Introduction to Business Studies

This document provides an introduction to business studies, focusing on the role of HR, Marketing, and finance functions within an organization. It also discusses the importance of collaborative working practices and the role of financial management and reporting. The document uses Tesco company as an example.

Introduction to Business
Studies

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Describe the role of HR, Marketing and finance functions within an organization. How is
working together for profit...........................................................................................................3
Develop an understanding of collaborative working practices....................................................5
Demonstrate knowledge of the role of financial management and reporting within the
organization..................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Business represent the enterprising entity that involve the set of activities in order to cater
the specific purpose or cause successfully. It can either function for the profit maximization or
social cause based on which all the internal activities associate with different department like
marketing, finance and human resource are carried out (Al-Mamary and et. al., 2014). To better
define the topic of report Tesco company has been selected which deals in well established
supermarket or retail store. These stores act as a wide umbrella where company deals in various
variants of utility items, grocery, electronics, books, cloths and so on. This report cover topics
like functioning of different functional area like HR and ways that help them to contribute in the
profitability of firm. Determine the collaborative working practices and role of financial and
reporting management are covered in the report.
MAIN BODY
Describe the role of HR, Marketing and finance functions within an organization. How is
working together for profit
An organisation comprises of various personnel that differ in terms of the skill,
knowledge, qualification, experiences and belong to different community or cultural
background. But all them need to possible work together within common platform in order to
create the synergy that leads to organisational success. Most of the successful organisations like
Tesco comprises of the different functional unit which involve the employee that have similar
kind of potential. The members of each unit particularly work together to attain the collective
goal within specific time frame. Explanation of the some areas in context to Tesco company are
defined below:
Human resource: This department is responsible to focus on the certain compliance that
is associate with the employment law that strategically helps to manage the business operations.
It is the strategic process that involve activities such as recruitment, staffing, retention, training
as well as development of employee (Aral, Dellarocas and Godes, 2013). Within, Tesco
company HR mangers plays an essential role where they focuses to empower the staff so that
they perform their daily regime in best possible manner. Along with that in order to enhance the
footfall of retail store, the role of HR is to evaluate the performance of existing employee and
conduct appraisal programme in order to promote the deserving staff by offer them better

remuneration, incentives and promote them to higher level. This successfully enhances the
overall productivity and profitability of firm.
Marketing: Under this the marketing manager significantly analyse the behaviour of
customer in terms of their changing preferences or requirement (Patel, Pettit and Wilson, 2012).
For this they try to manage the database of consumer and constantly focuses to upgrade the
quality or attribute of existing product which finally help to establish long term relationship with
customer. In terms of the Tesco company marketing department helps to focus on the untapped
area and bridge the gap between customer requirement and the availability of offering. As most
of the people and families are shifting to lead healthy life due to which marketing department has
helped the company to focus on the organic and healthy eating stuff. Accordingly, they promote
their offerings through physical stores (hoarding, print advertisement) and digital media
(website, social media, SEO) in order to constantly engage the existing and potential customer.
Finance: The role of finance department is to mange the funds of business entity by
effectively managing the inflow as well as outflow of cash. It comprises of the activities like
planning, organizing the accounting activities, auditing as well as control the unnecessary
expenditure of firm. Such role plays an essential role within Tesco company because it involve
wide operations because of which it require separate department that can prepare the budget and
manage the internal functioning successfully.
Thus, it has been determined that there are various department of an organisation that
involve in similar type of activities. But at the same time coordination and connectivity needs to
be maintained amongst these functional areas to gain the better result (Bebbington, Unerman and
O’DWYER, 2014). Whether, it is human resource, finance or marketing department need to
possibly work together in order to manage the financial resources or manpower which
favourably help to attain better output. Like, marketing department depend upon the HR to hire
the desirable aspirant which can help firm to share the effective relationship with customer via
proficient communication skill. This help to sustain the trust of customer and enhance the sales
of the product. Similarly, HR depend upon finance department in order to consider both cost as
well as benefit in order to carry out recruitment process fro the profitability of firm. Therefore,
all the department are interrelated in terms to leave positive impact within the functioning of firm
that leads to sustainable development.

