Analysis of ASDA's Business Environment and Strategies Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of ASDA Group Ltd, examining its operations within the global business environment. It delves into the micro and macro factors influencing ASDA's decision-making, including competitors, market intermediaries, and political, economic, and technological influences. The report also explores the importance of responsible and sustainable management, considering social, cultural, economic, and environmental issues. A significant portion is dedicated to ASDA's history, leadership styles (democratic and transactional), management practices (employee engagement, responsibility division, and communication), and strategies for developing its workforce through training programs and teamwork. The report concludes with recommendations for improvement, offering insights into stakeholder interests and ethical considerations.

ASSESMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1. The dynamic and changing nature of business and the consideration of future of the
organisation within the global business environment….............................................................1
2. The needs for individuals and organisations to manage responsibly and sustainably and
behave ethically in relation to social, cultural, economic and environmental issues..................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
1. History of the business selected............................................................................................. .3
2. Leadership styles, management practices and various strategies for developing people........4
3. Strategies and policies which have implemented or achieved stakeholders interests.............6
4. Recommendations for improvement...................................................................................... .7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Global business environment is termed as the environment in distinct countries which
includes the opportunities as well as threats for the business entity to perform its operations
(Ayanso, Cho and Lertwachara, 2014). This assessment addresses various micro and macro
environmental factors which changes the nature of business within the global business
environment. It also includes the reasons and needs for individual and organisation to manages
its issues in different circumstances.
TASK 1
1. The dynamic and changing nature of business and the consideration of future of the
organisation within the global business environment
Global business environment includes various micro and macro factors which influences
decision making and action of an organisation. A business performs its operations outside the
boundaries of a nation which are dependent on various factors to take rationale decisions related
to the optimum usage of resources. Various factors are as described:
 Micro factors: These are those factors which affects the working, performance of an
organisation but can be controlled by adopting various strategies it includes competitors,
market intermediaries, suppliers, customers, public and employees as well as their
unions. Competitors are the individuals or business entities who are rivals or perform the
functions against other entities (Derudder and Witlox, 2016). All the organisations faces
various competitions to sustain a position in the global business environment. Market
intermediaries are the individual or organisations who provides services from the
business entity to the end consumers. They acts as the middlemen who conveys the needs
of consumers to business owners and at the same time provides products to consumers.
Suppliers are the organisations as well as persons who supply or provides raw materials
to the business manufactures to produce the finished products to provide them in the
global business environment. Public are the individual person who demands the goods
and services in the in international market and has actual potential interest in
organisational products or services and impacts the ability to achieve firms objectives in
the global business environment.
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 Macro Factors: These are the external uncontrollable factors which influence decision
making also affects the performances as well as strategies of the organisation to great
extent. These are the general factors which affects the productivity and implementation of
the organisational strategies. It includes political, economic, technological, social and
legal factors. Political factors are those factors which have great impact in the working of
any organization. It includes trade policies, trade restrictions, environmental laws, foreign
government policies and others. Technological forces affects the business at great extent.
It includes all the technological related aspects like technological incentives, research and
development activities, rate of technological changes (Edwards and Gaventa, 2014).
Legal factors are those rules and regulations that are enforced by the government of any
country and mandatory to follow by all business units. The entities of different nations
have to follow all the laws as implemented by the government of the country in which
they are working.
All the micro as well as macro factors directly or indirectly affects the performance of any
organisation. These changes the dynamic nature of the business and considers various plans to
make the future of the organisation within the global business environment.
2. The needs for individuals and organisations to manage responsibly and sustainably and behave
ethically in relation to social, cultural, economic and environmental issues
It is very important for any individual as well as organisation to coordinate various
activities for the purpose of managing responsibly and sustainably and behave ethically in
relation to various external factors to perform certain tasks to operate the business activities
effectively to sustain in competitive market and facing the issues efficiently. Various factors
includes:
Social factors: These includes the situations, experiences, shared beliefs, ideas as well as
facts which affects the business and individual behaviour. These comprises population growth
rate, age distribution, career attitudes, health consciousness, cultural beliefs of any firm to focus
on the different social perceptions to increase its market share and manage its sustainability to
behave ethically towards various issues (Fussler, Cramer and Vander, 2017).
