Introduction to Business: Body Shop HR, Marketing, Finance Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Body Shop, a UK-based cosmetics retailer, examining the roles of Human Resources (HR), Marketing, and Finance in achieving its business goals. It delves into the specific functions of each department, emphasizing HR's role in employee management and workplace environment, marketing's strategies for customer engagement, and finance's management of financial resources and reporting. The report further explores collaborative working practices, organizational culture, and leadership styles within the Body Shop. It also covers financial management and reporting, including Profit and Loss accounts, Balance Sheets, and Cash Flow Statements. The report concludes by summarizing the integration of these business functions and their significance for the company's success.

Introduction to
Business Studies

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The following report explores and outlines the portfolio of the integration of various
organizational activities taking place into Body Shop. The report acmes the role and functions of
human resources, finance and marketing to help the company achieve growth business goals.
Furthermore, the following report establishes and sheds light on the organizational culture of the
Body Shop and also validates the management and leadership style of leader and manger while
working at Body Shop.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAINBODY....................................................................................................................................1
Describe the role of HR, Marketing and finance functions within organisations............................1
Describe the role of HR within the Body Shop..........................................................................1
Describe the role of Marketing within Body Shop.....................................................................2
Describe the Finance Functions within Body Shop....................................................................2
Develop an understanding of collaborative working practices in the Body Shop...........................2
The Organisational Culture in your chosen organisation/ company...........................................2
Briefly discuss the Management / Leadership style in the Body shop.......................................3
Financial management and reporting within the Body Shop...........................................................4
Explain what a Profit and Loss Account is.................................................................................4
Explain what a Balance Sheet is.................................................................................................4
Explain what a Cash flow Statement is.......................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
In this current business environment, a company must have the right integration of business
functions to achieve expected results and achieve business development goals and survive in this
broad competitive market segment. Moreover, various business functions support an organisation
to receive the business agenda that is efficiency and effectiveness for creating sustainable
business performance. Body Shop is a renowned cosmetics, skincare and perfume retailer in the
UK and founded in 1976 and are using natural and biological components for manufacturing
their beauty care products and having more than 3000 in more than 65 countries and having
diverse business functions (Avci, 2021). The following report therefore describes the role and
performance of human resources, marketing and finance to achieve success and achieve the
strategic business of the company. Also, this report emphasizes the organizational culture factor
and their prominence to Body Shop.
MAINBODY
Describe the role of HR, Marketing and finance functions within
organisations
Describe the role of HR within the Body Shop
The Department of Human Resources (HR) is responsible for handling the employee life-
cycle (i.e, employing, boarding, training and discharging employees) and employee benefits. In
other words, the human resources department is to increase the productivity of the workforce and
to protect the organization from any problems that may arise in the manpower of the
organization. The human resources department at Body Shop should ensure that the Body Shop
has an adequate number of employees (Santiago, 2020). The human resources manager manages
the functions of the human resources department in the Body Shop, which assumes the
responsibility of hiring new employees, to provide them with the performance and benefits to
assess the training and records required. One of the important tasks of the HR department in
Body Shop is to talk about information on employee interests that will help management to
motivate and engage employees.
A culture of comfortable work makes employees happy at work. In addition, the role of the HR
store manager in the physical store is to provide and maintain a healthy and safe working
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environment for cultural performance and to create positive vibes in the workplace (Wang and
Liu, 2021). In addition, the organisation's human resources department is responsible for
increasing productivity in the workplace and for building a loyal and dedicated workforce to
achieve business goals.
Describe the role of Marketing within Body Shop
The marketing department shows an essential role in endorsing the business and their
organisational mission to the customers. In addition, the marketing department at Body Shop has
a functional unit that assists the company for attracting customers, provide products and services
and meet customer needs. It is the responsibility of the marketing department to achieve the
potentials of customers, investors, and / or the community by creating a positive image of
company. Marketing departments conduct campaigns and develop communication tools to
promote products and services to customers and opportunities. . In addition, the key to the Body
Shop business is its effective research and marketing program, which not only helps them attract
the targeted customer but also helps them to maintain it for a long time. At Body Shop, the
marketing department is responsible for designing and developing marketing strategies with their
skin care products and cosmetic products and marketing them through a marketing strategy to
attract targeted customer segments either online or offline. Marketing strategies would help Body
Shop to enhance the company sales ration and increase the profitability share of company.
Describe the Finance Functions within Body Shop
The Department of Finance is part of the functional unit of a Body Shop that oversees the
company's financial affairs and develops strategies that effectively use the company's financial
resources. Basically the Department of Finance makes three major decisions within its decision,
namely the financial decision, the investment and the share (Kimani and et. al., 2020). The
Finance Manager at Body Shop maintains a budget for determining what assets and funds will be
allocated to that branch. The finance department at the Body Shop must develop a company
budget and oversee each transaction to ensure that each transaction is within budget. Budget and
forecasting at Body Shop helps to secure future funding needed to meet its financial needs.
