Business Functions: HR, Marketing, and Finance at The Body Shop

This report provides an in-depth analysis of key business functions, including Human Resources, Marketing, and Finance, within an organizational context, using The Body Shop as a case study. The report explores the roles and responsibilities of each function, detailing their specific activities and co...Read More

Introduction to Business Studies

Contents
Contents...........................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO2 and LO3...................................................................................................................................3
Covered in PPT............................................................................................................................3
LO1..................................................................................................................................................3
Covered in poster.........................................................................................................................3
LO1, LO2 and LO4..........................................................................................................................3
Describe the role of HR, Marketing and finance functions within organisations.......................3
Develop an understanding of collaborative working practices....................................................5
Demonstrate knowledge of the role of financial management and reporting within the
organisation..................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
APPENDIX......................................................................................................................................9
Power point presentation.............................................................................................................9
Poster.........................................................................................................................................16

INTRODUCTION
In an Organisation there are various Functions work together to achieve its goals and
objectives. The functions of an organisation are Marketing, Human resource, Sales, and Finance.
These Functions performs various set of activities to transform information and Business
Commitments. The different department work collectively to fulfil the needs and requirements of
Company and Customers. For running the business successful they must identify internal and
external factors that could impact its performance. The Chosen Organisation in this report is The
Body Shop, it is a British company that deals with cosmetic, perfume and skin care products.
The Firm was started in 1976 and founded by Anita Roddick, one of the strength of this
organisation is that there all the products are made with Natural Ingredients.
LO2 and LO3
Covered in PPT
LO1
Covered in poster
LO1, LO2 and LO4
Describe the role of HR, Marketing and finance functions within organisations.
Human Resource means a group of people who work in an organisation with a motive of
earning money and achieving its goals. In business, humans are selected by Human resource
department (Wilton, 2016). This department is responsible for managing overall employees of an
organisation and fulfil the needs and requirements of workers and Company. They are
responsible for recruiting, hiring, providing training, compensating, developing policies and
strategies for employees. Human resource management plays a various role in a Business they
are as follows-
HR Planning is a responsibility of Human Resource Manager to plan and achieve
objectives of Company. The human resource management of The Body Shop engage with their
superiors in identifying, preparing, and executing the goals of an organisation (Stewart and
Brown, 2019). They participate in planning procedure for gaining knowledge of activities which
can be required for increasing the sustainable growth of Business.

Recruitment and Selection is the role of HR. The Human resource department
announces the vacancy of candidate for job position through various modes such as Employee
referrals, advertising, print media, social media, agencies, etc., this process is known as
Recruitment. After inviting applicants, they look out the best candidate who is suitable for vacant
job position. They select a person who can contribute their best in the success of Organisation.
When Candidate is selected, they design offer letter and process of onboarding (Banfield, Kay
and Royles, 2018). In The Body Shop Human resource department main focus is to Select
Women Staff as the company have 70% employees as women.
Training and development is another role of HR. Human resource manager provide
training to their employee for improving their skills and knowledge. Training and development
program is organised to enhance the efficiency of employees so that they can give their
productive outcomes to Company. The Human resource manager of The Body Shop have a
responsibility to encourage development of Staff Members by providing training sessions on
regular basis.
Role of Finance Function within Organisation is important for the growth of company.
Finance Department is consisted as a lifeline of any Organisation. Finance management is one of
the functions that manages expenses, credit, cash, and profitability of Company (Geddes and
Schmidt, 2020). There are various roles which is played by finance department of The Body
Shop they are outlined below-
Money Management is the main role of Finance Function. The Finance Department
manages money of business by identifying ways through which they can save the expenses and
increase profitability of Company. The finance manager of The Body Shop looks out the ways
through which they can cut internal cost and maximise their revenue.
Finance Department is responsible for planning various financial activities and
resources in Company. They understand needs and requirements of employees and employers
and make budgets and plan accordingly. The Finance manager creates a plans and strategy for
achieving long term financial goals of The Body Shop.
Proper Utilisation and Allocation of resources is a duty and responsibility of finance
manager to allocate and utilise the financial resources in an effective and efficient way so that
business can run for long period of time with increase in profitability and growth (Chow,
Greatbatch and Bracci, 2019).

Role of Marketing Function within Organisation
The Marketing function of Organisation is responsible for communicating with customers
why the products and services must be purchased by them (Boddy and Croft, 2016). There Main
job is to make goods and services advertise and increase the Brand image of Company. The role
of marketing function in an organisation are below-
Tracking new trends and monitor Competition is a role of Marketing department to
identify the latest trend in market and adopt that trend to influence customers for long term
stability. They monitor the competition in market and identify its current position (Bowen,
2016). The Marketing manager watch the competition and ensure that company must gain
competitive advantage in Market.
Increase growth and reputation is the responsibility of Marketing manager to ensures
that organisation reputation and growth must be enhanced by capturing large number of
customers and creating loyalty among them. The survival of The Body Shop is based on
customer retention and increment in its Market Share.
Meet needs and wants of Customers is the basic role of Marketing department to identify
the needs and requirements of customers and make their marketing strategy accordingly (Valos
et. al., 2017). It is a responsibility of Marketing manager to satisfy their consumers as they play
main role in increasing growth and profitability of The Body Shop.
Develop an understanding of collaborative working practices.
Collaborative Practice generally means working together with different team, departments
and companies. By collaborative practice each, and every individual explore new ideas as well as
gain new experiences for better performance. Working together with teams also improves some
important things in workplace, such as easy and effective workflow processes, build relationship
between teams and employees, increment in productivity, increase efficiency in workplace etc.
When employees work collectively, they give better outcomes and increase the performance of
business (Huber, 2017). Collaborative practices are effective when company faces some issue
regarding performances and solve that issue creatively and effectively. It creates strong
relationship between employees and by working together they shares some skills and better
experiences for learning new things.
Collaborative practices help to achieve organisation goals with individuals’ goals by
reducing working pressure. Collective working creates positive working environment in

