Business Survival Strategies

This assignment delves into the critical factors contributing to a business's survival and success within its industry. It draws insights from a diverse range of sources including books ('Living the brand' by Baumgarth, 'Environmental disputes' by Crowfoot & Wondolleck, 'Business model generation' by Osterwalder & Pigneur), journals ('A service perspective on business relationships' by Grönroos, 'Invited editorial: A natural-resource-based view of the firm' by Hart & Dowell), and online resources (Recruitment and selection). Students are encouraged to analyze these sources and develop a comprehensive strategy for their chosen business.

Business Resource

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1 Recruitment documentation used in a selected organisation.................................................3
P2 Main employability, personal and communication skills required at the time of application
of job...........................................................................................................................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
P3 Main physical and technological resources required in operation.........................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................6
P4 Sources of internal and external finance...............................................................................6
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................7
P5 The contents of a trading and profit and loss account and balance sheet..............................7
P6 Use of budgets as a means of exercising financial control...................................................8
P7 The financial state of Tesco...................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Businesses do not operate in vacuums or without conflict. There are certain changes in
the business environment that constantly affect sales, profits and strategies. Business owners or
managers know how to identify these environmental forces or elements and work around them.
Some also account for these elements when developing or changing their business and
advertising plans. The effective management and use of business resources is a strong indicator
of the financial success of TESCO. Human, financial, physical, and knowledge factors that
provide a firm the means to perform its business processes. Their are some external factors that
are beyond the control of company (Baumgarth, 2010). These factors are often called external
constraints. An individual business firm survives and grows within the periphery of its
environment. A firm is only a part of a big environment, so there are only a few factors which
are under the control of the firm.
TASK 1
P1 Recruitment documentation used in a selected organisation.
The process of finding and hiring the best-qualified candidate (from within or outside of
an organization) for a job opening, in a timely and cost effective manner. The recruitment
process includes analysing the requirements of a job, attracting employees to that job, screening
and selecting applicants, hiring, and integrating the new employee to the organization.
Job description – Tesco has a post of customer service manager who ensure that proper services
are being provided to customers. To assist him their will a Customer service manager who will
help him in development and execution of decided policies (Crowfoot and Wondolleck, 2012).
This will support organisation in measuring customer satisfaction, handle enquires from
customers, improving service and in managing a team of customer service employees.
Requirements of the job that Tesco want the customer service employees to have:
Soft skills-
 Communication skills – Candidate need to be sufficient enough to be able to help and
inform customers and instruct colleagues on customer service policies.
 Listening skills- They should understand what customers need and listen to input from
other colleagues on how to improve customer service.

 Problem solving skills – They should be able to address any issue that are bought up from
either colleagues or customers.
 Motivational skills – He/she should have ability to lead a team of customers service
assistants.
 Creative thinking skills - gives the ability to come up with new improvement to the
customers service policies
 Good personal presentation- as will be working face to face with customers.
 A commitment to improve your own personal customer service skills on an ongoing basis
 An ability to work well under pressure
 Organizational skills and planning skills
 Time management.
Hard skills (not necessary but desirable)
 Business studies degree
 Consumer studies degree
 Management studies degree
 Marketing degree
P2 Main employability, personal and communication skills required at the time of application of
job.
Employability skills – It can be defined as the transferable skills needed by an individual to make
them 'employable' (Grönroos, 2011). Along with good technical understanding and subject
knowledge, employers often outline a set of skills that they want from an employee.
Employability is improved by strong personal and communications skills which will impress a
potential employer in Tesco. They will need to have skills and qualifications which are relevant
to the job you're applying for.
Personal skills – They are critical to almost any job. Someone with strong personal skills
generally works well with employers, employees, colleagues, clients, and vendors. They can
communicate ideas clearly, and listen well to others. Someone with strong person skills also
typically has a positive attitude in the workplace. Personal skills can be categorized in two ways:
soft and hard skills. Soft skills are more general, intangible qualities or attributes one possess that
enhance their interactions with others (Hammond, Stevens and Svanoe, 2010). They can be