Develop an understanding of collaborative working practices
Collaborative working practices involve the efforts of both individual as well as group
member that commonly work together in order to share significant skills and idea to attain the
common objective. To carry out such practices significant amount communication needs to be
effectively maintained amongst the member so that better decision can be formulated (Brigham
and Houston, 2012). Along with that it involve certain practices like brainstorming and group
discussion method where different ideas in terms of suggestion and solutions are kept forward to
add the value. The managers of Tesco usually promote the collaborative working practices as it
helps them to bring innovative that sets their unique image and overpower the presence of
competitive rivalries. Certainly, there are some challenges such as cultural diversity, internal
conflict, clashes to reach out to a solution which the team embers can face and cannot be
neglected. So to overcome such issue Tesco company perform various activities to enhance the
collaboration amongst team members. Explanation of the beneficial activities are articulated
below:
 Respected company give preferences to the various collaboration software that can be
accessed by the confined team member. Application of such software assist the
employees to share the relevant information in form of videos, images or document, store
data, train mender. Usability of such portal maintain the interaction on the continuous
basis.
 The manager always makes the effort to engage the employees by offering them the
suitable environment, fair remuneration, desirable working conditions which enhance the
accountability. Along with regular meeting between employer and employee is the
collaborative working practices that help to avoid the high absenteeism issue.
 Tesco makes prominent effort in terms to boost up their employee to socialise with the
customer or external stakeholders. This encourages the people to manage the team
collaboration as well as focuses to mange the interpersonal communication (Frias‐
Aceituno, Rodriguez‐Ariza and Garcia‐Sanchez, 2013). Further, it result in terms to
improve the existing sales of company.

Demonstrate knowledge of the role of financial management and reporting within the
organization.
Financial management and reporting department encompasses the activities like planning,
directing, conduct allocation of funds to diverse working units as well as identify the favourable
source of funds to fulfil the objective of an organisation. Tesco company perform their
operations globally so they need to significantly manage the capital and financial resources of
company in order to maintain the liquidity and leverage the advantage of operations. If the firm
is not able to manage the financial activities then it won't be able to utilise the opportunity to the
fullest level (Olson and et. al., 2018). Thus, the major role performed by financial management
and reporting are determined below:
 Financial manager are responsible to make the significant decision and exercise control
for the better functioning of firm by adopting various techniques like financial
forecasting, ratio as well as profit and loss analysis.
 The reporting manager systematically record all the financial transaction of business and
maintain it on regular basis. This assist the firm to prepare the financial statements like
cash flow statement, balance sheet as well as profit and loss statement. Based on which
the actual position of firm is identified. Accordingly, it helps to compare the performance
and set the benchmark for future.
 They together help the Tesco company to determine the process by which profit or
surplus amount of an organisation can be utilised for the success of company. Like, they
help to determine the ratio of amount which needs to be allocated to shareholders as
dividend. Further, certain amount is maintained as retained earning that can help to meet
the uncertain conditions (Rasool, 2017).
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been determine that the objective of an organisation can only
be achieved due to the contribution of internal department. The functional manager of diverse
unit make sure they make best possible practices in terms to contribute for the success of firm.
Along with that collaboration practices involve the individual efforts in terms to address the
certain problem and come up with valid solution to deliver the innovation. Further, financial
management is accountable to prepare the budget and manage financial statements of company

to maintain the better reporting of monetary transaction which leads to gain the organisational
success.

REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Al-Mamary, Y. H. and et. al., 2014. The role of different types of information systems in
business organizations: a review. International Journal of Research (IJR). 1(7).
Aral, S., Dellarocas, C. and Godes, D., 2013. Introduction to the special issue—social media and
business transformation: a framework for research. Information Systems Research.
24(1). pp.3-13.
Bebbington, J., Unerman, J. and O’DWYER, B. R. E. N. D. A. N., 2014. Introduction to
sustainability accounting and accountability. In Sustainability accounting and
accountability(pp. 21-32). Routledge.
Brigham, E. F. and Houston, J. F., 2012. Fundamentals of financial management. Cengage
Learning.
Frias‐Aceituno, J. V., Rodriguez‐Ariza, L. and Garcia‐Sanchez, I. M., 2013. The role of the
board in the dissemination of integrated corporate social reporting. Corporate social
responsibility and environmental management. 20(4). pp.219-233.
Olson, E.M. and et. al., 2018. The application of human resource management policies within the
marketing organization: The impact on business and marketing strategy implementation.
Industrial Marketing Management. 69. pp.62-73.
Patel, H., Pettitt, M. and Wilson, J. R., 2012. Factors of collaborative working: A framework for
a collaboration model. Applied ergonomics. 43(1). pp.1-26.
Rasool, Z., 2017. Collaborative working practices: Imagining better research partnerships.
Research for All. 1(2). pp.310-322.