Merrill Lynch Business Environment Analysis - BTEC L4 Unit 1

This report analyzes the business environment of Merrill Lynch, a financial services company. It begins by defining different types of organizations, including public, private, and voluntary entities, and their respective purposes. The report then examines the scope, size, and objectives of Merrill Lynch, BBC, and the Small Charities Coalition. It delves into the interconnectivity of business functions, such as human resources and marketing, and links these functions to company structure, comparing hierarchical and flat organizational models. Furthermore, the report applies PESTLE analysis to assess external factors influencing the business and utilizes a SWOT analysis to evaluate the internal environment, relating strengths and weaknesses to macro factors. The report concludes with an overview of the key findings and insights regarding Merrill Lynch's business operations and environment.

Programme Title BTEC Pearson L4 in Business
Unit Number and Title Unit 1-Business and Business Environment
Targeted Learning
outcomes
LO1, LO2, LO3 and LO4
Referred Pass Merit Distincti
on
Unit Final Grade
Learning Outcomes Feedback Grades
awarde
d
LO 1
LO 2
LO 3
LO 4
Guidance for improvement / Action Plan / General comments
Date assignment marked:__________________________

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1 ...........................................................................................................................................1
P1 Types of organisation and its purpose ..............................................................................1
P2 Different kinds of establishment's scope, size, objective ...............................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
P3 Interconnectivity between business function and its link with company structure ..........5
..........................................................................................................................................................8
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................9
P4 Implication of PESTLE to examine external factor .........................................................9
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................12
P5 Application of SWOT analysis to analyse internal environment ...................................12
P6 Relatedness of strength and weakness with macro factors ............................................14
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................15
REFERNCES ................................................................................................................................16
.......................................................................................................................................................18

INTRODUCTION
An organisation contains its own surrounding or atmosphere in which it operates its
purpose or aim in order to accomplish their pre determined goal in an effective and efficient
manner within prescribed time limit. Moreover, business environment signifies that it is a
combination of internal and external factors which has direct influence over company's
potentiality to attain its desired productivity and profitability ratio. Along with this, there are
several types of organisation like private, public, voluntary and so on in which each of them
contains its own roles and regulations for achieving its objective in a better way without any
hindrances. Furthermore, an establishment is formed with different department and that is
interlinked with each other that lead company to obtain profit maximisation with an optimal
utilisation of resources (Aithal, 2016). Under this report, Merrill Lynch Investment company has
been considered ,which is one the fastest growing firm in UK and it is introduced in the year of
1914. It operates into financial services and serves its operation across the globe. Moreover, in
this document, it comprises different kinds of organisation and explains its size, scope, purpose,
legal structure. Furthermore, relationship between various departments, application of suitable
theories or concepts to determine business environment. Finally, analyse positive and negative
impact of external macro factors is also mentioned here.
TASK 1
P1 Types of organisation and its purpose
Enterprise and organisations refers to a firm under which businesspersons operate and run their
business with various purposes like earning profit, creating job opportunities, social growth and
others. There are various types of organisations, they are as following:
Public
It indicates to those firms and organisations under which government operating and
running their business. On the other-hand, it can be those firms whose business activities and
operations are managed, operated and controlled by the national authorities (Bah and Fang,
2015). BBC is a UK's largest and reputed public service broadcaster which was incorporated in
the year of 1922.
Purpose- The foremost purpose of public organisation is to enhance the life standard of
community and society rather than making centring on generating profit. However, in relation to
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BBC, its main aim is to render or communicate the impartial information to people in order to
create awareness and enhancing their knowledge potentiality in an innovative and creative
manner.
Legal structure-
Central government- It refers to those national authorise which have power to regulate
the entire functioning of the nation. They get fund in the from of tax which is collected from the
people of the nation (Vinichenko and et.al., 2016).
State government- It controlled by central government and work according their
guidance. It countenance after the publicity of the economic system of the administrative
division.
Local government-These kind of legal framework of national authorities acts according
to legislations and higher government.