related to attitude, personality, emotions, habits, communication style, and social manners.
Successful development of soft skills happens during interactions with others (family, friends,
and co-workers) and are fundamental to how well a person build and manage their relationships.
Hard skills are more specific and are often associated with a task or activity, most times job-
related. They include certain abilities and knowledge about an area of focus and can be easily
quantified and evaluated. Mostly learned through education, training, and on-the-job experience,
hard skills can include computer literacy, project management, editing, or proficiency in a
foreign language.
Communication skills - It is simply the act of transferring information from one place to another.
It may be vocally (using voice), written (using printed or digital media such as books, magazines,
websites or emails), visually (using logos, maps, charts or graphs) or non-verbally (using body
language, gestures and the tone and pitch of voice) (Hart and Dowell, 2011.). If an employer
notices that employee are not a good communicator then this will have a detrimental effect on
getting a job they seek, this is because employer will think that it could have a negative effect on
the Tesco performance.
TASK 2
P3 Main physical and technological resources required in operation.
At Tesco the building they use is essential towards the day to day running of the business.
In order for the business to provide products and services to its customers they will need
different in-house resources to facilitate the smooth running of the business. A building on its
own would not be enough for the store to be fully operational, they need materials such as;
shelves (to display items), fridges and freezers (to keep cold and frozen items in the right
condition until they are sold), tills (so they have a recorded system of what is sold and how much
it costs), lighting, computers (for administration) etc. Another physical resource that is required
for the operation of the business is insurance, some insurances are required by law for businesses
to have this includes employers’ liability insurance which provides insurance in case anything
happens to employees as a result of the business, Tesco also pays for public liability insurance
that covers any injuries to the public that are caused by negligence. Building and contents
insurance is also necessary to ensure that the store will not lose too much money if the store is

ever damaged, vandalised or stolen from (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010). Security can be an
issue for big companies like Tesco, this is because people find it easier to steal from big
corporations than little independent shops, most Tesco shops are open 24/7 so they hire security
staff that are there around the clock, Tesco also uses security cameras and security tags (on
expensive or commonly stolen items) to facilitate the work of the security guards.
Tesco uses software that is loaded on to all their technology. The software is the
programme that tells the technological items, like tills, what to do, it is loaded with all the
barcodes of items the store sells which means employees can quickly and easily scan items and
the tills will add it up with the least human labour possible, Tesco would not be able to operate
well if it didn’t have the specific software because the software keeps everything in check with
what’s coming in and what’s coming out (Kuckertz and Wagner, 2010). Experience and skills
are necessary for Tesco to work as a business, skills are required for the higher up jobs in the
business such as management. Intellectual property needs to be kept secret as it is required for
Tesco to ensure that new ideas they come up with to improve the store will not be stolen and
used in other competing stores.
TASK 3
P4 Sources of internal and external finance.
A source of finance used by Tesco is retained earnings. They re-invest a certain
percentage of their end of the year profits back into company, so they can improve it. Each year
they decide how much money they re-invest, this depends on the profit they make.
Fixed assets: Another type of an internal source of finance for Tesco is fixed assets. They are an
asset that is not consumer or sold during the normal course of business, these are land, buildings,
equipment, machinery, vehicles etc. These assets are very hard to convert into cash as it takes
time to sell, they would use these assets to fund future operations.
Current assets: They are a key financial source to their business. Current assets are cash and
other things such as inventory that can be converted into cash easily. An asset that will be in use
for less than a year is a current asset as they transfer into money once sold. There stock in their
stores is a current asset as they transfer into money once sold (Qaisar and Khawaja, 2012). An

essential thing for them is to ensure is to ensure that their assets aren’t lower than their current
liabilities (debt) as this may force Tesco to close as they want to be able to pay off their debts.
Working capital: It can be both a good and a bad thing, this will depend on the debt a company
has in this case. Tesco is a massive company so they will have a lot of working capital, this will
ensure them to grow as they can expand their brand. Companies like new starts will have
finances to expand and grow their business.
TASK 4
P5 The contents of a trading and profit and loss account and balance sheet.
Profit and Loss account: The P&L will not tell you about the underlying health of the business,
such as how much money it owes or is owed and what the value of its assets are. It shows how
much money did business made in a year. It records two things sales and cost/turnover. The
trading account shows the income from sales and the direct costs of making those sales. It
includes the balance of stocks at the start and end of the year (Ward, 2016). There are different
sections of P&L which include:
1. Sales- it is the total value of what you’ve sold during the period of time. The formula for
it is price time’s quantity.
2. Cost of sales- these are the costs that are directly related to the sales you have made. It
includes raw materials or stock you have purchased to resell. It may also include the cost
of creating the items that you sold, including the cost of staff time if you are selling
service in Tesco.
3. Gross Profit – This is the sum of sales revenue minus cost of sales. It tells you how much
profit you are making directly from your sales.
4. Operating Costs – These are all the other costs associated with running a business, such
as the rent and rates on your premises, accountancy and legal fees, and depreciation.
5. Net Profit – This is the gross profit minus the operating costs. This is almost the true
profit of your business because it’s made up of all the income and all the costs. The net
profit is transferred over to balance sheet.
Balance sheet:

