Introduction to Business Management

Use 10 references

Introduction to Business
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PART A...........................................................................................................................................3
Management................................................................................................................................3
Mintzberg’s theory of management...........................................................................................3
PART B............................................................................................................................................5
PESTLE Analysis........................................................................................................................5
Porter's Five Forces Framework .................................................................................................7
PART C............................................................................................................................................8
Corporate Social Responsibility..................................................................................................8
Hofstede's model.......................................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFREENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Business management refers to the discipline that is working to organise, analyse as well
as plan different types of business operations. There are a number of different skills required by
business managers at each level and function of business to efficiently run and manage all the
operations in an organisation (Wang and et. al., 2020). In the following report discussions are
made on various factors effecting a business that includes management, business environment
where major focus is put on external environment and its effect on a business organisation and
corporate responsibility. All of these factors are affecting business in a number of ways and
studying these may help businesses to formulate appropriate strategy to achieve all their goals
and objectives in the expected period of time.
PART A
Management
Management refers to administering of an entity or organisation which might be for
business, for a non-profit organisation or for any governmental body (Heath, 2020). Management
can also be described as various steps taken in a process to manage and control people or things.
Mintzberg’s theory of management
Being a manager an individual needs to handle a number of different roles on a daily
basis. They are required to take care of overall tasks and functioning of the organisation. Various
examples can be taken where they need to act as a leader, guide, resolve conflicts, solve
problems, manage resources and so on. Henry Mintzberg developed the theory of management
in 1990 under which there are 10 roles assigned to a manager which are mentioned below:
Category Roles
Interpersonal Leader
Liaison
Figurehead
Informational Disseminator
Monitor
Spokesperson

Decisional Disturbance Handler
Negotiator
Resource Allocator
Entrepreneur
 Figurehead refers to the roles of a manager towards, legal, social and ceremonial
responsibilities. It is necessary that managers are looked upon by people as an inspiration.
 Leader is an important role to be played by manager in which they are looking upon a
group, team or the organisation as a whole to manage their performance effectively.
 Managers also work as a Liaison of the organisation as they are responsible for
networking with internal as well as external contacts and representing organisation in this
process.
 Being a Monitor it is required by managers to find out information which is in anyway
related to organisation industry or in external environment. They also monitor the
performance of team based on their productivity and improvement.
 They work as a Disseminator and communicate all the potential information to
colleagues and team who can use it for their benefits (Wang, S. and et. al., 2020).
 The duty for Spokesperson of organisation is played by manager as well. In this role they
need to communicate development of organisation to the people outside the organisation.
 They manage the business as Entrepreneur solving problems and brining in new
innovations.
 Any barrier or dispute is handles by them acting as Disturbance Handler in any such
cases.
 They act as Resource Allocator making sure that all the resource in organisation is
efficiently managed.
 Job of Negotiator is performed by them when they take part in negotiation processes of
department, team or functions.
There are a number of different tasks that are to be performed by management in an
organisation. The Mintzberg’s theory helps to identify all those roles. These roles are also
divided under three broad categories that are interpersonal, informational and decisional all of
which are to be performed by the management effectively to run a business and attain al the
objectives of organisation effectively.

Thinking critically is necessary for mangers as they need to have a plan B ready in case
of any unwanted circumstances. Critically thinking helps them to note down all the possible
things and path in which their actions can result. When a manager is a critical thinker they
effectively create strategies and action plans for all possibilities which will help in attaining goals
and objectives of organisation on time (Yuvashri, Swathi and Chithra, 2020).
Managers in an organisation are expected to list down all the stakeholders of the
organisation along with their interests. In order to keep a track of all the stakeholders in an
organisation business managers are required to construct stakeholder analysis. With the help of
this analysis managers can easily manage the interests and requirements of all the different
stakeholders in an organisation.
PART B
PESTLE Analysis
PESTLE analysis is done by organisations to understand the influence of external factors
on operations of organisation. Below mentioned is PESTLE Analysis conducted on Under
Armour:
Political factors: There are a number of political factors affecting Under armour such as
the decision regarding setting up of manufacturing units. As the labour laws are rigid in some
countries while flexible in others. The manufacturing unit of company in China is allowing it to
develop products at a cheap cost and then export it to rest of the world (Allen, 2020).
Economic factors: There are a number of economic factors influencing company like
GDP, per capita income, inflation and so on. The industry for apparel is growing leading to
opportunity for company to expand in various markets including middle east and Asian
countries. Due to inflation Under Armour is also forced to increase prices of their products.
Social factors: There are a number of social factors which have affected Under Armour
in many ways. These includes change in lifestyle of people, people getting more brand
conscious, customers looking for more value and satisfaction at lower prices and inclination of
people towards healthy living and sports. All these are directly affecting Under Armour.
Technological factors: Use of social media and other technologies are effectively
hindering the demand and needs of certain products in market. So is the effect on Under Armour
as well. It have became necessary for the company to make sure that they are effectively

