How to Research Scottish Companies

Research has been defined as a proper examination of studies pertaining to a select issue or problem using scientific methods, using knowledge to determine facts and arrive at new theories. Research can be grouped into three types, exploratory, descriptive, and casual. Each type serves its own purpose, and lead to variant results, depending on what you have to make research on

Scotland is one of the 4 countries under the United Kingdom, with the rest being England, Wales, and Ireland. While there are firms that are known as UK organizations, this piece only addresses firms that are native to Scotland. Firms native to specific to each nation under the United Kingdom cannot move headquarters or base to any one of the other three countries.

Before diving into how to make research on Scottish companies, it is important that you have a basic idea of the types of research and what they entail.

Source: Scottish Enterprise Newsroom

Descriptive

This form of research involves structured planning so that the reviews can be used to estimate an approximation on a larger scale. This involves research on only key points, rather than delving into details.

Exploratory

This requires more details and ideas rather than facts and figures. In essence, this form of research enables you to gain a broader understanding of the topic of research.

Source: CityAM

Causal

This form of research involves structured planning as well, except for the fact that it is more concerned with how two variables perform, whether together or separately, under the same conditions, in order to draw a precise conclusion.

If you are a student, a surveyor, or someone who wants to write a piece or do some research on UK firms, there are a couple of factors to put into consideration. While engaging in the research, it is important to check a couple of areas. It is advisable for students to employ the exploratory form rather than the descriptive form, which is better for surveyors to implement. Scottish establishments can be grouped into various segments, such as Type, sector, size, time of establishment, and current state of functionality.

When you want to make your research, the first thing to do is determine the sector of the economy the companies are invested in, the following are some of the sectors of business available in Scotland.

The Global Business Service in Scotland is the major sector in which a company can belong in, having just less than 250,000 people employed in the companies, providing 15 billion Pounds in the nation’s gross value added (GVA)

Although having only a GVA of 4 billion pounds, tourism is the second biggest sector in terms of size, having over 200,000 workers in tourist firms; given that Scotland has a beautiful environment scenery all around the nation.

The next big sectors are the oil & gas sector and technology & engineering sectors, having around 160,000 people employed in each sector. They also contribute 9 billion pounds and 6 billion pounds respectively to the nation’s GVA.

The sectors for improvement and the future are the textiles and Fintech Industries, having a bare minimum of 9000 and 15000 people, each contributing 350 and 37 million pounds respectively to the Scottish GVA.

The next step is determining the company type, of which it can either be public, private, or micro.

Source: insider.co.uk

Public Firms

These are establishments that everyone is allowed the chance to own shares in the firm. They are generally easier to make research on given the fact that they are required to release quarterly and annual reports of company dealings.

Private Organizations

The ownership of these types of firms is not available to the general public. It is usually restricted to a sole proprietor or partner with similar ideologies. They are a lot harder to research given that they are not mandated to release company information to the public.

Source: hubtech

Micro Businesses

These are firms that generally have less than 10 employees. More often than not, they are usually subsidiaries of bigger public corporations, and they are seldom private firms that have not picked up off the ground. Reducing the amount of information that can be gotten on them.

The biggest firms in Scotland by revenue for the year 2019 are SSE, who raked in 31 billion pounds in turnover, Scottish widows with 18 billion pounds, and RBS, who were ranked 270 the previous year, making 13 billion pounds.

More often than not, the already mentioned three categories are what most researches are limited to. But in some cases, the research can include date specifics and firms that used to exist.

Establishments can only be set up through one of three methods, by Royal Charter, which is getting approval from the ruling monarch in the United Kingdom, by registration with the Scottish Register of Companies.

The process of company registration began in 1856, registering two newspaper companies called The WorkMan and The Daily Bulletin. Each Company has a unique registration number, with the number representing its number on the order of companies registered here reportingaccounts.com, and a file at the registration office. The files are arranged by year of creation of the company and contain every detail concerning the firm as it updates its address, name, business type, among other things.

If the research entails already liquidated firms, a reference number BT2 prefixes the organization’s name in the Historical Search Room section. All files pre-1980 are in paper form, while those that were liquidated from 180 to date have been stored on microfilm. The bottom line is, if you’re looking to do some extra research on Scottish establishments, the Register of Companies is the place to go.

Source: BMC Software

Conclusion

Ultimately, research is crucial as it enables you to gain a better understanding of firms, their tenets, mode of operation, how much their activities impact the regular people around them, and much more. Proper research made on Scottish establishments should mention each of the categories they can be grouped into, with how much of each section to be made in the research entirely at your discretion.