Business Environment Report: Vodafone and Stakeholder Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Vodafone's business environment. It begins with an introduction to the concept of the business environment and its impact on organizational performance, focusing on Vodafone as a case study. The report then delves into different types of organizations, including sole traders, partnerships, public sector firms, and private sector companies, with specific examples related to Vodafone's operations. It explores how Vodafone meets its objectives with various stakeholders, such as investors, customers, suppliers, and employees, and examines the strategic approaches employed to achieve these goals. The report further analyzes different types of economic systems (command, free enterprise, mixed, and transition) and their impact on Vodafone's activities. It also discusses fiscal and monetary policies, competition policies, and market forces that shape Vodafone's responses. The report concludes with an examination of international trade and global factors and their significance to UK business organizations like Vodafone. The report highlights the interplay of internal and external factors influencing Vodafone's performance and strategic decision-making.

Business
Environment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1 ...........................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Different type of organization .........................................................................................1
1.2 How vodafone meets the objectives with all the stakeholders.........................................2
1.3 Strategic employed to meet them.....................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
2.1 Different types of economy and allocation of resources..................................................4
2.2 Fiscal and monetary that affect the activities of Vodafone.............................................6
3.3 Impact of competition policy and other regulatory mechanisms on the activities...........9
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................9
3.1 Behaviour of organisations in their market environment.................................................9
3.2 Market forces shape organisational responses...............................................................10
3.3 How Business and cultural environment shape the behaviour of Vodafone..................11
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................11
4.1 Discuss the significance of international trade to UK business organisations...............11
4.2 Analyse the impact of global factors on UK business organisations.............................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Business Environment means factors that affect the organization in performance of
varied business operations. In the internal environment varied entities are encompassed
including employees, customers, management, supply and demand and business regulation.
This present report based on Vodafone which is British telecommunication company having
headquarters in London. The report includes different type of organisation such as sole
traders, partnership etc. and their role and responsibility are discussed in the report. Along
with this, different sort of economy and allocation of resources are discussed briefly. At end
of the report, competition policy and market factors are analysed in respect to business firm.
TASK 1
1.1 Different type of organization and detail about the Vodafone.
Vodafone is the multinational telecommunication organisation which is having
headquarter on the London and operates in Africa, Asia, Oceania and Europe. The company
ranked filth the largest company in terms of their revenue. The organisation operates in the
26 countries and have partner network with 50 countries.
Stakeholders of Vodafone.
Investors: The company meet with their investors by the way of event, conference and one
to one meeting so that they can able to understand their concern related to the sustainability
risk.
Opinion formers and experts: The company have concern with the expers for several
issues to gain their feedback related to the parties and communicate their strategies on
sustainability.
Non-government organisation: Vodafone concern with the NGO's when they create their
campaigns or focus is relevant to their business. They do this activities by organising
meeting.
Customers: The company keep proper link with their customer so that they can able to fulfil
their need and wants and by this way they can able to earn large profits.
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Various types of business organization discuss below.
Sole Traders:- Sole traders is the oldest and most commonly used form of business
organization. It is mainly depends up to his own resources, so the business is generally
operated on a small scale basis. The business is normally run with the all the member of the
organisation to day activities of the business. The individual entrepreneur is the owner of
business organization which stands an individual who is responsible for firm performnace,
direct operations by making decisions at own level. Sole trader is responsible for success
and failure of business (Barkemeyer, Holt and Tsang, 2014). In other words it can be said
that the business is in the hands of one person who is not only responsible for its
management but also for its risks. The main motive of sole traders seeks profit from daily
market movement in price. While making profit is the ultimate goal, trader’s objectives
typically involve short-term steps that helps achieve the long term goal (Bah and Fang,
2015).
Partnership:- Partnership refers to the business model under which multiple entities
work together for achieving a common goal. This means everyone involved should agree on
proposed outcomes and the means of achieving them. All partners should agree on the
priorities and challenges their community should focus on while achievement of same goal.
