Unit 1 Task 10 - Cultural Policy

 Cultural Policy

As a small business owner in the UK, there's plenty of cultural policies that could impact the way I run my business and the potential routes I have when it comes to obtaining customers, resources and so on. I've talked about some of these policies for Unit 1 Task 9, but I now will be going into detail about what policies could impact my business.

Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport

As I mentioned in Task 9, The DCMS is a department in the UK government that is aiming to help creative businesses and enterprises like mine by investing in them and giving them help where needed. Due to my business falling into the creative sector, it's obvious that the Department will have some impact on how my business runs and what opportunities I have for my business. After some research into cultural policies within the UK, I've actually found that the DCMS hasn't done anywhere near as much for creative writers as they have for businesses focusing on things like theatre or dancing. These sectors of the creative industries have provisions to aid them, such as dance classes for little cost. Writers, on the other hand, have no official training schemes and do not have creative writing courses as guaranteed courses within universities. The main support writers are given by the DCMS is through the additional traffic that's brought to England by their attempts to drive tourism and bring people to see English heritage, but this only really helps writers who have some form of face-to-face interaction with their customers, as I can interact with clients from anywhere across the world, making bringing more customers in from other countries physically pointless.

Impacts of Brexit

Unlike some other businesses, which have faced large impacts due to Brexit, my business is unlikely to face too much interference. Since my business is a low-resource requiring enterprise operating mainly online, I don't have to worry about any additional costs or regulations incurred by shipping resources or finished stories across to/from members of the EU. Seeing as my products are digital stories, most likely saved in PDF format, I can instantly send the finished product to my client through email without having to worry about shipping it over, leaving Brexit having very little impact on how my business can operate. Brexit does mean I might have some trouble travelling to different countries, which could hamper some things such as going to foreign places to obtain inspiration for my stories, this isn't a guarantee and is something I can get around anyway. Therefore, I don't see Brexit having too much of an impact on how my business would run.

Impacts of Covid

Similarly to Brexit, Covid is unlikely to have many major negative impacts on my business. As a primarily online functioning business, people being isolated or ending up in a lockdown is a non-issue for me, as I can continue to operate from my home with ease. Additionally, all the resources I need are already in my home: a computer, writing software and some books to help stimulate my imagination. As long as I can contact my clients through email, which is unlikely to be impacted by Covid, I should have little issue.

As a side-note, I actually think that Covid could have a positive impact on the way my business runs. Things have become so much more dreary and depressing nowadays, with people being stuck inside and forced to isolate from their loved ones. It's times like this where people will want escapism more than ever. Combine that with more people being stuck with nothing to do, and I can imagine having more traffic driven to my business due to a combination of desired escapism from the state of the world and boredom from being stuck inside isolating/in lockdown.