Business Operations and Management Strategies

The provided report is a detailed analysis of various activities in business operations that are essential for effectively accomplishing organizational goals and objectives. The report uses PESTLE analysis to determine external factors impacting the company, value chain analysis to explain logistics operations, and 7P's of marketing to analyze market competitiveness. Additionally, human resource management is discussed with its objectives, functions, and corporate social responsibility. Recommendations are provided for the company to be advantageous in the long run.

BUSINESS
ESSENTIALS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Background of the company............................................................................................................3
PESTEL analyses.............................................................................................................................4
Analyse the market competitiveness................................................................................................5
Marketing Analyses ........................................................................................................................6
Human resource management..........................................................................................................7
Recommendations for next 2-5 years..............................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Business is the sum total of activities which takes place in internal and external
environment of the business. It has become an essential part of everyday which is concerned with
production and distribution of goods and services. Organisation undertaken in this report is TK
Maxx which is a retail industry in UK (Androniceanu, 2017). This report will explain the
background of the company. It will describe the PESTLE analyses and marketing
competitiveness. This will also illustrate the marketing mix which will include the 7P's and
human resource management of the company. And lastly, it will also conclude the
recommendations for the organisation for next few years.
Background of the company
TK MAXX is a part of TJX families and companies which was launched in UK in 1994.
It is a retail company and deals in clothing, footwear, bedding and domestics, furniture and
giftware. It is the first company in UK to open an international retail store. It has 515 stores in
entire Europe and the number of employees working in UK is 1335. The total turnover generated
by the company for last year was £226.7 million, £13.9 million profits. . Revenues at TK Maxx’s
UK owner increased by 10.3%, but profits dived by 35%, reflecting rising labour costs and costs
related to its expansion strategy in 2017 (TK MAXX, 2019).
PESTEL analyses
It is a tool used by marketers to monitor macro-environment factors that can effect an
organisations performance (Bell, Bryman and Harley, 2018). This tool is extremely helpful in
starting a new business or while entertaining a foreign market. PESTEL analysis includes
Political, Economic, Social, Technological, legal and environmental factors.
 Political Factors: These factors includes policies of government that directly affect the
company and that Includes changes in Tariffs restriction, Trade restriction, political
stability and taxation policies which will affect the retail industries. Due to which
companies have to increase prices of the product which affects companies revenue. As
T.K Maxx is one of the old players in the retailer industry so it has experienced certain
changes in political laws and regulations (Carroll and Buchholtz, 2014). But the future

is not predictable as relationship between countries may become the reason for changes
in laws.
 Economic environment: The overall economic situation of a country directly affect the
performance of an industry. Issue like recession and economic downswing have affected
the revenue of retail merchants (Chang, 2016). During recession time company had to
reduce its work force which affected the performance of the company. T.K Maxx are
recycling their store waste and are fulling their duty towards environment. Through
which they are fulfilling their corporate social responsibility and also creating a strong
brand image in the mind of customers.
 Social environment: Society and culture is an important factor that must be given
importance by business in order to retain in the market (De Mauro, Greco and Grimaldi,
2016). T.K Maxx provides these fashionable product in affordable pricing to the
customers in order to attract them and retain them by providing high quality products.
 Technological environment: Technology can be useful while improving the quality and
reducing the price of the products. T.K Maxx does have its own manufacturing unit but
still technology plays an important role in the revenue generation process. Use of online
facility and e commerce sites will benefit company in order to create brand awareness
and for attracting large number of customers (Evans, 2015).
 Environment factors: In order to keep the environment clean in every store of the
organisation. Cleaners are being provided by the Initial company of UK. They also
provide training to the cleaners to maintain tidiness and also train them about recycling
waste.
 Legal environment: This includes factors like wage system, changes in law and changes
in trade policies which affect the companies performance in the industry (Iansiti and
Lakhani, 2014). Company will insure that it works accordingly to the legal regulations
of government. In order to trade successfully and ethically.
Analyse the market competitiveness
A competitive market is one in which greater amount of producers compete with each
other to fulfil the wants and needs of huge number of customers (Jeston, 2014). This can be
further explained for the TK MAXX company through value chain analyses model which is
discussed below :

