Iceland Limited Business Analysis

This assignment analyzes the business operations of Iceland Limited through a comprehensive lens. It explores the organization's structure, mission, scope, and functions. A thorough SWOT analysis identifies internal strengths and weaknesses alongside external opportunities and threats. The assignment further delves into PESTLE factors (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental) to assess their impact on Iceland Limited's performance. The goal is to provide a holistic understanding of the company's position within its business environment.

Business and the Business
Environment

INTRODUCTION
Business is an organisational entity which deals with different goods and services. It may
be social enterprise which aims to provide different services to the people without making any
profit. Business environment is the sum of internal and external factors that directly affect the
company's performance. Internal environment of the firm includes different policies while
external factors affect the internal environment of the company. NATWEST is the world's
leading international bank which provides financial services including commercial, investment
banking and financial products and services. It has 4,400 employees in the world (ADB and
Furceri, 2016). The main philosophy of this organisation is to give more importance to the values
and principles in all aspects.
In this report, the main reflection is given on different types and purpose of public,
private and voluntary sectors. Organisational structure of all the three organisations. Further,
different firms size and scope are defined. Relationship of various functions in an organisation
and their link with this structure are defined. Further, positive and negative impact of macro
environment factors on the company are assessed. PESTLE analysis is done to show the
influence of these points on the business operations. Moreover, SWOT tool is used to determine
internal strengths and weaknesses of the organisation.
Task 1
P1 Different types and purpose of public private and voluntary organisation
Public Sector:
Public sector organisation is owned by government and provides their services to the
customers at lower rate. Public sector organisation is funded by the these bodies. The main aim
of these organisations is to provide their best services to the customers at lower rate. Further,
employees of this company are not affected by any loss and they were given basic salary without
any loss. Example of public sector organisation is National health service.
National health service is involved in secondary sectors as they require substantial
machinery to operate. They create waste products which are harmful for environment
(Bouckaert, Peters and Verhoest, 2016). The companies also adopts green emission policies to
reduce the impact of the carbon emission and pollution.
Purpose of National health service:
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The main purpose of this company is to provide their best services to the customers at
lower rate so that encouraged to purchase their products.
Legal structure of National health service
National health service has follows partnership legal structure. These structure are less
expensive and easy to set up the business operations (Jones and et.al., 2017). It helps the
company to combine different resources and advice of expert people.
NEXT plc is public limited company and expertise in selling clothing, home products
footwear. It is headquartered in Enderby, Leicestershire. It is leading company in the world and
has total 700 stores in the world. This organization has defeated Marks and Spencer in terms of
clothing products and earned revenue to £4,097.3 million. It has employed 49,033 employees
which are working with it to increase their productivity. It is also listed in London Stock
Exchange.
Legal structure:
The organisation has adopted limited partnership legal structure. In this structure business
is governed by more than two partners. The company is operated by government and Joseph
Hepworth. They both are handling all the business operations. They share all the profits and
losses equally. Government help the company in expanding their business strategies. It also helps
it during losses by providing financial help.
Purpose:
The main purpose of the company to provide the best customer services by which they
can be benefited and increase their revenue by manufacturing the best products.
Partnership:
Partnership business is done by two or more businessmen and they share all the profits
and loss of the business. Partnership business involve government as well as private bodies.
These types of activities are often conducted by partners which cooperate each other in order to
expand their mutual interests (Storey, 2016). The main advantage of these type of business is that
only one person does have to bear all the loss and profits of the business. Main disadvantage of
partnership sector business is that each partner is liable to all debts. NEXT plc is perating in
tertiary sector. They believe in providing best services to the customers and satisfying their
needs.
Private sector:
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Private sectors include the organisation which mainly focuses on making money by
providing the best services to their customers (Crescenzi, Luca and Milio, 2016). These
organisations are owned and governed by private group or individuals. In these organisations, the
individual is responsible for any loss and profit for their services. Example of private company is
Iceland limited.
The main aim of private sector companies is to increase their profits. They provide the
best resources to their employees to increase their productivity. It is developed by forming
privatising the public sector or a new firm of its own. Iceland limited is involved in taking help
of primary sector (Haufler, V., 2013). It encourages farmers to produce more and effective food
products. It also provides financial help to them so that they can give more attention in producing
more crops and food products.
Purpose of Iceland limited:
The main purpose of this company is to increase their sale and profits by providing the
best services to their customers.
Legal structure of Iceland limited:
Iceland limited has followed sole proprietorship legal structure in which there is no
difference between business entity and the owner (Mazzucato, 2015).
