EBWO3001: Autumn 2017 Re-sit Portfolio Effectiveness in Business

This portfolio, created by a student for the EBWO3001 course, addresses core concepts in business effectiveness. It begins by defining and analyzing the features of a public limited company (PLC) and differentiating it from a charitable organization. The report then explores the crucial role of custo...Read More

Autumn 2017 Re-sit Portfolio
Effectiveness in the Business World (EBWO3001)
Student Name:
Student Number:
Lecturer Name:
Assessed Learning Outcomes:
1. Demonstrate an understanding of the concept of the organisation and the
environment in which it operates, including determining the competitive advantage
for an organisation.
2. Identify and analyse organisational operations, responsibilities
3. Discuss the needs of the consumer and people who work in a business.
4. Recognise a range of issues related to business and how they interlink.

Week Contents (350-400 words per task) Page Learning
outcomes
Week 3 a. Describe the main features of a public limited
company (PLC), giving an example.
b. Identify two key differences between a PLC and a
charitable organisation.
3 LO1 / 2
Week 4 a. Who is a ‘customer’? Give THREE reasons businesses
must understand customers.
b. With at least one example, describe how
‘perception’ influences consumer demand?
4 LO3
Week 5 a. What is ‘globalisation’?
b. Describe THREE advantages & THREE disadvantages
of ‘globalisation’?
5 LO1/4
Week 6 Describe TWO advantages and TWO disadvantages of
‘group decision-making’ from the staff perspective. 6 LO3
Total word limit: 1500 words (+/- 10%)

ASSESSMENT - PORTFOLIO
Week Task 1 Learning
outcomes
Week 3
a. Describe the main features of a public limited
company (PLC), giving an example.
b. Identify two key differences between a PLC and
a charitable organisation.
LO1 / 2
Your answer should go in the box below.
Week 3
a. Public limited company is an organisation who issues their shares in the market
so people can but it and become shareholder of the firm. Share can be bought by
public either at the time of initial public offer or from the stock market. Every
public limited firm has ''Plc'' behind their name. Below are some of the main
features of public limited company:
Board of directors – These people hold position in top level management.
According to the law, their should be at-least two members or maximum 12 in the
the committee of board of director of a company (Wright, 2016). These people are
selected in the annual general meeting of an organisation, they are selected by
shareholder and they raise their voice at the time of making significant decision.
Limited liability – This can be considered as one of the most important features
of the public limited company. Every shareholder is liable up to the percentage of
share which they hold in the firm. This features play crucial role in separate a
company from its shareholder and provide business a different identity. One can sue
business entity but they cannot involve shareholders in this process.
Number of members – Law relating to companies act clearly state that every
public limited company should have at-least 7 shareholders but there is no limit for
maximum number of shareholders.
Transferable share – The shares issued by public limited company can easily be
bought and sold in the stock exchange.
Financial privacy – The laws states that every public limited company should
public their financial report in the public so potential investors and shareholder can
see the financial health of the company.
Capital – Public limited company can raise the capital by issuing their shares in
the market. If they need more money then they can think about adopting other
options like debentures.
Life span – Normally organisation affected by the death of a person but a public
limited company do not get affected demise of a shareholder. In case, a director die
then the new one is selected by conducting an election.

b. Difference between Plc and charitable organisation
Issue share – Plc has right to issue shares, their shares can be purchased or sold in
stock market. But charitable organisation do not have this benefit (Hopkins, 2011).
They can take charity from public but they cannot do this work by issuing shares.
Board of directors – According to the law, every public limited company should
have minimum two and maximum 7 members in the team of board of directors. This
kind of rules is not present for charitable organisation.

Week Task 2 Learning
outcomes
Week 4
a. Who is a ‘customer’? Give THREE reasons
businesses must understand customers.
b. With at least one example, describe how
‘perception’ influences consumer demand?
LO3
Your answer should go in the box below.
a. Customer is a person who buy goods or
service which are sold by a company. Seller
charge money for the goods sold to them or
any services given to them. Customers are
very important for the business before then
they would not exist then a company can
not even start their business. They the
prime reason behind every policy that is
made by an organisation. An enterprise can
study customers in order to find their
demand. This will help them in targeting
more buyers in short period of time. The
word ''customer'' and ''consumer'' are
synonyms (Michie, 2011). Following are
some benefits which a firm can get if they
understand customer:
Increasing profit – By analysing the
exact need of customers, one make the
same product at best price. This will help an
organisation in increasing their profit by
many folds in limited time.
Expansion of business – By serving
more customers, an enterprise can expand
their market. This will help them in
enhancing value of their company and at
the same time they can capture more
market share in operating industry.
Increasing the extent of business: The
better understanding of consumers will
boost company ability to increase its
extensive reach to the market. Scope and
size in market. There are multiple changes
that will be taking place. There are many
ways this quality can be improved and
B. There are multiple examples that can be
used in the case where perception of people
and society has influence over market demand
of products. Basically, changes in social life can
lead to these types influences as people are
highly impacted by culture (Mak, Lumbers
and Eves, 2012). Today, the companies need
to ensure that they are able to cater to the
needs of people. These days the society it self
is highly diversified and complex which leads to
much more decision making situation for
consumer.
Example: The one situation that impacted
perception of consumer, “Changes from
tradition generation to generation x and then
the millennials”.
They are the people who think openly and try
to do things in a very effective manner. Today,
the millennials think very differently and this
change in thinking has led to changes in
perception.

