Business and Business Environment Analysis: Merrill Lynch

This report analyzes the business environment, focusing on Merrill Lynch as an investment company. It begins by defining business and its environment, then explores various types of associations: public, private (Merrill Lynch), and voluntary, detailing their purposes, legal structures, scopes, sizes, and objectives. The report further examines the interconnectedness of business functions within Merrill Lynch and its company structure, including hierarchical and flat organizational structures. It then assesses the positive and negative impacts of the macro environment on business operations. The report also includes internal and external analyses of Merrill Lynch and relates its strengths and weaknesses to macro factors. The analysis covers the interplay between marketing, human resources, and other departments. The report aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the business and its environment, offering insights into organizational structure, business objectives, and environmental influences.

Business And Business
Environment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1: Types of associations and its purpose .............................................................................1
P2 Various kinds of establishment's scope, size, objective ...................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
P3 Interconnectivity between business function and its link with company structure...........5
P4. Positive and negative impacts of macro environment upon business operations............8
P5. Internal and external analysis of specific organisation..................................................10
P6 Relatedness of strength and weakness with macro factors ............................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
.......................................................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
A business is termed as an organisation or a system where the activity in regards to the
exchange of goods and services are performed so that the expectations of the users can be
fulfilled. Business is mainly concerned with the earning of maximum amount of profits. Along
with this, business environment is also refers to as the accumulation of all internal and external
factors which have significant impact over the operating of the association and its growth and
enhancement. For this current report the chosen association is Merrill Lynch which is an
investment company. This report has been prepared considering various forms of the
organisation that is private, public and voluntary association along with their roles, size, scope
and purpose. In addition to this the report also covers the study about the interconnectedness of
the different functional department of the organisation with the request of appropriate theories or
concepts that are associated to the business environment. At last, this project also study about the
various micro environmental factors such as internal and external and their impact on the
business environment(Babu, 2012).
TASK 1
P1: Types of associations and its purpose
Business is coined as the activity where an individuals seeks to earn profits by
performing the activity of buying and selling of the commodity in the market place. Every
business operates their business provide certain benefits and opportunities such as job
opportunity, growth and development opportunity etc. These various forms of business are as
mentioned :
Public
This refers to the form of business where all the activities are under the control of
government and are established with the aim to serve its citizens. Public organisations are also
termed as the association which are fully managed and controlled by the government authorities.
For instance – Bank of England is the public organisation that is fully operated by the
government authorities.
Purpose- The operating of this association is done with the aim of serving its public with
better quality of products and services rather than earning of profit. The main purpose of Bank
of England is to bring the economy towards the position of stability(Hillary, 2017).
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Legal structure-
Central government- Central government is refers to the authority which is responsible
for managing and operating of the whole nations. These are those which regulate the nations as a
whole by raising funds from the collection of Tax from the general public.
State government- These are those which perform their activities as per the guidance and
instruction given to them by the central government and the national authorities.
Local government- These authorities generally perform their work depending upon the
rules and regulation which have been laid by the senior authorities(Zeng and Duan, 2012).
Private
Private business is that form of business which is not controlled by the government
authorities and are fully managed and controlled by the individual proprietor with the aim of
earning profits. These mainly work so that the needs and demands of the public can be served in
a better way and maximum amount of profit can be gained. Merrill Lynch is a private firm which
operate with the aim to serve the customers so that profit can be earn in a large amount(Gupta,
2013).
Purpose- The prime purpose of these business form is to earn profits as much as they
can by rendering the commodity and services as per the demands of their potential users. The
business of Merrill Lynch operates their association with the purpose to create risk allocation
constitution.
Legal structure-
Sole proprietorship- Sole proprietorship is that form of the business which is entirely
managed by the individual with the aim to bear all the risks and profits which is associated with
the functioning of the business.
Partnership- These forms of the business are operated by the two or more individual by
contracting to operate the business in the form of partnership. Here no one has its own single
entity.
Limited company- These are those kind of business in which the liability of the partners
are limited(Eurich, Weiblen and Breitenmoser, 2014).
Voluntary- these firms generally operates their business with the aim to work for the social
development of the society and to serve the customer with the motive to provide them a certain
range of benefits. In this all the individuals come voluntarily with the aim to serve people with a
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good cause. Small Charities Coalition is the non profit organisation where the motive is not to
earn profit but the motive is to serve people voluntarily.
