Business Expansion Strategy: eBay in Finland and the Impact of Brexit

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report analyzes eBay's Finland expansion post-Brexit.

Analysis of eBay’s business expansion in Finland

Table of Contents
Task 1.........................................................................................................................................3
Task 2.........................................................................................................................................7
Reference List..........................................................................................................................21
Appendices...............................................................................................................................23
2

Task 1
Introduction
Managing a project requires proper knowledge of the scenario. The managers have to be
cautious and over protective sometimes in order to give proper finishing to a project. The
issues associated with a project will be discussed and for this purpose E-Bay is selected as a
company. The company is expanding the business in the United Kingdom and the project
related information is going to be detailed in this segment. Proper project management
process will be considered as well in order to have better kind of project related information.
A brief explanation of the proposed topic and why you have chosen it
The topic is implication of globalisation and doing business internationally. The example of
E-Bay has been taken here. Recently, globalisation has brought major changes in different
organisations. Many organisations want to set up their operation in abroad and achieve
competitive advantages. Therefore, the research will determine how business of E-Bay will
be influenced from Brexit consequences during its business expansion in Finland.
An aim and some objectives for your proposed research.
The aim of the research is to find issues, which might produce challenges to E-Bay during
their international expansion in Finland.
 To find the challenges which E-Bay is going to face due to the Brexit event
 To analyse the potential threats for E-Bay, that might stumble the growth of a
company in the Finnish market
 To identify the mitigation strategies that might bring changes in the overall progress
of E-Bay
 To recommend proper strategies to avoid such issues in future
A brief discussion of the scope and limitations of the project
Project Scope
Project scope is a major part of the project that determines the list of things to be included
while conducting the project (Mirza et al., 2013). It can be two types such as included and
3

excluded scope. Included scope includes the attributes that are going to be focused during the
project work. The excluded scope is the attributes that are not considered during the work.
Included Scope
The scopes included in the study of identifying challenges that E-Bay may face while
initiating business in Finnish market are the cost consideration, limitation, risk register,
literature review, research methodology and qualitative data analysis. The cost consideration
involves the total amount of budget required for the completion of the project. The major
costs are associated with data collection, data analysis, documentation of the data, and others.
The articles on the challenges of Brexit events, business expansion opportunity in Finland
and mitigation approaches for dealing with such issues will be reviewed in the literature
review part. Research methodology will include the procedures and tools required for doing
qualitative data analysis that will support the research findings. The data collection and
analysis will focus only on qualitative research. The project will identify the challenges that
E-Bay may face during Brexit events. The potential threats associated with business
expansion in Finland will be covered in data analysis. The report also includes the analysis of
strategies that would help E-Bay to deal with issues that may occur while expanding its
business in Finland.
Excluded Scope
The project does not include the communication plan that is required for effective research
communication. The secondary data and quantitative data analysis have not been performed
here. Therefore, the project does not include a graphical representation of quantitative data
that can be collected from employees of E-Bay. The project has no scope for secondary data
collection that can be gathered from past researches.
Limitation of the project
 The project has not applied quantitative research technique, thus limiting the
numerical analysis of research questions.
 The project has not used secondary data analysis, which has limited the review of
studies on Brexit negotiations and its impacts.
 Lack of time and fund are two constraints that may affect the project quality.
Resources and cost considerations
4

The resources associated with the project are material, people and capital. Human resource is
required for managing workload and time during the project. Adequate budget is required for
completing the project successfully. The researcher needs to acquire the skill of project fund
management. Materials like technical infrastructure and software are required for assisting in
project work.
Cost consideration
Tasks to be accomplished Time Cost per hour Total cost
Allocation of resources 12 7 84
Completion of risk analysis 8 5 40
Data collection through
qualitative data
30 10 300
Data interpretation 15 10 150
Final documentation and
submission
10 5 50
Total 75 37 624
Table 1: Budget
(Source: Created by the learner)
A Gantt chart or work breakdown structure in order to provide timeframes and stages
for completion.
Activities Initiation Date Duration End date
Phase 1 15 January 2019 30 14 February 2019
Proposing Project Title 15 January 2019 5 20 January 2019
Aim and objectives 20 January 2019 2 22 January 2019
Project scope 22 January 2019 10 01 February 2019
Risk Analysis 01 February 2019 13 14 February 2019
Phase 2 14 February 2019 30 16 March 2019
Reviewing Literature 14 February 2019 15 01 March 2019
Proposing Research tools 01 March 2019 15 16 March 2019
Phase 3 16 March 2019 30 15 April 2019
Qualitative Data collection 16 March 2019 15 31 March 2019
Qualitative Data analysis 31 March 2019 15 15 April 2019
Phase 4 15 April 2019 30 15 May 2019
Report writing 15 April 2019 15 30 April 2019
Project submission 30 April 2019 15 15 May 2019
Table 2: Work breakdown structure
5

