Business Report: An Analysis of Pearson Plc's Business Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Pearson Plc, a multinational publishing and education company. It begins with an overview of the business, key factors, and challenges faced by the company, followed by a SWOT analysis and an examination of Porter's Five Forces model to assess its competitive position. The report identifies key managerial and operational issues, such as reading habits, government involvement, and the transition to digital platforms. Part 2 focuses on a reflective report on key skills development, using Gibbs' reflective cycle model to evaluate communication and other essential skills. The report concludes with insights into Pearson Plc's strategic position and areas for improvement, along with a reflection on personal skills development and challenges faced. The report uses academic references to support its claims, including books and journals.

Individual Report

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
Overview of business along with key factors and business challenges .................................3
Swot analysis of Pearson Plc..................................................................................................4
Porter's five forces model.......................................................................................................5
Key managerial and operational issues faced by Pearson Plc................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
Part 2................................................................................................................................................8
Reflective report on key skills development..........................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Business environment is regarded as the sum of all individuals, institutions, and other
factors that affects the performance and productivity of any business. These factors are usually
not in a control of management, despite of the fact affect the overall profitability of a business.
Changes in customer needs and demands, technological advancements, political uncertainties,
change in government's economic policies, rise in the level of competition, arising new trends
and changes in taste and preferences of a customer (Kamariotou and Kitsios, 2019). Business
makes proper strategies with the detailed analysis of external factors and take the anticipated
measures so as to prevent from future uncertainties and challenges. Pearson Plc started its
business operation as construction but later in the year 1920 shifted its business from original to
publishing. It is a multinational publishing and education firm, headquartered at London,
England. Below mentioned report covers understanding of management theories, basics of micro
and macro economic, decision-making process and strategic management that affect the
performance of Pearson Plc. Apart from this development of distinct skills required to work in
team and analysing the external environment.
Main Body
Overview of business along with key factors and business challenges
Pearson Plc is a British multinational publishing and education company, started its
operation as a construction business in the year in the year 1840. The company entered into a
new market with a new products, in the year 1920, into a publishing sector. At present it is
regarded as one of the largest company in education and largest book publisher in the world
(Hmoud and Laszlo, 2019). Pearson business operations has majorly two streams which includes
Global line of business where a company provides textbooks and digital technologies for
teachers and students. Pearson's school brand includes BTEC,Bug club, Edexcel, Fronter,
GradPoint, Schoolnet etc. Whereas Pearson's higher education brand consists of e-colleges,
mastering, online tutoring, revel and financial time publishing. On the other hand, Pearson group
majorly focus on a concentrated market, that is North America. Pearson, with the help of around
20,000 employees deliver a quality of products and services across globe, nearly about 200
countries with the aim of helping everyone, including educational institutions, employers and
governments, in achieving their potential through learning. Company with the help of their

knowledge and expertise help millions of people access content, follow courses, sit assessment
and gain qualifications with the objective of developing engaged learning experiences (Pucihar
and et. al., 2019). One of the major strengths of Pearson Plc is that it solely focus on education
followed by its merger of Penguin books with Bertelsmann, a German conglomerate. On the
other hand, Pearson focus largely on North America market, which is sometimes regarded as its
weakness.
Swot analysis of Pearson Plc
Strengths Weakness
 Pearson has developed strong brand
portfolio over a period of time which in
turn is useful for company future
growth strategy.
 Pearson is a leading performer in
publishing industry which have been
achieved by investing heavily in human
resources through effective training and
development programmes (Burke and
Cowling, 2020).
 Pearson is one of the largest education
company, however the market share
captured by Pearson is more
concentrated towards North America.
 The product range offered by Pearson
Plc is limited, thus affects overall sales
revenue and profitability of a company
in long run (Bai, Cordeiro and Sarkis,
2020).
Opportunity Threats

