Debenhams Case Study for BABS: Context of Business Module

This case study examines Debenhams, a multinational British retailer, analyzing its business context and challenges. It begins with an introduction to leadership and its importance, followed by a PESTEL analysis that explores the impact of political (Brexit), economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors on Debenhams. The study then assesses the leadership style within Debenhams, identifying shortcomings and their impact on employee motivation and company performance. Furthermore, the study discusses motivational theories, specifically Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and how they can be applied to improve employee engagement and productivity. Recommendations for improvement are provided, focusing on leadership enhancements, management practices, and adaptation to changing consumer demands. The case study concludes with a reflection on the research experience.

Debenhams case study

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Discussing macro-enviornment impact on current situation of Debenhams-.............................1
Leadership style which is followed by Debenhams-...................................................................3
Motivational theory-....................................................................................................................4
Recommendation for improvement-...........................................................................................5
Reflection-...................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFRENCES...................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Leadership is very essential for company to be successful. It is process in which an
executive guide, direct and influence their employees and company member for working towards
gaining the goal and objective of company as whole. They induce their subordinated for working
with zeal and confidence.
Debenhams is multinational British retailer who is operating the departmental stores in
UK, Denmark, Ireland and having franchise in various countries. Company has grown into 178
locations within these countries. The total number of employee who is working with company
are 27,893. Above report includes determination of impact of macro-enviornment factor on
company. Researching the leadership style of organization. The report further carried forward
with discussion of motivational theory and how employees can be motivated. Recommending
company for improving the leadership style, strategies and management practices into the
business. The report ends with the self reflection on report experience.
MAIN BODY
Discussing macro-enviornment impact on current situation of Debenhams-
PESTEL Analysis-
It is the tool or framework which is utilized for analyzing and monitoring macro-
enviornment factor which is had an appropriate effect on performance of company. This tool is
helpful for starting new business or for entering into the foreign market. The PESTEL Analysis
of the Debenhams has been described below-
Political Factor-
The political factor of UK had an adverse effect on the current situation of the
Debenhams. As the situation of Brexit in the country had lead to have an impact on the
performance and sale of company. This situation is very critical for company to have an
appropriate profit for them as the number of visitors to the store had been declined (Obolensky,
2017). The government had decreases the corporation tax which had a positive impact to the
company to deal with their business operation activities greatly and having great exposure
further. This various provisions introduced by government had bound the company to somehow
perform their business activities in appropriate manner.
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Economic Factor-
Due the to situation of Brexit into the market it let the fall down in the currency
significantly. This had an adverse effect on all the businesses running into the UK. The
purchasing power of consumer had been decline due to that so number of consumer visit to the
stores had also decreased. The consumers are not willing to buy the product unnecessarily the
needy and required items are being purchased as they don't have enough money to spend on
other things. Prudent stratezing for the inflationary situation had significantly declined the sale of
company.
Social Factor-
As the individual are becoming more adaptive to technologies and smartphones
Debenhams had to use this technology for enhancing their sale. They can further use this trend as
their smart target into the business so that they can gain huge revenue and profit further. They
must keep in pace with changing consumer demand so that they can grow immensely into the
market (Raelin, 2016). Debenhams should keep update with the latest trend and preference of
consumer so that they can implement changes into the company and thus further they can
enhance their sales and revenue.
Technological Factor-
The Debenhams had to introduce new technologies and innovation into their stores so
that they can render effective services to the consumers. This can only be done through
appropriate strategy and implementation of the technology into business. They can also use
mobile technology for further enhancing consumer attraction toward their stores as they can have
mobile application of their store through which consumer can easily buy product and pay
through it so that their time can be saved, and they can have good experience of shopping with
company.
Legal Factor-
They should work with the legal and regulatory bodies across company. This is helpful
for Debenhams to be authorized with laws and having all procedure legally so that they can have
smooth flow of business activities. Due to the situation of Brexit there is tweak in the law which
have directly affected the sale of stores significantly (Taylor, 2018). Company had to follow
these new rules and adopt it further so that they can manage and control all their business
operation to the great extent.
