Business Effectiveness: Google, PESTEL, Product, Ethics Analysis

This assignment analyzes various aspects of business effectiveness, starting with an examination of Google's organisational structure, identifying it as a hybrid matrix structure and discussing its benefits like transparency and innovation promotion. It then applies PESTEL analysis to the coffee business, identifying political and economic factors such as regional market integration and the growth of developing countries. The assignment further explores product and consumer demand using a pasta restaurant as an example, discussing product quality, pricing, promotion, and place, as well as internal and external influences like personal needs and culture. A competitive environment analysis of the pasta restaurant is conducted using Porter’s five forces, evaluating potential threats, competitive rivalry, buyer and supplier power, and substitutes. Finally, the assignment addresses ethics in business by evaluating agreement with ethical statements and providing a real-world example of unethical behavior by Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's.

Effectiveness in the Business World
Student Name:
Student ID Number:
Teaching Week 2
Task 1
Organisational Structure and Business Environment
Choose one of the following organisations:

1. Which organisation did you
choose?
Google
2. What does this organisation do? It is a search engine and also provides a variety of tools to help
businesses of all kinds to succeed on and off web.
3. What sector is this organisation? Information technology
4. What type of organisation is it? Explain your answer.
(Sole Trader, Partnership, Private Limited Company (Ltd), Public Limited Company (plc), Co-Operative, Not for
Profit corporation, Public sector)
version 1.0 2

It is a public limited company which is listed on Nasdaq. Its name is Google.Inc. A public limited company or
PLC is defined as a company that is listed in the stock exchange, have a perpetual existence, have limited
liability and its shares are freely transferable.
5. What sort of organisational structure does the business you have chosen have? Explain your answer.
(Simple, Functional, Divisional)
Google uses a hybrid organizational structure which is Matriz organizational structure and is a
synchronization of functional (organization grouped by specialized function: IT, Sales, etc.)
and divisional (organization grouped by self-contained division: products/services, geographic locations,
etc.). It has a considerable degree of flatness in its matrix organizational structure which makes it a unique
form of cross-functional organizational structure. Thus, flatness, function-based and product-based are its
three main characteristics.
6. Describe THREE benefits of this organisational structure to this organisation?
1. The flat organizational structure of Google promotes transparency. Google employees can bypass
middle management and directly report to the CEO Larry Page and share information across teams.
2. There is not much emphasis on the chain of command but on the collaboration regardless of the
title. This gives a virtuous environment to boost the creative quotient of the team.
3. It is the typical but is a unique organizational structure which emphasis on change and direct social
link within the company. Its organizational structure as well as the culture strongly promote
excellence in innovation and do not follow the rigid hierarchical path.
version 1.0 3

Teaching Week 3
Task 2
PESTEL Analysis
1. What does PESTEL stand for?
P Political
E Economic
S Social
T Technological
E Environmental
L Legal
2. Find an article relating to a business you are interested in.
Article Title: Starbucks Coffee : PESTEL Analysis & Recommendations
Date: September 12 2015
Source: Website
3. Name two PESTEL factors which affect the business in this article and explain why.
Factor 1: Political factors affecting Coffee business : The following political external factors affect the
coffee business’s macro setting –
Regional integration of markets – It is an opportunity for Starbucks to expand its business
globally. These integrations would bring about increased trade and regulation relaxations
which help the expansion.
Increased governmental support – This helps in improving the infrastructure which in turn
creates more opportunity for Starbucks to access new markets.
Bureaucratic red tape in developing Countries - This poses a threat to the business as it
hinders the pace as well as the formalities and cost involved increases.
version 1.0 4

Factor 2: Economic Factors affecting the coffee business - The important economic changes or
conditions which are important to the coffee business are –
Rapid growth of the developing countries – This opportunity opens up new horizons of
expansion in these countries as growth brings about improved purchasing power.
Declining unemployment rates – Coffee being an item of luxury, lesser unemployment means
higher standard of living and is good for the business.
Rising labor costs – This threat is posed due to less supply and more demand of lobor in
developing countries which affects the revenue of the business.
version 1.0 5

