Departments' Role and Importance: Financial and Teamwork Analysis

This report examines the crucial roles of various departments within a company and their significance in achieving organizational goals. It explores the importance of teamwork, highlighting its benefits and impact on companies like BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell. The report delves into financial management, discussing its importance and the role of reporting through annual reports, emphasizing how reporting facilitates communication and transparency. Key departments such as marketing, finance, and HR are analyzed, detailing their functions and contributions to overall business success. The report also covers financial statements, including the Statement of Cash Flow and Balance Sheet, to provide a comprehensive understanding of financial management and reporting practices.

Running Head: DEPARTMENTS’ ROLE AND IMPORTANCE
DEPARTMENTS’ ROLE AND IMPORTANCE
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DEPARTMENTS’ ROLE AND IMPORTANCE
Executive Summary:
This report aims to discuss the function of different departments in a company and its
significance in achieving the goals of the company. The study describes the importance of
teamwork and the opportunities it brings with it. The report analyses the financial statements
and teamwork structure in BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell. In the end, the paper focuses on
discussing the importance and role of financial management and the motive of reporting
through annual reports every year. It explains how reporting initiates communication which is
a very important key to succeed for any organisation.

DEPARTMENTS’ ROLE AND IMPORTANCE
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Discussion..................................................................................................................................4
Importance of teamwork........................................................................................................6
Financial management and its importance.............................................................................7
Reporting and its significance:...............................................................................................7
Statement of Cash Flow.........................................................................................................8
Balance Sheet.........................................................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
Referencing:.............................................................................................................................10

DEPARTMENTS’ ROLE AND IMPORTANCE
Introduction
An organisation for efficient management has different departments having different
functions. Major departments in an organisation are marketing department, finance
department and HR department. This paper aims at discussing the roles and importance of
these departments in detail, with a brief discussion on how teamwork promotes the mission
and vision of the organisation. BP PLC and Shell are the two companies used to explain how
these companies use teamwork as a key characteristic to attain success in the future. A
detailed analysis is done why financial management is important for an organisation and what
is the role of reporting. It shows how reporting helps in communicative relevant data and
information with its stakeholders and maintain transparency.
Discussion
Marketing Department is the department that is responsible for communicating its
products to the targeted customers. Marketing begins with advertisement and sales and ends
with customer satisfaction and after sale services. An organisation not necessarily has
marketing department. However, having this department helps the business in going a long
way (Talja 2014). This department is important for any organisation due to various reasons
such as:
 Creating Strategies to increase sales: Sales is an organisation main focus. Increasing
sales in this competitive market is a main concern for any business. This department
makes it easier by innovating ideas and techniques that can give the organisation a
competitive edge.
Customer Satisfaction: Marketing doesn’t get over once the product is sold. Any
organisation’s long term goal is to create a good brand name and value in the market.

DEPARTMENTS’ ROLE AND IMPORTANCE
This department makes sure that the customers buying their goods and services are
satisfied and willing to return in future.
Finance Department is concerned with money and any finance related issue. Role of
this department starts with a basic book keeping and ends at advising different department
with what they should do in order to cut down cost and maximise production. This
department makes sure that all the revenues and returns earned by the organisation are
distributed among different departments as per the requirements (Pyka and Burghof 2013). It
makes sure that no money is wasted and that all the money are invested in a way that they
yield a high return. This department is important for any organisation as:
 It is responsible for cutting down costs and wastage. An organisation to maximise its
profitability should make sure that the resources are utilised in a way that they earn
high return on it. This department makes sure that every other department is working
efficiently with its focus on minimising the cost and maximising the output.
 Investing in better opportunities. An organisation with excess return should not keep
is as cash in hand. This cash should be utilised by investing in some security or land
or any other opportunity through which the organisation would earn some fixed
return. The finance department makes sure that the funds are invested in an efficient
way, with maximum return.
Human Resource department is the department that deals with the workforce and work
culture of an organisation. Both work force and the environment are as important as the sales
and finances are for the business. A human resource department makes sure that the work
force of the organisation is skilful and efficient enough to complete the work in minimum
time (Woodrow and Guest 2014). It is an important department for any organisation due to
the following reasons:

DEPARTMENTS’ ROLE AND IMPORTANCE
 Managing the policies and procedures: An organisation should have proper rules and
regulation to ensure the smooth working of the organisation. The human resource
department makes sure that all individuals adhere to these polices.
 Work force management: Human Resource Department is important as it analyses
and determines the number of employees required in different departments of an
organisation.
Importance of teamwork
Teamwork is the essence of the success of the organisation as it involves the mass
effort carried towards the fulfilment of the common goal. Teamwork is important in an
organisation as it incorporates a feeling of belonging among the employees. It promotes
workflow quickness and learning among the employees. The management of the organisation
promotes teamwork (Ghorbanhosseini 2013). Interaction among different departments of an
organisation enables a smooth communication among these departments directed towards
achieving the common goal
Royal Dutch Shell PLC, also known as Shell, is an oil and gas company assimilated in
the United Kingdom. According to Gerard Penning, an executive VP of HR says, “We found
that in today’s world with companies expanding into other countries where you try to build
bridges and with other cultures, but also inside a business where you want to have a digitised
strategy you have to build bridges with people who are good at that”. His very statement
implies that the organisation focuses on bridging the gap and promoting teamwork and unity
among the employees (Reports.shell.com 2020). It shows how the human resource
department can affect the productivity of all the other departments by motivating teamwork
and increase the efficiency of the firm.

