Global Business Environment of John Lewis Partnership

Explore the global business environment and its impact on John Lewis Partnership. Learn about the political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors affecting the company. Discover the strategies and initiatives taken by the company for a brighter future. SWOT analysis and key drivers impacting functional areas are also discussed.

GLOBAL BUSINESS
ENVIRONMENT OF JOHN LEWIS
PARTNERSHIP

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PART 1..................................................................................................................................4
ANALYSIS......................................................................................................................................5
SYNTHESIS/CREATIVITY/APPLICATION...............................................................................5
PART 2..................................................................................................................................6
EVALUATION................................................................................................................................6
PARAMETERS...............................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The global business environment is described as the nature of international trade. The
fundamental way of shaping the nature and dynamics of the global environment. Many forces
were applied to make the global business environment successful. The term “Global business” is
viewed broadly in the context of shared increasingly integrated environment.
John Lewis Partnership is an public limited company dealing in the retailing industry.
The company was founded by “John Spedan Lewis” with headquarter in London, UK. The
company was engaged in the selling of the products such as clothing, cosmetics, watches and
jewelry, gift wares, house wares, furniture etc.
PART 1
KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
Political
The political factor played very important role in impacting the company. There was an political
stability in the personal and household sectors which impacts on the economy of the country.
The corruption level was decreased at high rate in the country. For the enforcement of contract,
the company made a legal framework which was approved by the government of US (Silvius, G.,
2018). John Lewis is showing interest in US because of Brexit uncertainty and because of this
uncertainty that had made a legal framework that was approved by UK government. High
uncertainty of Brexit is affecting most of the high street retailers including John Lewis as well
because of this uncertainty John Lewis is showing interest in US source as well (Chinique de
Armas and Pestle, 2018).
Economic
The economic factors were affected in many ways by the company. John Lewis was one of the
organizations that helped in improving unemployment rate. The inflation rate of UK is quite
stable (Morze,and et.al., 2017). Other than this it has also been observed that whole UK economy
is facing recession and because of this it is becoming quite sensitive to changes in interest rates.
This has increased competition ion each retail sector organization.
Social
The social factor also played a very important role in the development of the company. The skill
level of employees of the organization is very high. The cultures, genders roles, social

conventions were playing an major role in the company(Osiyuvskyy, and et.al., 2015). These
social factors are important for John Lewis to be focused on as well in order to gain competitive
advantage.
Technological
The technological factor also plays a major role in the product offerings of the company. The
rate of technological diffusion was increasing at very rate in the company. The technological
factor also impacted on the cost structure of the personal and household goods and industries.
The consumer goods sector's value chain structure was also negatively effected by the
technologies of the company (Lewis, Meek and Cassell, 2018).
Environmental
The environmental factor also played a very major role in the company. The company was
recycling the waste materials which were released from the factories of the company. There was
an positive attitude of the company in supporting the renewable energies. The was producing
those products were ecological for the environment (Putri, 2017). The company was strictly
following those laws which were regulating the environmental pollution.
Legal
The company imposed the discrimination law in which there was no discrimination made on
the basis of caste, religion, skin complexion and gender.
ANALYSIS
The company took the following measures to have a brighter future for the organisation:
 Automation
The improvement in the automation sector will make the future of the company bright. The
company will have an clear vision about what kind of job offerings they have to create for the
business. The company will focus to save the jobs of the employees who are already working in
the organisation. The low skilled worker who were recruited many years ago will be provided
with free training and development sessions.
 Artificial Intelligence
The artificial intelligence will play a major role in making the future bright of the company. In
future the company will invent machines which will easily recognize the voice and images of the
employees who are working in the organization (Mikhaylov, and et.al., 2015). This will help a
lot in the recording the absenteeism and performance of the employees. The data analysis will

become easy by the innovation of machines which will do large calculations within some
minutes of time.
 Digital First
This strategy will help in making the business activities very fast in the company. The work
which are done manually in the company will be done on the high tech machines. The use of
high tech machine will reduce the human efforts and will provide the company with exact and
accurate information about any topic (Putri, 2017). By adopting the digital strategies, the
company will meet the customers expectation and will bring positive feedback from their
customers.
SYNTHESIS/CREATIVITY/APPLICATION
 Digital Skill Development
The digital skill development will be done by three process and they are upskilling, reskilling,
career development and workplace training. Te employees working in this company have to
develop their skills time to time. The upskilling will include the skills and developments which
the employee got from the practical situations and their understanding on them. In reskilling the
employees skills will be developed by the organization by them training and development
sessions. The last skill is the workplace training which will have the same skills which are going
to be taught in the reskilling(Trad, A. and Kalpić, D., 2016).
 Experience Centred Business
In this the company wants feedback from the customer that what was their experience while
using the products of the company. The experience of the user is valued a lot because all the
upcoming strategies and new innovations will be based on the previous experience of the
customers. The experience of employees who are working in the organization will also be
counted. Their satisfaction level also matters a lot.
PART 2
EVALUATION
SWOT ANALYSIS OF JOHN LEWIS PARTNERSHIP
Strength