The organisation is responsible for all debts and loss.
Sole trader:
This business is very simple to set up and the sole trader is responsible for all aspects of
the business. In this, the businessman takes all the decisions and can hire people for expanding
its business operations. They operate in primary sector by manufacturing products from raw
materials (Leite, E. and Latifi, M., 2016). The main advantage of this business sector is that
anyone can start its business with less amount and make better profits from it. On the other hand,
disadvantage is that they cannot compete with strong competitors.
Voluntary sector:
Voluntary sector mainly involves non-governmental and non-profitable companies. It
focuses on completing the basic needs and requirements of the disabled and needy people. They
work on developing the civil society by providing basic facilities like food, shelter, education,
health and other important requirements of the organisation (Fowler, 2013). Example of
voluntary trust is Leonard Cheshire Disability.
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Voluntary sector emphasises its relations with civil society and their main aim is to help
poor and neddy people to raise their standard (Cousins and et.al., 2014). This organisation is
funded by investors, government and some private institutions.
Leonard Cheshire Disability trust believes in providing best services and help to the
people. The trust operates in tertiary sector and provide financial support to the people to meet
their basic demands and raise their standard of living.
Purpose of Leonard Cheshire Disability Trust:
The main purpose of this trust is to support disabled people in providing employment,
education. They focus on best quality care and help customers by giving them financial help.
Legal structure of Leonard Cheshire Disability Trust:
Leonard Cheshire Disability Trust has followed legal liability structure in order to protect
their property and resources (Ragsdell, Espinet and Norris, 2014). They mainly use this legal
structure to protect human rights and provide them basic facilities.
P2 Size and scope of different types of organisation
Scope and Size of National health service
It is providing its services in all over the world. It has more than 1.4 employees working
in its organisation.
Mission of National health service:
Main mission of this firm is to increase their aspirational quality which is easily
accessible to all its customers (Van Dooren and Van de Walle, 2016).
Objectives of National health service:
Objective of the national health service is to provide effective services to people at low
price so that they can recover their health.
Scope and Size of Iceland limited:
Iceland limited is retailing industry which focuses on selling frozen food and grocery
items. It has 2.2% share market in UK. The organisation has more than 23,00 employees
working with them to increase their market value. The company has seven stores in Dublin and it
is also providing its services in Letterkenny. It has net income of £160 million (Benova and
et.al., 2014). Iceland limited is providing its services in Irish market also. Further, the
organisation has increased its sale by 16% in and gained net profit of £113.7 million.
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Mission of Iceland limited:
The main mission of this company is to increase their sale and provide nutritional and
hygienic food to their customers.
Objectives of Iceland limited:
The objective of this company is to provide better services in other countries and increase
customers services in the company.
Scope and Size of Leonard Cheshire Disability Trust:
This trust was founded by Leonard Cheshire in 1948. This organisation supports
thousands of people in UK. The organisation has provided different training services which helps
the people in education, employment and their organisation development (Ragsdell, Espinet and
Norris, 2014). The trust is providing its services in 50 other countries to help the needy ad
disabled people.
Mission of Leonard Cheshire Disability Trust:
Main mission of this organisation is to help the disabled people by providing them best
services so that they can fulfil their basic needs.
Objectives of Leonard Cheshire Disability Trust:
The main aim of this trust is to support the people in their critical situation and provide
them financial helps so that they can meet their basic requirements (Banerjee and Srivastava,
2017). Further, it focuses on giving higher priority to disabled person in the society.
Task 2
P3 Explaining different organisational functions and their importance in meeting the objective of
the organisation
Organisational functions of Iceland limited helps the company to determine how different
responsibilities are controlled and coordinated. It also assists the firm to identify the flow of
information from one level to another.
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Research and development:
Research and development helps in making strategic plans. This department team in
Iceland limited focus on researching new product. They mainly evaluate the demand of the
goods in the market. They determine the product costs, its life-time and value in order to make
the product successful (Atighechian and et.al., 2016). R & D team of Iceland limited tests the
product prior to its implementation.
Employees of this department develops different goods and services by analysing
demands of consumers. New product is released in the market by properly analysing its costs and
need in the market. They mainly focus on producing different goods and modifying the existing
ones. The activities of R & D are related with the companies. The main aim of this team is to
make the products according to the market needs and ensuring that their company is able to
satisfy the requirements of their customers.
Human resource management:
Human resource management of the company is mainly responsible for managing
employees, staffing and making new policies for the organisation. It helps in providing various
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Illustration 1: Organsiational structure
(Source:Organisational structure, 2017)

training and development plans to the employees which helps them to increase their productivity.