Value chain analyses
It is complete range of activities which includes designs, production, marketing and
distribution which brings product from its manufacturing stage to its delivery to the final
customers. There are various stages involved and they are :
 Inbound logistics : The logistic team of TK MAXX company works effectively and
efficiently to support the transportation operations. They have collaborated with transport
providers and incorporate a green clause in their agreements, which covers both trucking
and store delivery vehicles and commits both parties to achieving key environmental
goals (LaFevers, Ward‐Smith and Wright, 2015). Together with their partners, they
continually work on innovative ideas to maximise fuel efficiency and minimise costs,
thereby reducing the impact of vehicles on the environment.
 Operations : The footwear, clothes, bedding, furniture, etc. are manufactured in
technologically advanced systems and processes. The quality check for these products are
done by experienced workforce who will assure that finished products fulfils all the
desired criteria and specifications which are needed for exporting them in international
market.
 Outbound logistics : The distribution is done at international level covering countries
Europe and Australia. For this purpose the company partners with buying and
merchandising to allow the smooth and efficient flow of goods. This team are
accountable for driving service and efficiency through effective planning and partnership.
They will provide all of the educational materials allowing the distribution centres to
accomplish their service to stores.
 Marketing and sales services : It uses various tools of marketing and sales which
includes off price retail strategy in which it provides products at prices which are loved
by the customers and increases sales (Quinlan 2019). It also uses social media for
promotions and on its official website it determines the purchasing process in which
buyers take an opportunistic and entrepreneurial formulation to snapping up products at
minimum prices.
 Technological development : This organisation uses modelling software for the purpose
of maximising efficiency of their store delivery network, better utilisation of tailor space,

testing new alternative fuel vehicle which improves the movement of products from
suppliers to the stores .
Source : Porter's Value Chain Model. 2019
Marketing Analyses
The market analyses of the company is done with the help of marketing mix or 7P's.
Marketing mix refers to the set of actions which company uses to promote its brand or products.
(Rosemann and vom Brocke, 2015). It combines with a number of factors to solidify a products
brand and assist to sell products and services. The 7P's of the TK MAXX is discussed below :
 Product : This company produces various products yearly which relates to the different
segments. Some of the top brands of the company includes Armani, sketchers, champion,
paprika, puma, Thomas pink, etc.
 Price : It is a quiet expensive brand but still its customers are loyal towards it because it
sells premium brands with superior quality and follows off price retail strategy which
maximises sales. The company has selected a premium pricing strategy as well which
sells the superior quality of their products to the premium section of the society.
Illustration 1: Porter's Value Chain Model. 2019

 Place : The company has s strong distribution channel and sells its products by partnering
with various transport agencies. Being the retail industry, its target market is men,
women, home decor, kids, etc.
 Promotion : The company understands the importance of promoting and advertising its
products and creating awareness among the people for its new product launch. For this
purpose, it uses promotional tools like advertisements, hoardings, television, internet,
magazines, radio, etc. It also uses discounts and voucher tools when there is off season
and company aims to clear the stock (Stim, 2016) .
 Physical evidence : The company puts a lot of emphasis on designing, fashionable and
trendy outfits for the people. This also stresses on giving unique packaging to its
giftware segment with different colours, packaging styles for supplying in numerous
countries.
 Process : They have more than 800 stores all over the world and generally stresses on
production quality, effective logistics, optimisation of cost, increasing sales through
effective promotions, etc.
 People : The company employs more than 30000 people across the world. It puts lots of
emphasis on maintaining relations with the stakeholders which includes customers,
suppliers, partners, etc.
Human resource management
 Objective : The organisation purposes to deliver an exhilarating, fresh and rapidly
changing, assortment of different brand and named clothing at excellent values to our
customers. When diving value they believe it is a combination of quality, fashion and
price and will continue accomplishing this goal.
 Function : This department performs the various operations and functions for the
company. It recruits people from different countries which can be done easily by using
various methods of recruitment like video conferencing or Skype calling as it helps in
eliminating the differences of time zones and distances. It also provide required training
of effective communication skills to its employees so that they can make people
understand about the products and clear their queries.
 Corporate and regulatory affair : This organisation is completely involved and best
known for its corporate social activities which are very crucial for every business

