EBWO3001 Re-sit Portfolio Effectiveness in the Business World

This portfolio assignment, designed for the EBWO3001 course, delves into core business concepts. The first task examines the characteristics of a Public Limited Company (PLC) and contrasts it with a charitable organization. The second task focuses on customer understanding, exploring the import...Read More

Re-sit Portfolio
Effectiveness in the Business World (EBWO3001)
Assessed Learning Outcomes:
1. Demonstrate an understanding of the concept of the organisation and the
environment in which it operates, including determining the competitive
advantage for an organisation.
2. Identify and analyse organisational operations, responsibilities
3. Discuss the needs of the consumer and people who work in a business.
4. Recognise a range of issues related to business and how they interlink.
Week Contents (350-400 words per task) Page Learning
outcomes
Week 3 a. Describe the main features of a public limited
company (PLC), giving an example.
b. Identify two key differences between a PLC and a
3 LO1 / 2

charitable organisation.
Week 4 a. Who is a ‘customer’? Give THREE reasons
businesses must understand customers.
b. With at least one example, describe how
‘perception’ influences consumer demand?
4 LO3
Week 5 a. What is ‘globalisation’?
b. Describe THREE advantages & THREE
disadvantages of ‘globalisation’?
5 LO1/4
Week 6 Describe TWO advantages and TWO disadvantages of
‘group decision-making’ from the staff perspective. 6 LO3
Total word limit: 1500 words (+/- 10%)

ASSESSMENT - PORTFOLIO
Week Task 1 Learning
outcomes
Week 3
a. Describe the main features of a public
limited company (PLC), giving an example.
b. Identify two key differences between a PLC
and a charitable organisation.
LO1 / 2
Your answer should go in the box below.
Public Limited Company or PLC is regarded as the legal designation of a limited
organisation that provide its services to the general public subject to conditions of
liability. Stock of a PLC can be acquired by anyone. In such companies, a limited
liability is granted to the shareholders along with its management. In addition to
this, out of all the organisation that are existing in market a major portion is covered
by the public limited companies (RodríGuez, MartıNez, and Herrera, 2013).For
Instance: Clothing and accessory retailer group Burberry is a PLC.
Some features of Burberry Group PLC are as follows:
 There is board of directors who directs the public limited companies. In
Burberry there are 2 number of board members who governs the entity.
 In the entity, shareholder liability for the losses of the organisation are
restricted to the contribution of their share only.
 Shares of PLC are transferable. Burberry shares are bought and sold in stock
exchange markets. These operations in share are performed in the regional
markets.
 The selected company is strictly regulated in terms of finances too. All
annual reports are lawfully required to be published. This is same for all the
public limited companies.
In contrary to this, charitable organisations are non-profit firm who works on social
issues. This type of companies are solely different from the above explained ones.
These different majorly arises due to the purpose of their existence i.e. either profit
or non-profit. Some major difference among them are as follows:
 Public limited companies are strictly required to pay taxes on their net
incomes. However, in context to charitable organisations this is not true in
case of tax exemption. As charitable firms works for social well-being so
government tends to help them by reducing the costs as much as possible.
 In case of public limited companies, balance sheets are required to prepare
quarterly. This is performed to list the equity of the company's owner.
Whereas, as there is no owner in charitable organisations, thus no balance
sheets are prepared. In addition to this, income statements are also prepared
by the PLC to evaluate revenue, gains, expenses, losses etc. In contrary to
this, charitable firms doe snot prepare any income statements (Solomon,
2014).

Thus, these are some common differences between the public limited companies
and charitable organisations.
Week Task 2 Learning
outcomes
Week 4
a. Who is a ‘customer’? Give THREE reasons
businesses must understand customers.
b. With at least one example, describe how
‘perception’ influences consumer demand?
LO3
Your answer should go in the box below.
Customer is a party or a individual consumes the products
and services designed or produced by the organisation.
Customers are the key component of an organisation and

without them there exists no business. Thus, it is highly
required for an entity to possess effective tactics that can
draw the attraction of large people towards it (Jaakkola, and
Alexander, 2014). Further, it is highly required fir a
company to understand its customers. As the overall
effectiveness of a business does relies on this segment, it is
necessary to have idea of their buyer. Below are three major
reasons stating the significance of understanding of
customers:
 It helps organisations in identifying the needs and
desires of customers so that development of product
can be carried in appropriate manner.
 Without customers, businesses would not exit. Thus
by understanding them effective strategies can be
prepared that will help in increasing business value.
 Organisations are highly required to understand the
customers as it assists in providing revenue and
certainty for the business.
Consumer perceptions encompasses the impression and
awareness about the products or services offered by an
organisation. These perceptions plays a major role in
influence consumer willingness to buy the products or
services. This disposition of purchasing offerings is known
as customer demand (Xia, Xu, and Chen, 2013). There are
various physical and psychological perception that influence
a person to buy products. Some of them are self, price,
benefit, societal, etc. These elements plays a major role in
making a person to think before buying. Some of them are
as follows:
Self perception: It is the motivation and value possessed by
a customer that drive buying behaviour. In case of socially
conscious people, this motivation level is high which keeps
them influence to buy products.
Price perception: Low cost of offerings is considered as an
inherent virtue on the basis of which a large customer figure
can be attracted (Ridley-Duff and Bull, 2015). For instance:
If company A is selling a product at $100 and Company B is
selling similar product in $80 then customers' perception
will influence them to buy the products offered by company
B.

