Business Environment: A Case Study of Virgin Money

This report examines the business environment of Virgin Money, the largest bank in the UK, and its impact on the company's operations. It includes an analysis of the global business environment, relevant theories and models used by Virgin Money, and recommendations for sustainable growth.

2 BUSINESS
ENVIRONMENT
INDIVIDUAL CASE STUDY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Virgin Money...............................................................................................................................3
Business environment..................................................................................................................4
Global business environments.....................................................................................................4
Relevant theories and models used by Virgin Money.................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Business environment of the firms and businesses affects the total working of the firm
because internal and external environment affects directly and indirectly the performances of the
firm (Abu-Rumman, A., 2021). Business environment is the sum of all the forces within and
outside of the firm that are affecting the production and working of the firm. Virgin money is the
largest bank of United Kingdom dealing various financial services worldwide with millions of
customers across the countries due to its digital network and providing services worldwide. This
report will include examination of economic environment within which businesses operate in the
United Kingdom. Furthermore, It will also include examination of global business environment
and its impact on the countries and the businesses operating in these countries with relevant
theories and models with proper analysis of the markets and recommending ways to improve the
performances for sustainable growth of the firm.
MAIN BODY
Virgin Money
Virgin Money is the banking and financial services with millions of customers worldwide
due to digital networks and markets internationally (Barnish, and et.al., 2018). This bank is
operating in United Kingdom and is the largest bank in the world with its identified brand. This
bank was founded by Richard Branson in march 1995 and also known as Virgin Direct. Virgin
Money is launching personal equity plan into the market. Virgin Money has expanded its scope
and business in 2000s and become a retail bank so all the countries can grab the benefits
provided by this bank regarding the financial services. This bank present aim is to expand its
business establish small and personal banks in the countries so that developing and
underdeveloped countries also get benefited and this bank can earn huge profits in the long run
with sustainable growth due to providing digital platforms to each customer with different
geographical areas for more satisfaction and ease to them for any transactions

Business environment
Business environment are the forces which affects the working of the firm both internally
and externally, they are the aggregate sum of all the factors like employees, customers, suppliers,
competition or external factors like social, legal, economical, technological etc affects the long
term growth and performances of the firm (Keeler, and et.al., 2019). Every firm has different
internal and external environment depends on its working like if the firm has complex products
and huge demands or having international market then this firm has diverse affects of business
environment on the working of its firm. The more the complex the businesses are more will be
the need to investigate the business environment properly and vice versa.
Global business environments
Global business environment are the factors which affects the firm which are dealing in
international markets. Due to internationalisation the companies are facing various factors of
different geographical areas affecting the working of the firms (Teoli, and et.al., 2019). They are
the micro and macro factors like different countries internal and external environments are
different like political conditions are different, every company use different technologies and
ways of producing the products, social factors are different of different areas, legal and political
conditions are ever changing. Various competition and customers demand or substitutes
availability in the global markets affects the working of the firms (Kumar, and et.al., 2021). All
this factors need to first evaluated and investigated carefully for the future long term goals.
Virgin Money is an international or largest bank of United Kingdom dealing with
international customers worldwide. This bank wants to increase its profits with sustainable
growth in the long run by becoming first largest digital bank by providing various small and
personal baking markets worldwide (Abdullah, et.al., 2022). This banks will increase its
performances by creating and opening new branches with small and personal banking online so
that customers will be free from going to banks for small queries all the transactions are done
online with mobile banking app. This digital banking helps the customers to save their time
enjoy various banking facilities provided by this bank. For the sustainable growth and expansion
of the firm this bank need to evaluate its market in which its has to operate both internal and
external markets with relevant theories so that all the pros and cons can be studied and decisions
can be taken for long term and safe profits.

Relevant theories and models used by Virgin Money
Virgin bank is using various theories and models for examining its internal and external
environment which can affect the working of this firm in the future and developing various
strategies for the future uncertainty.
SWOT analysis
This analysis is used by Virgin Money for knowing all its internal strength, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats so that they can be used for improving the present performances by
studying all the internal factors. Strength: Every Company has some internal strength which is required for solving every
type of problems and which will help the company to recover from all the losses which it
is facing (Truelove, and et.al., 2021). Strength can be realised by the company by doing
all the internal analysis by investigating the profits, customers, production etc of the
company. The Virgin Money bank has huge number of customers worldwide and
increasing every year due to this bank is providing wide range of financial products and
services and provides easy financial services to invest by the customers. This bank is
efficient parent company and supervised by prudential regulation authority and offers
various services like finance to small banks and mortgages facilities etc are the biggest
strength of this bank which help this company to grow in the future with substantial
profits. Weaknesses: There are many weaknesses prevailing under the companies due to various
factors this can also be known by internal analysis because weaknesses has to be
investigated and analysed properly so that strategies and plans can be taken for removing
all the weaknesses that are coming in between the goals (Benzaghta, and et.al., 2021).
The bank Virgin Money is the largest bank of UK and customers of UK are enjoying all
the services provided by this bank but due its little presence in other countries the
customers of different countries cannot use the services of this bank and this is the
biggest threat for this bank due to limited profits with less customers and this bank cannot
raise capital because this company is not listed company. Virgin Money for long term
growth need to remove this weaknesses by providing its services worldwide so that with
increase customers the profits can be increased in the long run

