Business and Business Environment: A Comprehensive Analysis of UK Organizations

Business and Business Environment
1

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................6
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................10
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................16
2

Introduction
United Kingdom is considered to be one the leading trading power and financial center. UK
essentially deploys a capitalistic economy and is one of the quarters of trillion dollar economics
of Western Europe. In a global context, London is looking to increase its attractiveness as a
business location by considering all the major factors such as development of new skills,
advancement of digital infrastructure and implementation of financial regulation that supports
and promotes business growth.
The assignment assesses the interrelationships among their departmental functions with respect
to the organizational structure. Further, the study demonstrates the positive and negative
influence of macro environment on the business operations with the help of PESTEL analysis.
Lastly, a detailed SWOT analysis helps in the identification of internal strengths and weaknesses
of the organization with respect to their impact on business decision making.
Task 1
The section includes a detailed analysis of the types of organizations in London, their advantages
and disadvantages, scope, size and legal structures as prospective clients for JP Morgan Finance
and Investment Company. The public, private and voluntary organizations chosen for this
purpose are respectively Network Rail, Marks & Spencer and Amnesty International.
Different types of organizations
Public organization:
The public organizations are funded by the UK government though different forms of direct and
indirect taxations. The major difference of UK public organizations from private or voluntary
organizations is that their rules and regulations are directed towards governing what they must
do. On the contrary, private and other organizations deploy their rules in such a way to govern
what they must not do.
Network Rail is significant example of a popular public sector organization in the UK that
carries out more than 4.6 million train journeys per day. It ranks as the second highest public
3

transport in terms of Europe’s passenger satisfaction, having more than 38,000 employees
(Charter, 2017). The company is responsible for providing the rail infrastructure and related
services required for proper functioning of the British railway.
Some of the major advantages of Network Rail are, as a major UK public organization, it has
diverse requirements, which is positively inclined towards the suppliers. It involves minimum
amount of risk of bad dept and a huge potential for ongoing work. Disadvantages include the
costing problem in electrification projects, overspent budget in several route enhancement
programs.
Their objective includes integrated routes and it operates in a matrix structure. They focus on
undertaking core corporate and group activities that includes functional policy making,
assurance, and business strategy definition (Eisenberg, 2017). The secondary objective of
Network Rail is to develop, design and implement enhancement for the existing routes as well as
delivering large complex capital projects for the integration of routes.
Network Rail is a governmental body that operates for the people. It reinvests its operating
surplus in the rail network (Hannington, 2016). The reclassification 2014 in UK public sector
was followed by the publication of a framework agreement by Network Rail that made a number
of financing and governance changes.
Private organization:
Marks and Spencer is a popular private retail organization based in UK that has more than 1330
stores, warehouses and offices around the world. Marks and Spencer includes thousands of
farms, factories and raw material sources. Their customer base amounts to 32 million (out of
which, 38% are male and 62% are female). They operate on Clothing & Home, Food and other
retail businesses (Jaakkola and Alexander, 2014). They have a smart supply chain that
effectively recognizes the challenges and focuses on transformation.
The main objective of M&S is to promote business sustainability by addressing the social,
environmental and ethical challenges facing in the UK private retail sector. The company sets
out clear plans to focus on its customers by being well equipped for the present digital age.
4