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Develop an understanding of collaborative working practices in the Body
Shop
The Organisational Culture in your chosen organisation/ company
Organizational culture referred to be as portrayal of organisational behaviour and people
perceptions. This culture shares the beliefs and values established by the leaders and later passed
on in various ways and ultimately build the attitudes, morals and understanding of the staff. The
key elements that make up an organizational culture are especially the culture of sharing, belief
or place and the place where the organization operates. The institutional culture in the Body
Shop can be understood as follows:
Power
According to such a tradition, those under the control of others have no choice but to
follow the rules of their profession. Employees do not have the freedom to express their views or
to share their views at a public forum and must follow the instructions of their supervisor. The
organizers of such a tradition sometimes play a role in leading to major conflicts among others.
Work culture
Organizations form teams to achieve goals or to solve complex problems, following a work
culture. People with similar interests and specialities in such organizations form a group
(Bayanova and et. al., 2020). Each group usually has four to five members. According to such a
tradition, all members of the group must co-operate equally and conduct themselves
appropriately.
People's Culture
According to human tradition, people care more about themselves than the organization.
According to such tradition the organization takes the back seat and eventually suffers. They are
usually loyal to the management and never decide to support the organization.
Role culture
A culture in which each employee in a body shop is assigned roles and responsibilities
according to his or her ability, ability, and interest in producing the best that he or she can
produce. In such a tradition, activists decide what to do and willingly accept the challenge.
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Briefly discuss the Management / Leadership style in the Body shop
Leadership style in Body Shop is based on the philosophies, personalities and practices of
the leaders - the following are similar leadership and management styles -
Autocratic Leadership –
In this form of leadership, the leader uses coercion and this is the style of patriarchy and
order nature in which the leader or ownership asks them to follow their instructions without
asking reasons .
Collaborative Leadership Style –
In this leadership style, leaders have employees in their decision-making process and
they know that they are valuable resources of the organization.
Fair management style –
This is the type of leadership that Body Shop gives its employees a lot of freedom or
independence and relies on them to make important management decisions.
Financial management and reporting within the Body Shop
Explain what a Profit and Loss Account is
Profit and Loss Statement (P&L) is a financial statement that summarizes income, expenses
and expenses incurred over a period of time, usually quarterly or annually. Frequently, Body
Shop creates a profit and loss account to assess the business's administrative costs and total
profits from a period of time. Body Shop produces a P&L report for its business because it is a
financial statement that will help ultimately create a balance sheet of the firm and to determine
the profitability ratio (Shenkar, 2021). Additionally, Body Shop and all others companies
requires to complete these statements. After all, most outsiders or members of associations need
this statement to decide whether to invest in the Body Shop business.
Explain what a Balance Sheet is
A Balance Sheet is the financial statement of assets and liabilities of an entity that has the
equivalent amount and the total liability. Body Shop creates a business balance to define the
current financial situation of Body Shop. Therefore, the balance sheet gives an outsider an idea
of the financial status of the companies over time. The balance sheet gives an idea of how much
the company owes and how much money it has.
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Explain what a Cash flow Statement is
Cash flow statement is a financial statement that provides complete details about the
company's continued performance and full returns from its investment sources. This includes
business operations and all cash flows that pay off over a period of time. A cash flow report
make available vision into the cash or cash equivalents of Body Shop to assess the financial
position of the company (Astolfi, 2021). Cash flow statements are important to Body Shop
because they measure business potential and profitability by predicting a company's vision for
the future.
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CONCLUSION
Therefore, from the above carried out report, it has been summarised that a business needs
integration of different business functions in order to run their business in smooth manner and
achieve the strategically goals of employer. So, following report also justifies and throw light on
the roles played by the different functional unit such as HR, marketing and finance were
discussed too. Also report concluded about the culture and its factors and its importance for
business. Moreover, various financial statements were also discussed too.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Astolfi, P., 2021. Did the International Financial Reporting Standards Increase the Audit
Expectation Gap? An Exploratory Study. Accounting in Europe, pp.1-30.
Avci, P., 2021. Structures and Functions of Holding Companies in Different Countries.
In Handbook of Research on Financial Management During Economic Downturn and
Recovery (pp. 41-57). IGI Global.
Bayanova, L., and et. al., 2020. Executive functions of preschoolers with different levels of
cultural congruence. International Journal of Early Years Education, pp.1-12.
Kimani, D., and et. al., 2020. Blockchain, business and the fourth industrial revolution: Whence,
whither, wherefore and how?. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 161,
p.120254.
Shenkar, O., 2021. Using interdisciplinary lenses to enrich the treatment of culture in
international business. International Business Review, 30(2), p.101799.
Wang, G. and Liu, S., 2021. Functions and Translation of Nominalization in Business
Contracts. Economic Management Journal, 10(1).
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