Argos Company Report: Functions, Collaboration, and Finance Overview

This report provides an analysis of the Argos company, a UK-based retail merchant, exploring various aspects of its business operations. It begins with an introduction to business studies and the Argos company, highlighting its retail model and history. The main body of the report delves into the roles of different organizational functions, including marketing, human resources, and finance, emphasizing their contributions to the company's success. It also discusses the importance of collaborative working practices, such as brainstorming and equal opportunity, in fostering a productive work environment. Furthermore, the report examines the role of financial management and financial reporting within the organization, detailing financial decisions, planning, capital management, and the importance of financial reporting in meeting statutory requirements and supporting decision-making. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the interconnectedness of organizational functions and financial management in achieving business goals. The report uses several sources like books and journals to support its claims.

ARGOS COMPANY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................3
Role of various organizational functions within the organization.........................................3
Understanding collaborative working practices.....................................................................4
Role of financial management and reporting in an organization...........................................5
Role of financial reporting in an organization.......................................................................6
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Business studies is the subject that deals with the business and includes a wide range
of subjects such as accountancy, marketing, finance and e-commerce. In this report, Argos
company is taken as an organization. It is the retail merchant headquartered in UK. It is
owned by the Home Retail Group and is one of the biggest retailers in Britain, founded in
1973. The company provides and sells its products through catalogues in stores from where
customers can make purchases. This report provides an insight about the role of various
functions in the organization, understanding collaborative working practices. It also includes
the role of financial management and reporting in an organization.
MAIN BODY
Role of various organizational functions within the organization
There are different types of organizational departments which are created as per the
organization’s requirement (Bai and et.al, 2017). Each of the department plays a crucial role
in the overall success of the organization. A detailed description is given below.
Marketing
Marketing is an important function in every organization. Marketing plays a crucial
role in establishing a good relationship with the customers and the organization which gives
sort of confidence to bring something new in the market. Marketing shapes the image of the
organization. It is also responsible for increasing the revenue of the organization which leads
to increase in profitability (Kirova, 2017). The marketing function in Argos company, helps
in growing the customer base for the organization especially when the company is dealing
with the more corporate customers. The marketing team of Argos also works on branding and
promoting the products of the organization by initiating various marketing campaigns and
activities.
Human Resource
The main role of human resource department of the organization is to channelize the
efforts of each and every employee from the organization’s point of view. The HR
department of Argos company is involved in recruiting the right kind of people at the right
time. Under this, a legal contract is signed by the employer and the employee. Also, a proper
training is provided to the employees with respect to the task to be carried out (Buzkan,
2016). HR team comes up with various activities to encourage and motivate the employees to

improve their performance and productivity in the form of incentives etc. the Human resource
team of Argos company is also actively involved in the ensuring the good working
environment in the organization and also makes sure that there is no discrimination taking
place in an organization. It also plays a huge role in effectively managing the disputes that
may arise between employer and employee.
Finance
The finance department in an organization has a very important to play in. this
department helps the business organization in taking business decisions as it is involved in
every decision. From planning to budgeting and from capital management to the capital
structure. The finance team works continuously to find ways to control the cost and reduce
the impact of risk on the business operation (Allen, Hurcan and Queyranne, 2016). In Argos
company, the finance team focusses on the each and every aspect of the business activities
and analyse the cost associated with it. It works on finding ways to reduce the overall cost of
the business operation in order to increase its profitability. It manages the decision making of
the company with respect to whether to invest in a particular project or not. It also forecast
the future sales of the organization and prepares the budget for different organizational
department based on the need and then allocate the resources. The finance team of Argos is
very efficient in managing the cash flow of the organization which helps in ensuring that the
company always having sufficient cash to manage it day to day business activities without
any hazzle.
Understanding collaborative working practices
The biggest factor that contribute to the success of the organization is the team work.
The increasing competition it has become very important to understand the importance of
encouraging creativity in the organization which will result into increase in productivity and
promotes healthy employee relationship (Rasool, 2017). This can only be done through
collaborative working environment. Collaboration means when two or more people come
together to work towards achieving the desired team or organizational goals. In Argos
company, the employees prefer to work in a team which is very beneficial to them in many
ways. Few aspects that collaboration brings are stated below.
Brainstorming: Collaboration allows each member of the team to work for the
achieving the common goals by thinking and brainstorming which offers various perspectives
in order to provide various solution.