Teaching Week 4
Task 3
Product and Consumer Demand
Choose a product or service you believe has a high consumer demand. Explain the reason for your choice by discussing
product quality, price, promotion and place (where the product or service is made available).
Product/Service: Pasta restaurant – Albert’s Gourmet Pasta Restaurant is a restaurant offering gourmet
Pastas. The market need is to offer families, individuals as well as take away customers
with fresh, creative, tasty and attractive pasta dishes, salads and desserts. This
restaurant will be unique and varied in its offerings which would attract all the age
groups of customers.
Product Quality: Albert’s Gourmet Pasta’s mission would be to cater the customers hunger with finest
pasta meals and dining experience. It would use homemade pasta to have the best
quality ingredients getting in to their offerings. They would also be using imported
cheese, organic freshly grown vegetables and top-shelf meat. The presentations would
be aesthetically pleasing as well as healthy for the customers.
Price: The pricing of the product would be very reasonable and affordable by the masses.
Though gourmet pasta stores have been successful in high rent areas, Albert’s gourmet
Pasta target customers would be sophisticated families who live nearby, shoppers who
patronize gourmet food and young professionals who work in that location. Its pricing
strategy is that the product cost would be 45% of the total retail price.
Promotion: The marketing budget of the restaurant is not much. Its promotional strategy would
include direct mailing, banner ads and inserts. Also, Albert’s would use personal
connect to get an article on the restaurant in The Areas guide which is the local paper
which people refer to visit interest and dining places in the area. This would be
effective in promoting the restaurant.
Place: The place chosen for opening the restaurant is the busy street of Elcamino in San
Francisco which is the heart of the city with busy shopping destinations as well as
business centres.
version 1.0 6

2. Choose ONE internal influence and explain how it affects the demand for this product or service?
Personal needs: This internal influence will drive the demand of the service chosen here. In this case, the
purchase decision of the customer will be influence by the level of hunger; personal expectations from the
food, how appealing are the place and the food presented. These internal states of the individual would
encourage him to satisfy his specific need and influence his choice of the place for dining or take away.
3. Which external consumer influence affects the demand for that product or service? Explain your answer.
Culture: This would be the external factor that would affect the demand for this restaurant in the selected
target market. Individual’s values, beliefs, attitudes and opinions are all influenced by his culture. Culture
also gratifies his several emotional needs and influences the purchasing decision of the customer. In this
case, specific customers have strict vegetarian culture values and this may have a negative effect if the
target market have large group with such cultural values.
4. List TWO augmented benefits of that product or service
1 The restaurant offers freshest and health conscious gourmet pasta.
2 The product is very reasonably priced to cater to a wider range of income groups.
version 1.0 7

Teaching Week 5
Task 4
The Competitive Environment
Choose a business and analyse its competitive environment by using Porter’s theory of five forces.
Potential New Threat
What barriers has this business had to overcome in terms of product or service differentiation?
Taking example as in Task 3, Albert’s gourmet pasta will have to make its place in the market but
attracting customer who are frequenters of the already existing restaurants in the market. Though there
are no pasta outlets within the 15km range, still old market players still the customer loyalties will have to
shifted and attracted towards Albert’s
Competitive Rivalry
What are the business’s closed competitors? Explain your answer.
High end pasta outlets and well established Italian restaurants are the business’s close competitors. As
they have both brand equity and loyal patron, it is a challenge for Albert’s to establish its position in the
market and earn the customers interest and loyalty.
Buyer Power:
Who are the buyers? Do the buyers have any power which threatens the business?
The buyers are all the customer from the age group of 15 to 50, young professionals, yuppies, income
group of $40000, frequent eat outers, health conscious and patronizers of high quality food. The buyers
choices, needs and decisions have the full power to threaten the business in this case.
Supplier Power:
Who are the suppliers? Do the suppliers have any power which threatens the business?
The suppliers are the sellers of the key ingredients like fresh vegetables, cheese, meat,etc. These suppliers
would not have much power to threaten the business in particular as there are many suppliers available in
the market. The only threat would be the ingredient price which would affect the business and not the
suppliers.
Substitute:
Are there any products in other industries that can perform the same function? Explain your answer.
This is a service sector catering to the hunger needs of the customers. Variety of foods is available in the
market to cater the eaters but the pasta lovers would definitely go in for quality pasta restaurant. The
health consciousness which is increasing among the customers would help the business place itself in the
market among other foods.
version 1.0 8