workplace with some new facts and knowledge. It also helps in creating perfect balance in
workplace between all levels of Management. With the help of Collaborative workplace
employees of The Body Shop feel value as it helps in creating open environment. It is the
responsibility of The Boy Shop to take care of their staff members and ensure that they must be
happy while working. The worker who is positive and happy contributes at their best level for
the success of Business (Ligthart, 2021). But there are various challenges in working
collaborative which company might face. Some employees may not feel comfortable while
working in a team, so the manager must implement a strategy that helps everyone to perform
task collectively. When a group of people work together decision-making process get
complicated, it is the responsibility of manager to maintain strong leadership so that they can
provide clear direction. So, these are the benefits and challenges faced during Collaborative
Working Practices.
Demonstrate knowledge of the role of financial management and reporting within the
organisation
Finance is one of the main part of Business, it is difficult for any organisation to survive
for a long period of time without adequate finance. With the help of Financial Management, the
Company can plan, organise, direct and control financial activities (Sun, Zhao and Cho, 2019).
The Financial activities includes allocation of financial resources, fund procurement, utilization
of fund, etc. The financial activities are performed by Finance manager of The Body Shop. There
are various types of financial manager they are controllers, Insurance managers, credit managers,
finance officers, cash managers, risk manager, etc. The role of financial management in The
Body Shop are as follows-
Financial control and decisions is a responsibility of Financial manager of The Body
Shop is to make decisions and control the finance of an Organisation. To Control the finance and
take appropriate decisions, financial management use various techniques such as profit and loss
analysis, ratio analysis and financial forecasting etc.
Capital Management is the role of Financial Management to estimates the requirement of
Capital on time-to-time basis and determines the structure of Capital in The Body Shop. They are
responsible to raise the funds from different sources for fulfilling the requirement of Capital
needs. The Finance manager manages overall capital and make expenses accordingly.

Cash Flow Management is important role of finance manager. For meeting any expenses
and emergencies financial management have to maintain sufficient cash flow and working
capital (Chandra, 2020). The Finance manager tracks account receivable and payable account for
checking out whether The Body Shop have sufficient Cash flow available or not.
Financial Reporting is the responsibility of Finance manager to manage and maintain the
reports which are related to finance and make use of data for forecasting and planning the
financial activities of The Body Shop. With the help of financial report, company can know
about their financial capabilities.
Decision of Profit is effective role of Finance manager to takes a decision related to the
utilisation and distribution of profit among shareholders They take decision of distributing
dividends and decide how much profit must be ploughed back and retained into The Body Shop.
CONCLUSION
From the above information it is been conclude that there are various functions of
business which work collectively to accomplish its Mission and Vision. The all the functions
perform together for increasing growth and profitability of Company. The different functions
have its own roles and responsibility towards Organisation.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Geddes, A. and Schmidt, T. S., 2020. Integrating finance into the multi-level perspective:
Technology niche-finance regime interactions and financial policy
interventions. Research Policy, 49(6), p.103985.
Chow, D. S., Greatbatch, D. and Bracci, E., 2019. Financial responsibilisation and the role of
accounting in social work: challenges and possibilities. The British Journal of Social
Work, 49(6), pp.1582-1600.
Wilton, N., 2016. An introduction to human resource management. Sage.
Stewart, G. L. and Brown, K. G., 2019. Human resource management. John Wiley & Sons.
Banfield, P., Kay, R. and Royles, D., 2018. Introduction to human resource management. Oxford
University Press.
Boddy, C. R. and Croft, R., 2016. Marketing in a time of toxic leadership. Qualitative Market
Research: An International Journal.
Bowen, D. E., 2016. The changing role of employees in service theory and practice: An
interdisciplinary view. Human Resource Management Review, 26(1), pp.4-13.
Valos, M. J and et. al., 2017. Integrating social media within an integrated marketing
communication decision-making framework. Journal of Marketing
Management, 33(17-18), pp.1522-1558.
Huber, A., 2017. Theorising the dynamics of collaborative consumption practices: A comparison
of peer-to-peer accommodation and cohousing. Environmental Innovation and Societal
Transitions, 23, pp.53-69.
Ligthart, C., 2021. Collaborative identity in project alliances: improving collaboration through
collaborative identity formation.
Sun, W., Zhao, C. and Cho, C. H., 2019. Institutional transitions and the role of financial
performance in CSR reporting. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental
Management, 26(2), pp.367-376.
Chandra, P., 2020. Fundamentals of Financial Management|. McGraw-Hill Education.

APPENDIX
Power point presentation

Poster