It is one of the retail store which always stood first in the UK market. The company offers the
online shopping which will be done by the company's official apps. John Lewis follows a robust
growth strategy and it also has strong online presence.
Weakness.
The weakness of the company are that they offer limited range of products which while the other
supermarkets have a large range of products. One of the main weakness of John Lewis is their
inconsistent profitability.
Opportunities
The opportunities company was having that they were increasing the purchasing power of the
consumers by providing the improved and latest life styles their customers. John Lewis can focus
on growing demand for private labels and can also focus on entering into a new market.
Threats
The threats of the company are the high competition of the other supermarkets and convenience
store. One of the main threat of John Lewis is increasing intense competition.
KEY DRIVERS IMPACTING THE FUNCTIONAL AREAS OF JOHN LEWIS
PARTNERSHIP
The two functional areas targeted are as follows:
 Marketing
The name of the company was changed so that it can create an different image in the eyes of the
customers. Earlier the was named as “John Lewis” and the term partnership was not added
behind the brands title. Few years back, the term Partnership was added after John Lewis. This
helps a lot to their customers to differentiate between the company and other supermarkets. The
was dealing only in premium products which are consumed by the customers but according to
market research there was demand for other products also so, the company started dealing in low
cost products also. The company started providing several services which attracted many
customers towards the purchasing of the companies products(Kohli, and et.al., 2016). The
company had their own price monitoring team which kept a check on the prices of the branded
products of their competitors and then they were fixing the price of their products accordingly.
The company used different distribution channels for the better customer service. The company
was doing their promotion on the social networking sites such as you tube, facebook, instagram

and twitter. The company also launched its official mobile app which helped the customers to do
the shopping easily.
PARAMETERS
 Human Resource Developments
The company had many human resource development for the successful running of their
business. The company was dealing with both practice and performance of the employees of the
organization. The description and explanation was not restricted by the human resource
department of the company(Rezaee, Z., 2018). The company needs to allow the disciplinary
openness and it was capable of being an independent variable as well as dependent variable. The
human resource development was inclusive in the terms of interests. It was not just about the
concerns of efficiency and management interest. The company focused on giving the full work
satisfaction to the employees of the organization so that they remain loyal and efficient in
performing their tasks and duties.
CONCLUSION
The company John Lewis Partnership was doing the business in the globally in the environment.
There were many issues faced by the company while doing the business. The company had faced
many political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal issues in which these
factors effected the policies and procedures of the company in different ways. The company took
many steps to have better future of the company. The sectors such as artificial intelligence,
automotive, digital marketing, digital first initiatives were taken by the company. There were
many strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the company which were effecting their
business.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Mikhaylov, and et.al., 2015. Social capital and global mindset. Journal of International Education
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Morze,and et.al., 2017. Design of a university learning environment for SMART education.
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Osiyevskyy, and et.al., 2015. Business Model Design and Innovation in the Process of the
Expansion and Growth of Global Enterprises. In Global Enterprise Management (pp.
115-133). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Rezaee, Z., 2018. Supply chain management and business sustainability synergy: A theoretical
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Silvius, G., 2018. Integrating sustainability into project risk management. In Global Business
Expansion: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 330-352). IGI Global.
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Implementation, and Management (pp. 733-753). IGI Global.
Chinique de Armas, Y. and Pestle, W., 2018. Assessing the association between subsistence
strategies and the timing of weaning among indigenous archaeological populations of the
Caribbean. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 28(5), pp.492-509.
Lewis, J.S., Meek, T.T. and Cassell, C.R., 2018. Massively Expanded NEA Accessibility via
Microwave-Sintered Aerobrakes.
Putri, M.E., 2017, December. The Effect of Tangkil Flakers Changes Against Hand Pain in
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Health, Life and Social Sciences (ICHLaS 2017). Atlantis Press.