Introduction to Business Studies: Sainsbury Case Study Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Sainsbury, a prominent retail organization, focusing on key business functions and operational strategies. The report begins with an introduction to business organizations and the role of business studies, setting the stage for an examination of Sainsbury's operations. The main body delves into the roles of finance, marketing, and HR, highlighting their significance in achieving organizational goals. It explores collaborative working practices such as teamwork and brainstorming, demonstrating their impact on Sainsbury's competitive advantage. Furthermore, the report examines the role of financial reporting and financial management, emphasizing their importance in decision-making, financial planning, and compliance. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings, emphasizing the interconnectedness of these functions and practices in fostering organizational success. The report references various academic sources to support its analysis.

INTRODUCTION TO
BUSINESS STUDIES

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Role of finance, marketing and HR functions.............................................................................3
Collaborative working practices.................................................................................................4
Role of financial reporting as well as financial management.....................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Business organization is basically the framework which highlights the structure, liability
risk of the organizations and thus plays an important role. Business studies is predominately the
academic subject which is being taught in universities as well as schools and covers the various
aspects of organization. The main aim of this report is to study how the organizations functions
and operate within wider context.
Sainsbury is basically the renowned retail organization being established in 1869 by John
James Sainsbury and headquartered in London, U.K. It currently operates in in more than 20
countries.
This report gives a brief about role of finance, marketing and HR functions, collaborative
working practices and role of financial reporting as well as financial management.
MAIN BODY
Role of finance, marketing and HR functions
HR
HR is one of the most important part of the organization which plays an essential role and
thus forms its integral part. The main function of Human resource relates to the recruiting,
selection, retaining, compensation of the employees. One of the major role of HR in Sainsbury is
to hire and select the most talented employees. Human resource professionals in the organization
plays the role of hiring candidates both from outside the organization as well as within the
organization. This relates to internal and external recruitment (Steenkamp, 2017). They bring the
most talented employees for the organization who completely matches with the job description
and have the capability to achieve organizational goals and objectives. Besides this, another role
of HR in Sainsbury is to retain the employees. Once the candidates are being selected, Hr design
various strategies to retain them like appreciating their performance, rewarding the, providing
monetary benefits etc. Thus, HR tries to motivate and encourage employees in order to retain
them in organization.
Marketing
Marketing is considered as one of the most important and core function of the
organization without which no organization survives. They forms the inseparable part of
organization and thus are required for smooth functioning of the organization. The major role of
marketing department in Sainsbury is to establish a great and long-term relation with the

customers and convert them into loyal consumers. The roles of marketing functions are
imperative and cavers the wider organizational context (Popescu, Comanescu and Sabie, 2016).
One of the primary role of this function is to attract the customers and persuade them to buy the
products and services of organization. Thus, marketing in Sainsbury contributes to a large part in
increasing sale of organization. Another role of marketing is to maintain the relation with
customers once they are converted into consumers by retaining them through maintaining a
periodic contact with them and increasing their engagement.
Finance
Finance is an import way through which the organizations are able to take various
business decisions and thus is essential for the overall capital structure of the organization. The
main role of finance department in Sainsbury relates to the strategic planning as well a
budgeting. This department is mainly responsible for preparing the budget of various aspects like
cost of hiring employees, providing training, their compensation etc. This budget planning helps
Sainsbury to take their strategic decision (Rao and Syed, 2019). Another role of the finance
function in Sainsbury is to manage the cash flow statement. Cash flow statement is basically the
statement which highlight the amount of money which shows the amount of money leaving
organization as well as entering the organization. Thus, this department in Sainsbury is involved
in overseeing the cash flow in order to determine return on investment.
Collaborative working practices
Collaborative working practices are basically the community services which the
organizations performs in order to achieve the shared goals and objectives. These practices are
highly essential for the organization not only to gain the competitive advantage but also to keep
the employees motivated. Sainsbury uses a wide range of collaborative working practices for
attaining competitive advantage.
Team work
This is one of the widely-known and important collaborative practice which undertakes
the efforts of employees to work together in order to achieve the common goal. Sainsbury
inculcate a culture of collaboration within its organizational culture and thus encourages each
and every employee to work in cooperation and strive willingly towards the similar goal (Rasool,
2017). Sainsbury generally have supportive organizational culture in which all the employees
work together and understand each others perspective to analyze the situation from every angle.

