Organizational Functions and Business Environment

This assignment delves into the fundamental functions of organizations, examining how they contribute to overall business performance. It explores the roles of marketing, human resources, operations, finance, and R&D departments, highlighting their interconnectedness and influence on achieving organizational goals. The assignment also emphasizes the importance of understanding the external business environment, including its political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental aspects, and how these factors shape organizational strategies and operations.

Business and business
environment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
P1 Types and purpose of business organisation.....................................................................1
P2 Size, scope, mission, vision of different organisation.......................................................3
P3 Relationship between different organisational functions and their link to its objectives..5
P4 Positive and negative impacts the macro environment upon business operations............8
P5 Internal and external analysis of the organisation...........................................................10
P6. Interrelationships of SWOT and TOWS with the external macro factors....................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Business is the process of promoting the goods and services in the market. It conducts as
an economic activities and helps private, public and other sectors of the business. Business
environment includes individuals, groups which may or may not be maintained by the
organisation but they affect the profitability, performance and growth of the company. Primark is
retail company which is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. It has employed more than 68,000
employees and its total revenue is £5,347m (Apăvăloaie, 2014). It sells different products
including clothing, beauty products, home ware, footwear, accessories etc. In this report, main
concern is on explaining various kinds, size, scope and purposes of the organisation. Further, it
includes relationship between various functions of the organisation and their link to the
organisation structure. Moreover, it defines the positive and negative impact of macro
environment on business operations. The report also determines strength and weaknesses of
particular business.
Task 1
P1 Types and purpose of business organisation
There are three types of organisation that is public, private and voluntary sectors.
Public sector:
Public sector organisation are owned by the local, state and national government. It
involves various factors like infrastructure, public education, government health care etc. Public
sector includes direct taxation, publicly owned organisation etc. Public sector varies from one
country to another. Employees in public sector organisation enjoys the profits and various other
appraisal from the government as it provides extra wages if the company will gain profit. The
income of government employees are fixed in case of loss or economical crises (Belás and et.al.,
2015). Example of public sector company is Marks and Spencer.
Purpose of Marks and Spencer:
The main purpose of M & S is to make more profit and benefits by expanding their business.
They also want to satisfy the needs of the customer by selling different clothing and food
products to them.
Legal structure of Marks and Spencer:
Legal structure defines the business of the company. In order to make the business
successful, M & S has adopted legal structure. This organisation has adopted limited partnership
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legal structure in which there are more than two partners are involved. In this structure the profit
and loss are shared by the partners of the company and it did not affect the employees wages
(Belás and et.al., 2014). These partners are not involved in daily operation of the business.
Stakeholders of M & S:
Stakeholders of the cited organisation are customers, employees, society, investors,
suppliers, government and media. All these are responsible for making the business successful.
They play vital role in growing and developing the market of Marks and Spencer.
Private Sector:
Private sector includes the organisation which are owned by the one or two individuals.
Private sector are majorly developed their business to make money. Private sector organisation
are free from government control. Sometimes this organisation may choose government bodies
as their partners to jointly give their services to the customer's. Private sector involves small and
private business which generate products and makes profits. Example of private sector
organisation is peacock.
Purpose of Peacock:
The main purpose of peacock is to make more profit by providing its services to the
public. Its main objective is to provide different services to the customers and yield better
productivity so that it can increase its revenue (Besharov and Smith, 2014).
Legal structure of Peacock:
Peacock has adopted sole proprietorship legal structure to achieve its target goals. This
structure is adopted by the company as it has flexibility to management and the organisation has
to pay lower taxes with fewer legal control.
Voluntary sector:
Voluntary sector is non governmental organisation and different other non profitable
organisations. In this sector organisation runs in partnerships by private and state sector.
Example of voluntary sector is Ummah welfare trust.
Purpose of Ummah welfare trust:
The main purpose of this trust is to provide shelter, education, health to those people whose
rights are oppressed. Another purpose is to implement projects by which victims can be helped.
