Business Environment: Structure, Functions, and International Growth

This report provides a detailed analysis of the business environment, focusing on different types of organizations, their structures, and functions. It explores private, public, and voluntary sectors, highlighting legal structures such as sole proprietorships, partnerships, companies, charities, and trusts. The report uses Unilever, Tesco, and Age UK as case studies, examining their background, products, size, vision, mission, and stakeholders. It investigates the impact of organizational structure on business functions like human resources, finance, marketing, production, and operations, emphasizing advantages such as specialization and improved coordination. The report concludes that different organizational types have unique impacts on the international business environment, stressing the importance of aligning structure with business objectives for optimal performance. Desklib provides access to this and many other student contributed assignments.

Business and Business Environment
INTRODUCTION
Business can also be defined as organisation that involves in commercial, industrial or
professional activities like trading or exchanging, sale or production of goods and services(Akhtar and
Sushil, 2018). Business runs with motive of earning profit and can be able to satisfy customers need.
Factor like employees, owners, management integrate with internal forces, while customers need,
suppliers, legal aspects, technological and economical changes are covered in external forces. This
project evaluates the different types of organisations with their scope, size and structure. Further it
explains the relationship between functions of organisation with their impacts along with advantages
and disadvantage.
Different types of organisation with their structures, scope, size and objectives in context with growth
in international business environment.
Business organisation is an entity formed with the purpose of making profit through producing
goods and services to meet the customer’s requirement. There are many types of business organisation
explained below:
Public sectors – This sector includes the goods and services by government like military, health care
centres, infrastructure, public education and many more (Barr and Et. AL., 2018). This sector contains
portion of economy with all levels of government and their controlled enterprises. It does not involve
private companies, voluntary organisation or households. These organisations are fully owned and
managed by government includes schools, healthcare, emergency services and infrastructure of
country.
Purpose – Public sector works in the direction of making welfare of public with overall development
of country. Main objective of public companies is to deliver goods and services to citizens of country
rather than generating profit through the exchange (Bernardes and Et. AL., 2022). For example,
Unilever is multinational consumer’s goods company. Unilever has main focus on delivering good
quality products to its customers while satisfying their needs.
.
Legal Structures – some of the legal structures of public sector are discussed below:
Federal Government – This type of government is combination of three different branches
like legislative, executive and judicial government.
State Government – This government has special focus on implementing and enforcement
of laws in state. They have certain reserved powers, specific powers and responsibilities that
national government don't gave.
Local Government – It is lowest tier of public administration within particular state. IT
has limited power in comparison with other government.
 Private Sector – This type of organisation is part of economy that is managed by
individual or owned by private groups (Faghih and Zali, eds., 2018). It includes all the
business which has universal objective of earn profit through their exchange of goods and
services. Private sector does not have much influence of government on their operations
and functions. Tesco is best example to be taken in private sector company in UK.
Purpose – The main purpose behind private sectors are that, they are profit oriented and
has objective to generate more revenue from the business operations. It also provides more
employment in area with goal of making more money from business organisation.
Legal Structures - Some of the legal structures of Private sector are discussed below
Sole Trader – This type of structure in business are also known as sole proprietorship, it is
type of enterprise owned and managed by individual person. It does not hire employees for work,
they basically work alone (Franklin and Marshall, 2019).
Partnership – It is formal agreement between two or more people to manage and operate
company by sharing its profit according to their ratio. These partners are responsible for sharing its
liability and profit equally.
Company – It is legal enterprise formed by group of individuals to manage and operate
business in commercial or industrial capacity. Companies are depending on their business structure
which can range between partnership, sole proprietorship, or may be corporation.