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Environmental Factor-
Debenhams are using the sustainable practices into their business so this is helpful for
them in reducing the CO2 emission into their business activities and operation. This helps
company to have their contribution toward the sustainability activities. They also enhance the
usage of efficient source of the energy so that they can have contributed to the energy and
safeguard it. This allows company to hugely follow the sustainable practices into their business
so that they can gain interest of the consumer towards stores of company. They should also
contribute to the minimum amount of percentage to the CSR activity which let company to rise
more toward the environmental practices.
Leadership style which is followed by Debenhams-
Leadership described by Debenhams is “Creating a simulating and inspiring environment
that enables each one for delivering outstanding performance.” There is no best leadership style
that could be followed by company's leader to gain their objective and goal effectively. As per
the Debenhams leader communicate efficiently, encourage & motivates their team and having a
strong vision will let company to gain success in the future. But the leader of the company
somehow lacks with confidence and thus they couldn't effectively lead and assist the teams into
the companies business operations (Uhl-Bien and Arena, 2017). Leadership is important at each
& every level from floor of shop to main broadly. Thus, they couldn't motivate their employees
for keeping the good work ahead. This let the company to have huge employee retention into the
company. As per the changing trend of fashion the leader must guide their employees a manger
that how they can lead and control the change into the organization so that they can easily make
changes into company. But the leaders fails to manage and control the situation thus company
fails to implement changes and adopt it further thus they lack behind. They keep on expanding,
but they don't analyze whether it is profitable or not the leader must analyze before taking risk
whether it will be appropriate for company or not (Hawkins, 2017). The leader should lead the
company and analyze first whether the expansion is required or not it will be profitable or not.
Then the further step should be taken so that they can have profits and revenue further. They
provide discount sale to the customer but it is on frequent thus consumer wait for it then only
they come to shop this reduces the normal sale of the company in regular days this significantly
affect the overall operational and functional activities of company as whole. Somehow it can be
stated that the leadership style which is followed by the leader of Debenhams is no appropriate
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that's why company is lacking behind and couldn't achieve their goal and objective. And thus
they are facing financial crisis not the company which is the serious threat to company and its
growth.
Motivational theory-
Maslow's hierarchy of the need is motivational theory in psychology which includes the
five stage model for the needs of human, it also includes hierarchical level among pyramid. The
physiological need of an individual are essential needs. If an individual is lacking in more than
one need then they should meet this physiological need first. And this motivates an individual to
fulfil their needs and thus they will be working further for it. The next includes Safety needs
which state that these needs are apparent in the situation of emergency and thus individual and
for this individual opt to have insurance and further contribute to their saving account further.
The another stage is involvement of feeling accepted and loved ones. This includes the need of
feel through which an individual belong to social group (Harms and et.al., 2017). Social
connection of an individual is related to the better physical health and if an individual have
isolated feeling and conversed then this could have negative impact on the well-being and health
of individual. The another stage will include esteem needs and this includes feeling of self-
confidence and good about oneself. Another component involves feeling that is to be valued by
other. If esteem need of an individual is being met then they will be full of confident and further
see their achievement and contribution s essential and valuable. The last stage is self
actualization can vary from individual to individual this can include helping of other
achievement or creative field. As per the theory self actualization is rare.
So it can be justified that Maslow theory can effectively use by Debenhams for
motivating their employees then can work on fulfilling their needs a requirement so that they will
be motivated to work for the betterment of company. This can be immensely used by them and
render the effective incentives to them an insurance, rewards which let the individual to keep on
motivated and work for the growth of company as whole (Wildavsky, 2017). If this is being done
by the company they can easily motivate their employees a let them to work for the betterment of
company further and thus they can easily cope up with such critical situation. Debenhams needs
to encourage all of their teams and implementing strategic decision into the business activities so
that they can further gain huge revenue and profit.
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Recommendation for improvement-
Leadership style of the Debenhams need to be improved as from the above situation it
can be stated that the company is lacking somewhere due to the improper guide and information.
The leaders of the company had not guided and assist their employees for further working that
what will be their effective steps and how they had to utilize the resources and strategies so that
they could achieve the overall objective of company well. They are somehow lacking in many
things they had to improve and enhanced the better leadership tactic will be needed for
improvement (Cashman, 2017). The leader must analyzed the situation's negative and positive
and then further take into consideration that it is profitable or not. This is essential for coping up
with this critical situation from which Debenhams is suffering now.
