Business and Business Environment Analysis: Merrill Lynch Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Merrill Lynch, a prominent financial institution. It begins by examining the types, size, and scope of various organizational structures, including sole traders, partnerships, private companies, public companies, and voluntary organizations, using Merrill Lynch, NHS, and Oxfam as examples. The report then delves into Merrill Lynch's business environment, comparing its characteristics, size, scope, legal structure, and objectives with those of NHS and Oxfam. The second task focuses on the interrelationship of various functions within the organization, specifically exploring organizational structures such as functional and divisional structures, and their impact on the company. Furthermore, the report analyzes the interrelations between marketing and HR, and marketing and finance, highlighting their crucial roles in the company's success. The analysis is supported by references to relevant academic sources.

Business and business
environment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Types, size and scope organizations...........................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
Interrelationship of various function within the organisation.....................................................7
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................10
REFERNCES ................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Merrill Lynch bank is established in America which deals with investing and wealth
management under the surveillance of Bank of America. Merrill lynch along with Boaf securities
deals with prime brokerage and security dealing (Crane and et.al., 2019). Its headquarter is stated
in New York city, its workplace is in Manhattan. Bank hires over 1500 financial advisors.
It was public ally owned and traded under New York stock Exchange, which later fall under
financial crisis and was later acquired by bank of America. later on it was merged with bank of
America corporation after the acquisition was completed. Later on bank was renamed as Merrill.
Merrill lynch was under many controversy some of which are misleading brokerage customers,
misusing secretive information only after the bank was undertook by the bank of America
Merrill lynch spread its hands in many countries with many facilities such as banking, stock
exchange, global marketing and corporate credits and transaction banking. it provides cooperate
credits and transaction facilities to the corporate. Merrill Lynch has vast spread in many
countries of the world and has proved itself as one of the global cooperate and investment bank.
It also provides customers with financial solutions
TASK 1
Types, size and scope organizations
Sole trader
Sole proprietorship or trader refers to that business which is owned by the individual
person and that person independently runs the whole business. No interference of legal
discrimination is there between the businessman and the company (Charter, 2017). Sole trader is
not registered like private company. Some of the examples of sole traders are restaurants,
catering business, tutor, plumbers etc. some of the advantages and disadvantages of the sole
proprietorship are
Advantages
 Sole proprietor have full control over the whole business without any hindrance.
 The sole trader keep the entire earnings of the business
 Information regarding the business is kept personally not like the private company
 The decision is made by the owner itself

Disadvantages
 Decision is taken by only one person without any help from others
 unlimited liability
 difficulty for raising fund
Partnership
According to Indian partnership act 1932 partnership refers to the business which is
managed and directed by two or more partners and ownership , profits and even losses are shared
between them (Saleem, 2015). There are some advantages and disadvantages of partnership are:-
Advantages
 Partnership business is easy to open and maintain.
 The workload can be shared between partners
 The partnership firm can have the benefit of large resources
 Flexibility
Disadvantages
 There is limited resources
 Differences regarding opinion arises
 In partnership the instability can arise due to the insolvency,death
 Due to wind up of company not only company suffers losses at the same time society
also.
Private company
Private company refers to the company in which the shares are not traded in general
public and have private ownership. Example- Merrill Lynch company. Some advantages and
disadvantages are:-
Advantages
 The private company has limited liability for its stockholders
 Benefit to the shareholders regarding the restricted trade regarding the shares to the
outside acquirers
 If the person dies or retires from the company then also the company continues to exist
 Separate personality
Disadvantages
 Registration process takes very long time and it is very costly

