AstraZeneca: Business and Business Environment Report - HND Business

This report provides an in-depth analysis of AstraZeneca's business environment, focusing on the impacts of internal and external factors on its operations. The report begins by defining the business environment and its components, including workers, consumers, and management, and then provides an overview of AstraZeneca, an Anglo-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical organization. Task 1 explores different types of organizations (public, private, and voluntary sectors) and their purposes, as well as the size and scope of each. It also examines various organizational functions such as production, sales and marketing, administration, research and development, human resources, and finance. The report then delves into organizational structures, specifically the hierarchical structure employed by AstraZeneca, and relates it to the company’s objectives, such as business expansion and providing quality products. Furthermore, the report covers the interrelationship of various functions and links them with organizational objectives, including a discussion of production, sales and marketing, administration, research and development, human resources, and finance within AstraZeneca. The report also includes a SWOT analysis to discover the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, along with an examination of the impact of the macro environment on the organization. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, highlighting the importance of understanding both internal and external factors for business success.

BUSINESS AND BUSINESS
ENVIRONMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1 ...........................................................................................................................................1
P1 Different types of organisation and their purpose ............................................................1
P2 Size and scope of different organisation...........................................................................2
P3. Various organisational functions and the way they interrelate and link with organisational
objectives and structure..........................................................................................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
P4. Different impacts of macro environment on the business................................................7
P5. SWOT Analysis of AstraZeneca organisation ...............................................................9
P6. Impact of the macro environment on the organisation...................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Business environment deals with the internal and external factors that have their impact
on the way a company functions. It consists of workers, consumers and management to supply
and demand business regulations. This contains intrinsic and extrinsic issues that affect a
company's operating condition. The business environment consist of customers and suppliers
and there is a large competition with the other owners of the company. This report is based on
AstraZeneca plc which is an Anglo Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical
organisation and it was the eighth largest drug company regarding sales revenue in the world
according to recent data. The major objective of this report is to examine positive or negative
impacts that macro environment has on business operations. In this report, SWOT analysis will
be conducted to discover their qualities, openings and shortcomings. This report will also discuss
the strengths and weaknesses of organisation with the help of assessing external macro factors.
TASK 1
Covered in PPT
Introduction:
Business environment explains that the internal and external factors which impact on the way a
company Functions. It includes workers, consumers and management to supply and demand
business regulations.
P1 Different types of organisation and their purpose
Public sector organisation: It is defined as an organisation which are owned as well as
operated by the government for the purpose of providing services for its citizens. It is similar to
voluntary sector because public organisation do not seek to generate profits.
Private sector organisation: In this defined that private companies owned by an individual or
group people and they start business for the purpose of generating as well as returning profits
from investments.
voluntary sector organisation: Their main aim is to help and save the people in most of
the instances for particular type of people. In order to survive for this type of section they
1

normally must at least break-even that means it spend no more then take in through fundraising,
grants and donations.
P2 Size and scope of different organisation
Public Sector and its scope and size: These entities has wide range of size and scope of
work. The public entities can include departments like central government ,crown entities, local
government, tertiary education. Size of public sector comprises of less than any private sector
and they their main purpose in general is to provide help to business organizations. BBC is an
enterprise of public sector that has provided job to many employees approximately 5,000
employees where they can actually work there. The Scope of this sector consists of providing
support to finance to small and medium enterprises so that they can start their own business.
There also consist of ports and airports, health ministry, domain and cemetery trusts. All public
entities are responsible for the use of public resources and powers. Public independent assurance
account for how well public entities are and reporting on their performance.
Private Sector scope and size: Researches found that so many different companies use
the shared service model which is growing constantly but the period of model adaptation in
today's time is not really acceptable by large multinationals, but the medium-sized companies are
using the model. Size of private sector companies can vary largely. Astra-zeneca has been a
major private sector player of UK with over 50,000 employees who are working in this business.
The Scope of a private sector is to gain more and more money by giving effective products and
increased sales. Still the shared service model is not properly formulated for any company since
the model benefits can be changed through only at a certain company size reason being the
economic advantages are highly dependent on the economy of scale. Mean while the small
businesses do not have a criteria of workflows that it is very good and essential and worth
organizing them into a medium enterprises. It usually do not have enough resources to follow
through the proper implementation.
Voluntary Organizations and its scope and size: In the voluntary organization there is
a scope where the number of employed people in this department is very minimum. Barnardo's
has provided job to nearly around 5000 employees for the reason of helping society. The Scope
of this voluntary organization and its main aim is to support the poor people who are in need of
help and also this organisation provides effective solutions to provide them effective morale.
2