A balance sheet shows the value of a business on a particular date. A balance sheet shows
what the Tesco owns and owes. Anything in Tesco that has financial value is included in the
balance sheet.
1. In first group is included everything that can be liquidated (sold for cash) including stock,
cash, and money owed by customers, are current assets. These are usually short term.
2. Second group is more long-term; including property, machinery, patents and long-term
investments these are called fixed assets of the Tesco.
3. Third part of balance sheet is current liabilities and they are what the business owes in the
short-term: money owed to suppliers, taxes due, short-term loans and overdrafts.
4. The last group is long-term liabilities they are what the business owes in the long-term –
to be paid after one year, as well as capital and reserves.
P6 Use of budgets as a means of exercising financial control.
A budget is a financial plan for the future concerning the revenues and costs of a business.
Budgetary control is the process by which financial control is exercised within Tesco. Budgets
for income/revenue and expenditure are prepared in advance and then compared with actual
performance to establish any variances. There are many management uses for budgets. For
example, budgets are used to:
-Control income and Control income and expenditure (the traditional use)
-Establish priorities and set targets in numerical terms
-Motivate staff
-Improve efficiency
In an effective budget system:
-Managerial responsibilities are clearly defined
-Individual budgets lay down a plan of action
-Performance is monitored against the budget
-Unaccounted for variances are investigated
P7 The financial state of Tesco.
Current years are transformational for Tesco, in which they have reset the business on a
road of recovery. They delivered sales excluding VAT, excluding fuel, of £48.4bn in the year,
0.1% above last year on a 52-week basis at constant exchange rates and saw improving like-for-

like sales trends in all areas of the Group (Scullion and Collings, 2011). This year they moved to
a simpler profit measure based on operating profit before exceptional items and, on that basis,
profits were £944m as they started to rebuild profit momentum whilst continuing to invest in the
customer offer. Their statutory profit before tax was £162m. They generated £2.6bn cash from
retail operations, a 39% increase year-on-year and reduced our total indebtedness by £6.2bn to
£(15.5)bn.
CONCLUSION
It can be that all living creatures including human beings live within an environment. Apart from
the natural environment, environment of humans include family, friends peers and neighbours. It
also includes man-made structures such as buildings, furniture, roads and other physical
infrastructure. The individuals do not live in a vacuum. They continuously interact with their
environment to live their lives. Every business organization tries to grasp the available
opportunities and face the threats that emerge from the business environment. Business
organizations cannot change the external environment but they just react. They change their
internal business components (internal environment) to grasp the external opportunities and face
the external environmental threats. It is, therefore, very important to analyse business
environment to survive and to get success for a business in its industry.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Baumgarth, C., 2010. “Living the brand”: brand orientation in the business-to-business sector.
European Journal of Marketing. 44(5). pp.653-671.
Crowfoot, J. and Wondolleck, J.M., 2012. Environmental disputes: Community involvement in
conflict resolution. Island Press.
Grönroos, C., 2011. A service perspective on business relationships: The value creation,
interaction and marketing interface. Industrial marketing management. 40(2). pp.240-
247.
Hammond, P., Stevens, R.P. and Svanoe, T., 2010. The Marketplace Annotated Bibliography: A
Christian Guide to Books on Work, Business & Vocation. InterVarsity Press.
Hart, S.L. and Dowell, G., 2011. Invited editorial: A natural-resource-based view of the firm
fifteen years after. Journal of management. 37(5). pp.1464-1479.
Kuckertz, A. and Wagner, M., 2010. The influence of sustainability orientation on
entrepreneurial intentions—Investigating the role of business experience. Journal of
Business Venturing. 25(5). pp.524-539.
Osterwalder, A. and Pigneur, Y., 2010. Business model generation: a handbook for visionaries,
game changers, and challengers. John Wiley & Sons.
Qaisar, S. and Khawaja, K.F., 2012. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in
Business. Cloud Computing: Network/Security Threats and Countermeasures.3.
pp.1323-329.
Scullion, H. and Collings, D., 2011. Global talent management. Routledge.
Ward, J., 2016. Keeping the family business healthy: How to plan for continuing growth,
profitability, and family leadership. Springer.
Yuan, W., Bao, Y. and Verbeke, A., 2011. Integrating CSR initiatives in business: An organizing
framework. Journal of Business Ethics. 101(1). pp.75-92.
Zellweger, T., Sieger, P. and Halter, F., 2011. Should I stay or should I go? Career choice
intentions of students with family business background. Journal of Business Venturing.
26(5). pp.521-536.
Online
Recruitment and selection. 2017. [Online]. Available
through:<http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/business-theory/people/recruitment-and-
selection.html>. [Accessed on 6th June 2017].