All parties should strongly agree with the objective for partnership
Mission Alignment:-To honeour and respect the individual missions of each
organization while investing in the complementary missions to create a shared future.
Shared resources:- To combine human and material resources where appropriate to
achieving mission, support ongoing programming, and initiating new programs for
organization growth.
Public sector firms:-All the public sector firms doing their businesses and remain
under control of government and it adopt measures to earn profit from market and share the
profit with whole shareholders which increase market value of the firm. Public sector firms
doing business with by taking in to account country government objectives.
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Private Sector company or business organizations:- self owner or private sector company.
In this business sector company more focus on earning high profit margin from the market
and reduce the internal and external expenditure for new product development and expansion
of the business into new market (Cheng, Yip and Yeung, 2012). Main motive of private
sector organizations is how to earn more profit from the market.
1.2 How vodafone meets the objectives with all the stakeholders
Organisation meets their objective with customer's, suppliers, stakeholders, and
Government, Employee.
Customers:- Company meets the objective by satisfying customers because their
main aim is to earn profit and this is done by providing services according to the customers’
needs and wants with high quality services at lower price. Organization have knowledge
about the client choice and preferences so they basically focus on the main strategy and
reduce the customer's complaints.
Suppliers:- The suppliers is very important for every aspects of the organization for
generating profit from the markets. Also, Vodafone meet the objective that are determined in
respect to their suppliers in terms of payment of debt amount at the particular geographical
area. Company purchase goods from suppliers for producing product in the manufacturing
process and gives payment on time to the suppliers. Their business relationship remains good
with suppliers if targets are achieved on time.
Shareholders:-Shareholders also happy because Vodafone earn more profit from the
market and share same with the shareholder. Firm earn high amount of profit because it
manage external environment factors in proper manner.
Working with government Rules and regulation:- Vodafone complying with the
government rule and regulations for running business in the right manners. Most important
think company focus on the environment protection and paying tax time to time (Dumas, La
Rosa and Reijers, 2013). Company follows all the government rules and perform relevant
actions.
Employee:- Employee of the company reach the level of high earning from the
company because they have option of earning from the is that incentive, bonus, commission,
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or other types of the benefits from the company. Employee working with high level of
efficiencies in the organization then achievement of all the benefits of the company.
Themselves company provides all beneficial plan or motivations of the employee with
growth strategy (LiPuma, Newbert and Doh, 2013). Adoption of this strategy employee
retain with organisation and reduce all the disputes of working in the organization.
Management build their good relationship with the employee for achievement of various
sectors.
1.3 Strategic employed to meet them
The main responsibility of the company is to provide goods or services to the clients.
Customer's wants know if they buy safety and qualitative goods or services. Companies
surely should guarantee what they produce or serve.. In the company every department have
their own responsibility, these are as follows:
 Human resource: Depending upon the size of property, the human resource can be
large or small, the general manager should take care of personnel matters. There are
many laws and regulation related to hiring, training and development, employment
and termination of people in the organisation, Vodafone manager should take care of
that and then hire individual in the entity. There are various sources of employment
that are advertisement, interviewing, hiring, selecting, orientation and discharge, if
any of them are not handled properly then it can cause many problems in the venture.
Labour relation is the area where employer need to keep good relation with employee
to improve their morale (Alqahtani and Saba, 2013). The company should arrange
compensation program under which organisation must collect the data of other
competitive companies about the wage rate and employee should be provided wages
accordingly. Benefits are the major part of compensation which includes health
insurance, holiday, dental and sick leaves, which are to be provided to employees.
 Marketing and sales department: The first responsibility is to provide better
telecommunication facilities to the customers. There is convention service
department which handle the details of customers group which is taking service of
the company. It manages reservation requirements, catering and meeting
arrangements (Craig and Campbell, 2012). They advertise their brands and do market
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research to gather information. The sources from which they do brand publicity are
advertisement on newspaper, radio and television and sales promotion like providing
discount to new customer, additional services to old consumer.
