The Effects of Globalisation on John Lewis' Marketing and HR Functions

This report examines the multifaceted effects of globalisation on the marketing and human resource functions of John Lewis, employing a case study approach. The research delves into the cultural, economic, and ethical implications of globalisation, analyzing its impact on the company's sales, profitability, and overall business operations. The report includes a detailed project management plan, outlining costs, scope, timeframes, and quality control measures. It incorporates both qualitative and quantitative research methods, including data analysis and the formulation of recommendations. The report also addresses potential risks, such as ethical issues and political instability, and proposes mitigation strategies. Furthermore, it includes a work breakdown structure and Gantt chart to illustrate the project timeline and activities, culminating in a reflection on the value of the research undertaken. The report aims to provide insights into how John Lewis can leverage globalisation for economic benefits while navigating associated challenges.

Managing a
Successful Business Project

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACTIVITY 1....................................................................................................................................3
P1. Devising Aims and objective of the project .........................................................................3
Aim of the research : To analyse the cultural, economical and ethical effect of globalisation
on the marketing and HR functions of company- A case study of John Lewis. ...................3
P2. Project management plan .....................................................................................................4
P3. Work breakdown structure and Gantt chart .........................................................................6
ACTIVITY 2....................................................................................................................................8
P4. Small scale research by applying qualitative and quantitative research ..............................8
ACTIVITY 3..................................................................................................................................10
P5. Data analysis ......................................................................................................................10
P6. Communicating appropriate recommendations as a result of research and data analysis. .17
ACTIVITY 4..................................................................................................................................18
P7. Reflection on the value of Undertaking research to meet stated objectives......................18
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................18
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................19

TOPIC : The positive economic, culture and ethical effect of globalisation on marketing as
well as HR function of John Lewis company.
INTRODUCTION
Globalisation can be referred to as procedures through which firms develops international
influence or expands their business operations at global level. IT is the phenomenon which has
bought major changes in the business environment that has further effect on the business
functions of enterprises. The main functions which are highly influenced by the globalisation is
HR and marketing. Globalisation has highly influenced the culture of companies. It has also
supported business entities in increasing the sales as well as profitability. But due to changes in
external environment firms are facing issue in making appropriate business decisions because of
which they have to face ethical issues.
The report will have focus on analysing the cultural, economic and ethical effect of
globalisation on marketing and HR functions of John lewis company. Study will include the
project management plan covering different aspects of research such as cost , resources, scope
etc.
ACTIVITY 1
P1. Devising Aims and objective of the project
Aim of the research : To analyse the cultural, economical and ethical effect of globalisation on
the marketing and HR functions of company- A case study of John Lewis.
Objectives of Research :
 To Identify the ethical issues which has to be faced by John lewis due to the
globalisation.
 To explore the effect of corporate culture on international marketing Functions of John
lewis.
 To analyse the effect of internationalisation on the sales and profitability of
organisation.
 To suggests the ways by utilising which John lewis company can gain economic benefits
through expanding business in international market.

P2. Project management plan
Project management plan is a document which consists of detailed information about the
way different activities will be monitored and controlled during the time of investigation. The
different components of project management plan are:
Cost : It is basically expenses which are associated with the implementation of specific project.
In context of research project, huge amount of costs is associated with the making arrangement
for accumulation of information related to topic. Other Miscellaneous expenditure associated
with the project are communication as well as travelling costs, salary of project manager and
employees, travelling expenses, stationery and purchase of other equipments etc. Investigator
will use budgeting technique in order to control the costs (Grimalda, Buchan and Brewer, 2018).
unit/ hrs Costs/ unit/ hrs WBS Level 1 total
Salary of
Project manager
group members
£950
£1940
£140
£630
£8520
£115000
Handheld devices
Servers
155
3
£750
£4500
£65000
£16000
Installation and
updation of
Licensed software
160 £1,110.00 £10500
Testing of
hardware and
software
£6000
Equipment for the
project
£2,000.00

