Business Management and Research Methods Assignment

The provided assignment is a detailed analysis of various topics in business management and research methods. It includes discussions on sustainable business models, e-commerce, and organizational structure, as well as references to relevant publications and online resources. The assignment aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of these concepts and their applications in the business world.

Unit 1 Business and the
Business Environment

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
ACTIVITY 1....................................................................................................................................2
Overview of the different types of organisations...................................................................2
Description of different types of organisation........................................................................2
Various organisational functions within a business alongside to organisational chart and
explain it along with functions with regard to their objectives and structure........................5
ACTIVITY 2....................................................................................................................................8
Impact of the external environmental factors and their relation with micro environmental
factors on the decision making of the firm.............................................................................8
SWOT of organisations and their relation with micro environmental factor.......................10
Interrelationship of strength and weakness with PESTLE...................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14
1

INTRODUCTION
Business can be termed as the commercial activity that includes the manufacturing or
development of services and products that are been sold or delivered to consumers for achieving
profitability targets. It is largely based on the internal and external environmental factors that
impact on overall performance of organisation. These factors will lead the organisation to
maintain quality of products and services offered to their customers. This is further classified in
many sub sectors and operations which will help in proper evaluation of environmental factors.
The report involves the assessment of the three different organisations, with their
organisational structures and functionalities. The backgrounds and mission statement of the
enterprise is been set with the proper detailing of the stakeholders. Other than this, the
organisational structure and their advantages or disadvantages are been analysed. Also, the
suitable assessment of macro environmental factors with micro environment on decision making
is performed and suitable SWOT analysis is been presented for different enterprises.
ACTIVITY 1
Overview of the different types of organisations
Explanation of organisations
The details regarding these firms are as follows:
Public Enterprise: They are the firms that operate in the public sector for providing
benefits of their customer's. It has a partial or complete involvement of government and
providing services to citizens, making profits is secondary objective of this type of enterprise. Its
purpose is to provide good quality products and services to their customers and has a legal
structure of Public Limited Company. This means that company will offer their shares to general
public which is subjected to condition of limited liability only. For example, Tesco Plc. is a
public enterprise.
Private Firm: This is the business enterprises that are owned by a single person or a
group of people and its main purpose or objective is to generate a good amount of revenue. Their
major purpose is to generate a good quality product and get profit by selling them to customers.
It has a legal structure of Limited Legal Entity. This means that liability of shareholders will be
limited to their capital which is invested by them available in UK. For example, H&M is a
private firm.
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Voluntary firm: This is the self-established firm that are usually Non-governmental and
non-profitable in nature and their objective is to work for a social or humanitarian purpose. They
can have a legal structuring of a Trust or Limited Enterprise. Business trust is the form of
organisation in which investors would receive certificated for their beneficial interest and
trustees will be responsible for management. For example, Oxfam is a Nongovernmental
voluntary enterprise.
Description of different types of organisation
Public Enterprise:
Tesco plc
Back ground: This is a public sector firm that operates in retail sector. It is UK based enterprise
which is the world's third largest firm in terms of gross revenue (Winterhalter and et.al., 2017).
Products and services they supply: Tesco Plc. operates in the diverse areas providing the
services including food, clothing, electronics etc. The firm is well known for providing high
quality products and services on a low or reasonable price range. This encourages many buyers
to maker purchase and helps company to operate in many countries around the globe. Besides
this, Tesco Plc. also provides the media related services.
Size and Scope: It is a large scale firm with high scope of growth. It has a net income of about
£54 million and a work force of about 476000 employee's with stores in 11 countries of the
world. The scope of Tesco plc is tended to increase its stores in US and Asian markets.
Vision and mission statement: Their vision and mission statement is to provide high quality
products and services to their customers at reasonable price (Ramadani and et. al., 2015).
Organizational and legal structure: It has a hierarchical organisational structure and the legal
structuring makes it a public limited organisation. Under the Company Act, 1980, it has minimal
capital requirements and its shares are offered to public and can be sold at stock exchange. Tesco
Plc. The hierarchical organisation structure helps the enterprise to have a levelled
communication.
Stakeholders information: The stakeholders involves the public, investors, employees and
suppliers lead the organisation to improve quality of services for customers and revenue for the
firm.
Public organisation with a wide range of organisational structure, size and scope will
have a tremendous impact on the type of products and services that are been carried out within
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the company that will help in proper planning of the measures for executing the business
objectives and delivering of high quality products and services.
Private enterprise:
H&M:
Background: H&M stand for “Hennes and Mauritz Private Limited”. Founded in 1947, it is a
fashion based clothing and accessories firm that works in private sector.
Products and services they supply: It provides the fashion based services like luxurious
clothing's, footwear's and other fashion accessories with the home ware items. It also provides its
services through the e-commerce sites.