Purpose- The main purpose behind the operating of these voluntarily association is to
serve society, people with the good cause for their development and enhancement of the living
standard rather than to earn profit. The purpose of these Small Charities Coalition is to serve the
people who are in need so that their wills and wants can be served in an effective way.
Legal structure-
Trust- These involves trustees who are very keen to work for the society and its welfare
without any of their personal cause.
Unincorporated association- In this people come together with the will to work for the
social welfare of the society fostering common interest among them(Zikmund and et. al., 2013).
P2 Various kinds of establishment's scope, size, objective .
Private – Merrill Lynch
Vision: The business operates with the vision to foster relationship with their customers
so that large customers base can be built.
Mission: the business work with the mission to render high quality of products to their
customers so that their needs and demands get satisfied.
Business Objectives: business aims to become renounced within a short period of time by
attracting large number of customers towards their products so that market share as well as
customer base can be strengthen(Iyer and Henderson, 2012).
Size: The Business operates its operation with the number of staff available to them that
is 16250 so that the demands and expectation of the large number of customers get satisfied
within the time frame. The business of Merrill Lynch offer their customers with variety of goods
and services which are described within the diagrams such as :
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Scope: The business has the scope to cover the finance investment market by operating
its outlets to various places. The numbers of Outlets that business seeks to established are 2700.
Public: Bank of England
Vision: The business of Bank Of England operate their business with the Vision to
encourage people to open their account and invest money.
Mission: The business of Bank of England seeks to grow in the market by covering the
15 % of the market within a given time frame. It also has a mission to develop the habit of
people to extract money from the bank in the form of loans and interest(Zeng and Duan, 2012).
Business objectives: The objective of the Bank Of England behind the operating of their
business is to reduce the burden of the general public regarding their financial issues and
conflicts. The business also operates its business with the aim to support public in their
investment decision by guiding them regarding the best policies.
Size: Bank of England Holds 8000 employees within their business considering all the
functional units within the business. The business of Bank Of England seeks to achieve and
expand its business in the market by capturing 50% of the market(Lenssen and et. al., 2013).
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Scope: The Scope for the Business of Bank Of England is wider as the business can
expand its financial market by creating a visibility for the public and also by providing financial
stability so that the firms can operate their operations for a long lasting period of time.
Voluntary: Small Charities Collection
Vision: The business has the vision to create awareness among the public regarding the
saving of the finance for the welfare purpose, home and also to work for the welfare of the
society.
Mission: Small Charities Collection works with the mission to improve the social welfare
and also to develop the social well being of the poor people so that the properness within the
society can be maintained in an effective way.
Business objectives: The main objective of Small Charities Collection is to help the
people who are in need by raising the funds from the various sources so that the activity of social
welfare can be performed and the poor people can be helped.
Size: Small Charities Collection works for the welfare of the society with the team of
15000 member who have come voluntarily to serve the society with the best. These also seeks to
increase their number of worker by promoting this society welfare concept as much as they can.
Scope: The business have the large scope in development and enhancement of their
society by social well being and also has the wider scope to aware people by encouraging them
towards the activity of welfare(Saleem, 2015).
TASK 2
P3 Interconnectivity between business function and its link with company structure.
Every business works with the aim to earn more and more profit by satisfying their
customers demands and expectation. In order to achieve the targeted goals and objective every
business encourages the concepts of collectivism where all the member and employees works in
a coordinated manner so that the desired goals can be attained in the most hard hitting manner.
Therefore to accomplish the goal in the most systematic manner the business must focus on its
structure and procedure of their working so that the business can easily gain a competitive
advantage over other firms. Various structure of Merrill Lynch with their associated roles and
responsibilities are as follows :
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Interpretation: As per the diagram it can be interpreted that the business of Merrill Lynch
follows a complete procedure and a systematic process for their working starting from the top
management to the bottom level. The management has focus on the distribution of the work
dividing two main groups that is Merrill Lynch Group inc. which is further subdivided into
investments, credit products and Mortgage. Through this the business of Merrill Lynch is able to
perform their operations in the most smooth and effective manner by allocating the work to
different different functional units as per determining their ability, strength and weakness. So
that overall performance of the business can be enhanced(Rocha, 2012).
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Interpretation: As per the above mentioned diagram it can be analysed that the manager of the
Merrill Lynch work with the flat structure where the work has been divided by the chairman to
its subordinates where they exercise control over other functional units and guides them to
perform the task in such as manner so that the business goals can be attained within the specific
time period(Iyer and Henderson, 2012).
