An Analysis of the Role of Different Departments in Business

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the roles and interactions of various departments within an organization, focusing on teamwork and financial management. It explores the functions of marketing, finance, and human resources departments, highlighting their significance in achieving organizational goals. The report uses Tesco and Unilever as case studies to illustrate how different departments collaborate to enhance productivity and create a positive workplace environment. Furthermore, it examines the importance of financial management, including the purpose of reporting, and analyzes financial statements such as balance sheets and cash flow statements. The conclusion emphasizes the crucial role of departmental collaboration in driving profitability and overall success, showcasing the significance of teamwork in achieving long-term organizational objectives. The report references various academic sources to support its findings.

Running Head: ROLE OF DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS
ROLE OF DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Executive Summary
This paper focuses on discussing the role of different departments within an organisation. It
depicts a clear analysis of the understanding of how different department collaborates in
order to achieve a common goal of the organisation. The paper explains this with the help of
two companies, Tesco and Unilever. It discusses the role and significance of the financial
management and the purpose of reporting in an organisation, backed by how these companies
disclose the financial statements in the annual report.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Teamwork and Its Importance...............................................................................................5
Interaction among different departments...............................................................................5
Importance of Financial Management...................................................................................6
Purpose of reporting...............................................................................................................7
Balance Sheet.....................................................................................................................7
Cash Flow Statement..........................................................................................................8
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................8
Referencing................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
An organisation to work efficiently has different departments with different roles and
responsibilities all working towards the same goal. This paper aims to discuss the Roles and
importance of different departments. It highlights the how different departments interact
among themselves in order to increase productivity and workplace environment in Tesco and
Unilever. It shows the significance and purpose of reporting. It highlights how these
companies are disclosing information in the given financial statements.
Discussion
Marketing is the way of communicating about the product and the business with the
public. Marketing starts with advertisement of the product and ends with after sale service. It
helps in creating a view in the customers mind about the business and the characteristics of
the product. For any size and type of business, it is advisable that the organisation has a
marketing department that helps it to go far in the competition. This department is mainly
concerned with the marketing and sales of the product (Feng, Morgan and Rego 2015). It
helps in determining its targeted customers. Importance of this department are as follows:
1. Innovation: Marketing department is the most creative department. It is engaged in
creating different strategies and tools to promote the business.
2. Create Awareness: Introduce the products and services to the public through proper
advertisement strategies so that the public is familiarized with the product and its
uses.
3. Improve Brand Value: It consistently works on improving the brand image of the
company by providing improvising the quality and quantity of the product and
services provided.

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The next very important department in an organisation is the finance department. As the
name suggests it is concerned with money and finances of the organisation. It starts with
basic bookkeeping and ends at suggesting marketing department at making strategic
decisions. The main role of this department is to cut down the overall cost and account the
different expenses and revenues under relevant heads (Pyka and Burghof 2013). Major
significances of this department are as follows:
1. Day-to-day accounting: This department at the base level is concerned with
bookkeeping and recording the daily transactions of the organisation. This helps in
keeping a record of all the spending that the organisation is doing and the revenue
generated by it.
2. Advising: In the intermediate level, this department is concerned with analysing the
statements generated in the base level and advising the organisation if the entity
should cut down costs or increase the investments.
3. Budgets and forecasts: This department is concerned with setting an annual budget for
the organisation and allocation of funds to different departments. It estimates the
profit and returns the organisation should make in a year considering the internal and
external factors.
Human resource department is concerned with the employees and the efficiency of these
employees. The main objective of this department is to maximise the productivity of the
organisation. Human resource managers are concerned with implementing strategies that
would reduce the stress and pressure among the employees. This department is important in
an organisation due to following reasons:
1. Recruiting efficient employees: Human resource department is responsible for hiring
employees that are skilful and should have enough knowledge in the role they are
being hired for.

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2. Motivated work force: The main issue that affects the productivity among the
employees is the lack of motivation among them. This department is responsible for
motivating employees by providing rewards and giving promotions to the deserved
candidates.
3. Training and Development: The Human Resource department of any organisation is
responsible for training the employees and developing skills to face and overcome the
challenges that can be faced in the future.
Teamwork and Its Importance
Teamwork is defined as the ability of different individuals working together in order
to achieve a common goal. In an organisation, all the employees and all the different
departments work together in order to maximise the profits earned and improving the brand
value in the market. Profits are an organisation’s short-term goal, which it seeks to maximise.
However, to remain in the long-term the organisation should focus on creating goodwill, an
intangible asset that attracts the highest return (Gammack and Poon 2013). Teamwork is the
most crucial factor in obtaining any objective.
Some major importance of teamwork in an organisation are as follows:
1. Teamwork helps in increasing the efficiency among the employees. It helps in
finishing the tasks faster with a good quality of output. Different individuals are
assigned with different portion of a task that they specialize in hence generating a
quality outcome.
2. It improves relation among the employees. Teamwork initiates communication and
understanding among employees with diversified culture hence improving the
relations among them (Ghorbanhosseini 2013). This is important to create a healthy
environment in the organisation.