Scope: It is the most important part of project planning which includes determination as well as
documentation of specific objectives for project, deliverables, features, ultimate costs, deadline,
Task etc. Project scope defines the key deliverables as well as Milestones which are to be
accomplished. In context of present investigation, it has limited scope, as research will be
executed in order to analyse the cultural, economic and ethical effect of globalisation on
marketing and human resource function of John lewis company (Newbert, 2018).
Time: It is one of the crucial element of project plan. Time in the project management plan
defines the time period within which specific project will be completed. Researcher in present
study has created the Gantt chart which consists of starting as well as ending time of each
activity in investigation process. Gantt chart will assist investigator in measuring the progress of
the project.
Quality : It is considered to be as one of the most important component on which the reliability
as well a validity of data is based. Quality is the factors which has significant influence on the
outcomes of research. In context of present investigation, investigator has set certain quality
standards according to which different activities will be executed. Continuous monitoring is the
technique which will be used for ensuring that all the procedures are performed according to set
standards.
Communication : An effective communication as well as smooth flow of information is very
much essential during the project implementation in order to prevent overlapping of activities
and wastage of resources (Enderle, 2018.). Investigator in context of present research project has
created the communication plan which clearly defines responsibility of each stakeholders related
to sharing of information.
Risk: Risk which are associated with the execution of investigation procedure are risk of
plagiarism if in case the majority of data is collected from the secondary sources. In addition to
this, other types of risk associated with the research project are ethical issues, threat to the safety
as well as security of participants, risk associated with misuse or unauthorised access to the
information. There are high chances og ethical issues. Research in context of present study has
planned few strategies in order to avoid ethical issues, researcher before collecting the
information has got the written consent form signed by participants. In addition to this,
participants were informed about the purpose of investigation. A special software has been used

for storing the data. Huge amount of information has been collected through primary sources
using questionnaire method (Epstein, 2018.). The risk associated with globalisation are :
Type of risk Chances of occurrence Impact Mitigation Strategy
Political risk Low High All the regulation
formed by political
parties will be
followed by John
Lewis.
Financial risk Medium High Implementation of
proper accounting
system
Ethical issues Low High Company will conduct
market research before
development of
promotional plan.
Resources: The Different types of resources which are required for execution of research as well
as other project are capital, technology, human resource, knowledge, information, stationery
communication devices and other equipments (Silverman, 2016. ). In context of present study,
researcher will use ERP software for allocation of resources. It will help them in ensuring that
all the resources are properly distributed.
P3. Work breakdown structure and Gantt chart
Activities Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8
Identificat
ion and
choice of
topic for

research
Setting
aim and
objectives
Writing
Literature
review
Accumul
ation of
data
Data
analysis
Drawing
conclusio
n
Change
according
to
feedback
received
Submissi
on the
research
report

ACTIVITY 2
P4. Small scale research by applying qualitative and quantitative research
Research methodology can be referred to as procedure which is executed in order to
collect, analyse and interpret information. It is basically technique as well as approaches which is
utilised in order to perform different investigation activity (Robson and McCartan, 2016. ).
Research Method can be referred to as research strategy which is utilised for implementing
specific plan.
The different research methodologies used in the present study are:
Research type: There are basically two type of investigation which are generally conducted by
researcher these are qualitative and quantitative research. Qualitative research is mainly
concerned with the collection of facts related to the topic of investigation. Quantitative research