Analysis: From both the given structure the business works well with the hierarchical structure
as this focuses on the knowledge and skills and one specialisation in performing the work
whereas in the flat structure only the order is given rather than considering the specialists due to
which the cost to perform the operation within the business increases(Spieth and Schneider,
2016).
There are also some of the departments within the business of Merrill lynch which are
interconnected to each other such as :
Marketing and Human resource departments: Both these departments are
interconnected to each other as in order to increase the brand image of the company the manager
of the Merrill Lynch has to focus more on the activity of promotion of the products,
advertisement of the products for which they will require highly skilled workforce who are
capable enough to perform this activity of promoting the brand that is Merrill Lynch by their
proper skills and knowledge so that large number of customers can be attracted towards the
brand.
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Marketing and Finance department : Interconnectedness of these department within
the business plays a vital role as marketing and availability of the finance for the marketing
activity is rendered by the finance departments only. Marketing departments perform various
activities such as analysing the market and formulating of the strategies on the basis of their
analysation. For the formulation of strategies and plans the funds which is required is provided
by the finance department only so that Merrill Lynch can perform their task in the most Hard
hitting manner by controlling unnecessary cost of the operations(Guarda and et. al., 2013).
P4. Positive and negative impacts of macro environment upon business operations
PESTLE analysis is a technique which is used to examine the external factors which
impact the operations of an organisation. It conduct research of macro environment and find
various aspects which can affect an organisation. It gives valuable insight to the operational
activities of company which they will face in future. It involves the prevention from uncertainties
and also protect the investors and owners from taking part in risky activities and aware about the
various unstable practices.
Political: These factors will impact the productivity and profitability and can diverse the survival
chances of an organisation. Political risks may fluctuate according to the government or
decisions taken by government. In case of Merrill Lynch, if political changes takes place then it
not only affect the business operations but also those companies who are engage with Merrill
Lynch. Company need to consider various factors before its investment:
 Recent years political stability of the country.
 Laws which company imposed such as contract law which states that what is all allowed
or not allowed to the company.
 Low wages to employees which results in increasing the chances of survival of Merrill
Lynch(Rose And et. al., 2013). Taxation policy which can demotivate the company in terms of profits and productivity.
Economical: These factors will related to the economy of country such as changes in inflation
rate, foreign exchange rate, GDP, interest rate and other stages of economic cycle. These factors
will impact the demand, investment and business climate. Factors which can impact Merrill
Lynch:
 Growth of GDP will affect the growth of Merrill Lynch in future.
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 Interest rates would affect that borrowing and investment of an individual as higher rate
of interest would result in huge investment(Zikmund and et. al., 2013). High unemployment will affect the wage system as Merrill Lynch can offer lower wages
in order to provide jobs to people.
Social: These factors would directly reflect the society in which Merrill Lynch operates and
factors are culture, belief, values impact the people. Social factors not only necessary for the
operational purpose but also for the marketing purpose. Merrill Lynch should conduct market
research in order to analyse the customers lifestyle, requirements, beliefs in society which can
affect the success factor of an organisation. Various factors which affect Merrill Lynch are:
 Sociology of the population, respective age, gender and income of people which can
impact the productivity of market(Smith And et. al., 2013). Merrill Lynch is not able to promote premium product if the most of the population
belongs to lower class that would rely on the local market.
Technological: These factors will rapidly change in order to gain competitive advantage of
business environment and important to innovate something for the interest of increasing profits
and become a leader of market. Factors which influence Merrill Lynch are:
 Merrill Lynch can adopt new technology to gain popularity and be a leader in the
industry and it is important to observe the level of popularity and the growth of
competitors as well. Improvement of technology will affect the offerings of product and also evaluates the
improvement is good for the organisation or not, if not then how would it impact the
industry.
Legal: Government institutions and structure will legally affect the organisation in its success.
As if, Merrill Lynch's own policies are not enough to protect the workers and itself can appear an
undesirable place of employment that can repel talented workers. Various factors which are
consider are as:
 Intellectual laws and other data protection laws protect the ideas and copyright of
company. If data is stolen in any case then company can lose its competitive edge and the
chances of failure will gets increase(Nishitani and et. al., 2012). Discrimination laws are developed by government in order to protect the rights of
employees and make sure that everyone is treated fairly at the workplace.
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