managers need to use them for making sure
that they are able to cater to the needs of
people.
Week Task 3
Week 5
a. What is ‘globalisation’?
b. Describe THREE advantages & THREE
disadvantages of ‘globalisation’?
Your answer should go in the box below.

a. Globalisation is the latest tendency of
bringing international trade, investments, IT
and production outsourcing of various
countries together. Primarily it is the
economic arrangement of global markets. It
includes the integration of socio- cultural
between different countries. The aim of
globalisation is to provide lower operating
costs with the gain in number of products,
services and consumers to enterprises
(Hwang and Lin, 2012). Now a days public
policy and technology are the two major
factors behind the boom of present
globalisation.
This is a concept, is stated to be boosting
interaction between economies and making
the flow of resources fluent. It is a very
important aspect that has allowed world
economy to grow further in size and scope.
b. Three advantages of globalisation:
 Increased free trade and
communication between nations:
Through Globalisation, two countries
can adopt free trade between
themselves. This helps the companies
of these two countries through
reducing their overall cost of
production. Free trade give a subsidy
from export and import tax
exemptions.
 Increased access to technology:
Through globalisation, countries can
learn new technologies from each
others. It gives the access to both the
countries to grab the opportunity to
work with the person of different
counties. And employees can learn
new things from the person of different
nation.
 Promote cross cultural trend within
organisation: Globalisation promotes
cross cultural tendency in companies,
that is the reason behind lots of
transnational companies and
multinational companies are promoted
by government of each countries.
Because it indirectly helps them to
generate revenues.
Three Disadvantages of Globalisation:
 Globalisation impact on the
environment: As every nation has
limited resources, these raw materials
should be utilized at optimum level, to
reduce the wastage. But when
countries import their material to
other branches which is in another
country can waste the oil, food
products, etc (Xu, 2011). The concept
of globalisation is based on the very

basic point that is increasing
interaction between economies and
people. This leads to diversification of
workforce as well as factors of
production. For companies it is quite
difficult to manage and sometimes it
leads to lower level of productivity.
 Globalisation can destroy local
traders: As through globalisation,
customers gets the products at the
cheaper rate and in more convenient
way. This directly impacts the local
traders because demand of their
products decreases and this
continuous loss forced them to shut
down their business.
 Globalisation can be controlled by
powerful nations: Globalisation can be
harmful, if it is controlled by powerful
companies. Because through
globalisation these powerful
companies can eat small companies
either through acquiring them or by
collapsing their businesses. This will
give them the opportunity to create
their own monopoly. People will be
dependent on these enterprises in the
absence of any alternate choices
available with them.
Week Task 4
Week 6 Describe TWO advantages and TWO
disadvantages of ‘group decision-making’
from the staff perspective.
Your answer should go in the box below.

Decision making is a concept that allows people in getting to a solution that will be
used as a way to complete things in a desired manner. There are different concepts
and products that confuses people to take the right decision. Basically, decision
making process is stated to be the one where individual keeps on analysing and
evaluating various alternatives that are present in the market and choose the best one
(Saaty and Peniwati, 2013). The decision making process needs to be specific so that
each task is completed in a set duration of time. There are teams which are enacted by
the managers and when it comes to their decision making, there are certain
advantages and disadvantages which are there:
Advantages:
 Better analysis of alternatives: Multiple minds are better than one person
analysis of various alternatives. Basically, a team is more capable of taking
effective decisions rather than a single person as there are more people and
more idea's and perception.
 Speedy decision making: When there are more people, they are able to
analyse all the alternatives in a effective manner. Multiple talented people are
more capable to take right decisions in a speedy manner .
Disadvantages:
 Lower level of accountability: When decisions are taken in the team, there is
lower level of accountability in people. Members of team tend to lay-off their
accountability if there is a failure, this is why team decision making is
considered to be fragile.
 Conflicts: There are different issues that are generated at the time when
conflicts take place (Armstrong and et. al., 2011). Basically, the managers
need to ensure that they are able to reduce the level of issues between people
working in a team. Whenever individual disagree with one another, they tend
to put up their arguments which lead to lower level of productivity.

References:
Wright, S., 2016. Language policy and language planning: From nationalism to
globalisation. Springer.
Hopkins, A.G., 2011. Globalisation in world history. Random House.
Michie, J. ed., 2011. The handbook of globalisation. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Mak, A.H., Lumbers, M. and Eves, A., 2012. Globalisation and food consumption in
tourism. Annals of tourism research. 39(1). pp.171-196.
Hwang, C.L. and Lin, M.J., 2012. Group decision making under multiple criteria:
methods and applications (Vol. 281). Springer Science & Business Media.
Xu, Z., 2011. Approaches to multiple attribute group decision making based on
intuitionistic fuzzy power aggregation operators. Knowledge-Based Systems. 24(6).
pp.749-760.
Saaty, T.L. and Peniwati, K., 2013. Group decision making: drawing out and reconciling
differences. RWS publications.
Armstrong, G. and et. al., 2011. Marketing: an introduction (Vol. 10). NJ: Pearson.

End of Portfolio