organisation. Its CSR programs like give up clothes for good which helps in transforming
the products which the customer no longer uses into the financial resources for saving life
of the children's who are suffering from cancer. This can be done by leaving a bag of old
accessories, clothes, footwear, etc. at the stores (Wirtz 2016).
 HR strategy : The human resource management of the organisation gives an assurance
of recruiting desirable and well-qualified employees for the vacant position. The
organisation is improving HR operation by adopting G2 Crowd technology which are
crucial as it involves solutions which will promote employee engagement, diversify
company, rethink sexual harassment training, expand corporate wellness solutions and
involve artificial intelligence to improve HR operations.
Recommendations for next 2-5 years
As the organisation deals in retail sector, it faces a stiff competition from various stores
like Mark and Spencer, ASDA, Sainsbury, etc. For improving its position and brand name in the
market, the organisation will need to work deeply with the marketing department and develop
business strategies which will enhance the products and offerings of the company leading to
improved sales. In order to compete with other established players in the market, the organisation
will need to work with research and development department so that they can do in depth
analyses of market and introduce innovative products for the coming years so that they will be
able to satisfy customer needs and demand. They should follow effective pricing, promotional
strategies by maintaining the quality of their products and services. Apart from this, they should
work on advancement of technologies and adopt them in their working so that this will reduce
their cost of production while maximising the efficiency which will be very helpful in the
coming years when competition will be increased more. Apart from this, it will also be useful in
adopting the changes when external environment changes at any course of business.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that business requires ample of activities in
their operations which are very essential in the effectively accomplishing the organisational goals
and objectives. The report has used PESTLE analyses which has determined the various external
factors which can impact the company. It helped in doing environmental scanning. For analysing
marketing competitiveness, value chain analyses model has been used which has explained the

various logistics operations. The market analysis is done by using 7P's of marketing of the
company. The human resource management department has been explained with various
objectives, functions, corporate social responsibility, etc. Various recommendation are
recommended which will be advantageous for the company in long run.

REFRENCE
Books and Journals
Androniceanu, A., 2017. The three-dimensional approach of Total Quality Management, an
essential strategic option for business excellence. Amfiteatru Economic.19(44).p.61.
Bell, E., Bryman, A. and Harley, B., 2018. Business research methods. Oxford university press.
Carroll, A. and Buchholtz, A., 2014. Business and society: Ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder
management. Nelson Education.
Chang, J.F., 2016. Business process management systems: strategy and implementation.
Auerbach Publications.
De Mauro, A., Greco, M. and Grimaldi, M., 2016. A formal definition of Big Data based on its
essential features. Library Review.65(3). pp.122-135.
Evans, V., 2015. The FT Essential Guide to Writing a Business Plan: How to win backing to
start up or grow your business. Pearson UK.
Iansiti, M. and Lakhani, K.R., 2014. Digital ubiquity: How connections, sensors, and data are
revolutionizing business.
Jeston, J., 2014. Business process management. Routledge.
LaFevers, D., Ward‐Smith, P. and Wright, W., 2015. Essential nurse practitioner business
knowledge: An interprofessional perspective. Journal of the American Association of
Nurse Practitioners.27(4). pp.181-184.
Quinlan and et. al., 2019. Business research methods. South Western Cengage.
Rosemann, M. and vom Brocke, J., 2015. The six core elements of business process
management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer,
Berlin, Heidelberg.
Online
TK MAXX. 2019. [Online] Available Through :<http://www.top1000.ie/tk-maxx>.

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