Foundation of Business: Technology, Social Media, and Globalisation

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the foundations of business, focusing on the significant impact of technology and social media on marketing strategies. It explores the shift from traditional marketing methods to digital and omni-channel approaches, emphasizing the role of social media in reaching target audiences and the increasing investment in digital marketing tools. The report also examines the phenomenon of globalization, analyzing its effects on the United Kingdom. It discusses both the positive impacts, such as increased trade, lower unemployment, and increased wealth, and the negative impacts, including structural unemployment, tax avoidance, and exposure to the global economic cycle. The report concludes by highlighting the importance of a strong business foundation and the need for businesses to adapt to technological advancements and global economic trends.

Foundation of
Business

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
SECTION A.....................................................................................................................................3
Question 1. Discuss how developments in technology and social media have impacted on the
way companies and organisations market their products and services in the last ten or fifteen
years........................................................................................................................................3
SECTION B.....................................................................................................................................8
Question 2. Discuss how globalisation as a phenomenon has impacted on a country or
regions. Discussing both positive and negative effects of the globalisation phenomena.......8
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Business is a commercial activity a person indulge in with making it there professional
occupation and earning their livelihood through it. There are numerous types of businesses
flourishing in the market satisfying needs, wants, desires and preferences of people by offering
several differentiated products and services (Manikutty, 2016). The current report is surrounded
upon different aspects and concepts of business and business management. For the beginning
development in technology and social media have significant impact over marketing and other
activities of companies and organisations. The influence of social media and technology is
evidenced in the assignment. Moreover, next part is examining the phenomenon of globalisation,
its impact on United Kingdom by discussing both the aspects positive and negative.
SECTION A
Question 1. Discuss how developments in technology and social media have impacted on the
way companies and organisations market their products and services in the last ten or
fifteen years.
Companies and organisations are of different size, scope and nature belonging their
respective industry operating according to the region in which they are established developing
policies and regulation by integrating them with the laws of the market and the country in which
they are running their business. Technology gave businesses and organisations a broad platform
of development and growth. Technology is a tool enabling companies to perform several tasks
rapidly and productively earning higher profits and reducing costs. Through technology several
machinery have been developed which are advanced and updated, devices have been introduced
by using technology and new inventions (Parker, 2018).
Businesses and industries are making use of technology as a product offering and as tool
as well for completing their tasks and rendering their separate products and services to customers
well. Technology as a products is used when new technologies are developed by using old one
and innovation is taking place on the same side experts are developing new technologies and
inventing advanced technologies too. In several industries technologies are used for
manufacturing, packing, selling, marketing, delivery and all the aspects of business.
Therefore, technology and its development has a potential impact on all over the
operations of businesses playing a vital role in every stage of product life-cycle and business

operations. One of the greatest contribution of technology and advanced devices is over
marketing of products and services. Social media and internet are product of technology, earlier
companies use to market their goods through physical means, then technology developed and
better marketing tools developed which were enhancing the process of marketing. Now with
revolutionary changes taking place in technologies marketing practices have evolved as well
today marketing is conducted online with the help of social media and internet (Lüdeke-Freund
and et. al., 2017).
Omni-channel marketing is the suitable example for it, both physical and virtual
marketing tools are used in it which are fully devised and controlled through technology and
social media. This is a tool which makes marketing easy covering both the sources and most
importantly suggested and utilised by all the marketers.
Illustration 1: Omni-channel Marketing Strategy, 2019
Omni-channel Marketing is a technology driven tool which involves eight channels and
social media is part of it. Email marketing, digital advertising, websites, print ads and Catalogs
all actions are dependent over technology and advanced devices.
In past years technology have brought huge revolution and development in marketing
practices and actions of organisations (Chen and et. al., 2018). Business owners are dropping
traditional method of door to door marketing making use of social media to reach out to
maximum customers. Social media is a effective tool enabling companies to attract customers by
just few clicks. Marketing involves several stages, market research is first for gaining knowledge
about the market and accordingly developing strategies. For this surveys are conducted through
social media, websites and other means rather than knocking every door. Once market is

