Business Functions Analysis: A Case Study of Costa Coffee

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the business functions within Costa Coffee. It begins with an introduction to business functions and their importance, followed by an in-depth examination of Costa Coffee's marketing strategies, including segmentation, targeting, and positioning. The report then delves into the financial aspects of the company, emphasizing the importance of managing working capital for continuous operations. It explores operations or production management, highlighting how Costa Coffee manages processes to ensure timely service delivery and resource utilization. The human resources function is also examined, focusing on employment policies, employee motivation, and retention strategies. The conclusion summarizes the crucial role of these business functions in organizational success, emphasizing the need for strategic planning and effective implementation. References include books, journals, and online resources used in the analysis.

Costa Company

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Main Body .....................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................4

Introduction
Business functions refer to operation or process which is carried out routinely as a part of
goals and mission of an organisation (Aagaard, 2016). They ensure appropriate functioning of an
organisation. This assignment is based on Costa Coffee which is a headquartered in Dunstable,
Bedfordshire. It is a British multinational coffee house which renders services worldwide and
their products are tea, Coffee, sweet snacks, iced drinks and sandwiches. This assignment
comprises of business functions which are carried out within Costa Company.
Main Body
Costa Coffee was founded in London, 1971 and is the second largest coffee chain in the
world as well as largest in United Kingdom. They render their services in around 3882 locations
for this they have to carry out their business operations in appropriate manner so that they can
maintain the same image within the market. Marketing strategies are used by Costa Coffee, for
this they are using segmentation, targeting and positioning (Marketing Strategy of Costa Coffee
– Costa Coffee Marketing Strategy, 2019). In this they have opted for demographic as well as
geographic strategies fr targeting their customers as well as accomplish their needs. They are
present in limited countries which enables them to focus on what they have and manage their
operational cost thereby leads to enhancement in their profit. They have been using social media
and digital platforms for creating awareness of their brand.
Costa Coffee has attained a global revenue of around 1.29 British pounds in March 2018.
The British coffee house brand has contributed highest revenues for outperforming (Revenue of
Costa Coffee worldwide from fiscal year 2010/11 to 2017/18 (in million GBP), 2019). Finance
assist Costa Coffee to meet operational expenses, they can be in form of working capitals like
raw materials, interest payments, inventory, remunerative payments, etc. Management need to
have short term planning and maintenance of work flow capital so that operations can be carried
out continuously (Ferreira and Harrison, 2012). With respect to operations or production
management, Costa Coffee includes management, organisation, supervision and control of
different processes so that timely delivery of services can be done. This will enhance overall
productivity of organisation as well as they will be able to measure efficiency of their staff.
Apart from this, management of Costa-Coffee by making use operations management, they can
have optimal utilization of resources to gain enormous profits (Pape, 2016).

Around two billion cups of coffee are consumed every day as per the British Coffee
Association. The HR functions operates shared services within Whitbread Centre for Excellence.
HR team within Costa Coffee is responsible for formulation of employment policies, rewards
and management development (Sector insight: Coffee beings, 2019.). Team members are given
salary above the minimum wage. It was observed that staff turnover rate has gone to around 73%
, they have a transient workforce along with international students. Their employees are
promoted internally and they make use of scorecard approach and accordingly incentives are
given to employees.
Conclusion
From above, it can be concluded that, business functions play crucial role within every
organisation. It is necessary that these functions are planned appropriately so that any kind of
hindrance is not created within work. Furthermore, marketing strategies must be applied by
organisation to attract wide range of customer’s for this appropriate amount of finance is
required. Along with this, there must be appropriate operation management strategies so that
maximum utilisation of resources is done. Without human resources organisation cannot carry
out their operations, therefore it is essential to retain them by giving necessary motivation.
References
Books & Journals
Aagaard, A., 2016. Sustainable business: Integrating CSR in business and functions. Stylus
Publishing, LLC.
Pape, T., 2016. Prioritising data items for business analytics: Framework and application to
human resources. European Journal of Operational Research. 252(2). pp.687-698.
Ferreira, G. F. and Harrison, R. W., 2012. From coffee beans to microchips: Export
diversification and economic growth in Costa Rica. Journal of Agricultural and Applied
Economics. 44(4). pp.517-531.
Online
Marketing Strategy of Costa Coffee – Costa Coffee Marketing Strategy. 2019. [Online].
Available through: <https://www.marketing91.com/marketing-strategy-costa-coffee/>.
Revenue of Costa Coffee worldwide from fiscal year 2010/11 to 2017/18 (in million GBP). 2019.
[Online]. Available through: <https://www.statista.com/statistics/579810/costa-coffee-
revenue/>.
Sector insight: Coffee beings. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/sector-insight-coffee-beings/>.