Legal structure of Ummah welfare trust:
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Ummah welfare trust has adopted Massachusetts trust approach in which the property is
maintained by trustees or shareholders of the organisation (Bocken and et.al., 2013). In this legal
structure trustees works as the employees so that they can fulfil the basic needs of needy people.
P2 Size, scope, mission, vision of different organisation
Background of M & S
Marks and Spencer is multinational retail company in London. It is selling its product in
all over the world. It is one of the largest company in the world which is known for selling
clothing, home and food products. Its operating income is 404 million in the year 2016 and it has
made the overall profit of 1 billion every year (Cai and Yang, 2014).
Mission of M & S
Mission of this company is to provide the best quality and services to the customer's.
Additionally, the organisation is to gain customer's trust by producing innovative products which
are able to meet customer's demands.
Vision of M & S
Vision of M & S is to make its organisation as sustainable multichannel industry. They
are focusing on combining stores with digital world so that its user can feel more relaxed and
easily access their products.
Scope of M & S
The scope is to make profits by improving its operating margin. They have increased
their stores to make more revenue.
Size of M & S
It has 959 stores in UK alone. It is providing its services by opening more branches in
different countries like Russia, Turkey, India, France, Ireland etc. More than 82, 904 employees
are working in this organisation which has increased overall productivity and employment of the
country (Camisón and Villar-López, 2014).
Business objective of M & S
The main objective of M & S is to increase profits and to bring changes in their system so
that elder customer feel better experience regarding their products by implementing home
shopping services. These home service will help customers to easily access the products.
Peacock organisation
Background
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Peacock is fashion industry headquartered in Cardiff Wales. It is specialised in selling home
products and clothing. It is popular for serving its best branded product. It was started by Richard
Kirk who worked hard to convert peacock as largest fashion player. The organisation was
awarded as best value retailer by Drapers.
Mission and vision:
Mission of Peacock is to create value for the consumers to achieve their trust and loyalty.
It also focuses on providing the best customer services (Carroll and Buchholtz, 2014).
Vision is to motivate people to accept the human rights and to increase their satisfaction
and trust towards the company.
Purpose:
The main purpose of Peacock is to preserve and take care the people in the situations
where justice and truth are denied.
Size:
Peacock has given employment to more than 6000 people and has 440 retail stores in
United Kingdom. The organisation has many stores outside UK. It has 220 stores in twelve other
countries of the world.
Business objective:
The main objective of the organisation is to provide responsive and innovative services to
the customer's. Further it aims to develop inter and intra group interactions and to achieve the
growth and success.
Ummah welfare trust
Background:
Ummah welfare trust is relief and charity trust located in UK. It has taken its inspiration
from Islamic ethics and believes in providing empathy, selflessness services to the poor and
needy people. The trust was established in 2001 for providing food, shelter, education and health
services to the people (Cavusgil and et.al., 2014). These kind service of the organisation has
helped downtrodden people to meet their needs.
Mission and vision:
Mission of the organisation is to provide justice to backward people and to make sure that
their economic, political and educational improvement are properly maintained.
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Vision of this trust is to make the environment where people are considered at the top
priority for developing their goals with justice.
Purpose:
The main purpose of this trust is to take care human well-being and their rights. They give first
priority to people and then concern for making money.
Objective:
The main objective of Ummah welfare trust is to provide social, economical and cultural
relief and support people by providing better facilities to them. They encourage people by
providing them emergency relief, education, health services and fulfilling other basic needs.
Task 2
P3 Relationship between different organisational functions and their link to its objectives
Organisational function of the company plays an essential role in well functioning. There
are different departments and employees in Primark. They have to report their department
manager and then to senior manager. Organisational structure helps employees to concentrate on
their target. Different functions of Primark's department are describes as follows:
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Research and development:
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Illustration 1: Organisation functions

Research and development department of Primark plays an important role in
implementing new product. It helps in developing unique and new product for the company
which can gain its popularity in small period. R & D does through research on the product which
it has planned to launch in the market. They determine the product cost, lifetime and its
importance for the people (Champoux, 2016). Primark has to make keen research on their new
product before its promotion so that their product cannot fails in the competitive market.