Types of enterprises functions
Production: It is very essential for every enterprise to get sources from different location
so that they can utilize them frequently. There are many techniques which they can use for doing
this, like for batch, flow,occupation and many more. The Astra-zeneca company needs a
manager for handling any event to wipe out varied expenditure and give training to workers. This
helps them is doing their work efficiently and more accurately. Also with this there is a decrease
amount of unnecessary cost which they can complete within the required budget plan.
Sales and marketing: The Astra-zeneca organisation would have to do inquiry about
their goals which they will have to satisfy the needs and wish of their customers. They would
create company for the particular reason. This include price, sales, promotional and many more.
It is essential for the Astra-zeneca company to improve their current issues that will assist them
to increase their sales. There is a great requirement of investments, with a goal of achieving
proper promotions of their products and administration.
Administration: There is an major purpose of the Astra-zeneca company to offer help
for the functioning of great business. It is duty of this division to organise affiliation in a
powerful way. Their performance has a connection between the senior administration of the
organisation Astra-zeneca. They built a relation between older administration and workers of
Astra-zeneca. They tend to present motivation to staff members with the aim of accomplishing
their goals and target in a proper way. Restrictions to them can cater essential matter to be
researched and to manage the meeting in a proper way.
Development and Research: It is responsible for each and every endeavours to figure
out the demands of their clients and decide the strategy. This will help them to increase their
services and facilities. Many associations depend upon this unit and with accomplishment of
Astra-zeneca ,there is R&D department. An important part which is very crucial and is used for
adequate fund access is finance. At one point they need to work effectively and efficiently.
Human resource: The basic and fundamental point of this sector to manage the HR in
Astra-zeneca organisation. They can provide training to their workers which will assist them to
improve their performance. It is essential for them to provide them better working conditions
which will help them in their retention. Chief of HR, needs of inspire their workers, they can
3

provide rewards or additional advantages to them. So, it is important to render them fund with
goal that they can conduct some training and also motivational projects for their staff members.
Finance: They need to store and hold up records of the enterprise adequately and
effectively. They can increase their funds with aid of shares and advances. Eventually this
partition is related with others to provide an aid that to make budget plan for Astra-zeneca. They
have to manage records about the amount of cash is received and paid through affiliation.
Majorly duty of this company is to have an issue budget strategy for each section that must be
take care of. They need to manage a pay roll and extra pay salaries to their workers.
Conclusion:
From the mentioned presentation it has been concluded that various types of business are related
to the change in external and internal factors. Purpose of business should be based on these
factors.
P3. Various organisational functions and the way they interrelate and link with organisational
objectives and structure
Organisational Structure defines company’s hierarchy of individuals and their
departments as well to allow the flow of information within the organisation. This structure also
describes how an information should be distributed.. Also, this gives information about the
authorities who make different decisions dependent upon information available. There is also
formal coordination of tasks and division of groups to allow organisational structure to work
effectively.
4

AstraZeneca is providing their products all around the world. They follow hierarchical
structure in their firm. Accordingly their position and their commitments are divided
proportionately among the representatives of the company.
Some objectives which are related to AstraZeneca are explained as below:
 Company needs to expand its business that would help them to account for improvement
and technological advancement.
 There is the need of providing better quality of products to customers with a logical cost.
 Significant yields should to be provided to the stakeholders for improving their chance to
increase revenue and income.
 There is also an important feature of this company to merchandise and facilitate each type
of sectors under same roof of their buyer.
 They are also required to minimize the expense with an aim of ensuring condition of UK
successful and proficient
Different types of organisational functions are mentioned as below:
Every association is required to give its items and governance to individuals so that they
can accomplish their important needs. For this, in AstraZeneca, there are some offices and each
5
Illustration 1: Organisational structure, 2017
Source 1: Organisational Structure