It also looks after employees’ health and safety policies and bonus plans. Human resource
manager is responsible for providing different resources to their employees on time. It also looks
after recruitment and selection process (Banerjee and Srivastava, 2017).
The human resource manager helps the company to provide the team of best and skilled
employees so that they can increase their productivity. Further, the manager helps in maintaining
the effective relationships in the organisation. This helps the staff members to increase their
productivity and achieve their task properly (Bocken and Bocken, 2017). It also helps in making
the effective environment in the company as it provides awards and promotion to the staff
members according to their performance.
Finance:
Finance department of the company has to look after the budgeting of the company. The
finance manager provides information about the company's revenue loans, debts and overall
progress reports. Further, it makes effective relationship with banks and other investors to take
loans and financial help for the company. It provides proper information about the budget which
helps the organisation to implement their business strategies effectively.
Marketing:
Marketing manager of Iceland limited looks after promotional strategies to promote their
products in the market. The new product of the company is publicised by marketing manager. It
takes help of various strategies like advertisements, newspapers, social media websites like
Facebook, Twitter etc. to aware people about their products and services. This helps Iceland
limited to increase their market share and revenue (Bruni and Santucci, 2016).
Sales:
The main role of sales manager is to increase their sale in the market by using different
methods. It encourages people to purchase their products. They do it by communicating the
benefits and new features of the products. They move door to door to increase the sale.
All these department helps Iceland limited to increase its sale by meeting the demands
and needs of their customers. Human resource department looks after employees and provide
effective environment to increase their productivity (Chaffey and Smith, 2017). R & D
department researches the product related information and develop products according to the
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needs of consumers. Marketing and sales department try to increase the sale of Iceland limited by
using different strategies.
Organisational structure:
Functional Structure:
Functional structure is used by organisations to build all its departments effectively so
that they can complete their purpose. This structure proves to be helpful for small companies
which depends on the talent and knowledge of their staff members. The main disadvantage of
this structure is that company does not allow its employees to communicate and coordinate with
other departments.
Divisional structure:
This structure is used by the firms which are operated in different countries and larger
areas. Divisional structure is followed by the company. The main advantage of divisional
structure is to fulfil the demands of the customers in different areas. Its implementation is costly
as it has large scope and size. It also helps in meeting the needs of the company very rapidly
(Crane and Matten, 2016). Iceland limited has used this structure to increase their productivity
by fulfilling the needs and demands of their customers rapidly. This structure also assists the
company to work well in the market of other countries
Matrix structure:
This structure is combination of functional and divisional structure. This is used by
multinational companies which requires high management. It gives benefits of both the
approaches. They can be proved to be power struggle for the company because multinational
organisations have the managers works at same level and handles same managerial activity.
Main disadvantage of this structure is that it often creates conflicts among managers which
affects the whole management and environment of the organisation (Crescenzi, Luca and Milio,
2016).
Task 3
P4 Factors affects business activities of the organisation
External factors such as Political, Economic, Social, Technology, Legal environment
(PESTLE) Analysis of Iceland limited: -
 Political: - Political factor are made and running by the governmental bodies. Iceland
Limited was defendant of. Different factors which directly affect the organisation are
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such as Vat, tariff, stability etc. (Dewenter and et.al., 2017). These factors affect the
business of the Iceland limited because the government increases the VAT tax rates then
Iceland limited also paid high amount to the government.
 Economic Factor: - Economic performance of the company is assessed in this factor.
Economic factor includes Interest rate, foreign exchange rates, economic growth patterns.
Iceland Limited needs to manage economic condition of various countries. Economic
consideration is very necessary for developing business operation in various countries
(Erhardt and Martin-Rios, 2016). There the main problems are interest rate, GDP,
employment level etc. The organisation has to develop various marketing strategies,
which will help them to solve all problems and ensure sustainability of competitive
position.
 Social Factor: - Social factor are fundamental and plays an important role in diversifying
the business of the organisation. Iceland limited change itself according to its customer's
needs and wants. Public of UK have different culture and follows different trends to meet
their goals. Average age of the people in UK is 55 and 45 which forces the company tio
develop their brands according to these people demands. The company changes the
clothing style, design as per customer choice and preference (Fozer and et.al., 2017).
Iceland limited must be focused on the market trends. Unemployment level in UK has
increased due to recession.