analysed, data is collected then plans for promotion are made where digital advertisements are
created and promoted through social media platforms. Moreover, print media is used where
graphical images are developed with technologies and printed for posters which are then
published on social media and on physical platforms too.
The above graphical image is representing numbers showing the use of social media in
the year 2019. It is represented through the graph that out of total population in number of 7.7
billion out of which 56% are urban people. Amongst them around 5 billion people have mobile
phones , around 4.4 billion population have access to internet and out of which 3.5 billion people
are using social media platform. Form the graph a fact is clearly interpreted that social media is a
part of day to day lives of people. Every individual is active on it and which makes it a potential
source of marketing and grabbing attention of targeted audience and other groups of the society
towards the offering of company (Kostova and Hult, 2016).
Illustration 2: Social media marketing trends, 2020

Illustration 3: Social Media Marketing, 2020
The survey conducted showed that brands and organisations are waving towards social
media marketing. It was determined that around 73% marketers are favouring the use of social
media stating that their efforts through social marketing is showing better and more effective
results. Brands are choosing social media over any other tools in their marketing strategy and
even for being in touch with customers and rendering them after sales services (Noh, 2016).

Illustration 4: Changes in Traditional Versus Digital Marketing Spend, 2020
The graph above shows the outcomes of a survey which is conducted for knowing the
money companies spend over traditional and digital marketing which includes social media as
well. It has been analysed that form August 2011 since August 2019 spending over traditional
marketing is fluctuating and lowering. On the other hand marketing budgets of digital marketing
are continuously rising. This clarifies that businesses, brands and organisations are preferring to
spend more money over digital tools of marketing and shifting their spend to new digital tools
and technologies rather than taking old traditional ways of doing so as the social media and other
tools are more effective and rendering better results to companies (Halberstadt and Kraus, 2016).
Therefore, after the thorough analysis and evaluation conducted through the graphs and
images it is clarified that companies and organisations are taking the advantage provided by
technology in all aspects of their business including in marketing their offerings as well.
Companies are moving to omni-channel marketing which is technology driven as the population
has easy access to social media it has become the most prominent tool for conducting marketing.
Digital tools are becoming more prone for promotional actions, strategies developed by
marketers are more focused over social media. Even budgets are also showing huge increase in
digital tools rather than traditional channels.

SECTION B
Question 2. Discuss how globalisation as a phenomenon has impacted on a country or regions.
Discussing both positive and negative effects of the globalisation phenomena.
Globalisation is a phenomenon which is defines the speeding up movement of resources
such as human resources, finances, products and services, capital, technologies, cultural practices
over all the places that is regions and geographical locations of the planet. Globalisation
increases interactions amongst people belonging to different regions around the globe. In
business and economical terms globalisation refers to increasing independence of world
economies as cross border trade and exchange of products and services is enhancing along with
development of technology and advancement bringing in communities as cultural practices are
also being exchanged.
Globalisation has impacted countries and separate regions around the globe and in several
segments of society. These impacts are positive and negative both and therefore, the influence
globalisation has over UK and its regions is evaluated and presented under (Rau, Astrachan and
Smyrnios, 2018).
United Kingdom known as Britain and abbreviated as UK is a sovereign country which is
running as a Unitary Parliamentary democracy and Constitutional Monarchy. The United
Kingdom is a country which has the fifth largest economy in the whole world and second largest
in Europe after Germany. The country has been developing and evolving due to globalisation
spreading its presence in the whole world. But it has brought several issues for the country as
well. Therefore, both factors are attached with globalisation negative and positive which are
impacting to the UK as a country and a region.