There are many several management practices that can be taken into consideration by the
company. They must let their employees to work in team and make them more engage in
working so that they can effortely working for gaining the goal and objective of company as
whole. They also must conduct several meeting on regular basis so that they can motivate their
employees for doing good work productively for the growth and development of company. The
employees of company must be given rewards and invectives for their good work this
encourages them for keeping the good work ahead. The culture of company must also be diverse
so that employees could work positively for the gaining the objective of company and thus they
can further cope up with the situation which is the major threat to company that how they will be
coping up with this critical situation.
Debenhams must keep up with the trend and update their stock as per the changing needs
and demands of the consumer it is very essential for them. With effective leadership style they
can motivate their employees to accept the change and further implement this change into their
company they can further attract consumer to company by having goods at low pricing so that
consumer can further attract towards company's store (Bush, Bell and Middlewood, 2019). They
should also further manager their accounting and financial which helps them to easily manage
their activities as they will not be having any financial issues in company. They must keep on
monitoring the activities of their rivals present in market so that they can easily amend strategies
and plan to cope up with that. They can further use effective tool of advertising and promotion so
that they can easily promote their stores through digital marketing tool and attract wide range of
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consumer to their stores and then further by rendering quality products to them they can establish
the loyalty base for their consumer further.
Reflection-
From the above report it can be understood by me that Debenhams had several faults in
their management, leadership styles and strategies due to which that had to face such a critical
situation into their business operation further. Now they need to cope up with such situation for
this they need to amend changes into their overall operation and management functioning.
Debenhams doesn't have effective leaders who guide and support them for further development
in the strategies and processing. Debenhams haven't updated them with the changing trend which
bounds them to compete with other rivals in market. I assumed that if they had updated their
trends as per the taste and preference of consumer then they could easily access and compete
with their rivals. Somehow there employee are also not encouraged and motived due to that such
a critical situation is being faced by company(Boin, Stern and Sundelius, 2016). They motivate
employees always work for the betterment and growth of company. Somehow leaders and
manager of company had never emphasis so much on that which result in company to face such
a critical situation. They also not have an appropriate financial management due top which they
are facing such a inconvenience into their business activities. Each and every to be successful
needs to have an appropriate strategies so that they can should not have to face any situation into
the company. The effective leader let the company to be successful and sustain in market for
long term and gain huge competitive advantage against the rivals present in the marketplace.
CONCLUSION
From the above study it can be concluded that the leader plays an essential role in
motivating and encouraging the employees for working towards the growth and development of
company. They motivate them by rendering the rewards and incentives which further help
company to achieve their overall gaol and objective further. If company have effective
management practices and strategies then they can effectively compete with rivals in
marketplace. But if they are lacking somewhere then they can not enhance their sales and
revenue further. Company can easily sustain in market if they had effectively leaders and
manager who render guide and knowledge to them for gaining their objective greatly. This is
more helpful or company to have effective utilization of resource. The taste and preference of
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consumer is also to be considered while updating their stores so that they can keep up with trend
and attract wide people to store.
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REFRENCES
Books and Journals
Boin, A., Stern, E. and Sundelius, B., 2016. The politics of crisis management: Public leadership
under pressure. Cambridge University Press.
Bush, T., Bell, L. and Middlewood, D. eds., 2019. Principles of Educational Leadership &
Management. SAGE Publications Limited.
Cashman, K., 2017. Leadership from the inside out: Becoming a leader for life. Berrett-Koehler
Publishers.
Harms, P.D and et.al., 2017. Leadership and stress: A meta-analytic review. The Leadership
Quarterly. 28(1). pp.178-194.
Hawkins, P., 2017. Leadership team coaching: Developing collective transformational
leadership. Kogan Page Publishers.
Obolensky, N., 2017. Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing paradox and uncertainty.
Routledge.
Raelin, J.A. ed., 2016. Leadership-as-practice: Theory and application. Routledge.
Taylor, R.L., 2018. Military leadership: In pursuit of excellence. Routledge.
Uhl-Bien, M. and Arena, M., 2017. Complexity leadership: Enabling people and organizations
for adaptability. Organizational Dynamics.
Wildavsky, A., 2017. Leadership in a small town. Routledge.
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