involves collection of numerical facts related to the topic. Choice of the type of research is
completely based on the nature of study (Ledford and Gast, 2018). Researcher in present study
on topic cultural, economic and ethical impact of globalisation on marketing as well as HR
function has conducted the qualitative research, The main rationale for execution of qualitative
research is that it helps investigator in execution of in depth research on topic. In addition to this,
other reason for selection of qualitative research is that it provides researcher an ease in
collecting the information related to the topic of investigation.
Research philosophy : It is basically an assumption or belief about the methodology which can
be utilised for accumulations, analysis and interpretation of information. Most popular and
mostly used researcher philosophy are interpretivism and positivism. Investigator for conducting
the investigation on topic cultural, economic and ethical effect of globalisation has used
interpretive research philosophy (Guercini, 2014.). Rationale for selecting the interpretivism
research philosophy is that it is the philosophy which is based on naturalistic approach of data
collection which enables researcher to ensure the high validity of information.
Research approach: It is basically a process which is based on assumption related to the
detailed methodology of information accumulation, analysing and interpretation of data. The
two most commonly used research approaches are inductive and deductive. Researcher in
context of present study on cultural, ethical and economic effect of globalisation on HR as well
as marketing function has utilised the Inductive research approach (Fletcher, 2017). Rationale for
selecting the inductive research approach is that it enables investigator to form the new
hypothesis using the data collected from different sources.
Research design: It can be defined as plan which is especially designed to answer the research
questions. The various types of research design are experimental, exploratory, explanatory and
descriptive research design. Researcher in present study has utilised the explanatory research
design. The main reason because of which investigator has selected the explanatory research
design is that it provides investigator an ease in describing the phenomenon. In addition to this,
investigator has selected the explanatory research design as it assist them in developing the in
depth understanding about the topic.
Sampling : It is the research procedure which includes selecting the few people as participants in
the investigation. In context of present study, investigator has performed the investigation
activity considering the limitation of costs, resources and time. There are number of techniques

which can be used for selecting people as participants in research are random, purposive, cluster,
sanctified, systematic etc (Clarke, 2018) Researcher for executing investigation on specific topic
has utilised the purposive random sampling. Investigator has selected the purposive sampling
method, as investigator are aware about the participant from whom they can collect information
about the cultural, economic and ethical effect of globalisation on marketing and HR functions of
company. In context of present investigation, scholar has selected the 20 managers working in
John lewis organisation. Investigator has chosen manager as participants as researcher believes
that managers are people who can provide the detailed information about the topic.
Data collection : Both primary and secondary sources has been used for collecting the
information related to the topic. Researcher has selected both the sources for data collection, as it
assist them in collecting the detailed information about the topic. Investigator has utilised the
questionnaire method for collecting the information cultural, economic and ethical effect of
globalisation on marketing as well as HR functions of an organisation (Boyd, 2017). In addition
to this, secondary data has been gathered using the books, journals, magazines etc. Secondary
data has been gathered in order to analyse the perception of different people as well as authors
about the topic.
Data analysis: It involves refining of data in order to extract meaningful information. The
method which has been used by investigator in present study for analysing the information is
thematic analysis (Adhariani, Sciulli and Clift, 2017). Reason because of which investigator has
selected the specific technique for data analysis is that it helps in making the research report
presentable. Different themes has been prepared by investigator based on the questions as well as
answers provided by respondents.
ACTIVITY 3
P5. Data analysis
Thematic analysis is the technique which has been used in present study by scholar for
analysing the data.
Theme 1 : Economic effect globalisation on Firm.
Ques 1. According to you, What type of economic effect
globalisation on Firm ?

 Positive 10
 negative 4
 Both 6
Interpretation : From the information present in the above table it has been analysed that out of
20, there are 10 participants those who perceives that globalisation has positive economic effect
globalisation have on the company. They have given such answers by analysing the financial
performance of organisation.
Theme 2: Main Ethical issue faced by John lewis company due to globalisation in context of
international marketing
Positive negative Both
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Series1

Ques 2. What is the main Ethical issue faced by John lewis company
due to globalisation in context of international marketing ?
 Deceptive marketing 5
 selective advertisement 11
 Price wars 4
Interpretation : It has been found from the above diagram that there are 11 out of 20 respondent
those who stated that firm selective advertisement is the main issue faced by organisation. Those
participants have given such answering through their observation that an enterprise is struggling
to select the best mode for promoting business.
Theme 3 : Culture of other nation have positive effect on business performance of John lewis.
Deceptive marketing
selective advertisement
Price wars
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Series1