 Maintenance department: The key responsibility of general manager is to keep
maintenance and upkeep their services. 90% of the cost is fixed, when the company
is constructed 90% of cost is being incurred renaming 10% is maintaining of their
services. Additional changes or renovation is needed on timely basis according to
environment changes, these includes changes in plans like in data plans, calling plans
etc.
TASK 2
2.1 Different types of economy and allocation of resources.
 Command economy system: It is a system where government takes all the decisions
and they have control over the financial management of country. Government
authority decides the price of goods as well as services and thereby takes decision
like hourly wage rate, interest rate etc. In addition to this, government authority
makes control over all the resources. The country have state owned organisation as
well as private owned entity but both are controlled by state. People in power such as
politicians and government give order to buyers, investors and sellers. The
government allocate all the resources according to the central plan as well as lays
emphasis on using national capital, natural resources and labour in most efficient
way. They promise to use each individual skills and knowledge in the best capacity
so that unemployment problem reduces (Alqahtani and Saba, 2013).
 Free enterprise: It is the economy system where government have very less control
and restriction on all the types of business activities. In the recent times, there are
different types of companies which compete in terms of prices and better quality of
products. The enterprise is free to persuade any type of job or responsibility they
want to enjoy. Consumer has their own choice and preference to produce and sell
what type of goods and services they fell profitable. The investor has ability to
choose their stakeholder. Resources are chosen by the owner where two factors help
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them to do so that is what to produce and how to produce. In this resource decision
are determined by private players.
 Mixed: This is the combination of all economic system that includes command, free
and traditional. These includes three features that are it helps in protect private
property, it allows free market where competition is there and prices is determined by
law of demand and supply and last is they are driven by the motivation of self interest
(Alqahtani and Saba, 2013). There is little control by government to protects the
market, investors and customers. Some areas where they have power are military,
national transport and international trade. There are existence of both public and
private sector so private allocate resource according to law of demand and supply and
public do it by centralised planning.
 Transition: It may be defined as asystem which is changing from the centrally
planned to market economy. It is liberalised system when prices are set by the market
supply and demand, where trade barriers that are tariff and non tariff are reduced.
When private individual capture public enterprise, when government sell their more
than 51% stake to private people. The resources are allocated by the government;
they have full control over the inventory that how much is to distributed to all
individual private enterprises.
Syria has centralised that commanded economic system where economy have been
influenced by socialist ideologies of the leaders and political party. All the decision are taken
by government and they have total control over the territory inventory. Whereas they are
reducing trade barriers where tariff is now 14.2% so the private enterprises can have control
over the out of boundaries resources (Alqahtani and Saba, 2013).
2.2 Fiscal and monetary that affect the activities of Vodafone.
Monetary policy is the process by which central bank or board can exert control over
the demand and supply of money in the market. Their main target is stabilised the economy
cycle so the worst condition like inflation and deflation will reduce. This in turn helps in
making control over the exchange rate, trade barriers, interest rate, cash reserve ratio and
statutory liquidity ratio to ensure price stability in economy. On the other side, fiscal policy
is highly associated with the taxation aspect. Thus, business entities are encouraged to invest
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more when tax policies are favourable and vice versa. The main objectives of fiscal and
monetary policies are enumerated below:
 Economic growth and stability
 reduce unemployment
 maintain stable exchange rate with other countries
 Balance of payment
Deposit interest of Syria had decreased from 6.35 in 2009 to 6.22 in 2010 which lead
to decrease in deposit of money to banks
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Illustration 1: Deposit rate
(Source: Interest deposit rate in Syria, 2017)

The above graph shows that in 2006 the interest deposit rate was 8.36 and in 2010 it was
6.22 which is decrease by 2.14
Fiscal policy of Syria is friendly as it has increases over certain period as it enhances
the economic growth of the country within short span of time. Changes in the current policy
are n the favour of the economic condition of a country as it boasted the gross domestic
product of the Syrian economy. Fiscal deficits seen by Syrian economy have created higher
level of awareness in their economy in order to come up with secured policy and reforms to
benefit the overall economy (Alqahtani and Saba, 2013).
