Introduction to Business Studies

This report provides an introduction to business studies and covers the roles of different organizational departments, collaborative working practices, environmental factors affecting businesses, and the role of financial management and reporting within an organization. The report focuses on M&S, a multinational retailer in the UK.

Introduction to Business
Studies

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
1. Role of different organizational department............................................................................1
2. Understanding collaborative working practices.......................................................................2
3. Environmental factors that are affecting businesses................................................................3
4. Role of financial management and reporting within the organization.....................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Business studies is an academic subject which combines the elements of marketing,
finance, accounting, organizational studies and economics. In this report, M&S is taken, which is
a multinational retailer in UK, selling wide variety of products. This report covers roles of
marketing, HR and finance in an organization, environmental factors and role of financial
management and reporting in an organization.
MAIN BODY
1. Role of different organizational department
There are several roles of HR, marketing and finance department within organization
which has been described below.
Role of HR: HR plays an important role in every organization. It's major role is to maintain the
required workforce as per the requirement, providing them training and development sessions,
performance appraisal, motivating employees to improve performance and retaining the
employees which will enhance the organization's productivity (Cowan and Fox, 2015). As M&S
is operating in a highly competitive retail sector, it is essential for it to sustain its growth. To
continue its growth, it requires to ensure that employees achieve its operational goals on a
regular basis. The HR department of Marks and Spencer is very efficient and resourceful which
helps in carrying out its responsibilities smoothly and efficiently.
Role of Finance: Finance is one of the function of the business which is responsible for
acquiring and managing funds for the business and carries out the planning process for the
expenditure of the funds. Finance at M&S is no only about numbers but it's about engaging with
people across the organization and helping in understanding the value it brings and the direction
of the business (Krylov, 2015). In M&S, finance team makes sure that strategies are understood
and targets are met. It also comes up with the forecasted financial statements for short term and
long term which helps in forming business strategy for both UK and international. It also
focusses on reducing its cost of production to avail greater profits.
Role of Marketing: Marketing plays an important role in an organization. It helps in building a
relationship between customers and the organization which is foremost important in an
organization (Kim, Shin and Min, 2016). The marketing function is also tasked with market
research and analysis in order to launch new product or face the competition, matching products
with the customer’s needs and wants, bring up creative and innovative ideas, setting the price of
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the product as per consumer's expectation, expanding the market and business, meeting the
demand of the consumers, carrying out quality check and risk assessment, promoting the product
through various promotion channels etc. Marks and Spencer has very proficient and efficient
marketing team. It mainly focuses on the promotional practice of its brand (Išoraitė, 2016). M&S
chooses its marketing strategy in such a way that it is aligned with its marketing campaign with
in store and digital marketing strategy. It uses television, print media, social networking sites,
mobile ads as a mode of communication. The also has its own website to promote its brand by
providing all its products online (Marks & Spencer Marketing Mix (4Ps) Strategy. 2019). It also
provided fashion tips to its customers through its blog and website. M&S also promotes season
sales to its loyal customers with heavy discounts. It also runs a loyalty program where customers
gets loyalty points on the basis of amount spent, which can be redeemed on future purchases. So,
these are the roles, marketing team performs within an organization to achieve business
objectives and which are never ending.
2. Understanding collaborative working practices
Working in groups or teams enables employees to be quicker and efficient as compared
to the people who work on the projects on their own. Collaboration makes employees more
responsible and motivates them to perform better and effective. Some advantages are stated
below.
Increases creativity: Innovation is the greatest advantage of collaborative working by bringing
together people and engaging in tasks that requires brain storming (The Importance of
Collaboration in the Workplace. 2019). In M&S, employees always works in a team with
contrasting skills which blend together to solve problems in an innovative way.
Increases learning: When a team works in collaboration, they are exposed to the skills that are
outside the training which encourages in ways of working and creates interest among its
employees to learn new things (Sanaghan and Lohndorf, 2015). M&S continuously pursues its
employees to new learning possibilities in a new field which will enhance the skill sets and
improve its worth to the organization.
Higher employee productivity: Implementing teamwork builds bonds among members which
increases the employee engagement and productivity. M&S is taking the advantage of the same
by engaging and motivating its employees to work in team and increase the productivity of the
organization.
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3. Environmental factors affecting businesses
Environmental factors are of two types internal and external factors which impacts the
businesses. A detailed analysis of the same is carried out.
External Factors: These are the factors that have direct impact and on which business have no
control.
Political: This factor determines the extent to which government may influence the economy.