one's goal is different from each other. There are various departments that perform distinct
organisational functions and contribute in the attainment of common goal like:
 Production: It is important function of an organisation to get information from different
locations which can be utilized to improve efficiency. AstraZeneca needs a manager for
handling any event to wipe out varied expenditure and give training to workers. This
helps them in doing their work efficiently and more accurately. Also, with this, there is a
decreased amount of unnecessary cost which they can complete within the required
budget plan.
 Sales and marketing: The organisation would have to proper analysis their goals which
need to be accomplished according to the needs and wish of their customers. This include
price, sales, promotional and many more. It is essential for the AstraZeneca company to
improve their issues that will lead them to increase their sales. There is a great
requirement of investments for achieving proper promotions of their products and
administration and meet the goals.
 Administration: There is the major purpose of AstraZeneca to offer help for the
functioning of great business. It is the duty of this division to organise affiliation in a
powerful way. Their performance is dependent on the senior administration of the
organisation Astra-zeneca. This company makes a relation between older members and
new members of AstraZeneca. They tend to provide motivation to staff members with the
aim of accomplishing their goals and target in a proper way. Restricting them can lead to
essential matter to be researched and managed the meeting in a proper way.
 Development and research: It is responsibility of each and every endeavours to figure
out the demands of their clients and then decide the strategy. This will help them to
increase their services and facilities. Many associations depend upon this technique to
reach to accomplishment of AstraZeneca An important part which is very crucial and is
used for adequate fund access is finance.
 Human resource: The basic and fundamental point of this company is to manage human
resources effectually. HR department is responsible to provide training to their workers
which will assist them to improve their performance. It is essential for them to provide
better working conditions to employees which will help in retaining them in the long run.
Chief of HR, needs to inspire their workers by providing rewards or additional
6

advantages to them. So, that they can conduct some training and also motivational
projects for their staff members and meet their goals efficiently.
 Finance: This section of the company needs to store and hold up records of the enterprise
adequately and effectively. They can increase their funds with the help of shares and
advances. Eventually this sector is related with others to provide support to make budget
plan for Astra-zeneca. They have to manage records about the amount of cash received
and paid through affiliation. Main duty of this company is to have a budget strategy for
each section that must be taken care of. They need to manage a pay roll and extra pay
salaries to their workers.
TASK 2
P4. Different impacts of macro environment on the business
The factors that have their impact on macro environment of business organisation and its
operations are: - Political factors – This is first element of PEST analysis. It affects on AstraZeneca
company in several ways. This factor helps in creating many chances to get success for
the firm. In other word, they generally formulate some legal obligations and duties on
organisation as well. Political forces involved legislation like the minimum wage rate
market regulations, tariffs, tax rates, code of conducts and practices etc. Economical forces – This deals with economy factor of the AstraZeneca organisation that
includes economic growth rate, level of opportunity to get employment as well as
unemployment, raw materials costs such as rates of interests and inflations, some
monetary policies, energy, petrol and steel etc. These may also vary from one country to
another. Social forces – It consists of the society culture in which operate AstraZeneca company.
These factors include various elements such as growth rate of population, demographics,
educations level, lifestyles, income, religion, age distribution, wealth and social classes,
occupations. Technical factor – These factors deal with the new inventions, innovation and
development, information changes and mobile technology, uses of internet and e-
commerce and mobile commerce. In this the focus on developing technologies as well as
7

digital or internet based areas. It also include development of materials and new
procedures of manufacturing, logistics and distributions. Environmental factors – In this involves some natural elements regarding the Macro
Environment and these natural resources are required for producing any particular goods
so they affects on the business operations as well as its marketing activities.
 Legal factors - Every business have to follow some legal rules and regulations. In this
included laws, government agencies etc. That factors can impact on AstraZeneca firm
and people in a society. So that decisions regarding marketing activities which are
affected as well as influenced be the development of the legal environment.
Positive impact
 These factors lead to Simple framework. It helps in reducing complexity. It makes the
things more flexible and efficient. The advantages of these above mentioned factors are
that it increase the productivity of the company smoothly. It also has new technologies
that make the organisation effective and user friendly. The modern techniques of carrying
out business has lead to improvement in the global market as well.
 Another advantage of these factors is that it facilitates an understanding of the wider
business environment which allows to make a proper analysis of the schemes and
strategy of the company. Also it opens the mind of the people to run the company in an
efficient manner. The economic factors help is broadening the system to another level
and improve the products and services. The social factors help in helping morally and
mentally to improve the market scheme.
 Also these aspects encourages the development of external and strategic thinking which
provides an idea by keeping in mind the environmental and legal factors hand in hand.
Negative impact
 There can be some users that over simplify the amount of data which is used for
decisions, so this result in mismatching of the realm statistics of the information spite of
this it is easy to use scant data.
 For the company to have a real precision of what is it actually about it requires large
amount of view of different perceptions which can be achieved through various people
being involved
8