 Disadvantage regarding the compulsory requirement of two persons that is directors as
well as stockholders
 It has restrictions regarding the selling of shares
 restriction regarding the engagement of public
Public company
It is a company in which the securities are issued through IPO (initial public offering) and
the stocks are traded to the public and is traded under stock exchange (Erasmus, Strydom and
Rudansky-Kloppers, 2016). Example- NHS( Nationally Health Service) United Kingdom.
Advantages and disadvantages of public company are:-
Advantages
 It has the benefit regarding the raising of capital from the general public
 Public company has the opportunities regarding the growth
Disadvantages
 The requirement of more legal formalities
 More transparency regarding the details
Voluntary organization
Voluntary organization refers to the organization whose main objective is regarding the
society rather than earning profit it can be also known as non- profit organizations. Oxfam UK is
the example of voluntary administration (Laudon and Traver., 2016).
Advantages
 Employee commitment regarding the work
 Intrinsic rewards are given to the workers
 financial benefits are given like tax
Disadvantages
 Disadvantage regarding the fund raising specially at the time of economic downtown.
 Another drawback is regarding the social pressure
 Public scrutiny regarding the income and expenditures

Basis Private organization
(Merrill Lynch)
Public organization
(National Health
Service) UK
Voluntary
organization(OXFA
M)
About Merrill Lynch( bank of
America) is the
financial service
industry which was
established on January
6, 1914 in New York
(Prajogo, 2016). The
company was founded
by Charles E. Merrill
National health service
is a non departmental
public body of the
departmental health
and social care it does
the budget , planning
regarding the daily
operations. It was
founded on 1st April
2013 in England.
OXFAM( Oxford
committee for Famine
Relief) is a charitable
or non- profit
organization which
was established in
1942 and which is
situated in
Oxford,England and
Simon Steve is the
chief executive of
Oxfam
Size Merrill lynch has
15,100 number of
employees as financial
advisors
NHS has around 6500
employees in across
50 sites in England
(Hillary, 2017).
Oxfam have around
5000 employees and
the services used by
the 23000 volunteers
Scope The scope of Merrill
Lynch is to provide
best financial services
to customers as well as
to promote quality
services.
The scope of NHS is
to improve the quality
regarding the health
services to provide the
patients with best
services
The scope of Oxfam is
to help the families
and poverty all over
the world want to treat
and value people
equally as to influence
the people to enjoy
their rights (Crane and
et.al., 2019).
Legal structure Merrill Lynch has a Rules and regulation It has the two tier

separate legal identity
from its owners. It has
its own rules and
regulations (Erasmus,
Strydom and
Rudansky-Kloppers,
2016).
are flexible in the
company which
enhance the employees
friendly environment
in the corporation.
established structure in
which one is the
executive board and
another is board of
directors.
Objective The purpose of Merrill
Lynch is managing the
wealth and to ensure
the day to day
investments as well as
to maintain the
resources.
The objective of NHS
is to promote the
health services and to
promote the best
business practice and
to recruit and train the
health professionals.
Oxfam's objective is to
reduce the injustice
regarding the poverty
and to create the better
future for the poor
people and save the
people as well to
secure the lives
(Laudon and Traver.,
2016).
TASK 2
Interrelationship of various function within the organisation
Organizational structure:
Organizational structure is the activity which helps organization to achieve its objectives by
directing them, and by setting the rules and regulations and specific goals for itself. It also
describes flowing of the data within the organization, letting workers know their leaders whom
they have to inform and create certainty in the company (Prajogo, 2016). Implementation of the
organizational structure in the firm permit employees to strengthen their efficiencies,
effectiveness, productivity, and decision making strategy. This illustrate separation of the
departments, functions, and employees of the company in their respective specialization.
Functional organizational structure:

Functional organizational structure includes arrangement of the employees in different
departments according to their experimentation so that they can improve their work ability, and
can give fast outcomes to the firm. This structure motivates workers towards their work
meanwhile increase their efficiency and productivity as they have to work with the colleagues
having similar abilities and talents (Hillary, 2017). It explains that there is multiple middle
management levels for handling of different departments in between the chief and the
employees. This involves division of staff members of the bank in a smaller groups for each
department including loan servicing, wealth management, retail or investment banking, deposit
or wire transfer operations, cash management, electronic, commercial, or mortgage banking and
is also helpful in reducing costs and develop performance of the firm. JP Morgan is following
functional organizational structure because it eliminates burden from the head of the firm. This
activity shows availability of number of experts with their respective experimentation for
managing all department. This increase opportunities for the workers to improve effectiveness
and also gives high scope for its expansion. It helps in taking all the advantages from the
specialization which results in reaching the goals of the bank.
Divisional organizational structure:
Divisional organizational structure is the independent method involves systematization of
activities of the company in different regions, or of provided financial products or services in the
local or global market. This includes all the fuctional groups in one such divisions that is it
involves working of an orgasnisation with its functional groups without any involvement of its
other branches. In this structure, it is not necessary that all the divisions work together as a team,
but it can handle management of only one branch where they are working. This structure is
helpful only for the organization located in the multiple geographical regions and are processing
independently (Charter, 2017). This enable organization to set the rules and regulations for its
particular sector. Avaiva is accompanying divisional organisational structure as it allow them to
focus on the management of the single branch of the bank. It says that working of the employees
did not rely on the approval of its headquarters that is they can work independently. This permit
them to focus on the specific agendas and goals which leads into quick results and also make
them achieve their goals and objectives fastly. In this strategy, main chief of the to management

has the powers to control the general departmental activities of the bank. Marketing interrelation
with HR:
Its a financial service company which provides investment management services to their
customers. HR helps in marketing because HR hire skilled and most qualified candidate in their
organizations which helps in marketing process of company through their qualitative and
enthusiastic work. Highly motivated employee increase company sales, build healthy relations
with customers and help in providing good financial policies and services. Company sales and
profit directly related with HR because it is responsible for recruiting and selecting right
candidate in firm. The company also increase their marketing from the retaining their employees,
they give rewards, appreciations, incentives, bonus and tour package who are improve marketing
of the firm (Erasmus, Strydom and Rudansky-Kloppers, 2016).
Marketing inter-relations with finance:
Marketing and finance are inter related with each other because without marketing of
firm policies, services, funds no one can know about the financial performance of company.
Finance also play vital role in marketing, without financial resources marketing need are not
fulfill their certain expanses of marketing. Finance also work upon the investment of the firm
like how much invest in firm assets, marketing, policies and create a yearly budget of Merrill
lynch. Finance department also design budget for marketing. On these bases marketing team
perform their task of marketing. That's how marketing and finance are inter related with each
other and they are main pillar of business.
Marketing inter-relations with research:-
Research department work on the need and demands of the customer, they design
products and policies as per the requirement of the customer in current market. After the
complete research and evaluation research department give their data and information to the
marketing team of the company. That team take their product and services into market also work
on marketing of product by advertising, through agents of the company and directly with the
customers of the company (Crane and et.al., 2019).

CONCLUSION
From the above study it is concluded that the it defined the various types of organizations
like partnership , sole trader, private, public as well as voluntary organizations and their scope,
size, structure and purpose. It also explained the interrelation of the organization with various
functions of merril lynch. The study concluded that the organizational structure that the company
follows is flat organizational structure.(Laudon and Traver., 2016)

REFERNCES
Books and journals
Charter, M., 2017. Greener marketing: A responsible approach to business. Routledge.
Crane, A. and et.al., 2019. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in
the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Erasmus, B., Strydom, J. W. and Rudansky-Kloppers, S. eds., 2016.Introduction to business
management. Oxford University Press Southern Africa.
Hillary, R., 2017. Small and medium-sized enterprises and the environment: business
imperatives. Routledge.
Laudon, K. C. and Traver, C. G., 2016. E-commerce: business, technology, society.
Prajogo, D. I., 2016. The strategic fit between innovation strategies and business environment in
delivering business performance. International Journal of Production Economics.171.
pp.241-249.
Saleem, S., 2015. BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT, 3/e. Pearson Education India.