For M&S, free trade policies have been a huge political benefit but with the Brexit, many of its
policies will be no longer apply (Chernysheva and et.al, 2017). It is expected that Brexit will lead
to increase in production cost, shutting down of its stores overseas and losing customers.
Economic: It includes factors such as inflation rate, interest rate, disposable income etc. that
affects the economic performance. Currently in UK, market is shifting towards small retail stores
having lower mark-up price and majority of population is preferring these local stores rather than
M&S premium products which is a big threat to the brand.
Sociocultural: It refers to the social environment such as demographics, cultural trends etc.
Marks and Spencer has been for a very long time which is acting against it as it is not called as
the youth brand. So it is projected that M&S will lose majority of its customers from the latest
generation.
Technological: Nowadays, all the retail stores are adapting the latest technology and the same
goes with M&S. It has introduced AI based self-checkout system in its stores and also introduced
e-commerce store that may help it to grab current generation.
Legal: It refers to the laws such as labour laws, safety laws, and consumer law etc. that affect the
business environment. Over the years, M&S has been into various legal disputes and recently
Frascati landlord is the one dispute which has affected its brand image. Brexit is the issue having
a negative impact on the brand.
Environmental: It refers to all those factors that affect the surrounding environment. M&S has
promoted the concept of sustainable retail industry and ensures to be careful in its production
process. It also sells fair trade products which also has environmental benefits.
Internal Factors: These are the factors within the organization that affects the business.
Strength: It refers to what the organization is good at and what distinguish it from its
competitors. M&S has a positioned its brand of it customers, it perceives as value for money due
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to its high quality and wide range of products, having more than 1000 stores across 40 countries
and over 80,000 workforce globally.
Weakness: It refers to the factors that are stopping an organization to perform at its optimum
level (Shabanova, and et.al, 2015). M&S is having a limited market share due to heavy
competition from other retailers. Being a popular brand, it needs to protect its brand from fake
imitation.
Opportunities: It refers to favourable factors that give organization competitive advantage.
M&S can expand its business to the new market segment and work on its online presence to
attract more customers.
Threats: It refers to unfavourable conditions that can have a negative impact on business
(Bhasin Hitesh, 2019). Other retail stores are the biggest threat to M&S because of the
discounted prices.
4. Role of financial management and reporting within the organization
Finance is an indispensable part of any organization whether it is profit-making or non-
profit-making. It is essential for all organization to sustain and grow it business which requires
efficient management of financial resources. Some major roles of financial management is
discussed below.
Financial planning: The finance manager use available data to analysis the current performance
and position of the organization and based on which plans and decisions are taken. M&S's
finance team makes sure that its strategies and targets are well understood within the
organization. Timely financial reports are prepared to execute the planning process.
Financial reporting: Financial management includes maintaining financial reports that are used
by the finance mangers to do forecasting and budgeting for new projects. In M&S, daily cash
flow report is prepared to know the current status of the cash and will it be able to carry out its
day to day activities and other business operations.
Risk management: Effective financial management prepares risk analysis report for the future
and makes plans to mitigate the risk. M&S analysis the unseen and uncertain future events and
it's impact and tries to make back up plan to resolve the risk or to face the risk.
CONCLUSION
From the above analysis it can be concluded that there are number of roles of different
functional units within an organization. In order to achieve business goals, importance of
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collaborative working practices have in workplace which can be beneficial to the organization
and various angle from which environmental factors can impact the businesses. Also there exists
a significant role of financial management and reporting plays in the success of business
operation.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Chernysheva, Y. G., and et.al, 2017. Business analysis as an important component of ensuring
enterprise’s economic security.
Cowan, R. L. and Fox, S., 2015. Being pushed and pulled: A model of US HR professionals’
roles in bullying situations. Personnel Review. 44(1). pp.119-139.
Išoraitė, M., 2016. Marketing mix theoretical aspects. International Journal of Research–
Granthaalayah. 4(6). pp.25-37.
Kim, N., Shin, S. and Min, S., 2016. Strategic marketing capability: Mobilizing technological
resources for new product advantage. Journal of Business Research. 69(12). pp.5644-
5652.
Krylov, S., 2015. Applied strategic financial analysis within strategic management of
organization finance. European Journal of Business and Management. 7(15). pp.1-16.
Sanaghan, P. and Lohndorf, J., 2015. Collaborative leadership: The new leadership stance.
Shabanova, L. B., and et.al, 2015. PEST-Analysis and SWOT-Analysis as the most important
tools to strengthen the competitive advantages of commercial enterprises. Mediterranean
Journal of Social Sciences. 6(3). p.705.
Online
Bhasin Hitesh, 2019. SWOT analysis of Marks & Spencer. [Online] Available Through:
<https://www.marketing91.com/swot-analysis-of-marks-spencer/>.
Marks & Spencer Marketing Mix (4Ps) Strategy. 2019. [Online] Available Through:
<https://www.mbaskool.com/marketing-mix/services/17122-marks-and-spencer.html>.
The Importance of Collaboration in the Workplace. 2019. [Online] Available Through:
<https://www.nutcache.com/blog/the-importance-of-collaboration-in-the-workplace/>.
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