Week Learning outcomes
Week 5 LO1/4
Your answer should go in the box below.

In the present era, the process that is tremendously increasing its reach
is the globalisation. It is the process in which actions and integration of
organisations and governments does took place with firms and
administration of different countries. This formations is then driven by
the international trade organisation, WTO. This should be considered
as the most important evolution of the present time (Hirst, Thompson,
and Bromley, 2015). This interaction is possible with the international
flow of money, thoughts, innovative ideas and culture. The world has
attained various innovative things and development with type of
integration. Primarily, it is an economic process of market growth
along with social and cultural impact as well. There are various factors
that have contributed in the increased level of internationalisation. The
increased living standard and societal influence to match those
standards have raised the level of globalisation in different countries.
However, it should be recognised that the major among them is played
by the advancement in the technologies. These additions are significant
in simplifying the process of globalisation. The easy transportation
process, communication methods, etc. have reduced so many barriers
in the global trading. There are many purposes behind the companies
that undergoes internationalisation. For instance: brand recognition,
increased market size, gaining brand image, etc.
Advantages of globalisation:
 It increases the access to the technology, media,
communication, healthcare, education, etc.
 In context to companies, internationalisation helps in
increasing profitability by increased range of customers.
Further, it helps them in achieving a strong brand recognition.
 On a wider spectrum, the globalisation is also effective and
plays a major role in development of nations. It helps in
increasing the financial conditions of a country by raising its
GDP (Blut, and et. al., 2015).
Disadvantages of globalisation:
 Globalisation affects the cultural homogenisation. Further, it
exploits the developing countries and local economies.
 With reference to organisation, market expansion in
economically challenged countries can impact upon the overall
effectiveness of the businesses. Further, the finances of the
entity will majorly affect by this (Baylis, Owens, and Smith,
2017).
 In addition, there are various affects on environment due to
globalisation. The increases transportation level, company set-
up, etc. causes pollution, harm to raw materials, etc.
Thus, these are some advantages and disadvantages of globalisation.

Week Learning
outcomes
Week 6
LO3
Your answer should go in the box below.
Decision-making process of an organisation is the method of making choices
followed with identification of appropriate decisions. This tool is highly effective for
business, if used properly. The step by step decision-making process assists in taking
more intentional and thoughtful decisions with the help of relevant information.
Further, along with the decisions, alternative are also defined in this process. There
are varied ways in which entities undergoes finalisation of choice. One of them is
group decisions making or collaborative method (Jahanshani, and et. al.,2014). In
this, each and every individual is engaged in making choices from the alternative
present. However, it should be recognised that both advantages and disadvantages are
associated with this method.
Advantages of group decision making:
Diversity of views: If the complete group will be involved in the decision-making
process then the organisation will have more ideas to be implemented. As every
member has unique perception, ideas, though process and cognition which will
present a variety of views. Further, a group decision is always considered a s more
democratic.
Encourage people's participation: Group decision-making process involves each and
every employee working in the firm. There are various benefits of this involvement
that later the company receives. This helps in increasing motivation level of
employees. This in turn increases dedication and commitment of workers from their
work role. In this way, group decision making will boost work effectiveness and thus,
productivity.
Disadvantages of group decision making:
Time-consuming: There are various activities associated with the group decision
making such as organising, planning and coordinating employee, planning meetings,
conducting sessions to define and explain purposes etc. are quite cumbersome. This
further impacts the effective management of other operations too. This in turn affects
the work effectiveness.
Compromise Decisions: The requirement to arrive at a final decision results in
compromise. There are possibilities that the choices thus made may not be the best.
Rather, it is a compromised choice centring all employees. Further, in order to
involve employees there ineffective ideas are essential to add-up (Barlow, Roehrich,
and Wright, 2013).

References:
Baylis, J., Owens, P. and Smith, S. eds., 2017. The globalization of world politics: An
introduction to international relations. Oxford University Press.
Hirst, P., Thompson, G. and Bromley, S., 2015. Globalization in question. John Wiley &
Sons.
Jahanshani, A. A., and et. al.,2014. Study the effects of customer service and product quality
on customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Barlow, J., Roehrich, J. and Wright, S., 2013. Europe sees mixed results from public-private
partnerships for building and managing health care facilities and services. Health
Affairs. 32(1). pp.146-154.

Blut, M., and et. al., 2015. How procedural, financial and relational switching costs affect
customer satisfaction, repurchase intentions, and repurchase behavior: A meta-
analysis. International Journal of Research in Marketing. 32(2). pp.226-229.
Jaakkola, E. and Alexander, M., 2014. The role of customer engagement behavior in value
co-creation: a service system perspective. Journal of Service Research. 17(3).
pp.247-261.
Ridley-Duff, R. and Bull, M., 2015. Understanding social enterprise: Theory and practice.
Sage.
RodríGuez, R. M., MartıNez, L. and Herrera, F., 2013. A group decision making model
dealing with comparative linguistic expressions based on hesitant fuzzy linguistic
term sets. Information Sciences. 241. pp.28-42.
Solomon, M. R., 2014. Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Xia, M., Xu, Z. and Chen, N., 2013. Some hesitant fuzzy aggregation operators with their
application in group decision making. Group Decision and Negotiation. 22(2).
pp.259-279.

End of Portfolio