 Voluntary Organisation – It is group of individuals that enters the agreement to work as volunteers to achieve the purpose included in formation of organisation (Halbert and
Ingulli, 2020). This voluntary organisation includes trade associations, trade unions, learned society or can be environmental groups. For example, Bill and Melinda gates
foundation, Human Right Watch or Environmental protection Agency. Age UK is leading charity organisation UK based with helping people with old age.
 Purpose – The main purpose of voluntary organisation is to fulfil their mission and work projects in good way to rather than making profit through this. Voluntary organisation
prioritises their works differently in comparison with regular business performance.
 Legal Structures -
Charity – The practice of charity in voluntary organisation is giving help to needy people includes humanitarian act, unmotivated by self-interest. The main objective of charity of
this voluntary is to raise money for the people in need.
Trust – In this organisation usually set is of donated assets which are given by one person called donor to another person with clear intention of providing benefit to third party.
An explanation of each of the chosen organisations, including: background details, products, size, vision, mission, legal structure and information about
stakeholders.
Basis Unilever Tesco Age UK
Background Details Unilever was founded in 1929, 2nd of
September by the merger of British soap
maker lever Brothers and the Dutch
margarine producer Margarine Unie.
During the times of 20th century,
company has increasingly diversified
their range of products and start
producing good made of oil and fats
which help them in achieving goals as
well as expands their operations
globally.
Tesco was called Tesco – Tea before, the name comes from the
initials of word TE Stockwell, who is partner in tea supply and
CO from Jack's surname. IT was founded by Jack Cohen in
1919 (Hamilton and Webster, 2018). The name Tesco was first
appeared in 1924 after the Cohen purchase the shipment of tea
from TE Stockwell.
Age UK is registered charity in United Kingdom and was
formed in year 2009 on 25 February and launched in same
year but with different date 1 April 2009. Age UK is
combined version of operation of previously separated
charity called Age Concern England and Help the aged to
form the UK's biggest charity for old age people.
Products and services Unilever is multinational consumer
goods company, it serves different kinds
of grocery products, foods and
beverages, home decors, wellness,
personal care and cosmetics also.
Tesco offers different kind of products like food and non-food
products, fresh drinks, grocery, home and entertainment
products, baby products, clothing, households, health and
beauty products, electronics also.
Age UK provides elderly services which can help them in
continue their living in their own home. It involves back
independent living, bathing solutions, stair lifts and home
lifts and personal alarms.

Size and scope Unilever is multinational company
with presence in more than 190
countries and serving their products
and services in international market.
Products of Unilever is widely
consumed by user at global level.
Tesco is one of the largest food retailer
in market of United Kingdom and has
operation in around 11 other countries
with more than 2318 stores around
them with over 326,000 people
working with them. IT also provides
online services through online platform
Tesco.com.
Age UK has more focus on
ensuring that older people have
enough money and can enjoy
life with feeling well and
receive high quality health and
care thorough them.
Vision Unilever has simple vision that is to
make sustainable living in common
place and they believe that this is the
only way for growth in long term
business.
Tesco has vision of serving customers
and communities in planet in a better
way every day. This term includes the
means of keeping customers at their
heart and also reflecting our
responsibilities towards the
communities and can serve society in
more broader way.
Age UK has vision that
includes the support they
provide to enable, empower and
support old age people to live
well as active, engaged and
with influence on members of
the community.
Mission Mission of Unilever is that they
could see two billion people one day
to use Unilever products to look
good, feel good and get more in life
through them.
Tesco has mission statement is We
make what matters better, together.
This statement gives clear instruction
that Tesco has taken every one in part
of their success.
Mission of Age UK is to
provide fearless ageing, old
people feel connected,
respected, support and enabled
to enjoy life in quality.
Legal structure Unilever has three different level of
legal structure these are Local, State
and Federal Government.
Tesco also has some legal structures
for example Sole proprietorship,
Partnership, Company and limited
liability partnership.
Charity and trusts are legal
structures of Age UK.
Information
about
stakeholders
Unilever has their customers,
shareholders, governments and
regulators, suppliers, communities
and peer companies are their
stakeholders.
Stakeholders of Tesco includes its
customers, creditors, competitors, local
communities and the government.
Board of trustees are their main
stakeholders. These are Anne
Fraser, David Johnson, Brian
Gibbs and Steve Holt. Donors
and the person who are
willingly support charity and
Age UK.
Illustrate the different functions of business of chosen
organisation, use organisation chart to show how the
functions interrelated and advantages and disadvantages
and how the affect the structure of the organisation.
Organisation structure is method which help in flow of work within
the organisation. This structure allows management to work together within
their individual function of business (Kokodey, Gnezdova, and Lomachenko,
2018). Organisational structure is important for every business organisation as
it helps in delivering value in the market. Tesco has tall hierarchical structure
and focus on all the departments in business. Reason behind using
hierarchical structure is that Tesco is large organisation serving nationwide
and had many functional layers inside and its structure based on different
functionality.
Human Resource and Finance – Finance help in allocate resources to business
and human resource department works on hiring and recruiting people in
organisation to meet the final goal set by management. In Tesco, HR
department continuously works on hiring and onboarding employees while
considering the cost and benefits to organisation and same finance department
does. HR department should make policies that has impact on profitability
ratio of Tesco in positive direction.
Finance and Marketing – Relationship between these two functions are
mainly important in any kind of business. Marketing wants to spend money
and finance department has goal to control expenses of business. Tesco as
multinational company dealing in different products has various strategies
which can be used as purpose of marketing to achieve objectives and for this
they need proper finance to promote their products online or offline.
Marketing and Production – Marketing department is closely related to the
production function of business. Tesco uses the Marketing function for
research and development strategy in market for planning the future
customers’ needs and preferences. This planning can be used in making
desirable changes in production method and can use the tactic of product
development.