(Source: Created by the learner)
Phase 1
Proposing Project Title
Aim and objectives
Project scope
Risk Analysis
Phase 2
Reviewing Literature
Proposing Research tools
Phase 3
Qualitative Data collection
Qualitative Data analysis
Phase 4
Report writing
Project submission
15 January 2019 06 March 2019 25 April 2019 14 June 2019
Figure 1: Gantt chart
(Source: Created by the learner)
A risk register covering the main risks with the proposed research
Category Risk Probability Impact Mitigation Risk
assessment
People Lack of skills Moderate Quality
issue
Practice on
research skill
Medium
Financial Inappropriate
budget
allocation
High Late
submission
Activity wise
task allocation
High
Technical Disruption in
technical
infrastructure
Moderate Late
submission
Arranging
back-up
Low
Table 3: Risk Register
(Source: Created by the learner)
6

Task 2
CHAPTER 1 Introduction
Problem Statement
The internationalisation is one of the most important things to be taken into consideration for
an organisation and in this context the approach of a service providing authority needs to be
managed in a specifically. The issues faced by any organisation making an approach to the
foreign grounds can be of any kinds. The cultural diversification is one of the most important
ones to be taken into consideration (Johanson and Mattsson, 2015). The management of
policies is something to be considered as well. The managers of different levels of an
organisation need to think of the issues that are associated with their specific territory. The
main issue is eBay is trying to get settled in a country where they have not been in the recent
past. The Brexit event has made major changes in the economy and about this change the
eBay has no major knowledge. The research is going to highlight the mattes that are
associated with it. The research is going to illustrate the issues that are majorly connected
with Brexit event and the performance of eBay in a situation about which they have no
knowledge.
Company Overview
eBay is one of the major ecommerce organisations in the world and it is seen that the service
provided by the management is unique. The headquarter is in San Jose, California, U. S. The
chairman of the organisation is Thomas J Tierney and the CEO is Devin Wenig
(Ebayinc.com, 2019). It has more than 14000 employees and there are many subsidiary
organisations that are performing well in their respective segments.
Aims and Objectives
Aim of the project
The aim of the research is to find issues, which might produce challenges to E-Bay during
their international expansion in Finland.
Objective of the research
 To find the challenges which E-Bay is going to face due to the Brexit event.
7

 To analyse the potential threats for E-Bay, that might stumble the growth of a
company in Finnish market.
 To identify the mitigation strategies that might bring changes in the overall progress
of E-Bay.
 To recommend proper strategies to avoid such issues in future.
Rationale
The main reason of conduction the research is, Brexit has impacted the global economy
drastically and it has a major impact on the different organisations that are trying to expand
internationally. Due to Brexit different issues have been raised related to economic concerns
and it has affected the workforce management of different organisations too (Castellani et al.,
2018). eBay is expanding on Finland which has been affected due to the Brexit and in this
research the main aspects of this expansion is going to be considered. The effects eBay is
going to face will be highlighted and a proper recommendation will be given as well.
8

CHAPTER 2 Literature Review
Introduction
Literature review is one of the most important pars to take into consideration if a researcher is
planning to have an in depth analysis of the major aspects related to a project or topic. The
literature review is nothing but a set of data series and proper evaluation of the previous
researches done by the people. The proper response and the data analysis is one of the most
necessary things to be taken into consideration. The issues associated with the research topic
is going to be deduced in the review segment of the research and in this process a proper kind
of data base is going to be produced as well (Livingston, 2018). In the following segment a
review of the relevant literatures are going to be given for proper understanding.
Understanding the impact of Brexit
The most important thing to take into consideration is having a proper idea of what needs to
be incorporated in a system. After the event of Brexit, Britain became a place where the
service providers can freely provide the services. It is a necessary aspect to take into
consideration that the event managed to grab eye of the foreign investors. According to
Dhingra et al. (2016), the companies which were in the list of trading but not permitted to
trade with get a proper acceptance where allowed to trade in the system. The event of Brexit
is one of the most important things because it has given an idea of getting foreign money
easily in the business providing organisation’s home country. The event Brexit provided
different opportunities to not only Britain but to those countries as well which were planning
to make business in the EU countries. For an example the country Finland can be taken into
consideration.
The Finnish people have different types of opinions and it can be stated that the people had
thought in a different manner. Finland has a fruitful relationship with the other nations of the
European Union. In accordance with Wadsworth et al. (2016), The most important thing is
having a better kind of support from the people who were looking for a change and balance in
the economic state. Though, Finland stated that the majority of the youth were looking for a
change in the system. Finland decided to stay with the EU and not support the demands of
UK this can be stated that the decision has been taken from a broader aspect. Brexit made the
trade line open for those companies as well who were from the disregarded territory. It is an
important economic turn of event because this has influenced the economic condition of
9