Cultural factors: These factors are important to shape the attitude as well as behaviour
of different people in distinct countries. Various entities works to follow the cultural norms, rules
to respond towards distinct situations. Different countries follow different cultural norms, beliefs,
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tradition, values and languages which any business entity has to follow to prepare the
organisation responsible, sustainable and ethical to eliminate various issues.
Economic factors: Such factors helps an organisation to determines the current and
future values of any business firm in relation to the investments made. These factors includes
interest rates, economic growth, exchange rates and inflation rates. All the businesses and
individuals are responsible to follow various economic activities of company (Hammerschmidt
and Meyer, 2014). These activities will helps in properly managing and ethically following
various tasks to face the issues.
Environmental factors: All the operating firms must be aware related to many
environmental issues and should work to protect them. Such issues directly or indirectly
influences the working, survival, performance of an individual as well as organizations to great
extent. Environmental factors include all those things that leads to change the environment. It is
very essential to manage the needs for individuals and organisations to sustain along with
behaving ethically in relation to certain issues.
TASK 2
1. History of the business selected
ASDA Group Ltd is selected for analysing the research. It is a British supermarket
retailer established by J.W. Hindwell in the year 1920 which has its headquarters at West
Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom (ASDA Group Ltd, 2019). The selected company provides
various grocery products as well as services all over the country. Such entity has its large stores
selling wide variety of products such as foods, apparels, music, pharmaceutical goods,
housewares, jewellery, books as well as dairy products. In the year 2003, it has achieved the
award of second largest food retailer in United Kingdom. It has gone through immense changes
from its starting days till the following days and has achieved various success in its operational
life. Such business has also restructured variety of policies to remain in the competitive position
in the international market. The vision of such enterprise is to offer the best value services along
with becoming the Britain's best value retailer to satisfy the needs, demands, tastes and
preferences of potential customers, helping the stakeholders to understand the reasons of the
existence of the business.
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2. Leadership styles, management practices and various strategies for developing people
Leadership is an process in which the leaders or executives performs various activities to
influence, direct, guide and coordinate distinct operations to accomplish various targets or goals
of the organisation. It is the ability of an individual to induce others for the completion of defined
goals (Marcovandyk, 2015). A leader is one who initiates action, builds morale as well as
confidence, coordinates individual interests with the organisational goals, provides guidance to
the people at work. There are various leadership styles. Some are as follows:
 Democratic leadership style: In such style, the leaders allows all the employees to
exercise authority as well as involves them in the decision making process and all are
given equal opportunities to share their ideas, opinions while reaching on any conclusion.
 Strategic leadership style: Such style involves the interaction between strategies and
management of employees. The leaders communicates the strategies to all employees and
motivates them to perform accordingly (Ueyoshi and Goto, 2014). The leaders have
abilities to inspire others to work according the vision for achieving a competitive
position in the market.
 Transactional leadership style: Such style helps in establishing supervision and
organisational performance to promote compliance as well as motivating people by
rewards and punishments. The leaders follows such style to establish roles along with
responsibilities to supervise the work and finding deviations as well as correcting them at
the time they emerges.
Thus,the leaders of ASDA follows democratic leadership style and transactional
leadership style for their operational firm. The employees are involved in decision making as
well as roles, responsibilities are clearly established to supervise the work and employees are
motivated to enhance efficiency along with productivity.
Management includes set of functions related to planning, organising, staffing, directing
and controlling various activities of the entity for the purpose of achieving defined objectives and
goals in efficient as well as effective manner (Hickle, 2017). Management practices are some
methods or techniques which the supervisor uses to produce effective results. Some of the
management practices are as described:
 Employee engagement: It is the approach where all the employees are engage in
performing activities with enthusiasm as well as passion to take further steps towards the
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interests as well as reputation of organisation. The managers formulates various
strategies to keep its employees engage towards increasing performances.