Further, Role of R & D is to check the quality of new items and confirms that it will pass
in different test. This department innovates new features of and ideas before manufacturing new
items. This department helps very much to Primark as it makes research and helps the company
to know benefits of the products.
Human resource management:
Human resource management of Primark is responsible for meeting the business
requirements by maintaining the employees of the organisation. The main responsibilities of
human resource management is to manage recruitment and selection process, safety, employee
relations, benefits, training and development programs. All these programs are encouraged by
the human resource manager to increase the productivity and performance of the employees
(Mayhew, 2017). They provide training so that new and existing candidates can learn the culture
and new techniques of the organisation. Human resource management is responsible for
managing employees and organisation.
Finance:
Finance department of Primark is responsible for managing capital budget, tax
compliance etc. The financial manager manages various tax related issues and other budget
related activities. They have to keep report of every month so that they can determine the profit
and loss of the organisation. Tax compliance helps in ensuring that all tax are paid on time and it
assists in providing different methods which can minimize tax. This helps in maximizing the
overall benefit of Primark.
Marketing:
Customer service, distribution, development are the main functions of marketing.
Marketing department helps in promoting the Primark's new product and services to their
customers (Fatteross, 2017). It helps in managing the quality and quantity of new brand and
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performs campaign management to the marketing factors. The main responsibility of marketing
department of Primark is to monitor social media and promote business activities of the market.
Sales and support:
Sales manager of Primark helps in managing marketing duties so that organisation will
withstand in the competitive market. Sales department makes different strategies to increase the
sell of the company's product. It plays an important role in achieving trust and confidence of the
company. Customers trust and loyalty towards the company is very necessary to recommend it.
Divisional structure of Primark
This structure is used by the companies which are expanded in wide areas and having
large market areas with several kinds of the products. Primark has adopted this structure because
it helps in meeting the needs rapidly with more benefits. Divisional structure also helps company
to achieve their long terms objectives and benefits (Goetsch and Davis, 2014). Though this
structure is costly but it is very beneficial to meet customer's needs and ensures organisational
progress.
In order to ensure the company's development, employees performance must be effective
as they are the important resource of Primark which helps it to fulfil its objectives. For this,
human resource management provides different training to increase their productivity.
Additionally, they have to give incentives and other bonus to motivate their employees. Further,
Primark has to develop friendly and effective environment for its staff members which helps
them to achieve their target on time. Moreover, the organisation has to take care about their
finance and budget related activities because these helps marketing department to promote the
products and services of Primark.
Task 3
P4 Positive and negative impacts the macro environment upon business operations
Macro Environment:
This environment includes political, social, economic, and technological factors. It
defines threats and opportunities which are always hard to search.
Political and legal environment:
Political factor includes laws and regulations and legal environment. Primark has to
maintain political stability, ideology and other government policies to regulate its business.
Political factor helps in well functioning of the company. By following all rules and maintaining
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political stability will help Primark to increase its image in the market. Negative impact of
political factor is that it creates uncertainty and barriers for making growth.
Legal system helps in maintaining the business operations within the system (Hair, 2015).
The legal system ensures that all the strategies of business laws are well known to the company
so that it can successfully implement its policies related to the customers. Negative impact of
legal factor is that it reduces the overall profit of the company. Tax and other charges of the
government in different countries are responsible for lowering down the revenue of the
organisation.
Economic environment:
This environment is concerned with economic policies and system. They include
economy and economic situation of the country Economic environment helps in increasing
globalization, liberalisation in the business. Whereas negative impact of this environment is that
shortage of economical fund will create great problems for Primark. Economic crises will
directly influence on its various departments (Myers, 2013). For example, the marketing
department does not get enough fund then they will fail to promote new items in the market.