Production and Operation – Production function of Tesco manages the activities that are related to
production, while operation function manages the whole administration, business operation and other related
activities in organisation.
Analyse the impact of organisation structure on different functions of business with
their advantages and disadvantages.
Organisation structure helps businesses in make sure that all the necessary task for smooth operation through
right people for achieving the profitability in business organisation (Morrison, 2020)(Uluskan and Godfrey,
2018)
. This structure help Tesco in guiding the employees, staff members, executives to make sure they understand
their roles in company and also provides better accountability and authority between various functions.
Advantages of Organisational structures
Organisation structure has also some benefits like Specialisation, it involves the grouping of entire
functions according to their specialisation which help in ensuring dependable level of competencies. It also
beneficial in terms of giving support to an issue within the same functional department.
Disadvantage of Organisational Structures
Lack of coordination can be considered as weakness of organisation structure. Communication
process between different departments are major concern for business now days. Failure in coordination
among functional groups is closely related to the drawback in the operational level of the business.
CONCLUSION
From the above report based on Business and its environment, it has been concluded that
different types of organisation have their own impact on international business environment.
This report also clarifies the detailed information about chosen organisation with their scope,
size, legal structures, mission, visions and objectives. It also explains the organisation
structures and their interrelation between functions on business with their impact on business
organisation.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Akhtar, M. and Sushil, S., 2018. Strategic performance management system in uncertain business environment: An empirical study of the Indian oil industry. Business Process Management Journal.
Barr, T.L., Reid, J., Catska, P., Varona, G. and Rout, M., 2018. Development of indigenous enterprise in a contemporary business environment–the Ngāi Tahu Ahikā approach. Journal of Enterprising
Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy.
Bernardes and Et. AL., 2022. Cost of doing business index in Latin America. Quality & Quantity, 56(4). pp.2233-2252.
Faghih, N. and Zali, M.R. eds., 2018. Entrepreneurship Ecosystem in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA): Dynamics in Trends, Policy and Business Environment. Springer.
Franklin, D. and Marshall, R., 2019. Adding co-creation as an antecedent condition leading to trust in business-to-business relationships. Industrial Marketing Management, 77. pp.170-181.
Halbert, T. and Ingulli, E., 2020. Law and ethics in the business environment. Cengage Learning.
Hamilton, L. and Webster, P., 2018. The international business environment. Oxford University Press.
Kokodey, T., Gnezdova, I. and Lomachenko, T., 2018, October. Modeling the global business environment based on polycyclic theory. In The International Science and Technology Conference"
FarEastСon" (pp. 487-499). Springer, Cham.
Morrison, J., 2020. The Global business environment: towards sustainability?. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Uluskan, M. and Godfrey, A.B., 2018. Business environment-supply chain framework and benchmarking supply chain structures: Haiti versus China. Benchmarking: An International Journal.