 Responsibility division: The managers defines the roles and responsibilities or different
employees engaged in the operations of an organisation. It is the duty of a manager to
clearly define and divide the responsibilities of each person for smooth functioning of an
enterprise. Various organisations clearly divides the roles, tasks as well as responsibilities
of its workers to eliminate duplication of work.
 Communication: It is an act of sharing ideas, knowledge with others which allows to
implement various strategies for completion of tasks and achieving the goals. Managers
in any company are responsible to properly communicate the objectives effectively with
all the people at work place (Kumar, Himes and Kritzer, 2014). Various barriers are
eliminated to facilitate good working relationships between people in the entity.
Thus, the management of Adsa applies employee engagement as well as responsibility
division practices in the organisation. Various strategies are formulated to keep its employees
engage towards increasing performances as well as responsibilities, tasks are also clearly divided
to eliminate the conflicts at the time of performing work.
Development of people is a process where an employee undergoes many training
sessions with other employees to enhance distinct skills to acquire new knowledge. Such
developments helps in growth as well as development of employees for facing various
challenges and hurdles confidently as well as building trust relationships among various
employees to work in team. It is very important to respect the employees and various strategies
are formulated to motivate and developing loyalty and attachment between employees towards
the firm (Lang and Heasman, 2015). Strategies developed by managers to develop its people are
as follows:
 Training programs: These are various training activities which are designed and
implemented to develop specific skills of various people in any organisation. These are
the necessary programs to strengthen the required competence and helps in expanding the
knowledge of various employees. The managers adopts various training programs to
provide its employees various training sessions to develop them for performing work
effectively.
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 Team work: It consists of the efforts done by group of individuals to complete tasks in
efficient as well as effective manner. It promotes the development of people by
facilitating loyalty and friendship between various other employees at work. It strengthen
the skills of each team member and helps in solving various problems to increase the
abilities of employees. The managers promotes an atmosphere by building teams for
employees to develop them with other people (Samantra, Datta and Mahapatra, 2014).
Thus, the managers of Adsa focuses on promoting team work to increase the willingness
of its employees to work in team with loyalty as well as friendship to achieve common aims.
3. Strategies and policies which have implemented or achieved stakeholders interests
Various strategies and policies have been implemented for managing the changing
environment to meet stakeholders interests (Sustainability at ASDA, 2019). ASDA manages its
sustainability for making its business better through making its customers happy by reducing
various impacts for looking forward by formulating various strategies to supply wide range of
high quality products which are made from renewable energy to reduce costs for fulfilling
consumers needs as well as desires by developing growth strategies to expand its market by
providing online services which satisfies customers and develops interests with the organisation.
Such energy has provided facilities to fulfil various customers needs at distinct stages. Every
organisation dream is to make its customers happy and reduce the frustration as well as
supporting the managers to deal with upset customers. By adoption of various growth strategies,
somewhere the selected firm enjoys the satisfaction of the happy customers. The enterprise also
focuses on reducing environmental impacts of some operations which causes harm to the society
by formulating some research and development policies (Uhl, and Gollenia, 2016). The firm has
developed various programs and National Social Development Program is one of them. Such
program has helped the firm to tackle various societal problems as well as converting them into
opportunities to develop the interests of some communities which helped in delivering legacy
benefits for societal regeneration.