those countries which were depends on the activities of Britain. The dominant countries in
the world look to go for a better opportunity all the time and hence it can be considered as a
positive decision regarding an open trade license to all the nations. The financial status of
different companies has been changed with the help of the event. From the viewpoint of
Lawless and Morgenroth (2019), apart from this the management styles of different types of
organisations have been nourished as well. Keeping a record of all the events is a necessary
option to be taken into consideration and in this aspect it is highly important to make proper
type of amendments as well.
The influence of Brexit and the potential threats to the companies’ expanding in
international grounds
The issues faced by different companies in different kind of countries are always different.
The management of issues are highly important and for that a proper knowledge regarding
the issue needs to be analysed as well. The knowledge comes for experiences and the
researchers in this domain have well documented the results. The event Brexit is one of the
most important things to be taken into consideration and in this aspect the management needs
to incorporate the most affordable tactics in order to make proper kind of management
effectively. In accordance with Kroll and Leuffen (2016), the issues associated with proper
management are depending on the segment where the threats are always high. There are
different kinds of threats in accordance with researchers of the world. Some people stated that
the economic environment of the Brexit is going to fall on the financial management of the
companies that were dealing in collaboration with the EU countries. Another thing to be
taken into consideration is the issue settlement policies that are associated where the most of
the issues were related with financial turnover.
In an international business expansion the dilemma is getting acceptance and in this context
where Britain has disregarded the cooperation of EU, it is an important to know that the
technical and financial ambience of Britain is highly fruitful in every context. The main threat
for an organisation is going to be the issues that are present in the ambience from the
beginning. Not understanding the offerings of the foreign companies can be a major aspect to
consider. From the viewpoint of Haas and Rubio, (2017), apart from that the management
may not good kinds of response from the people who were in the main target market list. This
is going to result in a negative financial turnover. On the other hand Brexit imposed some
changes in the entire situation and that reflected in the employee retention, employee
10

recruitment, tax rate and other aspects. The newly developed economic environment is not
flexible for all the countries to enter and earn some extra foreign currency. According to
Groenendijk, (2017), the most threatening thing is non-adaptability of the newly developed
ambience about which even the local companies are not aware about. Apart from this it can
be stated that another biggest threat is decrease in demand of the foreign workers which will
raise the level of cost of any organisations’.
Some mitigation methods to nullify the impact of Brexit
The impact of Brexit is one of the most important factors to be taken into consideration and it
is important to make sure that the issues are being nullified in a proper manner. The
methodology has to be considered and in accordance with the demand of the situation. The
possibility of having major threats is high as always but with proper strategies it can be
minimised properly. For this reason the management needs to think of new directions and
must incorporate new workforce from the country where they are planning for business.
According to Van de Vyver et al. (2018), the economic effect comes from the aspects that are
associated with the issue settlement and it can be managed by area specific policy making.
The management of the organisations looking for a proper business needs to think of matters
that are associated with the service enhancement. In order to minimise the threats related to
economic misbalance, the most of the managerial matters are going to be done with expert
supervisions. According to Kóczy (2016), the quality assurance check needs to be enhanced
and tighter security checks should be incorporated as well. This is going to enhance the
quality and in return the management is going to have major customer focus to gain return on
investment.
Another important thing to be taken into consideration is a proper managerial system that is
going to make logical amendments in the system and monitor them in order to apply changes
in the system. According to Van de Vyver et al. (2018), the issues associated with proper
system analysis needs good kind of analytical detail which is a necessary aspect to be taken
into consideration. The management needs to think of proper kind of details that are
associated with cultural analysis in order to have a precise detail of what has to be
implemented in the system. The issues associated with proper database management will
enhance the security concerns and that will be a potential development in every aspect.
Summary
11

From the given data analysis it is evident that the management of the issues are associated
with proper managerial skills. The issues associated with the project management can be
nullified but for that proper situation knowledge and the idea of target market’s demand is
important. It is given that the data base management needs to be managed in order to enhance
the security factors. There are some rectification processes to be considered in this case and
analysing them is going to enhance the quality of the projects.
Literature Gap
The above discussed literature has described about the issues that are seen in the system, a
detailed description of Brexit has been given and mitigation strategies have been discussed as
well. In this case no response has been provided and this is the only gap in the literature
review. Apart from that the literature has not contributed in analysing the detailed company
specific data and it is one of the biggest gaps of the literature.
12