Size and Scope: H&M is a large scale organisation, operating on multinational level with 4453
stores and 148000 employees in 62 countries. H&M has a net income of £2.1 billion It has a high
level of scope of growth in many developing Asian and African countries.
Mission and vision: Its main aim and business objective include providing high quality fashion
based luxurious products to its high end customers or buyers, providing a positive change and
investing in people and innovative ideas.
Organizational and legal structure: It follows the lean organisation structure and has a legal
structuring of privately owned enterprise having separate legal entity, which means that the firm
is owned by a person or family, runs by Board of directors chosen by shareholders who gets
dividends from the net profit of the firm (Tian, 2016). The lean organisational structure of H&M
will reduce the wastage of resources.
Stakeholders: The stakeholders involve the owners, employees and investors of firm.
The scale and setting up of operations will impact the set of operations and other facilities
and services offered by private organisation. The large scale organization with high scope of
growth and development like H&M will tend to provide the services to a greater number of
audience. Besides this, the variety of organisational structure will help in proper assessment of
the decision making and policy development measures that increases the operational facilities
(Yashkova and et.al., 2016). Different complexities are been undertaken within the organisation
that will impact their ability of meeting the business objectives and action plans that will help in
proper assessment of the operations and action plans that is undertaken by the firm.
Voluntary Enterprise:
Oxfam:
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Background: It is a collaboration of 20 or more charitable bodies that works for a specific cause
and it’s primarily focuses on the eradication of global poverty. It is a non-profitable, voluntary
firm and works for the social causes like famine control, eradication of poverty and providing
effective health care facilities (Dyllick and Muff, 2016).
Products and services they supply: It provides the food, clothing, shelters and medical aids to
the needy areas in the country they work.
Size and scope: It has the 19 NGO's working in collaboration with in 90 countries of the world.
The firm's scope is to increase its operations in other countries in Asia and Africa.
Mission and vision: Its mission and vision is to provide effective health care, educational and
other care operations and to improve the quality of living of peoples all around the globe.
Organizational ad legal structuring: It includes the flat organisational structure which enables
effective communication and decision or policy making for its operations. It has a legal structure
of a limited liability enterprise (Sekaran and Bougie, 2016). It has further two sub classification:
limited by shares and limited by Guarantee. Limited by shares include the investment with hope
of gaining a profit and in limited by guarantee, the profit gained is reused within the firm. All the
shareholders will pay a nominal payment of about £1. In the flat structure of Oxfam, the
communication will be direct and faster making it highly effective.
Stakeholders: The stakeholders involve all the volunteers and service providers which will look
after the proper functioning of the charitable operations by the firm.
Various organisational functions within a business alongside to organisational chart and explain
it along with functions with regard to their objectives and structure
Different organisational functions are been undertaken within a business enterprise and
help an enterprise to improve the quality of services or products that are offered by a business
enterprise (Morrell, 2017). This will assist in planning of services and thus, will lead to increase
the productivity and carrying out of operations in smooth manner. The major objective of Tesco
plc is to increase their sales and customer base. Some major organisational functions of public
sector firm like Tesco Plc. as per the operational chart are:
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 Human resource with marketing department: The marketing department of the
organisation will interact with human resource department of the enterprise in order
to get trained employees. The trained employees will effectively work to meet the
customers needs and will contribute in promoting goods and services of firm. It
assists Tesco plc to have a good customer base. The major advantage of these process
is that it will help in following a good hierarchy as per the organisational chart and
improve the customer base. However, the disadvantage is that a bad relation between
HR and marketing department will lead to the failure of objective related to gaining
of a customer base. Also, it may have certain conflicts and indifference, affecting
performance of organisation.
 Research and development with sales department: The liability of research and
development departments is also very high for getting a good customer base. The
good research that is been carried out within the firm will help in developing a good
customer base within the enterprise. The biggest advantage is that it will help in
identifying the operational needs of the organisation within the organisation while the
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Illustration 1: Organization structure of Tesco
(Source: Dudovskiy, 2016)

disadvantage includes the communication gap which may lead to the disturbance in
organisational structure of firm.
 Production with research and developments, logistics and HR department:
Based on the research performed and prototype of the suitable product or operation
been developed by R&D, the production department will operate (Wheelen and et. al.,
2017). It will work with logistics and HR department of organisation in order to work
for developing good quality product or service within the firm and have the trained
work force within the firm that will help in proper assessment of customer's needs
and demands and have a good interaction with their customer's. The advantage of this
process is that it helps in developing a high quality, innovative product, having it
marketed effectively and gaining a good customer base. However, the communication
difference within the firm will lead to conflicts among work force. This will help in
maintaining functioning of organisational chart of the firm to have high level of
performance.
