Economics in business

Are you value-sensitive or time-sensitive? Active or dormant? Proactive or a procrastinator? These questions are at the heart of Behavioural Segmentation, an approach to segmentation that makes nudges significantly more effective at influencing behaviour. The integration of behavioural science into customer insight is proving to be a powerful accelerator for businesses to understand their customers and, more importantly, use that insight to drive value for them and their customers alike. To discuss how putting these approaches helped Sage increase customer satisfaction and reduce churn, host Freddie Martin is joined in the studio by Suresh Natarajan, who leads the PwC Behavioural Economics practice, and Brian Wall, Director of retention at Sage.Link to our previous Behavioural Economics episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/economics-in-business/id1231389294?mt=2Link to the PwC Behavioural Economics site, where you can learn more about how PwC can help you harness the power of Behavioural Economics:https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/economics/behavioural-economics.html

After a year of low inflation across the UK, US and the eurozone, economists are now turning to the question of whether inflation might make a comeback this year, as economies recover from the pandemic. In this bonus episode, Hannah Audino and Barret Kupelian, economists at PwC, explore the outlook for inflation this year, focusing on the US and considering the implications for the UK. For more information on our latest UK Economic Outlook, head to https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/economics/insights/uk-economic-update-covid-19.html

Projecting what the future holds is an important exercise for businesses and governments looking to plan ahead. In this podcast, Hannah Audino speaks to Barret Kupelian and Rob Clarry from PwC's Economics team to discuss the key trends we expect to come to the fore in the global economy in the year to come. You can read more in our latest Global Economy Watch: https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/research-insights/economy/global-economy-watch/predictions-2021.html

Virtual and Augmented reality were once seen as the domain of the entertainment industry, used mainly in gaming and social media. However, as these technologies have developed and the number of use cases have grown, an increasing number of sectors, from health services to product development, are beginning to harness the potential of VR and AR. Jeremy Dalton, a VR and AR specialist, and Ryan Hamilton, a PwC economist, join Freddie Martin in the studio to discuss the impact that VR and AR will have on the UK economy and give advice for businesses looking to adopt these technologies. To find out more, please visit PwC's virtual reality page, where you can download a copy of our 'Seeing is Believing' report and explore the results of the analysis mentioned in this episode: https://www.pwc.co.uk/issues/intelligent-digital/virtual-reality-vr.html If you’d like more information on the solutions VR and AR are providing throughout the COVID-19 crisis, you can listen to ‘PwC’s Business in Focus podcast’ episode with Jeremy here: https://pwc.to/2AEDUPu

Governments and other public sector bodies are under increasing scrutiny from taxpayers to demonstrate that investment of government resources represents good value for money for society. This means that it is no longer enough to look at the traditionally monetised economic benefits but it is also important to capture wider impacts on society. In this podcast, Hannah Audino talks to Ioanna Sikiaridi and Alisha Kapoor, strategy consultants at PwC, to understand how they use economics and strategy to help public sector organisations integrate wider impacts - economic, environmental, social - when developing their strategy and making investment decisions.

In this podcast, we discuss the potential impact of drones on the UK economy, drawing on findings from PwC's "Skies without limits" report. We discuss the benefits and the risks of increasing drone uptake across industries, and how governments and businesses can best utilise drones to increase productivity and realise net cost savings of a potential £16bn to the UK by 2030.

UK employment levels are at record highs, but is there more that we can do to encourage further participation in the workforce and what are the potential gains to be made? In this episode we talk to John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC, about the UK's current labour market performance and what lessons we can learn from other OECD countries about harnessing the potential of three key demographic groups - women, under 25s and over 55s. The analysis discussed in this episode comes from article 4 of the July edition of PwC's UK Economic Outlook Report, which can be found here: https://www.pwc.co.uk/economic-services/ukeo/ukeo-july2019.pdf

Our economists discuss the key themes emerging for the year ahead and their impact on the global economy - including a slowdown in global economic growth, workers and wages, and trade conflicts.