There are many companies that have suffered closures this year, some bigger than others but what are the reasons behind this?

Woolworths PLC

Well as a former member of the group I must say that I know exactly why the company closed and part of it was indeed down to the poor fixed asset accounting that the company had been doing. They had over 800 stores and quite simply they had a team of idiots behind the company. The board of directors knew they were in debt but simply refused to do much about it and just tried to keep the company going. This obviously failed and I must say a lot of this was to do with the thick headed directors not being able to manage their assetsThis obviously failed and I must say a lot of this was to do with the thick headed directors not being able to manage their assets.

XL

A lot of this was of course down to the fuel prices that had been steadily on the rise in the late part of 2008 and the other was that XL were not filling their planes. Planes were of course the major asset of the company and because of this they were clearly not managing their assets in the best way. Another reason why XL failed as a business is because a lot of the people travelling with them had thought twice about taking a holiday because of the recession.

MFI

Once again this could be put down to a number of different things. One of the major reasons is because they didn’t really put enough time into caring for their customers. The offers that they had were always lying and didn’t include what you thought was included in the deals. Another big problem is that they didnt realise that IKEA would come in and steal the limelight, the fact is they were the better company.

So the advice here? Get some asset tracking in there and make sure your inventory management software is perfect!