Employees lower payment will also affect their performance which ultimately affect the progress
of Primark. Another impact is that comp-any has to make low carbon emission products which
increases the cost of maintenance.
Socio-cultural environment:
Socio cultural environment plays an important role in implementing business strategies. It
is an important factor that Primark has to consider for knowing the culture and tradition of the
public where it is going to launch its product. Social beliefs, factors helps in publicising the
products and services of Primark. Social awareness and proper knowledge of rights of the society
also affects the development of the business (Prajogo, 2016). Negative impact of socio-cultural
environment is that it cannot make products according to the needs of the customers which
changes rapidly. The culture of every city and country are different which affects Primark
performance as it is not possible for it to make different and new products according to the
requirements of the customers. Moreover, customers demands changes with time which requires
new products. The old stock of the products goes waste and company has to sell it at lower price
which largely affects the budget of the organisation.
Technological environment:
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This factors include various technical facilities and equipment which Primark needs to
enhance their productivity. With the help of new technologies, the company can provide
different facilities to the customers which are convenient and easily accessible to their customers.
Providing new technical equipment to the employees will increase their performance. Internet
facilities helps large number of employees in different areas to work together. Business and
technology are interrelated to each other (Sandkuhl and et.al., 2014). Technology has improved
the quality of life of the people which influences the business as people buy more technical
equipments. While negative impact of technological environment is that it increases risk and
uncertainty to the business. Another major impact of this is that, it has high cost which affects
the budget of the company.
Task 4
P5 Internal and external analysis of the organisation
SWOT:
Strengths:
 Primark has 161 stores and has employed more than 50,000 applicants in the world. It has
provided its products with low price so that local people can also afford it. Primark has
given more focus on employee's rights as they are the major resource to increase their
productivity. Additionally, they have paid more attention to the production of goods
which helps in meeting demands of their customers.
 It has wide variety of products which has increased its profits at constant rate. The
company is member of ethical trading initiatives which has created effective impact on
the customers as well as shareholders (Scott and Davis, 2015).
 It has supported ethical trade program in seven countries which has encouraged its
sustainable products.
 It is continuously growing day by day and its profits are also increasing every year.
Weaknesses:
 The main problem Primark is facing is from its competitors as they are taking advantage.
The company promotes its products directly without advertising it.
 Poor working environment and no respect for their employees is affecting Primark
performance.
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 It has faced many problems and negative reports from the shareholders as it is part of
ethical trading business.
 Primark losses major part of its business due to slow growth of EU economy.
 It is more dependent on UK market which are contributing in making half of its turnover.
 Lacking of online services is another major issue faced by the organisation as online e-
commerce is growing rapidly in UK .
 The organisation suffered the negative response from the customers as they believe that
the company produces basic brands and not stylish and attractive products.
Opportunities:
 Primark has good opportunity to develop its business in other countries like Europe by
opening new stores in different cities.
 Primark can increase its clothing business in the area of sportswear which is rapidly
growing in UK.
 The company has to focus more on customer needs so that they can increase
their productivity and profits.
Threats:
 Profit margin of the company is affected by Brexit. Major of its stores are in Europe, its
sales is completely based on the economy of the EU.
 Uncertainty has occurred due to exit of British people from the Europe (Sekaran and
Bougie, 2016).
 Supply chain of Primark is affected by natural disaster as they are more vulnerable to
natural calamity.
 Its lack of presence in emerging market has created great problem for it.
TOWS:
Tows is used to compare and select strategies. It is used to generate and select strategies. TOWS
helps Primark to grow its business by overcoming their weaknesses and threats.
Strengths and opportunities(SO):
Primark huge availability of stores in different countries helps them to increase their
revenues as well as customer's satisfaction. Its wide variety of products helps it to attract more
customers towards its organisation. Additionally, by providing more resources and technical
equipments it can increase its productivity and performance of the employees.
