Human resource management

Sam Okafor and Ali Brennan run The Crafty Kitchen, a bakery-café in York, as a partnership. They sell bread, cakes and lunches, and run weekend baking classes. In a typical week they sell 2400 items at an average price of £3.50. Average variable cost is £1.40 per item and fixed costs are £3800 a week. Customers rate the café highly online, but many tourists only visit once. Sam wants to open a second café in Harrogate; Ali would rather expand delivery through apps and sell bread to local shops. A second café would need a £60 000 bank loan. They are also considering becoming a private limited company. Next month's cash-flow forecast shows an opening balance of £5000, inflows of £34 000 and outflows of £37 500, partly because of new ovens. They find it hard to recruit skilled bakers; two left last year for higher pay at a supermarket bakery.

Kestrel Coaches operates 140 coaches from depots in the North West, running school contracts, private hire and a growing network of scheduled express routes between cities. Revenue last year was £38m and operating profit £2.3m. Its balance sheet shows non-current liabilities of £6.0m and total equity of £4.0m. Fuel is about 22% of costs. The government has announced a rise in fuel duty, and several cities are introducing clean air zones that will charge older diesel coaches. Kestrel is considering buying four electric coaches for its Manchester–Liverpool route at a total cost of £1.2m. Fuel and maintenance savings are forecast at £300 000 a year for five years. Five-year discount factors at 5% are 0.952, 0.907, 0.864, 0.823 and 0.784. Kestrel employs 260 drivers; 52 left last year. There is a national shortage of coach drivers and the union is asking for a 9% pay rise. Kestrel recently introduced online booking with dynamic pricing on express routes. Economists warn that the UK may enter a mild recession.