bringing changes in their business as per changing technologies. They are also actively using
online feedbacks in order to keep consumer satisfied.
Legal factors: There are a number of rules and regulations which are applicable on every
company so is on Under Armour as well. They already have faced negative media due to one of
its product causing severe burn to a child and resulting in breaking rules of safety. There are
other laws such as labour law, compensation laws and so on which are to be managed by
organisations in order to make sure that they are not facing any lawsuits against the.
Environmental factors: Environmental factors include the responsibilities of company
towards the environment they are running there business in. it becomes necessary for company to
limit the wastes they are releasing in environment. Due to this they are now working on
sustainable materials which can be disposed off easily without causing any damage to
environment (Goslin and Kluka, 2020).
a. Which of the external forces you have identified has most implications for the business?
The social factor is having most implication on Under armour. The reason behind it is
that most of the decisions of company are regarding the needs and demands of people. The
trends in market are important factor for Under Armour. The major effect of this factor on
company can be directly judged by its revenue and profits.
b. To what extent has the organisation’s policy taken account of these forces?
Organisations policies and changing strategies are focusing on social factors. They have
generated a number of campaigns focusing on women empowerment. The products so developed
by them majorly focusing on trends in market. They are efficiently adding to the needs of health
conscious customers with their huge product range. These are the important decisions which are
taken by company in order to deal with the changing trends in market, requirement of customers
and preferences of customers in market place.
c. How should managers decide which of the many factors identified in a PESTEL analysis
they should attend to? If they must be selective, what is the value of the PESTEL method?
It is the duty of manager to study the effects of external factors on organisation as well as
all the functions of organisation. It is managers judgement to prioritise and identify which factor
amongst all the factors of Pestle is to attended first. They look upon positive as well as negative
effect of all the factors on profits, reputation, goodwill, revenues, employees as well as
functioning of an organisation.

PESTLE method helps managers to understand the opportunities present for them and
enables them to work upon various strategies for future. This helps them to either grab upcoming
opportunities or get rid of threats to the business if any.
Porter's Five Forces Framework
Porter's five force model is applied to Under Armour which deals in apparel and footwear
for athletes. There are five forces included in this framework which are mentioned below:
Competitive Rivalry: The competitive rivalry for Under Armour is high due to companies
like Nike, Adidas and so on. Also Under Armour does not hold any patent for its fabric or
processes which does not provides it any competitive advantage (Heath, 2020).
Bargaining power of buyers: Strong brand recognition of Under Armour provides them
with a benefit by lowering the bargaining power of its end users. On the other hand some of the
wholesalers of company like Dick's sporting goods enjoy bargaining leverage over company.
Bargaining power of suppliers: There are a number of suppliers producing products for
Under Armour in a number of different countries which results in providing less power of
bargaining to suppliers and profit to company.
Threat of new entrants: Threats from new entrants is low as the funds required to brand
and market new companies to penetrate in market is quite high. However, there are a number of
brands dealing in sports segment who can launch their apparel line being a threat for Under
Armour.
Threat of substitutes: Threat from substitute for Under armour is low as demand is
increasing and is also expected to grow in coming future.
In order to stay in competition and gain competitive advantage there were a number of
steps taken by Under Armour. These include changing their marketing strategy, developing new
products using social media and so on. Some of those strategies are mentioned below:
 They launched a competition in race to find “Ultimate Intern” this attracted a number of
fan and followers on Facebook and Twitter.
 They transformed their marketing strategy for female by “ I Will What I Want”
campaign.
 They created a new product to stand out in competition which was never thought of
before by any of their competitor.

PART C
Corporate Social Responsibility
a)Practices the organisation uses to promote and monitor corporate responsibility
There are a number of organisations who are effectively working for welfare of society.
Below mentioned are examples from some of the organisations who are successfully working
towards providing benefits to the society. They also keep on checking and monitoring their
performance:
 Google is the world's largest renewable energy purchaser on the planet. They are
dedicated towards providing grants to a number of people through this they are also
fighting the injustice and inequality in society. They are also facilitating green
commuting as well as gift machines for their employees. There are a number of ways
google is adhering by its social responsibility including environment, society as well as
its employees.
 Lego is one another group which have showed a number of example through which
companies can effectively adhere to their responsibilities towards the society. They
however started 50 years back but the results of their hard work is showing now through
the amount of work they are doing for the society. They are following an environmental
friendly process for development of their products. They are also on a way to make their
carbon footprint to 0 by 2030. they are also developing various ways to use sustainable
products for production to what they are using now. They have commitment towards
ethical practices for their consumers as well. They believe that even slightest efforts of
their will bring change in world and benefit society as a whole.
 Warby Parker is a company that is working towards glasses which can also be used as
an accessory these days. They usually send five options to their customers to choose
from. But other than this they are also working to provide glasses to those who are in
need of it. They have developed a program called as buy a pair give a pair (Socially
Responsible Companies to Applaud, 2020). In this they take help from their customers
and add some amount from themselves in order to provide glasses to those in need.
They started in 2010 and till date they have already provided a pair of more than four
million glasses. It is not always necessary that CSR is conducted only for bringing in
profits but also for building a good society.

