Business Environment Report: Comparing M&S and NHS in Depth Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the business environments of two contrasting organizations: Mark and Spencer (M&S) and the National Health Service (NHS). It begins by describing the type, purpose, and ownership of each business, highlighting their differences as a public limited company and a not-for-profit organization, respectively. The report then explores the stakeholders influencing each business, including customers, employees, and owners, and discusses how their needs and expectations shape the organizations' strategies. It further examines the organizational structures of M&S and NHS, explaining how their structures facilitate the fulfillment of their respective purposes. The report then investigates the influence of economic environments, such as booms and recessions, and government policies, on business activities. Finally, it addresses the impact of political, legal, and social factors on the operations of both businesses, providing a well-rounded understanding of the challenges and opportunities they face. The report concludes with a detailed overview of the key findings and insights gained from the analysis.

Business Environment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1- Describe the type of business, purpose and ownership of two contrasting businesses........1
P2- Describe the different stakeholders who influence the purpose of two contrasting
businesses....................................................................................................................................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
P3- Describe how two businesses are organised.........................................................................3
P4- Explain how their style of organisation helps them to fulfil their purposes.........................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................4
P5- Describe the influence of two contrasting economic environments on business activities .4
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................5
P6- Political, legal and social factors are impacting upon the business activities .....................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
.........................................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
In the modern scenario, effectively business environment and working surrounding plays
important role in every organisation. Because as per the internal situation of business firm
employee will significantly perform their decided task. In the addition of this, several factors and
causes are directly impacting upon organisation whether positive and negative in nature. This
research project will be discussing about different type of business firm (Chavis, Klapper and
Love, 2011). Also will be defining major purpose, which wants to be attain in future in
appropriate manner. It will be describing about, organisational structure as per this easy to
identify working system and geographical area of an particular company. Moreover, political,
legal and social factors will be define in significant way.
TASK 1
P1- Describe the type of business, purpose and ownership of two contrasting businesses
Mark and Spencer(M&S): M&S is an international company and is part of the tertiary
sector. An international business is a business that operates and sells products/services around
the world, M&S trades in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. M&S is a public limited company,
the public part of it means that shares can be brought by the public and the limited company part
means that it has limited liability. Having limited liability has many advantages as it protects a
shareholder from being responsible for more than their share of the company so they wouldn’t be
accountable for the liabilities resulting from the bankruptcy ( Commander and Svejnar, 2011).
Being part of the tertiary sector means that M&S provides services in the form of selling
groceries, clothing and home products. The purpose of M&S is to supply products; M&S also
offers services but that isn’t their primary way of doing business. M&S is driven by profit
meaning that they make sure that their sales cover all of their running costs and more (in order
for them to make a profit). Running costs include anything that the organisation needs to spend
money on in order for the company to operate (salaries, utilities and rent).
National Health Service (NHS): The NHS is a national not-for-profit organisation and is
part of the tertiary sector. The NHS is a public company meaning that it is owned by the
government, it was set up in 1948 by the labour government. The NHS is a not-for-profit
business it is run mainly using money from taxation. The NHS is part of the tertiary sector
meaning that it provides a service to the general population. The purpose of the NHS is to
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provide high quality care for all. The NHS employs doctors, nurses and other healthcare
professionals so even though it is a not-for-profit organisation it is not comprised out of
volunteers. Money from taxation is used to pay for all the running costs – staff wages, medicines,
equipment, buildings etc. The NHS is owned by the government, the department of the
government that is responsible for the NHS is the Department of Health which is led by the
Secretary of State for Health (Jeremy Hunt). The NHS is part of the public sector and as it a not-
for-profit organisation they try to make the service as efficient as possible (Gecevska and et.al.,
2010).
P2- Describe the different stakeholders who influence the purpose of two contrasting businesses
Stakeholder is a person who is in an organisation and is affected by the organisation in
terms of strategy and project. Stakeholders can be internal or external at different levels e.g.
