Contemporary Development in Business and Management Report: Cases

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Cases Engineering, a company specializing in fabricated metal sheets, examining its performance over 35 years. The report utilizes PESTEL analysis to evaluate external factors including political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal aspects, highlighting their impact on the business. It delves into the influence of technological changes, such as the adoption of CAD software and CNC machinery, on manufacturing processes and overall business management. The report also assesses the company's responses to these technological advancements, identifies areas for improvement, and discusses the relevance of these factors in the context of the company's operations. The analysis covers the evolution from manual processes to technology-driven solutions, emphasizing the importance of adapting to advancements for enhanced productivity and competitiveness. Furthermore, the report explores the impact of political policies, economic conditions, social factors, environmental regulations, and legal frameworks on the company's performance and strategic decisions.

CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENT IN BUSINESS AND
MANAGEMENT
3622 words
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Executive summary
The Cases Engineering is a company which deals with the manufacture of the fabricated
metal sheets. This company has existed in the market for the past 35 years. In any company,
there are certain factors which need to be considered for the evaluation of the overall
performance. There are some methods of analysis which help in these evaluations. The
external factors are analysed with the help of a method known as the PESTEL analysis. This
analysis envelops the political, economic, social, technological, environmental and the legal
aspects. The policies of the government always have a certain influence on the business
because the decisions of the business must abide by the law laid down by the government.
The business always has a contribution to the economy of the country and the economic
conditions of the company also create an impact on the business. The technologies as well the
environment do create a noticeable impact on the business.
The rapid changes evolved in the technologies have influenced the business to a great extent.
The earlier functioning of the company was carried out with a little use of technology but the
company incorporated the technological tools in various fields of work and hence the
working became very easy. The various management functions are now carried out with the
help of different software and different types of machinery. However, there are certain fields
which still require some improvement. The strengths and the weaknesses of the company
need to identify for the better development.
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Table of contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Task 1: Overview of the External influences of the primary level and their importance..........4
Task 2.........................................................................................................................................6
2.1 Relevance and the influence of the technological changes..................................................6
2.2 Critical evaluation of the effectiveness of the response of the organisation........................9
2.3 Areas for improvement......................................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................11
Reference list............................................................................................................................13
Appendices...............................................................................................................................15
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Introduction
Every business industry is based on certain regulation and strategies on which they do
success in the business. The developments of an organisation need various aspects like
employee management, product yielding technology and all the processes that an
organisation need to run the business. Some influencing factors are dedicated to the growth or
fall in the business and for this, the organisation need to follow those factors so as to gain
proper success in the business. The organisation Cases Engineering Ltd is situated in the
United Kingdom and deals on the manufacturing of fabricated metal sheets. It started its
business in 1981 and has been enjoying its growth from early year's efficiency and precision.
It has been recognised as an industry of sheet metal fabrication. They have been in the
business for many years and are influenced in many ways that may some internal and
external influences. The issues regarding the influences are discussed below along with
technology changes that are taken to improve the gaps of business and its management.
Task 1: Overview of the External influences of the primary level and their
importance
The company Cases Engineering Ltd has been doing business for many years and has
succeeded in the manufacturing of fabricated metal sheet industry. According to Mariani et
al. (2016, p.86), the economy in the global market is very responsible for better investments
to the relevant industry sector. However, they face some major external factors that create
impact over the entire business and are analysed through PESTEL analysis of the company.
Political analysis- The factors which influence in the business are included in the political
analysis. The policies provided by the government for the specific sector are included in the
political factors. There is some lack of the political infrastructure to the metal industry.
However, there are some policies by the government and are introduced to fill the gaps of
supply and demand of the products. The government has some policies by which special
incentives are provided to the employees and workers of the company. Certain incentives are
provided to the industry and the customer such as zero import duty, land provision, cut on
duty and other infrastructural requirements. Robinson et al. (2016, p54) stated that, that there
are some political policies to maximise the product yield which indicate the million tonnes of
metal sheet production. Some political factor does not allow running the industry as there are
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some certain objections from the local political representatives and this has to be analysed for
overcoming the ill situation of the organisation. These political sides are important to analyse
for the betterment of the organisation and for the finding of gaps from the political issues that
may create the ill effect on the organisation management.