 Marketing with Accounts and HR department: Marketing department of
organisation will interact with Accountancy and HR department of Tesco plc in order
to have a good promotion of the finished goods and getting a significant amount of
customer base as per the organisational chart of the organisation. This will help in
identifying the extent of expenses that is been carried by the firm and get suitable
work force to work upon these operations. The advantage of this interrelationship is
that it assists the organisation to promote its products and services and having a
skilled labour to meet customer's requirements. However, the disadvantage is that any
sort of miscommunication may lead to conflict affecting performance of the firm.
 Accounting and sales with marketing department: The account's department of the
organisation will look after the proper management of the expenditure that is been
carried out within the firm. The sales department will interact with marketing
department to identify the financial resources invested for the promotional processes
and the revenue gained from it (Quinlan and et. al., 2019). The biggest advantage is
that it leads to proper planning of expenses that are been carried out within the firm
and carrying out the promotional measures within the enterprises. However, improper
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following or bad relationship may lead to failure of organisational structure or chart
of the firm.
 Logistics with production and sales department: The major role of logistics
department within an enterprise is to provide effective raw materials for getting the
customer base and generate the invoices. It will interact with productions and sales
department of the organisation that will help in suitable rise of customer bonding with
Tesco plc, as per its organisational chart. It also induces proper selling of the goods
by Tesco plc. Its biggest advantage is that it helps to get suitable resources to produce
high quality product or services while the biggest drawback is that unavailability of
any resource may lead to failure of productions and selling of goods, impacting
organisational chart of the retail firm.
All these departments and services will interact with each other in perfect coordination
and assembling that will help in improving the overall functionality of the organisation and thus
will enhance the quality of services and meeting the customer's needs. It will also improve
revenue generation and thus will lead the retail business entity to operate in most effective and
suitable manner (Types of Organizational Charts, 2018). This will enhance the organisational
performance, meeting of set business objectives and improving quality of products and services.
ACTIVITY 2
Impact of the external environmental factors and their relation with micro environmental factors
on the decision making of the firm
The business operations and other organisational factors within the organisation are
deeply influenced by the external environmental factors that will influence the overall operations
and other functional facilities within Tesco plc (Chang, 2016). There are factors which impact
the decision making process of firm which they need to consider they are as follows:
Political: Tesco is there across 12 nations of world this means that company is very much
exposed to several political condition of these countries impacting their operations as well. The
unemployment rates, tax rates and political instability need to be consider by Tesco.
Positive Impact: A non-supportive political factor can lead to have a bad influence on Tesco's
performance while a positive one will improve the business of the firm.
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Negative impact: They are importing raw material from Asia so the higher import duty will be
impacting company in negative manner. As they would be paying higher amount to country like
that of China while purchasing goods or raw material from there.
Economic: there are certain factors like that of labour cost which impact the supermarket of UK.
Minimum wage rate which increased to about 4.4% for those who are above 25 years of age so
this will be having major impact on Tesco as well.
Impact: A positive economic condition will help in improving the performance of Tesco plc
while, a deteriorating financial operation will disdain the productivity and carrying out of the
operations. However, a negative economic condition will impact the performance of the firm
(Kolk, 2016). Like due to increase in minimum wage rate to 4.4% the cost of Tesco would also
raise up and leading to fall into profits of company.
Social: there is increase in demand of goods and service especially due to change in customer’s
preference and their needs. Tesco always need to focus on satisfaction of customers so that
competitive edge could be met out.
Positive Impact: If the company will be able to identify the need and preference of customers
then it could be easy for them to gain retention into market.
Negative impact: Obesity is regarded to as one of the major issue and concern of today’s society
so it is very much important that Tesco is identifying this problem and producing product
accordingly.
Technological: the technological measures that are been taken within Tesco plc will influence
the business operations and will improve the quality of operations. The adoption of latest and
innovative services that can be applied within the Tesco plc that will improve to operational
capacity of the organisation of the firm (Hair Jr and et.al., 2015).
Positive Impact: Technological advancement will be creating opportunity for company to adopt
the new platform and regain the trust of customers.
Negative Impact: Any technological glitch can hamper the Tesco PLC's performance.
Environmental: Tesco plc will see through the proper adoption of the environmental factors
within the organisation which will help in suitable planning of the business operations which will
help in assimilating the CSR operations and will help in improving the operation's. It will also
assist in carrying out of other business functions.
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Impact: Unfavourable environmental factors like flood, earthquake etc. can impact production
of goods in an adverse manner for Tesco.
Legal: It is also very important and effective factors that will influence the operations will help
in meeting the operations. Like it is very much important for Tesco to follow Food Retailing and
Commission guidelines so that they could be facing any negative impact.
