Business and Business Environment: A Report on P&G and Virgin Media

Desklib provides solved assignments and past papers to help students succeed.

Business and business environment

Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................................2
PART 1............................................................................................................................................4
OVERVIEW OF ORGANIZATIONS................................................................................................4
EXPLANATION TO EACH ORGANIZATION...................................................................................4
Types of businesses-.............................................................................................................. 4
Purpose of the businesses-....................................................................................................4
Size of the businesses-...........................................................................................................5
Value of the businesses-........................................................................................................5
EXAMINE DIFFERENT BUSINESS FUNCTIONS FOR P&G..............................................................7
PART 2............................................................................................................................................9
PESTLE ANALYSIS FOR THE TWO ORGANIZATIONS....................................................................9
Political factor-.......................................................................................................................9
SWOT OR TOWS ANALYSIS FOR THE ORGANIZATION AND INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
EXTERNAL FACTORS.................................................................................................................14
CRITICAL REFLECTION ON THE KEY FINDINGS AND EVALUATION OF DECISION-MAKING.......16
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................... 17
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................18

Introduction
To establish a business is difficult for a person but to sustain that business in the dynamic
business environment is more difficult as every business requires many resources like human
resource, funds, etc. business is dependent on many factors such as it has to depend on society,
financial institutions, and market conditions. The businesses have to depend on customer for
sales purpose and for the society they have to depend on labours.
All these factors on which business relies do not behave similarly they are very dynamic and
continuously changes. Every business needs to adopt the change as fast as possible for the
survival of business in the market. And to adopt the change refers to know about the business
environment clearly.
These changes or business environment provides many opportunities and threats for any
business. And any responsible manager takes care of the business environment by carefully
evaluating and determining the environment in order to understand the external forces. The
discussion of such business environmental practices is undertaken by involving the organization
such as Telecom PLC, P&G and Virgin Media.

PART 1
OVERVIEW OF ORGANIZATIONS
Virgin media limited is a company provides services in the UK such as internet services,
television and telephone. It is a British company and subsidiary of liberty global plc (Dellot and
Wallace-Stephens, 2017).
The P&G Company is a multinational American company deal in consumer goods and
headquarter is in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, which was introduced in 1837 two men who met
by chance named as William Procter and Irish American James Gamble (Toynbee and Walker,
2017).
Telecom plus PLC is a UK company, which is a multi-utility supplier such as landline, electricity,
gas, mobile services and broadband. This company is listed on the London stock exchange and
also integrated with the FTSE 250 Index (Dorn, 2017).
EXPLANATION TO EACH ORGANIZATION
Types of businesses-
Virgin media limited is a subsidiary company of liberty global plc.
Procter & Gamble Company is a public limited company that means it is registered under
companies act 1980 and its shares are also offered to the public (Hillary, 2017).
Telecom Plus PLC is a public limited company Part of the public utility industry that means the
company can offer its shares to the public as its shares are listed in London stock exchange.
Purpose of the businesses-
The purpose of virgin media is to connect all the people or customers with each other’s by
making available broadband speeds; they are enabling millions of businesses to access the
ultrafast fibre optic networks (Dorn, 2017).

The purpose of P&G is to provide the superior quality and value of branded products and
services that can improve the life of many people and the coming generation in the world.
The purpose of Telecom Plus PLC is to provide a better supply of electricity, landline, gas,
mobile services and broadband to businesses and residences (Hamilton and Webster, 2018).
Size of the businesses-
Virgin Media has a large size business as they are having 14004 employees along with the
respective revenue and operating income of 5,150.3 million and 206.9 million (Hamilton and
Webster, 2018). Their net income is -86.9 million by rendering different products such as
broadband internet, digital television, and mobile telephone and fixed-line telephone.
P&G is a large organization as this company is serving worldwide with 95000 numbers of
employees along with the respective revenue, net income and operating income of 66.83
billion, 9.75 billion and 14.78 billion (Storey, 2016).
Telecom Plus PLC is also a large sized organization as the company is having 1,177 employees
with respective net income, revenue and operating income of a business that is 30.5 million,
792.9 million and 41.9 million (Phillips, 2018).
Value of the businesses-
The purpose of this company is not only to connect the businesses and homes but also building
strong communities and creating the opportunities for job as well as making the lives improved
by enhancing the infrastructure and the economy of UK and Ireland (Storey, 2016). Virgin
Media is also about to empower the people in order to make them feels limitless, valued,
inspired and unstoppable by developing the connections that will help in giving a sense of
belongingness in the customers that basically changes the life in a better manner.
The values of P&G are all about integrity, leadership, passion for winning, ownership and trust.
That means doing the right things, having a clear vision for what to do next, operate within the
boundaries of laws, through appropriate leadership eliminate the barriers and confusions from
the business (Evans et al.,2017). Improve the effectiveness to meet the needs of the market,