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Strengths and threats(ST):
The wide variety and high of product may sometimes creates wrong image on the
customers. They believe that the company sell their basic product without providing any
fashionable and new feature product. This create major threat for the organisation as it leads to
lower sale in their products (Crane and Matten, 2016). These threats have created major impact
on the financial growth of the company.
Weakness and opportunities(WO):
Primark can increase its clothing business in the areas where people more focuses more
on wearing new style clothes in every season. It has to spread its business in other countries than
UK so that it is not affected by the economy of UK.
Weakness and threats(WT):
The cited organisation can overcome its weaknesses and threats by adopting better
marketing strategies. They can promote their product by taking help of social media which can
increase its sale. It has to focus more on its employees so that they can increase the productivity
of their company.
P6. Interrelationships of SWOT and TOWS with the external macro factors
Macro factors are responsible for measuring the Primark performance. They affect the
market directly. It can increase or decrease the demand of new product or can generate the need
of producing new product. These factors helps in creating new targets and to face challenges. It
is very important to identify the importance of macro factors which directly affects the business
of Primark.
Political factor includes government policies, different laws and legal system which
influences Primark progress. Primark profit margin is directly affected by political factor as
various tax policies of the government can create problems for the organisation to make money.
They have to pay tax and other export and import charges while diversifying their business in
other countries. Economic factor also affects the organisation as Primark has to launch its
business by looking the economic condition of the country (Wetherly and Otter, 2014). Poor
economic growth may leads to the failure of its business because public of that country are not in
the situation to buy the branded product of the organisation. Further, government may not
support the organisation to promote its business products.
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Social factor also directly influence the growth of the organisation as it has to make
products according to the social belief, practices and culture of the customers. The products
which are developed without following tradition and needs of user, then it will fail in that
particular city or country. Another fact is that the company has to follow their culture as well as
seasonal demands to grow in that country which is not possible for them to make new products
every-time to fulfil the needs of the customers.
Technological factor of the macro environment is responsible for creating more
awareness and increasing the capability of the company. Technologies like use of internet and
other latest technical machines helps in increasing the publicity and overall sale of Primark.
Moreover, providing the latest technical resources to the employees of the company helps them
to achieve their targets and goals on time. Online services like providing home delivery to the
customer's helps them to easily access the products of the company which will help in increasing
the economy of Primark (Carroll and Buchholtz, 2014). Furthermore, lack of technological
resources will reduce the production of innovative goods. Technological resources always create
uncertainty and generates typical situation when server fails or website of the company crashes.
This will directly impact the customers as they have to face many problems. In order to face
competition of the market, it is very necessary for Primark to have the latest technological
resources.
The company has to recognise this factors as they are responsible for achieving their
objectives. Furthermore, determining these factors will help them to identify the areas in which
they have to make development (Atuma, 2011). Focusing more on customer's needs and
demands will help them to win their confidence and trust.
CONCLUSION
Summing above report, it can be concluded that business environment is essential in
meeting the goal and objectives of the company. Primark has many stores in different countries
which are maintained by 50,000 employees. In this report, different types of organisation their
purpose, mission, vision, objectives are described. Organisation of private, public and voluntary
sectors are described along with their legal structure. Furthermore, different organisation's scope,
size and their background are explained. This report has made assessment of organisational
functions and structures of the company. Additionally, the relationship of different departments
are discussed.
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The positive and negative impacts of macro environment are analysed which give full
description of how Primark is influenced by these factors. Impact of Political, legal, economical,
social and technological factor are determined in these report. Furthermore, SWOT and TWOS
are done to identify Primarks strengths and weaknesses and it has also analysed that how
strengths and opportunities helps in overcoming their weaknesses and threats. All these helped
the organisation to achieve their targets and objectives. All these factors assisted Primark to
increase its production and win customer's heart.
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