Solve Problems in a Business Environment

Solve Problems in a Business
Environment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
a) Identify a problem that exists within a business.....................................................................3
b) Analyse the business problem.................................................................................................4
c) Diagnose causes of the problem..............................................................................................4
d) Confirm with others that they understand the problem..........................................................5
e) Compare different solutions to the problem...........................................................................5
f) Agree upon a solution..............................................................................................................6
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
a) Develop a plan to solve the problem, taking into account any constraints.............................7
b) Explain why they have chosen their approach........................................................................7
c) Explain how they will know when the problem has been solved...........................................8
d) Allocate roles and responsibilities to support the plan...........................................................8
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
a) Carry out own actions as set out in the plan...........................................................................8
b) Review progress towards solving the business problem........................................................9
c) Make adjustments to the plan as necessary...........................................................................10
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................11
a) Evaluate their approach to solving the business problem.....................................................11
b) Evaluate other approaches that may have been more productive.........................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Business environment is characterised as the surroundings that contains internal and
external factors which impacts activities and functions of company. In today's competitive
market environment, businesses face various issues that hamper their performance (Alkhafaji and
Nelson, 2013). Various factors are exists within the market like technological, economical,
social, political etc. that impacts operations of an organisation in both positive as well as
negative manner. This report is based on Marks & Spencer which is British multinational
retailer that deals in home products, clothing and food products. The company was established in
year 1884 and its headquarters is located in Westminster, London, United Kingdom. This report
covers description of an issue that exist within business along with its analysis, causes, solutions
to problem. Apart from this, a plan is prepared in the report to solve the issue and justification for
selecting a particular approach. Moreover, roles and responsibilities are allocated to employees
and own responsibilities are carried out to support the plan. After that, review of progress and
necessary adjustments in plan are carry out. At last, evaluation of approach to solve business
issue and other approaches that may be more productive are defined in the report.
TASK 1
a) Identify a problem that exists within a business
There are many issues that an organisation face while running is business operations in
competitive business environment. These problems may exist within or outside the firm and
these requires to be considered on time in order to ensure the sustainability of company for long
term. Non- consideration of the issues may leads the entity towards low productivity and profits.
Whether an organisation is small or large, it have to deal with the challenges in more effective
manner. Marks & Spencer is an organisation of United Kingdom that deals in retail sector. It
offers food, clothing and home products to customers in most of the countries (Bøllingtoft,
2012). The company run its operations at many places and around 80,700 employees are working
in it with diverse cultural backgrounds. Due to this, firm is facing the issue of diversity at
workplace that leads it to ineffective communication and less productivity at workplace. It
sometimes also leads to discrimination at work place due to which a sense of dissatisfaction is
created among employees. People working in the organisation belongs from different places and
their culture, religion and language are also different. This makes it sometimes difficult for

employees to understand what other person wants to say. All this ultimately impacts the
operational performance of company in negative way (Botha, Kourie and Snyman, 2014).
b) Analyse the business problem
In context of business, diversity refers to the condition in which an organisation is having
people with diverse backgrounds. As Marks & Spencer is a large organisation and perform its
operations in many countries, large number of employees are employed by firm which are from
diverse backgrounds. This pose challenge of poor or ineffective communication at workplace in
front of organisation. As the people are from different cultures, their languages are different that
create hurdles for them in communicating with others and understanding what other people say.
In many situations, diversity issue arise at workplace that creates tension between employees.
This brings a communication gap between employees that hamper theirs as well as
organisational productivity. This also results in discrimination at workplace due to which a sense
of dissatisfaction is develop among employees. They becomes demotivate and takes less
participation in activities of company. This declines the productivity of both workforce and
organisation. When there are differences in communication and language, embracing diversity
becomes difficult for Marks & Spencer. This also results in lack of agreement among employees
and management which makes it difficult for company to running its business activities in an
effective and efficient way (Chiu, Tzeng and Li, 2013). All this impacts negatively to the
operational performance of organisation and results in the declining productivity of company.
c) Diagnose causes of the problem
There are many causes due to which diversity issue takes place within the organisation.
Some of the causes are mentioned below:
Hiring people from diverse backgrounds: Large organisations hire employees from
different places. This leads to bring differences in the culture and language of employees who are
from diverse backgrounds. Due to having people from different cultures, it creates the issue of
diversity at workplace and leads to ineffective communication among employees.
Geography: For maintaining production, firm use local available human resource to
fulfil the workforce requirement of organisation. It population of the place where firm is located
consist of diverse demographic, then firm develop workforce on the basis of that population.
This leads to bring diversity issue at workplace and brings communication gap among employees
(Draman and Edmondson, 2012).