desire to win the market situations through continuous improvement and this company
believes that the employees work best when there is a foundation of trust.
The values of Telecom Plus PLC are to supply the utility in order to make the life of people easy
in the United Kingdom.

EXAMINE DIFFERENT BUSINESS FUNCTIONS FOR P&G
Organizational functions refer to the distinct areas of the organization such as human resource,
marketing, distribution or sales, finance, etc. And the organizational structure refers to the
relationship between those functions of the organization. There are many firms in which they
have only one function that influence the overall structure of the organization for example sales
(Page et al., 2017). And this influence of sales leads the disturbance in organizational structure
in order to identify the organizational functions. This can be understood with one example like
the sales department of P&G prevent or safeguards the organization from transforming the
structure of its organization such as functional to the matrix or divisional structure.
The structure of P&G relies on the functions of business of the company since the
organizational structure is formed after analyzing the objectives and roles they are going to
serve in the market or consumers. P&G identifies their objectives so that they can increase their
productivity through proper organization structure in order to maintain the movement of
activities and operation of the business as well as the command in the organization (Jabbar et
al., 2018). The business functions in the P&G basically work to serve the customers in better
ways and maintain the uniformity among functional departments for better control of the
activities in the company. The control over different functional units in P&G can be maintained
by properly monitoring or controlling the business with the help of appropriate organizational
structure. If the person is having proper knowledge about his or her job role, what is actually
supposed to do in the organization will make the person to function efficiently in the
organization and achieve the goals (Ulutas et al., 2016). To achieve the proper organizational
functions, the company needs to design the organizational structure and set the real objective
to attain the effectiveness as it helps the employees or workers to know clearly about their
roles and specifications regarding working.
Advantages

 Proper organizational functions help in making the strong interrelationship of
employees by assisting the organization to manage the cooperation among the different
functional units.
 It helps in enhancing the profit margin of the company as it leads to the sharing of
information among different functional departments (Rizos et al., 2016).
 It also helps in increasing the alliances between employees that ultimately enhance the
effectiveness of their performance in the organization.
Disadvantages
 It increases the feeling of competitions and rivalry among the distinct functional units of
business.
 Through this, each and every employee of each department will be aware of each
other’s department work and this knowledge can harm another department by using it
in a negative way (Ulutas et al., 2016).

PART 2
PESTLE ANALYSIS FOR THE TWO ORGANIZATIONS
The PESTLE analysis refers to the framework which is used to scan the external macro
environment of the organization. The PESTLE stands for the political, economic, socio-cultural,
technological, legal and environmental factors (Brown, 2018). This tool is used to determine
the:
 Existing external factors that can highly influence the organization working.
 To identify the available business opportunities and to defend the business from threats
like competitors, etc.
 To determine the potential factors that can change the business scenario in future
(Nohria, 2017).
Here the analysis will be done on two companies that are P&G and Virgin Media. So, let’s
discuss how the macro environment affects the business operations of these two companies.
PESTLE analysis of P&G and Virgin Media-
Political factor-
Political factors highly affect the long term profitability of P&G in particular regions or country.
As this company is dealing with personal products in various countries and facing different risks
and environment of political systems. To achieve success in this industry the company needs to
identify the diversified political risks in different countries (Charter, 2017). So, to enter into any
new market the company must analyze or investigate the certain market-
 The support of government for the efficiency of higher energy (which is an opportunity
for P&G)
 The stable and constant support of government for globalization (this is also an
opportunity for P&G).

