Civil law is equal to private law in France. This includes corporate law as well as contracts’ law. This has to be greatly distinguished from the country’s legal system. This is also referred to as civil law versus the common law. The laws as well as the body of statutes that govern civil laws and procedures have been set out in France’s Civil Code. The Civil Code’s Article 5 mainly prohibits any practice of case law. The 4th Article on the other part offers punishment for all the judges who do not offer sentences to any crimes of defamation. This is for example whenever there are insufficient legal materials or on ideas that there are justice refusals. Criminal law on the other hand is highly significant as well as applicable in France. In France, the criminal law is governed by the criminal code also known as code penal. An example is that criminal code prohibits any form of violent offences. Violent offences include assault, homicide and any other offences that bring violence. There are also several other pecuniary offences which are punishable by French laws. This includes money laundering, theft and the laws provide general guidelines for punishments. There are several criminal topics including libel as well as slander that have not yet been codified. They are however addressed using legislation (Larsen 1997). Public law in France includes constitutional law as well as administrative law. Administrative law deals mainly with administrative issues in the entire country whereas constitutional law which is a branch of public law mainly deals with several issues. This includes human rights issues that mainly apply to French law. It also includes the constitution as well as the public authorities’ functioning. It also includes the functioning of the government and mainly the relationship between constitutional powers, legislative powers, and executive as well as judiciary powers. It also deals with the relationship between citizens and public authorities, in particular the participation of French citizens to the exercise of public powers (Larsen 1997). The importance of legal issues in France is that it has a hierarchy of rules as well as laws within the entire French legal system. There is also an established relationship that exists between several norms. The rule of constitutional law gained its independence from both administrative law and political science with the constitution in 1958. This is because it included the constitutional court’s institution. Generally, all the legal issues are addressed mainly through four main areas known as constitutional, criminal, civil as well as administrative laws. All these make up French law. In terms of infrastructure France is highly developed. This is a country known to enjoy the most sophisticated and developed infrastructures in the whole world. All these were and are still being developed by the use of the government’s huge investments in the transport and infrastructure field using technology. Advanced technology has made it possible for this country to overcome any form of competition in all these fields (Skocpol 1999). The country has a network made up of several transportation modes in the entire country. This includes rail, air as well as land transportation. Transportation in France is greatly possible by the use of rivers and this has been attributed to technology. France also has a rail system that is technologically advanced. It utilizes fast trains in the whole world. The trains are under the operation of the French National Railways. This is the country’s state owned company. The country also has 31,939 kilometers made up of rail lines in the whole country. It also has 828,000 kilometers made up of roads in the whole country. All these are well paved. Close to 47% of the country’s waterways are highly used by people. France has 747 airports all of which serve international traffic. Air France is the major airline. It provides services to several corners of the entire globe. Several of these harbors as well as ports are well equipped to provide services to several parts of the world. All these harbors as well as ports are well equipped to be able to handle several freight needs as well as all the passenger ships (Larsen 1997). Phoenix Group Insurance Companies Phoenix Group is one of United Kingdom’s largest insurance services’ providers. This is a company that is listed on London Stock Exchange. 1857 is the year that this company was founded although it was under a different name. In 2009, the company was bought by Liberty Acquisition Holdings. This was when the name was changed subsequently to Pearl Group. In 2010, it changed the name was changed to Phoenix Group Holdings. Among some of its opportunities Phoenix Group is said to be on track towards meeting its financial targets this year as well as beyond the first quarter. The targets include cash generations for operating companies. This amounts to 650 to 750 million pounds. So many opportunities have been created for the coming years in order to ensure there is a constant increment in terms of business as well as insurance providence. The directors and management in a statement stated that it was on its way toward ensuring financial targets. It has always ensured confidence characterizes its ability towards a continual generation of cash as well as ensuring an enhancement of shareholder value. The first quarter has seen the company demonstrate its financial performance and its reports released show strong results. This has shown 420 million dollars in cash generation and this has provided the company enough room to develop as well as robust group solvency. There has been a completion of debt as well as capital rise. This was during the entire quarter and it led to a delivery of capital stability that has been well positioned for the whole future. This further opens up opportunities for it to expand. There are barriers that face Phoenix Group Company. This includes the issue of reducing costs. Despite the fact that it is one of the leading insurance companies in England it still has problems to deal with reduction of costs as well as expenditure. Cost cutting efforts have huge consequences on insurance companies. The issue highly affects the companies when it comes to new efforts in order to gain capital. When this insurance company determines some of the costs to cut, it always has to look into the forces behind the costs (Burstein 1996). This helps in ensuring that a cut in one specific area does not lead to the increase of something else’s cost. This makes an insurance company to be less competitive. An example is whenever a cutting employee profits from employee retention. Another one is cutting staff that can lead towards long turn around periods. There is a financial web that states that whenever the insurance company’s costs increase, then their capital decreases. This has been the major common barrier of Phoenix Group. This insurance company also faces barriers when it comes to the creation of any improvement plans that work towards reducing costs. This mainly happens when the plan that is available lacks a basis mainly on resources, dependencies as well as priorities. This also applies when integrating the human element for example performance management, training as well as communication (Morse 2004). Another barrier is on the maintenance of funds during the hard and tough economic times. The main confusion here occurs when it comes to collapsing assets. Instead of taking other better solutions when Phoenix Group sees the collapse of assets that belong to the company, it focuses on these collapsing assets. During such situations, it mainly has to deal with problems that relate to hedge funds collapsing, equities as well as securities. This is according to the fact that this is one of the leading companies in the United Kingdom. Whenever these barrier occurs. Credit markets are seized while all the sales that have to deal with life insurance policies are dropped. Asset management fees are lowered whereas mortgage and bond insurers loose important capital amounts (Burstein 1996). In efforts to hold on to the funds that they have, Phoenix Group Company always looks towards denying any wrong claims, paying less amounts in settlements as well as defending claim decisions in court cases. During the recent three years, the company has faced the main barrier that has to do with the low interest rate environment. This compounds several problems that deal with the interest rate of the environment. This includes revenue, declining sales, company valuations as well as profitability. There are times when interest rates are low and when continually happens then it costs the company and the life insurers financial pain goes on for a longer period of time than imagined. Expansion has also become a major recurring problem over the past year. This is not entirely the problem of the company since this is a company that has greatly developed over the years. The problem is with the markets that have become stagnant. This dynamic change provides problems, opportunities as well as risks. This has led to another problem that mainly deals with lack of confidence in the exploration of new ventures as well as new fields. Lack of this confidence makes it hard even for the provision of clear as well informative financial information that is greatly significant when it comes to getting new opportunities to the Company (Larsen 1997). References Read More