Economic analysis- the steel and metal industries are concerned to become enhanced
industries in the past years. The investors from various countries are directed to investment
and are made to feel interested in doing the matter of investing in an organisation like Cases
Engineering Ltd for better returns and this will enhance the economic status of the company.
The organisation has the aspect of importing duty-free raw materials so as to deliver the
product with the cheaper rate and also can be exported. According to Barba et al. (2016,
p.980), without proper economical condition, an organisation is unable to produce their
outcomes and make a prospective business. The industries of steel and metal are in a sub
crisis of economic support for which they often find it difficult to manage their business. This
side of economic status has to be analysed for protection against any fail in the business. The
economic structure has to be improved by the organisation by some legal aspects and this
would help them maintain the proper and profitable business all round the year. There should
be the proper analysis of the economic statistic for the organisation and it falls under the
economic analysis which is an external factor of any business organisation.
Social analysis- one of the most important aspects in the external influencing factors is social
analysis and it is responsible for the description of the particular industry over the society.
The societies are responsible for the approval and the objections of any industry by the type
of industry that may create bad effects or not harm to the society are judged by the society.
The industries are responsible for the development of any particular area. It provides
employment to the local people of the area where it is situated (Kolis et al. 2016, p.70). The
employees need to have food and for this purpose, the local people of the area can manage
their small business of catering and the area provides approval to establish the relevant
industry to grow at that particular place.
Technological analysis- The industry is using the tradition technologies from very past years.
However, they need to implant newer technologies for proper competition in the market.
There is no such innovation in the technology use in the industry to be used for production
purpose. The basic technologies that are used to manufacture are induction furnace, basic arc
and electric furnace. These technologies are being used for many years and are becoming
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obsolete in the evolution of modern technologies. The modern equipment is helpful to
produce better productivity in lesser cost than it was in the use of previous technology in the
industry. According to Luís et al. (2016, p.721), there is some analysis where the total
management process is to be done using some common and easy management tool and for
this, the organisation need to implant one such as ERP system with Cloud access. Some
business management tool has to be introduced to manage all the processes that are to be
done by the organisation. For better management and proper production of industry, the
organisation has to be analysed by this technological analysis.
Environmental analysis- the steel and metal industry is making encourage to various other
sectors and their development are responsible for creating a bad environment of the
geographical area where the industry is situated. The industries are needed to follow all the
acts related to the environment that were proposed by the government. However, the
government has provided certain acts of maintaining environment clean the industries are not
following the same. The result from this mishap creates contamination of the local area from
which nature gets affected and various germs are spread from which the people and nature
are adversely affected. The environment within the organisation also needs to be analysed for
the protection of the workers so that they might not fall sick and result in the absence from
work. This may create less workforce resulting in less productivity of the organisation. The
environmental statistics of internal and external portions of the organisation are needed to be
analysed for reducing any loss in the business as well as to protect the environment.
Legal aspect analysis- there is various rules and regulations that are introduced by the
government for industries like steel and metal industry such as Cases Engineering Ltd.
However there are found certain gaps in maintaining the rules and regulation as the industry
fails to perform the required steps by the lack of proper infrastructure to maintain all these
matters. Without maintaining the legal aspects the industry may face various problems due to
the interference of the government. Thus it is very necessary to make legal analysis for the
smooth running of the industry.
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Task 2
2.1 Relevance and the influence of the technological changes
With the rapid advancement in the technologies which has been witnessed in the era, there
have been several changes in the patterns of the business. The tasks which were extremely
hard and complicated have become far easier with the help of the technology. According to
Orlikowski et al. (2016, p.21), all the companies can witness a high enhancement in the
productivity with the help of the technologies. This also leads to the overall growth of the
company.
The company Cases Engineering Ltd is a company which is involved in the manufacture of
the steel sheets. At the earlier time, the manufacture of the steel was a job which included a
large amount of manual working. This included the operation of the blast furnaces. The
production of the hot metal has been one of the most important and obvious tasks right from
the time the manufacture of steel started. All these roles were carried out manually or with
the help of little available machinery. However, with the growth in the availability of the
technologies, the company has undertaken the adoption of the new technologies. These have
made the work easier and convenient top a large extent. Other than the manufacturing, the
handling of the overall business has also become fairly easy. As stated by Davenport (2013,
p. 31), the use of the internet technology has also made the operation of the business easy to
be handled and managed. The communication within the organisation as well the
communication of the business with the outside world has become effortless.
