Individual Report: Examining Leadership and Management at NEXT PLC

This report provides an in-depth analysis of NEXT PLC, a UK-based multinational clothing brand, focusing on its leadership style, management practices, and historical background. The report examines NEXT's participative leadership approach, where employees are involved in decision-making, fostering a creative and collaborative environment. It also details the company's management practices, including commitment, team efforts, regular meetings, seeking clarity, employee training, and feedback mechanisms. Through a detailed analysis of these elements, the report offers recommendations, such as adopting a delegative leadership style and implementing a counseling team, to enhance employee morale, improve decision-making skills, and boost overall organizational performance and profitability. The report concludes that effective leadership is crucial for organizational success, providing direction and influencing workers to achieve company goals.

INDIVIDUAL
REPORT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1.History and summary of the organisation................................................................................1
2. Vision, leadership style and management practices................................................................2
3. Analysis of above data............................................................................................................4
4. Recommendation to the organisation......................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Leadership is the individual's ability to lead their teams or entire organisation(What Is
Leadership. 2018). It is about how does the organisation manages to achieve its goals by taking
decisive decisions and by influencing others to perform. It is also termed as leadership provide a
path or direction to the business organisation and focuses on how does employees perform their
task effectively. For understanding the concept of leaders and their strategies or practices, NEXT
is taken as example. It is a UK based multinational clothing brand which also deals in footwear
and home products. Company came into existence in 1864. With the help of this, a research will
be conducted to find out the company's background and what are the management practices &
leadership style an organisation chooses for achieving their goals.
1.History and summary of the organisation
NEXT is an clothing brand which was founded 155 years back in 1864 by Joseph
Hepworth. This company was started in a partnership as a tailor shop by its founder and its
name was Joseph Hepworth & son. After that, founder decided to expand its business and till
1884 the company had developed chain stores in Britain with almost 100 outlets. In 1963,
company decided to revitalise its ready made suit collection for which they hired a designer to
help them out. In 1981, company decided to buy womenswear retail shop Kendall & sons which
provided them around 600 store in British high street(Kebede and et. al., 2016). They bought it
because they wanted to make it as a complement to their Hepworth chain of menswear store.
After happening of this takeover, chairman of the company hired George Davies for working at
Kendall's. It was Davies's idea to create a chain called NEXT by converting stores of Kendall.
First shop of Next opened in 1982 and gradually till 1984 some of the Hepworth stores was also
converted and started selling women's & men's cloth together. In 1986, company's headquarter
was shifted from Leeds to Leicester so that they can stay close to their manufactures and after
that again organisation's name was changed to NEXT PLC. Till 1987, they acquired Grattan
catalogue for expanding its business and for introducing children's wear stores. After growing for
seven years, in 1988 company was over expanded and was sacked and sold some of their
jewellery stores. In 2008 it bought youth brand called LIPSY and launched their online catalogue
for US clothing offerings.
SUMMARY:
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NEXT is a multinational company which is dealing in clothing, footwear and other items.
It is working worldwide with more than 700 outlets. It is one of the oldest organisation of UK
working since 1864. Company always had strong financial support which really helped them in
acquiring other organisations for increasing their profitability. After analysing its history, it can
be said that year by year Next has achieved more and more success. It has adopted three different
channels for selling their products and that are Next retail stores, next directory (home shopping
catalogue) and its website. Company has a good customer base with 3 million active buyers and
it has some other business also like Lipsy which its acquired in 2008.
RATIONAL
Main purpose of choosing NEXT is because it is one of the oldest organisation working
in UK as well as in other countries also. It has a large customer base and it is a well established
company with a good leaders and managers working for them. There is lot more to learn from it
about the way it carries their activities and performance. Company's history is very much
interesting about the way it acquired so many brands and make one big brand called NEXT.
2. Vision, leadership style and management practices
Company's vision is to deliver some long term returns to their stakeholders by combining
earning per share of sustainable growth and payment of dividend. And to provide their customers
quality products at good price(Hyppönen and et. al., 2017).