 Opportunity: Opportunities are present every where the companies with internal analysis
can identify its opportunities that are prevailing in the market. The company need to grab
the opportunity as fast as possible because if the opportunities are not converted into
reality then someone else can use the advantages of this opportunities (Hovy, D. and
Yang, D., 2021). The Virgin Money has lots of opportunity prevailing in the market like
this bank can form alliance with other banks for increasing the banking business and can
provide more complex and variety of mixed services and products. This company with its
digital network can expand its company anywhere so that more number of customers can
be attracted towards this bank and it can increase its business globally with digital
networks globally. Threats: The threats are the weaknesses of the company which has to be analysed
carefully for removing all type of losses that can happen in the future. There are many
threats like competition, substitutes and rivals present in the market which leads to danger
for the company to survive and earn adequate amount of profits. The bank Virgin Money
has huge competition in the international market like HSBC, Barclays are big threats of
this bank due to same services and products with huge international customers. The bank
has to carefully consider all this competition and there strategies used for planning its
own strategies.
PESTEL analysis
This analysis is used by this bank for evaluating and knowing all the external factors that
affects the company’s operation externally and are uncertain. This factors affects the long term
goals of the company’s in the future due to changes in the international market about the law,
policies or technological etc. Political factor: The political factors of every country are not same and stable the
country which has stable and good political condition it becomes easy for the companies
to expand and operate its businesses in that markets (Qiu, and et.al., 2020). Political
conditions like level of corruption in the markets and the regulation in the financial
sectors, trade regulations and tariffs, antitrust laws, various taxation policies by the
government affects the working of the companies. Virgin Money bank need to
investigate all the political factors in the markets in which it has to expand for long term

profits with sustainable growth because different markets have different political
environments. Economic factor: Economic factors affects the businesses adversely if government
changes any laws in any market all the factors like inflations laws, interest rates,
economic rate, unemployment rates etc affects the working of the firm (Djellabi, and
et.al., 2021). The bank will be in loss of the education level of the market, and the
inflation rates or unemployment rates are poor in the expanded market because if the
market has no supply of money or less supply of money then they cannot afford loans
and pay the interest on time. So this bank need to carefully investigate all the economic
factors carefully and choose the relevant market for its operations for long term earning. Social factor: Social factors are the factors like all the human behaviours and taste or
preferences of the society, their views, choices. Cultural factors, attitudes, interest,
education level affects the choice of the products and services. Any change in any one
of them like if the person salary or its habits changes then he/she will shift from one
product to another due to changing taste and change in salary and it will become
difficult for the company to investigate all this factors so the banks has to provide the
services in those markets which has stable demand and customers with trending services
and products for more customer satisfaction present and future as well. Technological factor: Increasing use of Artificial intelligence has rapidly raise the
advancement of technological environments because every different company in
different areas are using new technological products for reducing their cost of
production and increasing profits with increasing customers (Romao, 2019). New
technological changes helps the company to increase its productivity in products and
services by developing variety of advanced products with different features. Virgin bank
has to carefully investigate all the technological factors prevailing in the markets and
used by its rivals so that it can develop strategy for providing its services with new
technologies or differently like digital banking etc. Environmental factor: Environmental factors need to be analysed because they are
uncertain like climate changes, any uncertainty due natural resources and different
markets have different environments and any uncertainty will directly affects the
working of the firm. Weather, air and water pollution, waste management etc need to be

carefully analysed before expanding in the market. This bank has to fulfil all the
environmental laws of different countries for successful operations and long term
growth of the firm. Legal factor: They are the Government laws and policies like health and safety laws,
consumer protection laws, employment laws etc which are different depend upon the
county to country and any change in any law affects the working of the firms and they
need to be consider before expanding the business.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that business environment need to be
investigated properly for expanding and internationalisation of the businesses. Global business
environments affects those companies who has international markets and customers.
Furthermore, it also has been concluded that both the internal and external environment has to
be investigated for proper functioning and long term future growth of the firm. In this report the
Virgin Money has used SWOT analysis for knowing all its internal strength or opportunities and
weaknesses or threats for improving its internal performances. This bank has used PESTEL
analysis by which all the external factors can be analysed like all the political, technological,
social, environmental, legal etc for increasing its performances in the long run with sustainable
growth in the long run.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Abu-Rumman, A., 2021. Transformational leadership and human capital within the disruptive
business environment of academia. World Journal on Educational Technology: Current
Issues, 13(2), pp.178-187.
Barnish, and et.al., 2018. How much evidence is there that political factors are related to
population health outcomes. An internationally comparative systematic review. BMJ
open, 8(10), p.e020886.
Keeler, and et.al., 2019. Social-ecological and technological factors moderate the value of urban
nature. Nature Sustainability, 2(1), pp.29-38.
Teoli, and et.al., 2019. SWOT analysis.
Kumar, and et.al., 2021. Current research trends on micro-and nano-plastics as an emerging
threat to global environment: a review. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 409, p.124967.
Abdullah, et.al., 2022. Big Data in Criteria Selection and Identification in Managing Flood
Disaster Events Based on Macro Domain PESTEL Analysis: Case Study of Malaysia
Adaptation Index. Big Data and Cognitive Computing, 6(1), p.25.
Truelove, and et.al., 2021. A unified deterrence-based model of legal and non-legal factors that
influence young driver speeding behaviour. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 160, p.106327.
Benzaghta, and et.al., 2021. SWOT analysis applications: An integrative literature
review. Journal of Global Business Insights, 6(1), pp.55-73.
Hovy, D. and Yang, D., 2021. The importance of modeling social factors of language: Theory
and practice. In The 2021 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for
Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies. Association for Computational
Linguistics.
Qiu, and et.al., 2020. Impacts of social and economic factors on the transmission of coronavirus
disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China. Journal of Population Economics, 33(4), pp.1127-1172.

Djellabi, and et.al., 2021. SWOT analysis of photocatalytic materials towards large scale
environmental remediation. Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering, 33, p.100696.
Romao, 2019, June. Robotic process automation: A case study in the banking industry. In 2019
14th Iberian Conference on information systems and technologies (CISTI) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.

1