One of the services of the cases engineering is the product design. In order to deliver this
service, the company makes use the CAD or the computer aided design. The Cad is software
which is used as a replacement to the manual drafting. This software is highly helpful for the
purpose of the designing or structural engineering (Duffy and Jonassen, 2013, p.23). This
requires less manual input and the complete work is done by the software itself as per the
instructions provided. The other services provided by the company are the cryogenics, CNC
laser cutting, CNC metal forming, CNC punching inserting and welding as well as powder
coating. In the process of the manufacture of all of these services, there is numerous
machinery used which are also a part of the technology.
The Cases engineering has adopted the different technologies which aid to the marketing of
the products as well as the management of the overall business. There are a number of
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employees in the company and the information of all the employees need to be maintained by
the company. In addition to this, there are several functions going on in a company at any
particular instance of time and the record of each of the functions needs to be maintained. In
the process of the proper functioning of the company, there needs to be a proper evaluation of
all the undergoing processes. For the process of the proper evaluation, there needs to be the
collection of the relevant data (Ross, 2016, p.11). These data also need to be stored in an
organised manner. All these are handled by the Cases Engineering with the help- of the
commercial software which helps in the automation of the process of the maintenance of the
data.
The company has also been able to reduce the overall cost of the communication with the
help of the networking technologies. They have made use of the intranet and the extranet
technologies for the establishment of the effective communication within the company as
well as in between the different branches of the same company located at the different places.
The advancement in the internet technologies has also made it easier for the company to
participate in the process of globalisation. The advertisement of the existing products, as well
as the introduction of the new products, has also become effortless with the help of the social
networking. In this method of the advertising, the company is able to recognise the target
customers as per the products manufactured by the company. This has also helped in making
the involvement of the common people in the ideas of the company. The sales engineering is
able to conduct the surveys and make advancements into the products as per the feedback
received.
In addition to the factors already mentioned, there are a number of functionalities which the
companies need to follow. The companies need to carry out different functions like the
management of the resources, and the planning of the enterprises as well as the management
of the human resources. These can be done with the help of different software available. The
cases engineering also makes use of a number of software. In this company, these factors are
managed with the help of the ERP system. According to Nwankpa (2015, p.335), the ERP
system is basically software, which is used for the automatic management of the business as
well as the back office functions which deal with the technology, human resources and the
other services. With the help of this system, the company is able to keep a control on the
various activities of the business. These activities may encapsulate the planning of the
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product, purchase of the raw materials, and the manufacturing process of the product, along
with the marketing, the advertisements and the sales of the created product.
In addition to the use of ERP system, some other software is also used by the Cases
engineering. The company makes use of the database software for the appropriate
maintenance of all the information which is of importance to the company. This information
may consist of the information of the employees as well the different processes and the
functionalities of the company. The company also makes use of the payroll software. As per
Martins et al. (2014, p.11), the payroll software is a software which is designed for the
automation of the payment procedures. This software facilitates the automatic calculation of
the wages paid by a company as well as the delivery of the calculations. This also manages
the reports of the company related to tax and the other payments to the different agencies.
The calculations of the holidays on the annual basis are also done by this software. All the
information related to the payroll is stored by this system in a manner which is very organised
so that this information can be retrieved as and when required.
All the technologies combined together have to lead to a considerable growth in the
productivity and the overall development of the Cases engineering. The company has
witnessed a tremendous growth in the total existing period of 35 years. The company has
always welcomed the changes in the technologies and in the market patterns. It has moulded
the business according to the changes and it is because of this reason that the company has
been able to withstand all the difficulties it has faced in the path of development.
2.2 Critical evaluation of the effectiveness of the response of the
organisation
The changes in the technological aspects can be considered as a revolution in the world of
business. With the emergence of the technological facilities, all the companies started
adopting the new technologies in order to meet the demand of the competitive market. As
stated by Martins et al. (2014, p.11), the effective use of the technologies facilitates the
creation of a platform which helps in the realisation of the success of the business. It also
helps in the mitigation of the several challenges in the execution of the strategies made in the
favour of the business. However, the response of all the companies was not equal to the
changes.