Leadership style:
Leadership style is a way of leaders to perform. Every organisation have some people
who lead the actives performed by staff of the company. Every leader have their won style of
doing it, so do NEXT.
Company's leader is following participative or democratic leadership style in which they involve
some employees in decision making process but final decision is made by leaders only. They opt
this style because it shows a sign of respect to staff which increase their morale and they
performs with complete dedication (Lugtig, 2016). NEXT use it because sometime it is not
necessary that leader have all the information, their employees can have better knowledge than
managers and it can be helpful for them. More participation of employees bring creative &
innovative solutions for the problems. It also help in building a string team and foster a creative
environment.
Management practices:
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It is the way or method to perform tasks by the managers of the organisation. These
practices are made for bringing the innovation ans quality in work. Management practices also
help companies in improving their working system effectively.
 Stay committed: One of the major practice that each one working in NEXT has to
follow is to stay committed for the work they are assigned. This is because it help them
and the organisation in improving the performance of the company and increasing its
profitability. Lack of commitment toward work can create delay in performance and
poor decision making which directly affect the company's performance and stifles the
productivity.
 Focus on team efforts: This management practice is followed by the NEXT in which
organisation put their efforts in creating team and putting their energy to make sure that
they get their task according to their skill. It is not enough, company also train their
teams for improving its performance so that organisation can achieve their goals. It is
important for Next to have team so that their employees does not get distracted by
individual activities (Schall and et. al., 2018).
 Hold regular meetings: This is also a management practice followed by NEXT PLC
organisation, in which they understand the importance of meeting and regularly hold
meeting. This is done because when people sit together with a problem , they can easily
find the solution by discussing with each other. Every person have different view point
which help the organisation in finding the solution (Dasgupta, Jain and Aly, 2016).
Apart from this, regular meetings is also conducted by the NEXT because it help their
employees to put their personal issues in front of the head so that as soon as possibles
their issues can be sorted out. Company hold different meeting according to the purpose.
It helps in creating & keeping a healthy organisation.
 Seek clarity: In organisation like NEXT, they follow this management practice because
without clarification among employees and managers it will be very difficult for staff to
perform. Organisation make sure to clarify some common questions of employees like
reason behind the existence of company, how to perform, what to perform, to whom to
report etc. All these are the basic questions that every employees have in their mind.
NEXT make sure that each on of them get clear about their confusion.
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 Training of employees: This management practice is followed by next in which they
train their new employees as well as existing or old employees for updating their skills &
knowledge. It invest good amount on training of their staff so that they can improve their
performance which in return increase organisational performance and productivity.
 Feedback : NEXT is engaged in this management practice also, they regularly give their
employees feedback of their work or performance. It is the method of showing mirror to
the staff so that they can understand themselves. It also help in understanding the
weakness and strength of the individual so that it can enhance the later and eliminate the
former. Feedback also help organisation to improve their staff performance.
3. Analysis of above data
 Next is using participative or democratic leadership style for leading the
performance of the organisation. In which they take help some of their employees
for completing their task. For example, manager of NEXT get order from the top
management to increase their production and to bring changes or innovation into
the product. For making changes manager need to think about it first and then
have to take decisions. It is very difficult for manager to take such a big decision
without any help or advice. So manager asked their three top employees to give
their ideas, by doing this manager get four to five different and innovative ideas to
make changes into their product. From those suggestion, leader picked one best
ideas and applied it (Darnall and Russell, 2015).
 Hold regular meeting : This is a management practice that organisation chooses
for solving problems. For example when NEXT sale falls down it calls a meeting
for the entire department. They do this because every person will give some ideas
to improve this situation. In this meeting each person given chance to speak their
idea in front of everyone and then a short discussion goes for every idea. By doing
this, company collect pool of ideas and ask every person attending the meeting to
arrange them preference wise on a paper(Schall and et. al., 2018). More number
of votes for first idea will be selected. Organisation chooses this method because
it help them in taking collective decisions by discussing it with everyone so that
no one feel uninvolved in any manner.