Teaching Week 6
Task 5
Ethics in Business (Daft, 2011)
Indicate your level of agreement with these 15 statements by ticking the relevant box:
1 = Strongly Disagree 2 = Disagree 3= Neither Agree or Disagree 4= Agree 5 = Strongly Agree
1 2 3 4 5
1 The only moral of business is making money.  ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
2 A person who is doing well in business does not have to worry about moral
problems.  ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
3 Act according to the law, and you can’t go wrong morally. ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ 
4 Ethics in business is basically an adjustment between expectations and the
ways people behave  ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
5 Business decisions involve a realistic economic attitude and not a moral
philosophy.  ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
6 “Business ethics” is a concept for public relations only.  ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
7 Competitiveness and profitability are important values.  ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
8 Conditions of a free economy will best serve the needs of society; limiting
competition can only hurt society and actually violates basic natural laws. ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ 
9 As a consumer, when making an auto insurance claim, I try to get as much
as possible regardless of the extent of the damage.  ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
10 While shopping at the supermarket, it is appropriate to switch price tags
on packages.  ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
11 As an employee, I can take home office supplies; it doesn’t hurt anyone.  ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
12 I view sick days as vacation days that I deserve.  ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
13 Employees’ wages should be determined according to the laws of supply
and demand.  ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
14 The business world has its own rules.  ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
15 A good business person is a successful business person.  ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐
Your tutor will put you in a group of 3-4.
Compare your responses to that of the group.
version 1.0 9

How did your responses compare with the other members of the group?
Most of my group members have had the same responses though the extend of agreement differed.
On which items did you differ most? Explain your answer?
Point no. 7 which states that profitability and competitiveness are important values. Whereas some
members were of the view that these are important, some members had the perspective that they do not fit
the concept of value and are economic criteria rather than human values.
version 1.0 10

Task 6
Research recent highly publicised news of unethical behaviour in business.
Article Title: Real World Examples of bad business ethics
Date: August 2015
Source: website
What did this person or organisation do?
Ray kroc, the founder of Mc Donald made $ 250000 donation to NIxons re-election campaign to get a favour
in return in the form of a desirable legislation which allowed the company to pay teenage employee 20%
less than federal minimum wages
What do you think motivated the behaviour?
In order to save the expenditure on employee cost and get away with the minimum wages requirement, the
company engaged into this unethical practice
What could the organisation have done better to have lessened the likelihood of such behaviour?
The moral and ethical values of the business leaders need to be strengthened in order to avoid such
behaviours in future.
Had you been in the same situation, would you have acted similarly? Why or why not?
If been in the same situation, I wouldn’t have acted in the similar manner. This behaviour amounts to
undercover bribing which is an unethical business practice and does not comply with my personal business
sense , values and ethics.
version 1.0 11

Teaching Week 7
Task 7
Innovation and Entrepreneurs
Research an entrepreneur in business.
Entrepreneur: Andrew Carnegie
Source: The All time richest Americans – Forbes
Date published: May 2014
What do you think their motivation was for entrepreneurship and why?
Coming from a background of poverty, passion to follow his mentors like Robert Burns and William Wallace
and gradually developed business sense were his motivation for entrepreneurship. Andrew Carnegie did
variety of jobs including those in libraries which gave him access to books and inspirational stories. Also,
working on series of smaller jobs gave him an hands on experience. His job with the rail roads was the one
which gave him the industry and business knowledge in general.
What type of entrepreneur are they? Explain your answer.
Andrew Carnegie has been a pioneering Tycoon of the Age of steel. He was an entrepreneurial capitalist that
spawned the growth of a nation. His vision of becoming an entrepreneur was very intense and he poured his
heart and soul into it and learned everything about the business. His persistence and ethic propelled him at
every step.
Is this entrepreneur an innovator? Explain your answer.
He was a true innovator and a man of vision. At the turn of century, a railway was perceived as a risky
endeavour and more doubted by the public then. Carnegie was the one to recognise what the railways can
do for the public and the country at large. He jumped in as a true trail blazer and became the first to market.
version 1.0 12