 The increased support of the government in relation to e-commerce (act as a threat or
opportunity for P&G).
The increased political factors provide opportunities as well as threats for the organization as a
company can increase its revenue through online stores of P&G shops (P&G, 2018). On the
other hand support of government towards globalization that can increase the penetration in
the global market. The high energy efficiency is a positive point for P&G that will improve the
image in society.
The political factors have a direct impact on the business operations of virgin analysis such as
government tax policy, employment laws, labour unions and trade politician, government
stability and unstable political situations. The political conditions of virgin media can direct on
the economic downfall in the telecommunication sector (Hair et al., 2015). The demand for the
fixed line telephony is declining and this is nearly used twice as high as the residential fixed
telephony market. The voice over the data and other areas has lost its grip in the market. This
has an adverse effect on the financial condition and migration rates of the people and industry.
Thus, it has hit the hardest drop in the prices and subscription of the landline to around 5%.
Economic factors-
The effects of economic trends and other issues on the performance of P&G are here which are
very notable in the case of this company-
 Most of the developed markets having stability in the economy (opportunity for P&G).
 Increased level of disposable income of consumers (opportunity for P&G).
 The growth rate of the developing market is very high (opportunity for P&G).
The economic factor is providing many opportunities to this company as the rate of developing
market is high; overall growth of the company is possible with increasing penetration on the
developing countries (Quinlan et al., 2019). The purchasing capacity of consumers is increasing
day by day and the stability in the market is rendering positive signs for P&G.

The Virgin Media is powered by TiVo, this can extensively share the video-on-demand services
and gather pace. It can provide 55% of the consumer with the dual platform within a period of
30 days. This has raised the revenue of the company and reached the audience to around 25.9
million in 2011 and 26.9 million within the next four months (Statistica, 2018). Thus, the online
consumption of the video has been rapidly increasing.
Socio-cultural factors-
The changes and trends in society such as changes in the behaviour, attitude, etc. in customers.
Here are some external factors that are considered by P&G during strategic formulation-
 In developed countries, there are decreased rates of population growth (threat for
P&G)
 Increased demand for high-quality products and services for consumers (opportunity
for P&G)
 High rise in preference for healthy products (opportunity)
With the development of countries, people are more conscious about having high quality and
healthful products and demanding the same from the company like P&G (P&G, 2018). This
situation is providing many opportunities for consumer goods industries such as P&G. But the
declining rate of population is hindering the long term growth of business in developed
countries.
The socio-cultural factor that affects the business operations of Virgin Media is different
attitude and trends of the society, mobility in society, remarkable changes in the lifestyle of
human, different educational level and cultures of society (Thompson, 2017).
Technological factors-
The company like P&G is having many opportunities to increase their profit through online
sales as the market is growing globally in terms of online purchasing. Through automation
company can improve its efficiency. The operation management and strategic decisions are get
affected by technological factors (Charter, 2017). For the solution manager of P&G can include

business automation in order to increase productivity. And to minimize the costs the company
can use the fuel efficiently during transportation for the distribution of goods.
Technological factors that challenge the Virgin Media includes the factors like miss use of
technology, new scientific attitude, high rates of changing in technology, the focus and
investment in technology by government and new innovations.
Environmental or ecological factors-
 Increased availability of materials that are recyclable (opportunity for P&G)
 Effects on farming due to constant changes in the pattern of weather (threat for P&G)
 High opposition to forest transformation to plantations of oil palms (threat for P&G)
The threat for P&G is raising opposition regarding forest transformation into oil palm
plantations. These ecological factors influence the presence of oil palm that generally used in
consumers goods in many companies (Direct selling news, 2018). Along with this, the changing
weather is affecting the farming which is ultimately affecting the supply of raw material used
during manufacturing of consumer goods such as detergents, soaps, etc. on the other side the
company has a great opportunity to showcase its image as an environmental concern by using
recyclable material that improves brand image as well as loyalty of customers.
In 2017, the Virgin media has processed in the third year of sustainable development through
which the track to bring about the change has been dwelled up well. It has directed on the
positive power of the digital to support the people and stay in work (Hair et al., 2015). This has
directed on the strategic partnership with the value 500 in the global movement and putting an
end to the disability employment agenda in the business.
Legal factor-
P&G has many opportunities to increase product regulation as this company can increase the
product safety standards to ensure the higher quality of goods. On the other hand, the
environmental protection regulations are somehow a threat to the company that can influence
the supply chain of P&G (Nohria, 2017). By improving sustainability status company can