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The responsiveness of a business is the calibre of the company in accordance with the
response provided by the company in relation to the changes and the interactions of the
customer (Gadassi et al. 2016, p. 109). In order to cooperate with the changes, there has to be
a continuous tracking of the activities within the business and the performance. After the
proper analysis of the performance level, the proper decision needs to be taken about the
adjustments which need to be made to the operations of the company in accordance with the
new changes introduced in the market. The company Cases engineering has fulfilled the
criteria which were necessary for the transition of the company from the manual functioning
to the technological functioning. The company properly maintained the records of the
activities and the functions. It also kept on doing a periodic evaluation of the overall
performance. It was due to this reason that the company was able to easily adopt the changes
and operate according to those changes. The positive response towards the changes leads to
fantastic results for the company as the company witnessed a tremendous growth and was
able to create a considerable position in the market.
The other aspect of the evaluation of the response is the absorptive capacity. As defined by
Minbaeva et al. (2014, p.52), the absorptive capacity of the company is the ability possessed
by the company by the virtue of which the recognition of the benefits of the new information
can be done. This can be said to be one of the reasons for the investment in the research and
development by the company. The Cases engineering has also displayed the absorptive
capacity. The company was able to analyse the benefits of the upcoming technologies. After
having analysed the anticipated benefits of the new technologies, the company went forward
to adopt these technologies. The company went on to invest a larger amount of money in the
process of the research and development. This was done in order to explore the ideas of the
implementation of the new technologies. The company came up with new advancements. The
use of the latest machinery made it possible for the company to increase the production to
many folds. The inclusion of the technological tools to the various fields of the functioning
led to a better management of the business. The company started using these technologies for
different purposes and hence the outcome was found to be positive in terms of the growth.
2.3 Areas for improvement
The latest technologies have been greatly and wholeheartedly accepted by the company. This
has made it possible for the company to stay in pace with the market and create a valuable
position over the there are certain factors which can be considered for the further
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development. The employees are a vital part of any company and the company needs to value
the employees. It is the responsibility of the company to take care that the people working for
the company are provided with the proper environment so that they can get the feeling that
they do hold some value for the company. If the employees are satisfied with the job, they
tend to perform better and they always try to add to the value of the company because they
acquire the sense of responsibility towards the company which has provided them with all the
facilities of their requirement.
All the individuals working for the company are important for the company and all of them
do possess some qualities which can add to the value of the organisation (Gadassi et al. 2016,
p. 109). The company needs to identify the strength present within the human resource of the
company so that these strengths can be put to use for the achievement of the results which are
better than the results achieved earlier.
There may be some loopholes present in the process of the company. These loopholes are
responsible for the various internal problems arising within the workplace. The Cases
engineering needs o identify all the weaknesses of the company. After the identification of
the weaknesses, they need to be worked upon so that they can be removed and the company
can carry on with a smooth functioning. The company can come with the latest products so
that the other companies which are in competition with the company do not get the chance of
overpowering the company.
The quality of the services needs to be made better in a continuous pace so that the customer
base of the company does not get low and the company is able to create more new customers
for the business. The Cases Engineering can also encourage the online sales on a higher scale
as the online sales is a very effective way of sales. In this way, the company will be able to
reach to a large number of people by making the use of the internet. This process involves a
lower amount of cost and attracts a larger amount of customers. The advertising of the
products is also very easily done in this case. The people are able to go through the feedback
of the people who have already purchased the products of the company. The positive
feedback of the products leads to the ultimate growth in the sales of the products. The
feedback can also be very effective in the identification of the problems of the products
which can be rectified accordingly
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Conclusion
In any particular business, the internal and the external factors do have some considerable
influence on the overall performance of the business. In this particular report, the different
external factors have been defined and their influence on the business has been analysed. This
analysis has been done based on the PESTLE analysis. The different elements o the pestle has
been clearly discussed in details. In the second part of the report, the theme of the
technological changes has been chosen. The relevance of the technological changes in the
Company has been established. The technological changes have created a great impact on the
working of the company as well the policies of the companies with respect to the decision
making. The aspects of the changes and the outcome of the adoption of the changes in the
particular company have been covered in details. Further, the areas which have the scope for
improvement have also been identified and the changes which can be brought to the company
for the benefit has also been suggested.
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