 Technological Factor: - Technological factor plays an important role in developing the
business and increasing its publicity. t. Online shopping has modified Iceland limited to
automate and accelerate purchase or reduce the supply chain for product sold online. The
company invested 100 million on new technology adoption and 150 million people have
visited the website of the company (Thom and Wenger, 2016). Recently the company
adopted new technology that is internet service with no charges. Iceland limited has
hoped that their customers will use their services like WiFi in and help them to increase
their sale. This helps to the company to integrated its internet and high street offerings.
 Legal Factors: - As compare to other companies, Iceland limited has to contract with
some legal issues. Iceland has developed various strategies to increase their business
operations. It has also forced Indian workers to work at lower wages in their company.
Many of them were asked to work overtime without any wages and when they raise their
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voice agaist company, they were told to leave the workplace. Sales was increased more
in Ireland as tax rate in this country is 20% as compared to UK (Jaakkola and et.al.,
2016).
 Environment Factor: - All money generates from selling plastic bags are invested in
project that improve public parks, play area in around UK. The companies more and
more focused on the eco-friendly concept and they also suggest to their suppliers for
these concepts. Iceland limited is focusing more on gas leaks, electricity and waste
management (Thompson and McLarney, 2017). This strategy helped to them go green
and achieve higher efficiency.
Task 4
P5 Conducting internal and external analysis of the firm
Internal analysis of Iceland limited is defined as follows:
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Illustration 2: SWOT analysis
(Source: SWOT analysis, 2017)

SWOT analysis of Iceland limited
This model will help in analysing strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats of the
company.
Strengths: -
High recognition of the brand: -The high brand value of Iceland limited beneficial for selling
the product because customers are more attract with the brand name and early influence by
the goods and services of the organisation.
Different variety of items – The organisation has provided wide variety of goods in its different
stores which help the customers to choose their products effectively (Meihls and et.al.,
2016). As compare to other market competitors the company produce wide range of product
with high quality.
Weaknesses: -
 Poor promotion due to non-trendy shops – Negative point of Iceland company is that it
has old fashioned stores and has not launched new products from long time.
 Manual working as increased: - Iceland limited had a background of following old
technology in the manufacturing process. It has not followed new technologies in their
products which has affected their sale and performance.
Opportunities: -
 Increase the reach: - It has opened various number of stores in different countries of the
world. After some time, organisation has performed better in the market and increased its
sale.
 Market segmentation: - In this, customers are divided into new market groups (Närman,
Johnson and Gingnell, 2016). The organisation has gained chance to develop various
techniques by opening new stores in best market place.
Threats: - Competition from different companies: - Asda and Salisbury are main competitors of
Iceland which are developing new products at lower rate and attracting customers
towards their brands by providing the best customer service.
TWOS analysis:
Strengths and opportunities(SO):
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Iceland limited has large number of stores in different countries which helped the
customers to easily access Iceland limited products and services. This has increased the
satisfaction and confidence of the customers (Prajogo, 2016). The organisation has found
opportunity to develop more stores so that they can increase their productivity and performance.
Strengths and threats(ST):
With the help of its strengths, the organisation is able to overcome its weaknesses.
Weakness and opportunities(WO):
Iceland limited has to develop more stores in the area which are crowd and mostly visited
by them so that it can increase its food business and overcome its weakness.
Weakness and threats(WT):
The main weakness of the company is that its stores are not well managed which are
creating problems in providing the best facilities to their customers.
External analysis:
Political factors of different countries directly affect the company's performance as they
have to follow all the rules and regulation of the government policies. Further, economic factors
also play an important role in affecting Iceland limited revenue. They have to launch their
product by analysing the economic condition of the country (Ramos and et.al., 2016). Social
factor must be considered by the company because every country has different traditions and
culture.
P6. Interrelation of strengths and weakness with external factors
Different strengths of the company help them to increase their productivity and overcome
its weaknesses. For example, high brand values and large stores have increased their publicity
among customers and help them to convince political parties to set up their business in different
countries. Further, effective online facilities to order their product helps the company to
overcome their technical problems and situations (Ryan and Tähtinen, 2016). They have
provided the best technical equipment’s to their employees so that they can increase their
performance. Further, the organisation mismanagement of stores has created problem for them as
it is directly impacting on the customers services. Effective management is very necessary in
creating good impression on the customers which helps them to increase their sale and revenue.
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CONCLUSION
Summarizing above report, it can be concluded that business environment is necessary in
achieving the targets and goals of the company. Mission, scope and size of public, private and
voluntary organisation are discussed. Various type of organisational structures and functions of
Iceland limited are considered. Further, PESTLE analysis is done to analyse their positive and
negative impact on the company's business. SWOT tool is used to examine the strengths and
weaknesses of the business operations. Relationship between strengths and weaknesses with
external factors are determined.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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