Internal stakeholders are groups within a business such as owners and workers and external
stakeholders are groups the outside a business such as suppliers and community.
Illustration 1: Stakeholders of M&S, 2017
(Source- Stakeholders of M&S, 2017)
Customers: Customers want valuable and high quality products at an acceptable and
average price. A business that sells anything to customers consequently means that customers
(stakeholders) who a large influence on a company as their money is what keep the company
running. Customer feedback is vital for a company, as companies that ignore feedback from its
customers often have no competitive edge over its competitors. M&S ensure that they act on
feedback by implanting a feedback form on their website, which allows users to describe their
experience with M&S even with a particular store location nearby to their home. This allows
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M&S to display that they care about and act on feedback from their customers
Employees: Their stake is that the company provides them good rates of reward and
promotional opportunities. They also want a very good security of employments. Also they are
concerned about their salary (Iskanius, Page and Anbuudayasankar, 2010).
Owner: A corporate owner is an individual or entity who owns a business entity in an
attempt to profit from the successful operations of the company. Generally has decision making
abilities and right to profit. An example of an owner is NatWest is the shareholder. A shareholder
is a part owner of the business to which the shares relate. Having made an investment in the
business, shareholders are concerned with assessing the profitability of their investment in terms
of dividends, or profits, and capital growth. When the shareholder looks at the annual report of
NatWest in which they have invested, they will be mainly concerned with measures for instance
earnings per
TASK 2
P3- Describe how two businesses are organised
All organisations need an organisational structure which can help to manage the business
so that it can be successful. The structure can be shown in an organisation chart which is used to
represent lines of authority within an organisation. Hierarchical structures are used by businesses
to show how an organisation is organised by showing the levels of authority, the span of control
and the chain of command. In a hierarchical structure the person with the greatest authority is at
the top and each level has a subordinate apart from the bottom level. Each level has managers or
employees of equal authority or status.
Flat organisational structures have few levels of hierarchy and management which are
usually 2 or 3 levels. It has a short chain of command and each manager has a shorter span of
control (Moutinho, 2011). Tall structures are very similar to flat organisational structures but
instead have a longer chain of command from the top to the bottom of the organisation. Each
manager also has a narrow span of control. The advantage of both a flat and tall organisational
structures is that there are fewer managers, so fixed costs of salaries and other employment-
related costs are reduced. There is a shorter chain of command which could lead to quicker and
more precise communication between top levels and lower levels in the organisation. Also there
are wider spans of control. This means that each manager will need to delegate more, which
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could result in higher levels of motivation for subordinate employees. However, there are also a
few disadvantages to a flat organisational structure.
P4- Explain how their style of organisation helps them to fulfil their purposes
Every small or large business has some sort of style to fulfil their business purpose. Their
style can be how they deal with the customers, how they handle their complaints, how their
management work and etc.
M&S serves their customers with high respect. M&S’s employee takes note of customers
need and the price they are willing to pay. M&S management try to involve customers in their
decision and buying. M&S take surveys at different place to know what customer like and what
they need. M&S try to fulfil customers every need in their everyday life style. These strategies
apply to good customer service and good customer service helps to improve their sales and
profit. By providing that king of customer service M&S improve its customer’s loyalty, as they
know what customers need and how customers want to be served. More customers mean more
sales and more sales mean more profit (Shigang, 2010). M&S’s main aim is to gain high profit.
High customer service also helps M&S to improve its relationship with customers. It is true that
if you impress one customer next day they will bring one additional customer with them.
Furthermore they will recommend their friends and family to do shopping.
M&S’s manager deals with employees in a very nice way. Manager talks with staff in
friendly environment. They arrange training for employee to improve their working skills.
Employees have to attend different meeting to discuss their problems. Manager motivates every
employee and make it sure that they work happily. M&S’s that style of working helps them to
increase their customer service and make their customer feel joyful while working. This style of
working will also help them to impress their customers. Basically that style of working will help
M&S’s staff being motivated, so they will work more impressively.