Illustration 5: The economic effects of globalisation, 2016
POSITIVE IMPACT OF GLOBALISATION OVER UK
 Increased trade- Globalisation brought increased trade opportunities benefiting the local
business firms and most importantly the pillars of economy Micro, Small and Medium
sized businesses. Improved trade practices and external expertise benefited the internal
businesses to develop and gain expertise in their goods and services and having a
comparative advantage. This resulted in higher number of exports leading to better jobs
and creating employment.
 Lowering unemployment rate- Globalisation have brought huge strengths towards the
UK and one of which is employment. Due to easy entry in foreign market and flexible
trade market it became very easy for international companies to enter the region with
their operations which caused improvements in employment number as more job
opportunities are created. It has been significantly notified that employment is increasing
and leading to development of economy as well (Tran, 2019).
 Increased wealth and foreign currency to local economy- Globalisation means new
businesses from several regions and economies of world will enter the market bringing
more foreign currency and increasing wealth of UK. Exports and imports will increase
which will be resulting in better FDI that is Foreign Direct Invest. As well as capital
generation in UK will become better and easier for the domestic business owners.
Moreover, foreign relation will develop leading to easy trade practices with other
countries and regions.
NEGATIVE IMPACT OF GLOBALISATION OVER UK

 Structural unemployment- Globalisation will result in shifting sectors in economy
which lead to loss of comparative advantage of UK as now they will be bringing
advantage by lowering labour cost. This process affects negatively and cause temporary
structural unemployment which creates problems for people to gain job in new industries
which are as satisfying as their previous job (Paschek, Ivascu and Draghici, 2018).
 Tax avoidance- Globalisation have given the gift of free trade in new regions around the
globe but it is becoming a negative factor as shifting production from one region to
another which is a tax haven and are low tax countries. A huge revenue is been cut down
due to it for UK as now businesses are shifting to other locations as barriers and shifting
cost are low powering the business owner and UK treasury will lose revenue.
 Global economic cycle- Moving businesses and operations into international borders
and operating in new regions have provided mobility to businesses in UK and also to the
economy as well. But the same exposes the country to a global economic cycle where any
harm or distress in other regions takes place it will affect the United Kingdom as well.
The global credit crunch will be having huge influence over the economy of UK as
businesses in other regions are suffering from financial crises.
CONCLUSION
The above report concludes that foundation of business has to be strong and unshakable
by any factor or reason. Therefore, businesses have to conduct appropriate research and develop
strategies accordingly. Nowadays, technology has huge impact over operations and business
phenomenons of a company. The major impact which is introduced by technology is in
marketing segment. Business owners are investing more in digital marketing processes rather
than traditional one. Moreover, trends have shown that marketers are preferring to put efforts for
marketing through social media as they are showing more effective outcomes. In the next
segment of the report globalisation and its impacts are examined showing positive and negative
influence over employment. But exposing United Kingdom to all the international crises and
issues.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Halberstadt, J. and Kraus, S., 2016. Social entrepreneurship: the foundation of tomorrow's
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Kostova, T. and Hult, G. T. M., 2016. Meyer and Peng’s 2005 article as a foundation for an
expanded and refined international business research agenda: Context, organizations,
and theories. Journal of International Business Studies. 47(1). pp.23-32.
Lüdeke-Freund, F. and et. al., 2017. Sustainability-oriented business model assessment—A
conceptual foundation. In Analytics, innovation, and excellence-driven enterprise
sustainability (pp. 169-206). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Manikutty, S., 2016. IIMA-Being Ethical: Ethics As The Foundation Of Business. Random
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Noh, S. Y., 2016. The impact on earnings patent technology transfer business performance of the
Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation. Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial
cooperation Society. 17(12). pp.394-399.
Parker, M., 2018. Shut down the business school. University of Chicago Press Economics Books.
Paschek, D., Ivascu, L. and Draghici, A., 2018. Knowledge management–the foundation for a
successful business process management. Procedia-Social and Behavioral
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Rau, S. B., Astrachan, J. H. and Smyrnios, K. X., 2018. The F-PEC revisited: From the family
business definition dilemma to foundation of theory. Family Business Review. 31(2).
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Tran, B., 2019. The Foundation of (Business) Ethics' Evolution. In Advanced Methodologies and
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