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Interaction among different departments
Tesco, a leading retail business, aims to serve millions of customers, comprises of
450,000 employees all working in different departments for achieving the same goal. A team
of 450,000 employees distributed into different departments where all the departments and its
employees seek to serve better and earn more. According to a well-published article, Tesco’s
finance department of the company supports other departments in terms of funds and advices.
It supports the commercial and corporate purchasing of the marketing department (Brannen
et.al 2013). This is a major example of how two different departments in an organisation,
which work independently are dependent on each other.
Unilever, a consumer goods company, owns more than 400 brands. Alan Jope, the
chief executive officer of the Unilever said that teamwork and unity is the key to all the
success that the company have had so far. The article discloses how the human resource
department of the organisation is helping the other departments by providing the company
with skilled and loyal employees who are not just productive, but also make consider the
team members as their family members. This promotes the culture and workplace
environment in the organisation making it a better place to work.
Importance of Financial Management
Financial management is the act of managing the financial activities of an organisation it
deals with planning and budgeting the required estimated finances, then, allocating these
resources to different departments, monitoring and safeguarding these resources, and finally
evaluating and reporting the analysis made (Peterson 2013). Major importance of financial
management are as follows:

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1. Acquiring funds: financial management includes procurement of funds from different
sources in such a way that the rate of interest is minimised. This is the first step to the
financial statement without which other activities and other departments cannot proceed.
2. Maximum utilisation of funds: This is the next significant factor why financial
management is important for any organisation. An organisation to increase profitability
should focus on zero wastage and maximum utilisation of the resources. This ensures
improvement in operational efficiency of the organisation.
3. Improving profitability: Profitability is purely dependent on the cost and effectiveness of
the employees. The main concern of the firm is to ensure that resources and funds are
properly utilised. Financial management make it easier for an organisation by using tools
such as ratio analysis, budgetary control and cost benefit analysis.
Purpose of reporting
A report is a document that is used to communicate information about the
organisation to its stakeholders. Financial reporting consists of financial statements such as
Income Statement, Cash Flow Statement, Balance Sheet and Statement of Shareholders’
Equity. Financial report is the sole document that is available to the public, this document is
supposed to contain all authenticated data that can be trusted by any individual be it a
stakeholder of the organisation or any general public. These documents are provided in front
of the shareholders in order to gain their trusts and attract more investors. A company
completely discloses all the information about the business.
Balance Sheet
Balance sheet of the Tesco PLC shows five major heads namely, non-current assets,
current assets, non-current liabilities, current liabilities and equity of the firm. Current assets
are those assets that are in liquid in form or would be converted in cash within a year. The

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group’s total current assets for the year 2019 amounts to £12,570 million. Non-current assets
are long term assets; these cannot be converted in cash easily. These are Land, Plant,
Property, Goodwill, Machinery and many more. The Group has invested £36,379 million in
non-current assets in the year 2019. Liabilities are those investments, which the group makes
and needs to pay off. Those liabilities that the group needs to pay within a year are termed as
current liability and those with more than a year are termed as non-current liability. Current
and non-current liabilities of the group are £13533million and £20680 respectively (Tesco
PLC 2020).
Cash Flow Statement
This statement shows the inflow and outflow of cash relating to the entity. It shows
the net fund flowed or used in operating activities, investing activities and financing
activities. Net cash flow from operating activities in Unilever are € 6,753 million, net cash
used in financial activities are € 11,548 million and investment made by the group in
invested activity amounted to € 4,644 million in the year 2018 (Unilever.com 2020).
Conclusion:
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that an organisation has different
departments, dealing in different roles and responsibilities to achieve a single goal that is
profitability and wealth. It shows how different departments work together as a team to
achieve these goals. This collaboration of work among the different departments is of
material importance to the organisation as it endeavours it towards the desired success.

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Referencing
Brannen, M., Moore, F.I.O.N.A. and Mughan, T.E.R.R.Y., 2013. Strategic ethnography and
reinvigorating Tesco PLC: leveraging multicultural teams using ethnographic
method. Ethnographic Praxis in Industry, 2013(1), pp.282-99.
Feng, H., Morgan, N.A. and Rego, L.L., 2015. Marketing department power and firm
performance. Journal of Marketing, 79(5), pp.1-20.
Gammack, J. and Poon, S., 2013. Knowledge and teamwork in the virtual organization. E-
Commerce and V-Business, p.213.
Ghorbanhosseini, M., 2013. The effect of organizational culture, teamwork and
organizational development on organizational commitment: The mediating role of human
capital. Tehnički vjesnik, 20(6), pp.1019-1025.
Körner, M., Wirtz, M.A., Bengel, J. and Göritz, A.S., 2015. Relationship of organizational
culture, teamwork and job satisfaction in interprofessional teams. BMC health services
research, 15(1), p.243.
Momin, W.Y.M. and Mishra, K., 2015. HR analytics as a strategic workforce
planning. International Journal of Applied Research, 1(4), pp.258-260.
Peterson, S.J., 2013. Construction accounting and financial management (Vol. 2). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Pyka, A. and Burghof, H.P. eds., 2013. Innovation and Finance. Routledge.
Tesco PLC. Annual Report 2019. [online] Available at:
https://www.tescoplc.com/investors/reports-results-and-presentations/annual-report-2019/
[Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].

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Tschopp, D. and Huefner, R.J., 2015. Comparing the evolution of CSR reporting to that of
financial reporting. Journal of Business Ethics, 127(3), pp.565-577.
Unilever.com. [online] Available at: https://www.unilever.com/Images/unilever-annual-
report-and-accounts-2018_tcm244-534881_en.pdf [Accessed 20 Jan. 2020].