Private
It indicates to those firms which are running and operated by individuals but not
controlled and monitored by government. These kind of companies are operated to fulfil the
needs and demands of customers and earning profits. Merrill Lynch Investment is a private
organisation which was founded in 1914 and operated its business in New York, US.
Purpose- The major purpose of private enterprises are to earn profit, making expansion in their
business and produce goods and services according to their customer's needs (Bashir and Verma,
2017). The purpose of Merrill Lynch Investment is to design risk allocation structure for goal
oriented investing strategies.
Legal structure-
Sole proprietorship- These kind of business are run and operated by a single entity which
is not an incorporated body. The owner is answerable for all the business actions, operations,
activities and liabilities etc.
Partnership- In these kind of business, there are two people involved. This kind of
business are not incorporated body and have a isolate legal entity.
Limited company- it consist private firms which consider limited liabilities and basically
occupied in medium or small size businesses.
Voluntary- It refers to those firms which operated their business for social development. They
run they business with a group of individuals who enter into an agreement, usually as volunteers.
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Small Charities Coalition is a voluntary firm which is also known as non profit organisation and
it was founded in 2008.
Purpose- The main objective of voluntarily organisations are to work for improving the society,
make development in the living standard of people and providing employment to local people
etc. The purpose of Small Charities Coalition is to provide relevant support to needed individuals
and make their voice heard.
Legal structure-
Trust- It include trustees who provide fund for the welfare of the firm. It is a separate
legal entity which is not focus on earning profit and work for social development.
Unincorporated association- It is a group of people who have common interest and they
work for the social benefits (Peters, Blohm and Leimeister, 2015)
P2 Different kinds of establishment's scope, size, objective
Private – Merrill Lynch
Vision: To develop and foster positive and long lasting relations with consumers along
with making the high quality products accessible to a large base of audience.
Mission: To offer high quality products in market to gain maximum satisfaction from
customers.
Business Objectives: To become the number one firm within the financial service sector
by meeting the needs and preferences of customers, thus adding value to the brand name and
enhancing the market share (Ojala, 2016).
Size: This firm has a staff of 15,100 who give significant contribution towards producing
the products of best quality for gaining competitive advantage in market and ensuring its long
term sustainability. There are number of offerings by the Merrill Lynch such as finance, home,
health, family, leisure, giving and work as given in the diagram.
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Scope: This organisation has a scope to gain access to investment management services
with a total of its 2500 outlets.
Public: BBC
Vision: The vision of the BBC is to “generate a world where there will no possibility of
arising misconception or unbiased information which enrich the knowledge ratio of each and
every individual of society. (Belás and et.al., 2014).
Mission: BBC key mission is to serve the public by providing impartial and high quality
output or message which act as information, education and entertainment in a amended manner.
Business objectives: To generate sustainable profitability by 20% in upcoming one year
by optimising available resources in an impressive and efficient way. (Stieninger and Nedbal,
2014).
Size: BBC presently has 35,402 employees who are highly skilled and capable of
acquiring any modification for the benefit of organisation in terms of raising their profit and
productivity.
Scope: BBC has wide range of scope as it operates 10 television network and radio
services as well as huge presence in 46 radio services in an advanced manner. Additionally, they
deliver the services like journalism, broadcasting and corporate roles in order to fain competitive
advantage in a better way.
Voluntary: Small Charities Collection
Vision: Main vision of Small Charities Collection is to promote health and social welfare
to the society along with intention to create awareness for financial saving, home and social
development and enrichment.
Mission: The mission of the Small Charities Collection is to develop social well-being,
financial empowerment to the poor people and spreading social message so as to maintain
decorum into the society (Griffith and Dimitrova, 2014).
Business objectives: Main aim of the Small Charities Collection is to collect fund and
creates channels for the welfare to the people. They act as family culture, helpful to give work
based assistance and assist into medical support for poor children and people.
Size: Small Charities Collection is currently have volunteer amounted to the 12000
people who worked with aim and purpose of the social awareness and promotes people welfare
at the larger scale or size.
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Scope: The scope of the Small Charities Collection is based on long welfare of the people
along with chain of awareness for people. Almost, they have full-fledged dream is to takes care
of the social development and encouraging society to act be fair.