 Microsoft have came with a number of products which have totally changes the ways in
which world used to study, read or play. Bill Gates is making huge Philanthropic
donations. They have a webpage specially made for it which is expected to reach a total
of $2billion this year. They are working with a number of non profit government
organisations . They have proved that the path to helping others may start small but
gradually it will increase and bring huge profits.
b)Identify two recent examples of corporate malpractice and two of philanthropic behaviour.
What were their effects?
Corporate malpractices:
 Volkswagen was recently accused to have inbuilt with a software that might affect the
emissions according to the place it is been tested in. The measurement tests for carbon
dioxide in cars was also faulty (Jena, 2020). This had a great negative effect on the
company as they had to recall the cars and due to which they had to bear the first
quarterly loss in 15 years.
 Another example of Valeant pharmaceutical can be taken when the company generating a
single drug was asked the question for raising funds for two drugs. Later on it was found
out that rather than investing in R&D the company is buying out small pharmaceutical
companies from the amount it had raised. The share price of company were affected
heavily due to this the company also had to later change its name to Bausch Health
Companies Inc.
Philanthropic Behaviour:
 Google is providing double donations and helping people to improve their revenues by
providing them technologies. They have also announced a goal to award an amount of $1
billion and also the employees would contribute 1 million volunteer hours for the
organisation. When calculating the grants per hour by company accounts to an amount of
$10. This have helped company to develop goodwill and value of brand.
 Johnson & Johnson are always focusing on women and children. They are working on
ensuring the essential surgeries for some global disease problems. They are also working
on an approach for global and local effect in order to do which they are joining a number
of partnerships and making collaborations. The company donates $2 then the employee
donates $1. There have also been donations by retirees of company. In this way company

is effectively setting up examples for its employees and also helping towards a good
cause by helping woman and children.
Hofstede's model
This is a theory used for cross-cultural communication in an organisation. This was
developed by Geert Hofstede's. It explains how culture of a society is also effecting its the values
of employees in the organisation. There are 5 cultural dimensions included in Hofstede's theory
which are mentioned below:
Individualism-Collectivism: This is a dimension that focuses on society and not on an
individual. It is necessary to understand the effects of integration of groups. In individualists
society like US individuals are expected to look after themselves whereas in in collectivists
society like India strong bond between people can be seen effectively.
Power Distance: Power distance refers to the distribution of power amongst people in a society
or an organisation. This basically states that all societies are unequal but there are a number of
societies that are more unequal. South Africa have the largest discrimination in income
throughout the world. Compared to this India and China are less unequal (Vangermeersch, R.,
2020)(Mungi, 2020).
Masculinity-Femininity: This basically refers to the distribution of believes and values between
genders. It is often seen that in a highly masculine background women are kept to emotional
implications only. In a feminine culture however the role of emotional influence is split between
both the genders. Japan is considered to be masculine on the other hand countries like Norway
are highly feminine.
Indulgence vs Restraint: This is the extent till which people can effectively control their
impulses. And strong control over them refers to restraints. Indulgence can be seen in Italy on the
other hand restraint can be seen in European countries.
Uncertainty Avoidance: This refers to the extent till which people are uncomfortable due to
uncertainty. High uncertainty avoidance index are countries with rigid believes whereas low
uncertainty avoidance refers to countries who are risk taking. Chile, Peru are countries which
highly avoid uncertainty.

CONCLUSION
Following report helps in concluding various factors affecting management as well as
functions in a business. It becomes necessary for businesses to study and identify various ways
through which businesses might get affected. This helps businesses to prepare for the changes in
environment and mould their functions accordingly. CSR practices hold an important role in
business it is also necessary that businesses are using it for the benefits of organisation as well as
society. Any malpractice in CSR by businesses might lead to number of negative consequences
on their functioning as well as bring them loses. On the other hand, correct use of CSR may
increase their goodwill, reputation, brand value, revenues and profits.

REFREENCES
Books and Journals
Allen, S.J., 2020. On the Cutting Edge or the Chopping Block? Fostering a Digital Mindset and
Tech Literacy in Business Management Education. Journal of Management
Education, 44(3), pp.362-393.
Goslin, A. and Kluka, D.A., 2020. 1 Integrative framework for international sport business
management and its macro-environment. Managing Sport Across Borders.
Heath, R.L., 2020. Management of corporate communication: From interpersonal contacts to
external affairs. Routledge.
Jena, R.K., 2020. Measuring the impact of business management Student's attitude towards
entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intention: A case study. Computers in
Human Behavior, 107, p.106275.
Mungi, A., 2020. Business Management: Short Notes FORMAT.
Vangermeersch, R., 2020. The contributions of Alexander Hamilton Church to accounting and
management. Routledge.
Wang, S. and et. al., 2020. Smart manufacturing business management system for network
industry spin-off enterprises. Enterprise Information Systems, pp.1-22.
Wang, S. and et. al., 2020. Smart manufacturing business management system for network
industry spin-off enterprises. Enterprise Information Systems, pp.1-22.
Yuvashri, S., Swathi, J. and Chithra, D., 2020. Commercial Application for Business
Management. Recent Trends in Androids and IOS Applications, 2(1).
Online:
Socially Responsible Companies to Applaud.2020.[online].Available
through:<https://www.classy.org/blog/6-socially-responsible-companies-applaud/>