Providing value: Collaborative working inspires and motivates the members which
creates a strong sense of purpose (Serrat, 2017). The employees start seeing value in working
together which turn out to be the biggest reason for sticking together which includes mutual
benefits for both company and the team.
Equal opportunity: The team work provides equal and fair opportunity to each and
every member in the team to participate and share their ideas, opinion and views. This helps
in getting different perspective to the single question.
All these key aspects are taken into consideration by the employees of the Argos
company which helped its employees in their overall development by critical thinking. Also,
it enhances the working knowledge and skills of the employees which has worked in favour
of it. As it has led to the minimization of the resources and infrastructure required and
increased the efficiency of the employees.
Role of financial management and reporting in an organization
Finance is an indispensable part of any organization. Financial management refers to
the effectively managing the financial activities of the organization (Zietlow and et.al, 2018).
There are various roles of financial management in an organization. A detailed description is
given below.
Financial decisions and controls: The financial management helps in taking various
financial decisions which includes exercising control over the organization’s finances. It uses
techniques such as forecasting, profit and loss analysis etc.
Financial planning: The finance managers of Argos company are responsible for
carrying out the planning process and for this they use available data to identifying the needs
of the organization and prioritize it as per the requirement. Based on this, budget and plans
are prepared.
Capital management: Financial management helps in managing the capital of the
organization from time to time which helps in determining the capital structure and
composition of the company (Holynskyy, 2017). This helps in taking decisions with respect
to the sources of funding that the company should make choice of which will be beneficial
for it.
Allocation and utilization of financial resources: It plays a crucial role in effectively
managing the financial resources and optimum utilizing it in such a way that helps in

effective management of it. This results into increase in the profitability and sustainability of
the business in the long run.
Cash flow management: It very important for the organizations like Argos to
maintain sufficient cash for managing its working capital needs with respect to daily
operational expenses and running the business smoothly. The financial management tracks
record of each and every transaction of the business and most importantly on part for
accounts payable and receivable.
Disposal of income: Financial management helps in taking decisions with respect to
how the surplus income is to be utilized in an effective way. Whether company should pay
dividend to its shareholders or not and if yes how much proportion to be distributed and how
much to be ploughed back in the business which can be used for its future expansion plan.
Role of financial reporting in an organization
Financial reporting includes disclosure of various financial information with respect
to the performance and financial position of the business (Smith, 2017). The core objective of
it is to provide financial information to its users. The key roles of financial reporting are
stated below.
 It helps the organizations to comply with the statutory requirements such as filing tax
return on time, publishing the financial statement etc.
 It also helps in facilitating statutory audit. It provides complete information about the
company which is very helpful for the statutory auditors to audit the financial
statements of the organization and express their opinion on the same.
 Financial reporting can be termed as the backbone of the financial planning, analysis
and decision making (Sunder, 2016). The information is used by the stakeholders in
their decision-making process such as whether to invest in the company or not.
Thus, both financial management and reporting is an important aspect of Argos
company and is very effective in managing and implementing it.
CONCLUSION
From the above points, it can be said that each and every function in an organization
has an important role to play which helps the organization in achieving its desired goals such
as marketing, finance, human resource etc. the success of the organization also linked to the
type of working environment and take on the collaborative working practices. Also, the

financial management and reporting has key role in effectively managing the business
organization as it provides assistance to management in considering various aspect of
business on financial terms.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Allen, R., Hurcan, Y. and Queyranne, M., 2016. The evolving functions and organization of
finance ministries. Public Budgeting & Finance. 36(4). pp.3-25.
Bai, W. and et.al, 2017. Organizational structure, cross-functional integration and
performance of new product development team. Procedia engineering. 174. pp.621-
629.
Buzkan, H., 2016. The role of human resource information system (HRIS) in organizations: a
review of literature. Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. 5(1). p.133.
Holynskyy, Y., 2017. The importance of financial management principles in the State budget
execution. Annals of Spiru Haret University. Economic Series. 17(4). pp.19-28.
Kirova, V., 2017. Exploring the role of strategic marketing department. Journal of Marketing
Development and Competitiveness. 11(2).
Rasool, Z., 2017. Collaborative working practices: Imagining better research
partnerships. Research for All. 1(2). pp.310-322.
Serrat, O., 2017. Building a learning organization. In Knowledge solutions (pp. 57-67).
Springer, Singapore.
Smith, S. S., 2017. Integrated Financial Reporting & Management Accounting An
Opportunity for Strategic Leadership. Journal of Business & Economic Policy. 4(1).
Sunder, S., 2016. Better financial reporting: Meanings and means. Journal of Accounting and
Public Policy. 35(3). pp.211-223.
Zietlow, J. and et.al, 2018. Financial management for nonprofit organizations: policies and
practices. John Wiley & Sons.