DEPARTMENTS’ ROLE AND IMPORTANCE
BP PLC is another Oil and Gas Company with its headquarters in London, is one of
the seven super majors of the oil and gas explains how teamwork has a significant value in
the company. The CEO of the company says that the individual strengths of an individual is
doubled when they work in a team. The company believes in its people and says, “We put the
team ahead of our personal success and commit to building its capability. We trust each other
to deliver on our respective obligations” (Bp.com 2020). This shows how irrespective of
many different departments the company and its people has trust among each other.
Financial management and its importance
Financial management means managing the financial activities in an organisation. It is an
important factor that deals with reducing the manufacturing and transaction cost and aims at
maximising the profitability. Financial management is important as it uses various tools that
help in attaining the desired goals such as ratio analysis, cost and benefit analysis and many
more (Banerjee 2015). Roles and importance of the financial management are as follows:
 Financial Planning: Finance managers are responsible for forecasting and estimating
the future requirement of the funds by different departments of the organisation.
Financial management then focuses on acquiring these funds through different
sources after analysing the costs of acquiring and aims at minimising these costs.
 Allocation of funds: Once the funds are acquired from the most profitable source, the
finance manager’s targets on allocating these funds to different departments. It also
involves investing the excess funds in some securities, banks or other instruments that
would give it a high return.
 Improving the wealth: The main aim of the financial management is to improve the
wealth of the firm by improving shareholder wealth. This is the end result of all the
activities that this departments see to.

DEPARTMENTS’ ROLE AND IMPORTANCE
Reporting and its significance:
Every organisation irrespective of their size and function uses reporting to
communicate with the common people and the company’s stakeholders. Every year the
organisation prepare a document called annual report, this report consists all the relevant
information about the company, which an individual interests to know. It consists of financial
statements that provide transparency about the company’s financial transaction, its profits and
its outstanding liabilities (Bentley, Omer and Sharp 2013). Financial statements include
Statement of Profit and Loss, Statement of Cash Flow and The Balance Sheet.
Statement of Cash Flow
A statement cash flow is that document in the financial statement that shows the inflow
and outflow of cash in different activities such as operating, investing and financing
activities. BP PLC Cash Flow Statement shows the net cash that is flowed by operating
activities, used in investing and financial activities and the cash and cash equivalents of the
group at the end of the year. Net cash provided by operating activities is calculated after
deducting the expenses and adding the revenue generated from operating activities. The
group generates the net value of $22,873 million from operating activities in the year 2018.
Amount used in investing and financing activity of the group amounted to $25650 million in
the same financial year (Bp.com 2020).
Balance Sheet
Balance sheet is the statement provided at the end of the financial year. It consists of
three parts assets owned by the group liabilities outstanding of the group and the
shareholders’ funds. Balance sheet as at 31st December 2018 of BP PLC shows the total
assets, aggregation of current and non-current assets amounts to $282,176 million and total
outstanding liabilities amounting to $180,628 million. Net asset is calculated by deducting the

DEPARTMENTS’ ROLE AND IMPORTANCE
total liabilities from the total assets. This the total capital employed by the group amounting
to$101,548 for this group (Bp.com, 2020).
Conclusion
The above study concludes that though an organisation is divided into different
departments, the employees of the organisation is united and work as a single team to achieve
the mission and vision of the company. A very important factor in an organisation is
communication. An organisation uses annual report consisting of financial statement and
other relevant information disclosing them to the common people and the stakeholders of the
organisation.

DEPARTMENTS’ ROLE AND IMPORTANCE
Referencing:
Banerjee, B., 2015. Fundamentals of financial management. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd..
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annual-report-and-form-20f-2018.pdf [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].
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https://reports.shell.com/annual-report/2018/servicepages/disclaimer.php [Accessed 20 Jan.
2020].
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Departments: Case Company.
Wirtz, J., Tuzovic, S. and G. Kuppelwieser, V., 2014. The role of marketing in today's
enterprises. Journal of Service Management, 25(2), pp.171-194.

DEPARTMENTS’ ROLE AND IMPORTANCE
Woodrow, C. and Guest, D.E., 2014. When good HR gets bad results: Exploring the
challenge of HR implementation in the case of workplace bullying. Human Resource
Management Journal, 24(1), pp.38-56.
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