The selected company is dedicated to deliver value along with quality to its customers. At
the same time, they also wants to make happy to their suppliers by treating them equally as well
as fairly by reducing wastage and protecting the surrounding. As the changing environment leads
to have great impact on their commitments, so ASDA has formulated various strategies for
improving supplier relationship management for the purpose of maximising the values of
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commitments. The major proportion of the impacts lies with supply chain. Such relationships
helped in building a strong base for the betterment of connections. The firm is working with its
suppliers to improve the supply chains or intermediaries to understand the effects for sharing best
practices as well as recognizing different techniques to make the business operations more
efficient. The managers of ASDA also considers the performance reports of its employees and
focuses on building trust and loyalty among the employees of its organisation. When there is any
change implemented by the top executives, employees may oppose to those changes which leads
to unmanageable situations in the organisation. The executives of chosen firm formulates some
policies related to change management where the issues related to opposition of change are
solved and employees are made happy to work (Rugman and Verbeke, 2017).
Thus, various policies and strategies are formulated after considering the stakeholders
interest to perform its operations successfully in the changing environment.
4. Recommendations for improvement
After having the detailed analysis of the ASDA, it can be recommended that the chosen
firm can adopt strategic leadership style which helps the employers to clearly define goals to
employees as well as directing them to perform day to day activities to work according the
vision for achieving a competitive position in the market. The aim of such leadership style is to
prepare the business entity in advance for the future by taking effective decisions for the
improvements in strategical decisions All the institution rely on communication channels to
strengthen bonds, convey information as well as reducing conflicts. The executives of the
defined entity can apply the management practice of limiting the communication gaps between
workers and management (Shenkar, Luo and Chi, 2014). This helps in developing relationships
as well as improves employees commitments towards the organisation by getting timely
feedbacks to improve the performances. Effective communication helps in seeking clarity so that
no message or information is misinterpreted. The entity should formulate certain training and
development programs for employees, employers, managers for continuous improvements. Such
programs are helpful in any organisation as they improves the required skills of each employees
at work. These also helps in reducing the weaknesses of the employees to complete the tasks
which increases the employees contributions as well as facilitates the growth of people for future
aspects.
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CONCLUSION
From the above assessment it can be concluded that there are certain micro as well as
macro factors which leaves great impact on the organisations to change their nature and
formulates various strategies by considering the future of the company within the global business
environment. It is necessary for individuals and organisations to manage responsibly and
sustainably and behave ethically in relation to social, cultural, economic and environmental
issues. The management of ASDA follows democratic as well as transactional leadership styles.
The management practice used by such entity are employee engagement and responsibility
division. The firm fosters team work for developing its people to increase the willingness to
work with other people to achieve the goals. Various strategies and policies are implemented
such as strategies for growth, research and development policies, supply chain management
policies after considering the stakeholders interest to perform its operations successfully in the
changing environment. Various recommendations are also provided for improvement in
leadership styles, management practices and various strategies for improvements in the
organisation.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Routledge.
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models for integrated eCare. In Achieving Effective Integrated E-Care Beyond the Silos
(pp. 136-163). IGI Global.
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producer responsibility within corporate social responsibility. Business Strategy and the
Environment. 26(1). pp.112-124.
Kumar, S., J. Himes, K. and P. Kritzer, C., 2014. Risk assessment and operational approaches to
managing risk in global supply chains. Journal of Manufacturing Technology
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Lang, T. and Heasman, M., 2015. Food wars: the global battle for mouths, minds and markets.
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Sueyoshi, T. and Goto, M., 2014. Environmental assessment for corporate sustainability by
resource utilization and technology innovation: DEA radial measurement on Japanese
industrial sectors. Energy Economics. 46. pp.295-307.
Uhl, A. and Gollenia, L. A. Eds., 2016. A handbook of business transformation management
methodology. Routledge.
Vom Brocke, J. and Rosemann, M. eds., 2014. Handbook on business process management 2:
strategic alignment, governance, people and culture. Springer.
Online
ASDA Group Ltd. Forum. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/52/ASDA-Group-Ltd.html>.
Marcovandyk., 2015. One thought on “Theory of Leadership and Managment”. [Online].
Available through: <https://mahabubwlc.wordpress.com/2015/05/01/theory-of-
leadership-and-managment/>.
Sustainability at ASDA. 2019. [Online]. Available through: <https://sustainability.ASDA.com/>.
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