TASK 3
P5- Describe the influence of two contrasting economic environments on business activities
M&S Boom: A boom is initially caused via a period of time where the economy
suddenly rises at a rapid rate meaning that there are less people in the country that are
unemployed, companies are earning more money and are able to sell products cheaper, hence
more people are buying the products. When the economy is in a boom M&S will thrive, as the
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products will be “flying of the shelves” as ultimately its customers will have more money
allowing them to buy more consumer goods from the company (Siewiorek and et.al., 2012).
Recession: A recession is essentially the total opposite of a boom in the economy. When
the economy is in a recession it means that there is mass unemployment and the prices of
common household goods skyrocket whilst working class as well as higher class are all out of
money; these reasons are usually the cause of why a country would go into a depression.
Changes in government policy: The fiscal policy is an essential way of the government
stabilising economic growth at any point in the economic cycle whether the economy is in a
boom or a recession. The fiscal policy attempts to keep the economic cycle balanced by
preventing a boom whilst also attempting to stop a recession.
TASK 4
P6- Political, legal and social factors are impacting upon the business activities
Political impacts: Political stability is usually defined as the state of peace that is normal
experienced in a country from the activities from the government and also the government in this
situation will make decisions and keeping the best interests in mind for people.
The conservative party that is normally referred as the Tory party and is a centre – right
political party in the UK and as of 2013 it has become the largest political party in the UK and
also the largest single party in the house of commons with 303 MP’s (Welford, 2013).
Legal impacts: The legal impacts are that M&S must follow the law, and an example of
this is the trade description act, this is where the product most be described accurately otherwise
it can cause an issue and an example of this the big issue with meat earlier this year, so it is
extremely important that you describe the product well and accurately if not then the trading
standards will have no other choice but to get involved (Wetherly and Otter, 2014).
Social impacts: The social impacts that M&S may face are the difficulty to recruit the
right people for the job in the stores or the offices depending on where they will be based, also
most of the workers that are in the stores are an unskilled workers on the minimum wage given .
M&S is a company that will support charities and the main one they support every year is tickled
pink, they are always thing outside the past ways they have raised money to, give customers a
new product to buy to support the charity.
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CONCLUSION
From the above mentioned this research project it has been concluded that, environment
of an business firm played important role. Because all employees of the company completed
their task and works according to working system. In the addition of this, it has been defined
several factors and causes which directly impacted upon organisation whether positive and
negative. Due to, it is important for every organisation for effectively analysed and evaluated
them.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Chavis, L. W., Klapper, L. F. and Love, I., 2011. The impact of the business environment on
young firm financing. The world bank economic review. 25(3). pp.486-507.
Commander, S. and Svejnar, J., 2011. Business environment, exports, ownership, and firm
performance. The Review of Economics and Statistics. 93(1). pp.309-337.
Gecevska, V., and et.al., 2010. Product lifecycle management through innovative and
competitive business environment. Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management.
3(2). pp.323-336.
Iskanius, P., Page, T. and Anbuudayasankar, S. P., 2010. The traditional industry sector in the
changing business environment–a case study of the Finnish steel product industry.
International Journal of Electronic Customer Relationship Management. 4(4). pp.395-
414.
Moutinho, L. ed., 2011. Strategic management in tourism. Cabi.
Shigang, Y., 2010. Competitive strategy and business environment: The case of small enterprises
in China. Asian Social Science. 6(11). p.64.
Siewiorek, A., and et.al., 2012. Learning leadership skills in a simulated business environment.
Computers & Education. 58(1). pp.121-135.
Welford, R., 2013. Hijacking environmentalism: Corporate responses to sustainable
development. Routledge.
Wetherly, P. and Otter, D. eds., 2014. The business environment: themes and issues in a
globalizing world. Oxford University Press.
Online
HRM and the Business Environment, 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.hrmguide.co.uk/hrm_and_the_business_environment/>. [Accessed on 17th August
2017]
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