Positive Impact: If Tesco is following all rules like Workers act then they will certainly not
face any problem or issues.
Negative Impact: Tesco faced legal action for fraud or misleading accounting practice and
settled there legal claim from £12 million.
All these factors along with internal environmental factors will have a deep influence on
the operations and so it is required that Tesco is making decisions accordingly. It assists firm to
have a suitable decision making and hence will lead to maintain overall performance of Tesco
(Charter, 2017). This will influence their performance which will impact operations and will help
in maintaining the high quality performance of goods and services within the Tesco Plc.
SWOT of organisations and their relation with micro environmental factor
The SWOT of Tesco and Oxfam are as follows:
SWOT of Tesco
Strength Weakness
 Excellent customer services and
providing of satisfactory experience.
 Good cash reserve and meeting their
financial goals.
 There is good brand equity and high
customer satisfaction level of Tesco.
 Have highly technological
advancements and meeting the services
or operations using them effectively.
 Global presence is the biggest
advantage for the enterprise.
 Tesco is having improved use of
 Subsidiaries of Tesco are not operating
very well in market and are impacted
more by some external factors. For
instance at time of global crises Tesco
Finance profits were affected very
much.
 Tesco’s overall focus is on market of
UK and Europe only while it is not
planning to develop other foreign
markets.
 There is very tough price war among
major of its competitions leading to
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technology within its operation,
creating greater cost efficiencies and
enhanced service experience as well.
competitive pressure on it.
Opportunities Threat
 Can collaborate with other brands in
food and clothing sector to improve
product portfolio.
 There is very huge opportunity for
Tesco to grow its online shopping and
home delivery service.
 Economic downfall and labour turnout
can be a major challenge for the firm.
 The rise in competition is also a major
challenge for the firm that will improve
firm's performance.
SWOT of Oxfam
Strength Weakness
 Being a non-profitable organisation it
has a good reputation in society.
 It has a strong volunteering force and
funding facilities.
 Oxfam is having global network of
affiliates and supporters.
 There is lack of accountability and
consistency within Oxfam and its
affiliates
 Facing tough competition from other
international organisation
 Oxfam is not having its crisis plans.
Opportunities Threat
 They have a high opportunity to
operate in war ridden, under developing
and backward countries of Asian and
Africa.
 The lack of proper fund monitoring and
encouragement among the volunteers
will influence the operations by
charitable organisation.
 There is lack of community support and
commitments from volunteers and
employees as well.
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Interrelationship of strength and weakness with PESTLE
All the macro level factors will be connected with the internal environment elements. For
instance Tesco is using advance technology for its operation which is regarded to one of its
strength. Due to this advancement Tesco was able to regain the trust of its customers as before
was facing poor customer retention ratio. This also led to have increase in brand equity of
company and increasing trust or satisfaction of customers for products of Tesco. There are
certain economic factors which is impacting functioning of Tesco as during the time of global
crisis certain subsidiary of company faced market issues (Laudon and Traver, 2016). As there is
constant changing in need and preference of customers so Tesco is always able to identify this
and able to provide excellent customer service experience as well. As in today’s time customers
are very much health conscious due to obesity being major health issues so Tesco is also able to
consider changing demand for organic food.
Strength and weakness influence decision making
These strengths and weaknesses with external macro organisational factors will influence
the decision making process of Tesco (Erasmus, Strydom and Rudansky-Kloppers, 2016). It will
also improve their quality of products and services which is offered to their customers. Strength
and weakness of Tesco will be influencing decision making of firm as if they are able to identify
what are these then it would help them into framing out policies. For Tesco global presence is its
major strength with this they could be able to find out new markets and opportunity so that they
are expanding there. Tesco is also having good command on use of technological advancement
which will help them to grow their online stores. With the help of this senior level management
of Tesco could look out for new emerging markets and focus on that market except only giving
priority to UK and Europe. They must be preparing flexible financial budget for their
subsidiaries like Tesco Finance which will be useful during the time of global economic crisis.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above report, this can be said that the business and business environment
affects the overall operational capability of an organisation to a greater and significant manner. it
could be further concluded that both internal and external environment of Tesco are interrelated
with each other. Like if they are able to identify their strength and weakness this would also be
able to form policy and decision accordingly. Moreover some of the social factors like changing
need and demand of customers it is very much important that firm is able to identify them on
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timely bases and offer products to customers. The HR department of Tesco is related with all
other department of company like if there is need for workforce then HR will only be responsible
for recruiting correct personnel for them all.
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REFERENCES
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Quinlan, C. and et. al., 2019. Business research methods. South Western Cengage.
Ramadani, V and et. al., 2015. The context of Islamic entrepreneurship and business: Concept,
principles and perspectives. International Journal of Business and Globalisation. 15(3).
pp.244-261.
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