Drivers of Change Impacting Decision-Making of P&O Ferries

BUS6001 CONTEMPORARY
MANAGEMENT ISSUES

Table of Contents.
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Drivers of change impacting decision-making of P&O Ferries...................................................3
Implications of decision-making on the company's commercial and operational activities........6
The nature of the pressure for Drivers of changes.......................................................................7
Recommendation......................................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Contemporary management issues are those ongoing challenges which are based on the
following factors like political, social, economic, technical, environmental, legal etc. It has its
significance, implication, relevance, applicability, effectiveness and material presence in the
present time (Tomislav, 2018). The report will critically evaluate the P&O Ferries business
environment. The company is one of the UK's ferry operator carrying passengers and freight
cargo. The quoted firm was acquired by DP World which is logistics company of Dubai. The
research will express the current challenge which the given organisation is facing i.e. sacking
jobs of around 800 staff without providing the notice and replacing the role with cheaper agency
workers. The study will dicuss the causes which might have impact the decision making of the
company such as social change, globalisation, ethics, sustainability, CSR, demographic change,
leadership, changing needs of stakeholders and innovation. Further, the project will evaluate the
implications of the quoted firm's decision-making on the commercial and operational activities.
Later, the task will suggest considering the nature of the pressure of the change by alternative
approaches. In the end, the report will provide relevant recommendations that recognises the
sustainability and ethical consideration of the company.
Drivers of change impacting decision-making of P&O Ferries
P&O Ferries, a British shipping company incorporated in 2002 through M&A which
operates from its base UK to Ireland, France, Belgium and Netherlands. It provides services like
port, ferries, transporting passenger and freight. In 2019, DP World repurchased the company
from Dubai World (Whyatt and Saunders, 2021). Brexit have not debenefitted the company as
Cyprus is still the member of EuropeanUnion and with the flag of convenience business practice
the company gets advantage of EU tax arrangements (Vega, Feo-Valero and Espino-Espino,
2018). The quoted enterprise came into limelight due to abruptly suspending or terminating its
800 UK's staff with an immediate effect due to the reason of redundancy. The method of
expulsion was hugely critized all over the world by various government and non-governmental
bodies (Preston and et.al., 2020).
The era of 21st century has extremely dynamic which was not only been witnessed but
also impacted us. Every sector in the economy has faced the various challenges in the
functioning and behaviour of the companies. There are many factors which led to the decision-
making of the P&O Ferries. The decisions of the company has a both positive and negative

impacts on its future growth and success. For example, the quoted company don't know that
sacking jobs of the UK's staff members would be one of it's worst decision considering the fact
that the county was the core foundation of its business. This not only means that they are going
against the workfoce but it has other repurcassions which they are unable to foreseen. The
company has to deal with political, social, economic, legal, technical and environmental forces
which might have bad impact on the future of the firm (Roberts, Williams and Preston, 2021).
This decision has witnessed changes in the quoted company's globalisation policy which
may brought new opportunities but also with new threats. Globalisation is a process which is
considered complex affects the functioning , development, behaviour of the corporations and of
consumers. There are several areas which works with the gloabalisation. Apart from all the
factors, economic point lowers the investment and trade which is related to capitalism decrease
in the super-territorial domain. As the quoted company had been acquired by Dubai's group it
would increase the market internationally as well boosting the regional market of the company.
The areas of globalisation are firstly finance which enhance the mobility of capital, financial
market being deregulated and increase the mergers with financial institutions. With help of
globalisation, the quoted company saw a increase in the revenue due to business operations
working on a global scale with better business strategies. The development in technology due to
gloabalisation benefitted the company having an advanced techniques providing better
experience to the consumers. Globalisation reduces the role of parliamentary governement and
protect them from the legal battles. The quoted company owned by Dumbai's group has an
advantage, although the act of suspending was not correct on the ethical or moral ground but
possibly not illegal as UK's National Minimum Wage policy would not be applied to non-UK
destinations because of combination of National Minimum Wage Act, 1998 and Amendment
Order, 2020 which provides provision where a person will only be qualified if working under the
UK's contract (Ewing, 2022). But apart from the legal provisions the action of the company was
largely critized by the ministers and there was an immediate outrage amongst the employees of
the quoted company's subsidiaries. They didn't even feel to consult the employee unions and
UK's government which would defintely not allowed the company to do so resulting them in
higher payoffs. The reason for suspending was important to cut the costs and easy flow of
business which would be replaced by cheap workers.