TASK 2
P3 Interconnectivity between business function and its link with company structure
For accomplishing business goal or objective in an efficacious manner, an establishment
requires proper coordination and cooperation within working culture as it enable them to attain
increased level of productivity and profitability in an efficient way within prescribed time limit.
Hence, to accomplish the task without any hindrances, a structure and chart is required which act
as a guidance and direction to manger in order to gain competitive advantage in a better way.
There are several types of structures which contain its own roles and responsibilities for
achieving pre determined goal. However, some of them are described below:
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Interpretation: It has been analysed from the above shown diagram that the entire business
process of Merrill Lynch Company is function in hierarchical structure and they delegated their
work into two groups i.e. Merrill Lunch Group. Inc. which is followed by different division such
as Investment, Credit products and Mortgage. The other division is Merrill Lynch Bank & Trust
who manage Credit Corporation USA branch. Hence, with the help of this, Merrill Lynch firm is
enable to function their procedure in a smooth manner as each work is assigned to different
manpower which help them to examine its strength and weakness effectively and can take
corrective course of action to enrich company's productivity.
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Interpretation: It has been examined from the the above shown diagram that the organisation
operate or function their working procedure in flat structure as it is leading by chairman who
monitor and control various sort of functional area and all of them are obliged to report to their
chairman.
Analysis: From the analysis of both structure, hierarchical structure is considered as best and
effective procedure as it enable very manpower to perform their own task according to the
capability which help them to bring more productivity. On the contrary, flat structure is mainly
centring over generalists rather than specialists which may give rise to decrease in proficiency
ratio of company. Thus, in order to survive within competing marketplace for longer time as well
as to maintain best working culture hierarchical structure helps an organisation to attain the same
in an impressive or productive way.
In a business enterprise, there are several sort of functional areas which perform unique
set of roles and responsibilities and it makes them different from each other. Along with this, its
foremost objective is to accomplish organisational common goal in an effectual or economical
way without any obstacle (Belás and et,. al., 2015). However, in regard of Merrill Lynch
Investment some of its business function which are interconnected with each other are discussed
below:
Human Resource department and Marketing: In Merrill Lynch Investment, both these
functional areas are regarded as integral component as they contribute their best effort towards
an attainment of organisational goal in a better way. However, in order to expand the
productivity ratio of an organisation, its human resource function approach marketing
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department in terms of strengthening its proficiency ratio. Thus, marketing department makes an
initiative to organise job fare, campus recruitment, online advertisement and many more which
help Merrill Lynch to capture large number of personnel towards their brand and it benefits them
by improving overall performance in an innovative or creative style.
Marketing department and Finance function: Under this aspect, these two functional
areas plays a crucial role which lead them to acquire best positioning among competitive
marketplace (Biloslavo, Bagnoli and Edgar, 2018). However, for promoting their service in an
advances it makes a decision to adopts different kinds of marketing strategies in order to enrich
profitability ratio. Henceforth, finance departments provide sufficient amount of funds to
marketing department which help Merrill Lynch to enlarge its market size or share as well as can
reach all targeted customer in a better manner without any hindrances. Some of the tactics which
they implies is that personnel selling, public relation, sales promotion for maximising the profit
margin level.
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TASK 3
P4 Implication of PESTLE to examine external factor
In today's scenario of an industry, it has been determined that there is an intense level of
competition between organisation which impact greatly over its proficiency and growth ratio.
However, PESTLE analysis is regarded as a powerful determinant which help an establishment
to evaluate its external business environment and also aid them to make corrective course of
action in order to gain competitive advantage in a improved way (Deasy and et. al., 2016).
Hence, Merrill Lynch Investment takes an effort to imply the same into its business operation
which are as follows:
Political: This factor comprises government policies, rules, regulation, political stability
which impact directly over company's productivity level.
Positive: However, in regard of Merrill Lynch it has undergoes with severe modification because
of introduction of Brexit into UK market and it influence negatively to Merrill Lynch. Hence, in
order to cope with negative issue, Merrill Lynch takes an attempt to make use of available
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