Working in teams and groups enables the employees to effectively communicate with each other
and understand the motivational factors which drives each and every individual's behavior. For
example- when the company launches the innovative product then the employees are being
divided into teams which relates to different responsibilities like one team are responsible for
persuading clients to purchase it and increasing sales, one team is responsible for maintaining
post purchase services thus in this way, company is able to establish its position in market.
Brainstorming
This is the another collaborative working practice which is being used by Sainsbury for
capturing a great market share. Brainstorming is predominately the process through which efforts
are being made by the employees within organization to generate creative ideas and solutions to
a problem. This is considered as the widely used collaborative practice. When employees in
Sainsbury come together for achieving the common goal then each one of them applies their own
idea and provides their suggestions. This results in brainstorming and is one of the best
collaborative working practice (Grove and et.al.,2018). Through brainstorming, management
gets a wide range of innovative ideas which eventually helps them to solve complex issues. For
example- when Sainsbury encounters a decreasing sale then this collaborative working practice
helps them to solicit feedback from employees as how decreasing sales can be overcome. This
helps them to gather innovative ideas from them which will be helpful for increasing the sales.
Role of financial reporting as well as financial management
Financial management is basically the process through which organizations plans,
organizes, directs and thus controls the various undertaking that help them to manage their
supply and demand. Financial reporting is predominately disclosure of the financial results as
well as related information to the management along with stakeholders. This financial
management and reporting plays and essential role within the operations of Sainsbury and thus
assist them to take the effective decisions.
Financial management
Financial planning
The main role of financial management is financial planning. Financial planning is
process through which organizations calculate amounts of various funds which is required for the
smooth operations (Shapiro and Hanouna, 2019). Financial management helps Sainsbury to plan
the various objectives like determining capital required, determining capital organization as well

as structure, framing the policies of organization etc. Thus, financial management helps
Sainsbury to effective plan the various aspects of finance. Besides this, this financial planning
also helps the company to decide where to allocate resources and how to allocate them.
Allocating profit
This is the widely known and significant role of financial management through which
Sainsbury is able to allocate the profits to different department and activities. Once Sainsbury
has earned the great profit, then financial manager allocate these profits effectively for different
purposes. This helps them to efficiently manage the money by investing in useful purposes.
Financial management helps the organization to take the effective decision that how much profit
needs to be allocated for innovation and how much to use for the expansion purpose. Thus, this
helps to balance profits and expenses effectively.
Financial reporting
Liabilities
Liabilities is the critical part of any organization which eventually affects their financial
health. The liabilities are basically all the business loans, credit cards, credit lines, and the credit
from vendors which affects the overall performance of firm. Thus, in this case financial reporting
plays an important role and hence helps to to manage the liabilities effectively. With the help of
financial reporting, Sainsbury is able to perform its various activities like expansion,
diversification and this helps to reduce their overall liabilities. For example- When Sainsbury
apply for the expansion loan then they explore the data of financial statement as well as
determine whether there is need to reduce the existing liabilities.
Progress as well as compliance
As financial reporting is basically the practice in which an accurate and appropriate
depiction of company's finance is provided to the stakeholders thus this report plays the role of
transparency. Through the financial reporting, Sainsbury is able to provide accurate and precise
information to the stakeholders which eventually helps them to establish position in market and
gain competitive advantage (Finkler, Smith and Calabrese, 2018). Financial reporting helps to
improve the financial efficiency as well as provide opportunity to remain compliant with the
business ethics and operate ethically. Thus, Financial reporting platys an essential role in
progressing in this cut-throat competition and hence gain competitive advantage. Besides this, as

this report help in compliance thus this assist Sainsbury to oversee the various financial
activities.
CONCLUSION
It has been summarized that HR, marketing and finance functions plays an important role
in organization and hence helps to effectively manage their operations. These all functions have
the common objective of achieving competitive advantage and serving the customers better.
Organizations uses a wide range of collaborative practices like teamwork, brainstorming etc
which helps them to effectively capture the market share and retain employees. Besides this,
financial management and reporting helps the organizations in financial planning and complying
to the rules.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Finkler, S.A., Smith, D.L. and Calabrese, T.D., 2018. Financial management for public, health,
and not-for-profit organizations. CQ Press.
Grove, E and et.al.,2018. Becoming collaborative: a study of intra-organisational relational
dynamics. Journal of Financial Management of Property and Construction.23(1). pp.6-
23.
Popescu, G.H., Comanescu, M. and Sabie, O.M., 2016. The role of human capital in the
knowledge-networked economy. Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource
Management.4(1). p.168.
Rao, K.N. and Syed, F., 2019. Building Customer-Centric organizations-An evolving role of HR.
South Asian Journal of Marketing & Management Research.9(4). pp.35-39.
Rasool, Z., 2017. Collaborative working practices: Imagining better research partnerships.
Research for All.1(2). pp.310-322.
Shapiro, A.C. and Hanouna, P., 2019. Multinational financial management. Wiley.
Steenkamp, J.B., 2017. Organizational Structures for Global Brands. In Global Brand Strategy
(pp. 151-179). Palgrave Macmillan, London.