 For maintaining the quality of the data sources which are received through external data
sources this makes the work to be very time consuming and costly
P5. SWOT Analysis of AstraZeneca organisation
Companies can use the SWOT to analyse and identify the attributes and their
shortcomings. It can effect the decision-making method either in straight direction or in a
rounded manner.
SWOT analysis: Organisation can conduct this investigation to determine their
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
 Strengths: They are the biggest pharmaceutical company in UK and it is approximately
30% s created by manager. AstraZeneca is totally proficient . They have their links in all
over the world. Cited firm needs to build client maintenance and their loyalty in concern.
For this reason, they utilize club card strategy. Alongside this, it aids them to attract more
individuals towards them.
 Weaknesses: Costs of AstraZeneca items and administrations are high in contrast with
other associations. Monetary execution of them is not all that much steady. Their brand
image is influenced in the year 2015 as a result of commercial income scandal (Edquist,
2010). Clients don't purchase there items due to high range of cost and transportation cost
is also broad.
 Opportunities: They can grow their market in non – nourishment retail market.
Marketing methodologies of AstraZeneca is exceptionally compelling and effective. They
have a possibility to expand their market on web. Enterprise render free home delivery to
their purchasers. Nature of their items and administrations are greatly improved
correlation with other ventures that will assist them to take advantages over their
competitors. As a result, it will help them to improve their goodwill in the commercial
centre.
 Threats: An individual’s salary can influence offers of AstraZeneca stock and
administration. There are excessively fluctuation in cash that can impact demands of
clients. Cost of crude material persistently expanding step by step that can affect their
operational exercises (Grimpe and Kaiser, 2010). A lot of rules and control can influence
development of their image. Contenders of AstraZeneca sell their items and bring down
costs so that their customers can switch to different brands.
9

In this manner, it has been inferred that SWOT investigation is fundamental for
organization to identify its weaknesses which are related with surroundings to improve its
efficiency and overcome the same. The strengths and weakness comes under the internal analysis
of the AstraZeneca organisation. Also, this analysis helps is understanding the strengths of
company to bring out the best possible outcomes. The opportunities and threats come under the
external analysis. The description of these factors tell us about threats of external world which
keep AstraZeneca company aware and it allows them to find measures to get rid of them. The
opportunities that this analysis provide to the AstraZeneca company give them a better platform
and facilities to improve their efficiency. Both these external and internal features help in
improving decision-making.
P6. Impact of the macro environment on the organisation.
AstraZeneca which is a multinational pharmaceutical company after analysing its
external macro factors, it needs to coordinate their strengths and weaknesses with the same.
Through this, they can know the areas which needs more attention. External forces are
considered various environmental factors such as legal, economics, social, political and
technological.
Strengths of External Forces:
It has the prime duty to continuously monitor its activities and factors which are their
strengths. They should continuously work on maintaining their performance through
encouraging them. It is a multinational company and so they are well versed with laws and
political variations in the government. Global governments are looking for healthcare savings
and this company has a clean image. It can be seen that this is a sector which widely highly
impacts economy of a nation and its demand never reduces in the market. It regularly organizes
help camps and awareness programs for the people. It believes in regular modification in their
machines and try to introduce world class technologies so that patients can get better treatment.
As UK has health policies made by the parliament and focus on encouraging pharma companies
to invest. Due to less restrictions, it has become more flexible. They maintain the standards of
their drugs and believe in producing medicines which could treat patients quickly. They also use
eco-friendly ways in manufacturing the medicines.
Weaknesses of External Factors
10

It depends on the political variations taking place in various countries in which it is
providing their services. For example; due to Brexit and the change in government in UK that
will affect its business. If inflation is there in the economy where firm is operating that means
they have to increase the prices of their drugs which leads to decrease their sales. Due to
increased pressure of their shareholders, it has to change their policies accordingly. If there is
global economic crisis, it will not able to produce the items. Due to less presence of countryside
people, they hardly know AstraZeneca and so, their customer services have become really weak.
Most of the hospitals don't adopt their machines as it lacks the credibility. In some of the
countries, government has put ban on AstraZeneca drugs because they are not fulfilling the
quality standards. Although they try to use more and more eco-friendly ways but this company is
one which cannot follow the environmental laws completely.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been analysed that AstraZeneca company has a major role
in uniting people to collect them in a clusters and task them to work by coordinating with each
other. This brings the best outcome for the cited firm and also provide best efficiency and
increased outcomes. In this report there is a description of SWOT analysis which provides
various aspects of the organisation to be analysed and worked upon so that it improve the
decision making. This report provide details about the impacts of the macro environment on the
AstraZeneca company and their strengths and weaknesses.
11

12

13