International Business. Pearson Australia

Question: Describe about the small business and working with the Australian Consumer Laws, Issues faced by small companies under the Australian Consumer Laws. Answer: Small business and working with the Australian Consumer Laws Any business which is operative in Australia having annual revenue of less than 25 million dollars, employing less than 50 numbers of employees in total at the end of the financial year and having a consolidated assets amounting to less than 12.5 million dollar at the end of financial year is termed as a small business. Thus, the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 in Australia governs and makes rules and regulations on how small businesses operative along with setting certain conducts on their dealings with suppliers, competitors and consumers (Latimer, 2012). Issues faced by small companies under the Australian Consumer Laws The Australian Consumer Law (ACL) brought together all the statutes and rules and regulation in Australia which were under different Acts protecting consumer interest. Thus, with the adoption of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL), consumer laws were made uniform all over Australia in one single statute which is Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. There are many issues which small business running in Australia face as compared to large multi-national companies. One of the most primary issues faced by a small business in relation to the consumer laws in Australia is compliance. The small business face issues in trying to meet all the obligations and legal requirements which the laws under Australian Consumer Law (ACL) demand. As non-compliance of these legal obligation can be very extreme costing the small business to pay heavy penalties which reduces the profit and sometimes can even get a small business to bankruptcy. The primary reason for a small business to fail or fear the fulfillment of legal obligations set under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) is that small business find it very difficult to invest time and money in employing new individuals who look after business compliances. Moreover, the Australia federal system is divided into three parts having a Federal, State and Local Government. Thus, compliance under Consumer laws along with complying with the demands of three different governments at the same time is very difficult for small business to manage. The governmental compliances are uniform in Australia for a large or small company, thus, governmental compliance become time consuming and expensive for a small business in Australia. It is very simple for a large company to have a separate compliance officer or a team, however, employing additional individual is expensive for a small business in Australia and also affects the overall profit margins of a small business (Solomon, Russell-Bennett Previte, 2012). Recommendations of the Research For a small business it is very important to have cost-efficient in its working which will give the small business good profit margin and scope for expansion. Thus, the laws under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) along with governmental compliances should be limited or reduced for small business in Australia. Additionally, small business should be provided certain extra period to fulfill all the compliances which are made necessary under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL) (Cavusgil et al., 2014). Reference List Cavusgil, S. T., Knight, G., Riesenberger, J. R., Rammal, H. G., Rose, E. L. (2014).International business. Pearson Australia. Latimer, P. (2012).Australian Business Law 2012. CCH Australia Limited. Solomon, M., Russell-Bennett, R., Previte, J. (2012).Consumer behaviour. Pearson Higher Education AU.