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 Training of employees: Company perform this management practice for
improving the performance of their employees. For example company decided to
update their technology for improving their performance. But non of the
employee of NEXT is aware of that technology and no one from them ever used
it(Wiech and et. al.,2017). In that case it is the duty or responsibility of managers
and leaders to give training to their staff of using it so that they can use it without
any difficulty and delay.
4. Recommendation to the organisation
Some of the recommendation that I want to give to the organisation for their better
performance and to increase their productivity/profitability are-:
 Instead of using democratic leadership style, NEXT should opt for the delegative or
laissez fair style. In this style, leaders or managers allow their employees to take
decisions. Company should choose it because by this they will be able to train their
employees to deal in difficult situations and also improve their decision making skills.
Although their leaders are responsible for it but still it is a good way of delegating
responsibilities . It will increase employee's morale and raise their satisfaction level
which help them in performing better and to achieve the goals of the company.
 Company should organise a counselling team in their company which can help their
employees in sharing their problems. This is because sometimes employees have some
issues either work related or personal which they don't feel like sharing with any one and
that reduce their morale and also affect their performance (Carlgren, Elmqvist, and
Rauth, 2016). So for protecting organisation from that loss, NEXT need to focus on
issues solving secessions of their staff so that they can work without any burden or
tension. By hiring permanent counsellors, company can make it possible. They can ask
their employees to regularly attend counselling secessions which will help them in
staying happy about their work and their life.
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CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that leaders are the important part for any
organisation in performing their activities and to achieve the goals and success of the firm. It has
been also learned that it provide a direction to the workers to perform their task which in return
improve the overall performance of the company. Other than this, importance of different
leadership style opted by the leaders has also been observed in this report. This assignment also
helped me in understanding the different management practices that organisation can perform
and what importance does each practice posses.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Carlgren, L., Elmqvist, M. and Rauth, I., 2016. Exploring the use of design thinking in large
organizations: Towards a research agenda. Swedish design research journal. 11(1).
pp.55-63.
Darnall, D. M. and Russell, W., 2015. Understanding Project Management A Three Dimensional
Model for Understanding Projects and the Implications for Developing a Project
Management Plan.
Dasgupta, S., Jain, S. K. and Aly, A. M., 2016. Neonatal hypotension, the role of hydrocortisone
and other pharmacological agents in its management. J Pediatr Child Care. 2(1). p.8.
Hyppönen and et. al., 2017. Nordic eHealth benchmarking: From piloting towards established
practice. Nordic Council of Ministers.
Kebede and et. al., 2016. Community knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) on fluorosis and
its mitigation in endemic areas of Ethiopia. African Journal of Food, Agriculture,
Nutrition and Development. 16(1). pp.10711-10722.
LA PHYTOREMÉDIA, T.D.G.Y., PHYSIOLOGIQUES, A.E.E. and GOMES, M.P., 2015.
UNIVERSITÉ DU QUÉBEC À MONTRÉAL.
Lugtig, S., 2016. A Vision for Experiential Education at Robson Hall: Supporting Students'
Transition to Practice. Man. LJ. 39, p.397.
Schall and et. al., 2018. Understanding stakeholder perspectives on agricultural best
management practices and environmental change in the Chesapeake Bay: AQ
methodology study. Journal of rural studies, 60. pp.21-31.
Schall and et. al., 2018. Understanding stakeholder perspectives on agricultural best
management practices and environmental change in the Chesapeake Bay: AQ
methodology study. Journal of rural studies. 60. pp.21-31.
Wiech and et. al.,2017. Effects of cooking and freezing practices on the distribution of cadmium
in different tissues of the brown crab (Cancer pagurus). Food control. 75, pp.14-20.
Online
What Is Leadership. 2018 . [online] . Available
through<https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_41.htm>
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