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Illustration 2: Inflation rate
(Source: Syria monthly inflation rate, 2017)

2.3 Impact of competition policy and other regulatory mechanisms on the activities
Competition policies are come into existence in order to safeguard the interest of all
the consumers exists in a country. The competition Act 2002 aims to safeguard the
consumers from being exploited due to unhealthy competition lies in the market. Prices for al
the products are decided by the legal authority whose major emphasises on creating healthy
competition in the market for which Vodafone are required to charge its prices in the given
range decided by the Syrian authority. Other mechanism that are required to be followed by
this organisation is relation to the licensing requirements fulfilled by the current company as
the life of al the customers is the precious responsibility to be handled by an individual.
Transportation acts to be followed in which all safety regulations will be used by this
organisation as standards requirements will be used in their business services. Vodafone
need to mark up their prices according to the competition policy so that they cannot able to
follow price discrimination where they charge high price with the premium customer and
low price from the low earner.
TASK 3
3.1 Behaviour of organisations in their market environment
There are different types of market structure exist in environment according to
number of sellers, buyers, restriction to market entries, price maker and taker. Some of these
are as follows:
 Perfect competition: It is the market system where large number of buyers and sellers
exist. They all deal with buying and selling of homogeneous products. They have
perfect knowledge about the market, competitor, prices and products. Sellers are not
price maker, they decide the price that is they decide according to competitor values
otherwise customer will switch to other competitive product because they will find
profit in other goods. There is free entry and exit into the market, no legal, social and
technological barriers. All the organisation earn normal profit as single product is
sold by different sellers. Transportation cost is zero and perfect mobility of factors of
production (Bah and Fang, 2015).
 Monopoly: It is derived from Greek word Monopolian which means single seller. It
is the market share in which there is single producer which cover the total market.
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The seller deals with those products which have no close substitutes. In these case's
buyer have no other option to switch, they have to purchase from that producer. The
company have full control over the market and prices. They are price maker of the
products. There are large number of barriers to make entry into such market,such as
resource ownership, copyrights, high investment and other government restriction.
 Monopolistic: It is the combination of monopoly and perfect competition where there
are large number of small seller, each of them selling differentiated but close
substitutes products. The goods and services of seller are different in many aspects
such as shape, style, colour, brand, quality, trademark and durability (Craig and
Campbell, 2012). Therefore, consumer can easily able to differentiate among the
various products but there are close substitutes to each other. Prices should be low so
that consumer will not switch to other goods and services.
 Oligopoly: The term is derived from two Greek words Oligoi which refers to few and
poly means control. It is market structure where there are few sellers but they cover
whole market. They can deal with homogeneous or differentiate products.
Homogeneous can be cement, asphalt, concrete and bricks and differentiate are auto-
mobile. There are barriers in entry and exit for new sellers from market such as legal,
technological and social. All organisations are mutually dependent upon each other
that means companies are influenced by each other decision. Companies cannot
change the prices of their product, because change will affect the profitability of the
entity, as they increase, they will lose buyers.
 Duopoly: There are two sellers, both of them are independent and have no agreement
between them. Change in price or quantity of one product will affect the other one.
The organisation must observe the reaction of one when the other make changes in
price structure. The rivalry policy should be made to beat the strong competition and
gain sustainable advantage (Craig and Campbell, 2012).
Vodafone have perfect competition where they have perfect knowledge about the
products, services and customer. They have to follow the price according to the competitor.
If the charge high price as compare to their rival, they will not able to generate more sales
because the customer will switch to other company who provide quality service with the low
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