 Pearson have set out a plan to go
sustainable which is based on three
pillars,learning for everyone, for a
better world and leading responsibly
which have opened a new path for
Pearson in future (Oliva and Kotabe,
2019).
 Pearson have been progressing through
strategic alliances and partnerships
which is going to be better opportunity
for growth and expansion in future.
 The area of operations of Pearson is
expanded over 200 countries, change in
the economic conditions and
government policies may result in a
sluggish growth of a company.
 New innovations and creative ideas
such as online free books, E
publications can pose a serious
challenge for Pearson's business
operations.
Porter's five forces model
Pearson Plc conduct Porter's five forces model so as to analyse its competitive position in a
market environment and to understand how and at what extent business is profitable with or
without the influence of these five factors. Bargaining power of suppliers : Pearson Plc purchase raw materials from distinct
supplier in distinct categories such as, real estate services, HR services, marketing
services, telecommunication and security (Burke and Cowling, 2020). Monopoly of
suppliers may affect the profitability of a company as procurement of raw materials with
a desired quality will be costly. Pearson Plc makes a strong supplier strategy which helps
in selecting and vetting appropriate suppliers matching their needs. Additionally Pearson
Plc maintains a strong relation with their supplier which helps in maintaining desired
profitability. Threat of new entrants : Whenever a new enterprise emerges, it comes with a creative
and innovative ideas which would serve the target market in a better and unique way.
Pearson's overall competitive position can slip down to a few steps below because of low
pricing strategy, reducing cost and services with more added value. Pearson plc manage
these challenges actively and on a proactive basis, as Pearson Plc is known for its
creative thinking and continuous development in the core areas as per the new emerging
trends (Lu, Wang and Xu, 2019).

 Bargaining power of buyers : Customer needs are endless and change over a period of
time. Existing customers may ask for a discounts and offers which in turn may affect the
overall profitability of a company. Pearson serves to the needs of approximately 200
countries, though the small and powerful customer base in North America that have a
high bargaining power. Pearson needs to focus on expansion of customer base, so that
change in needs and wants of a one customer segment would not affect the profitability
of a company. Threat of substitute products and services : Whenever a new product or services are
developed in order to serve needs and wants of customer in a unique way, is regarded as
threat to the Pearson Plc and can affect its competitive position (Pucihar and et. al.,
2019). Technological advancements are taking place at high pace rate and emergence of
new entrepreneurs are likely to arise with the development of innovative ideas, making it
a high possibility of threat. Pearson can avoid the threat by understanding the core needs
of customer and what are the factors that influence their buying decision.
 Rivalry among existing competitors : Intense competition in a media industry will affect
the overall performance and profitability of a company. Pearson is leading multinational
publishing and education firm operating since the year 1920. With time Pearson have
made significant growth and progress through making continuous changes as per the
changes in the market and needs and wants of customer (Hmoud and Laszlo, 2019).
Pearson have a low competition from other competitors because of its unique and
creative thinking approach.
Key managerial and operational issues faced by Pearson Plc
 Reading habits : One of the significant challenge faced by Pearson while going digitally
was to identify and analysing the reading habits of target market as these habits vary as
per the demographics regions.
 Government involvement in the industry : One of the major challenge faced by Pearson
Plc was intervention of government through formulation of rigid policies such as
adherence to patents, copyrights etc. (Kamariotou and Kitsios, 2019).
 Limited growth opportunity : Operating in a publishing and educational sector have
restricted the growth opportunities of Pearson Plc.

 Continuation of legacy : One of the major key issue faced by Pearson Plc was
maintaining its legacy of traditional business of print publishing while shifting towards
the modern way of publishing, that is digital platform.
CONCLUSION
From the above stated report it is concluded that the company's competitive position is
strong which can help in maintaining performance and profitability in long run. It is essential to
analyse external factors such as competitors, suppliers, customer and other political, economical,
social, technological and environmental factor which affect the business performance.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Lu, Y., Wang, H. and Xu, X., 2019. ManuService ontology: a product data model for service-
oriented business interactions in a cloud manufacturing environment. Journal of
Intelligent Manufacturing. 30(1). pp.317-334.
Burke, A. and Cowling, M., 2020. On the critical role of freelancers in agile economies. Small
Business Economics. 55(2). pp.393-398.
Oliva, F.L. and Kotabe, M., 2019. Barriers, practices, methods and knowledge management tools
in startups. Journal of knowledge management.
Bai, C.A., Cordeiro, J. and Sarkis, J., 2020. Blockchain technology: Business, strategy, the
environment, and sustainability. Bus. Strategy Environ. 29(1). pp.321-322.
Pucihar, A., and et. al., 2019. Drivers and outcomes of business model innovation—Micro, small
and medium-sized enterprises perspective. Sustainability. 11(2). p.344.
Hmoud, B. and Laszlo, V., 2019. Will Artificial Intelligence Take Over Humanresources
Recruitment And Selection?. Network Intelligence Studies. 7(13). pp.21-30.
Kamariotou, M. and Kitsios, F., 2019, July. Strategic Planning and Information Systems
Success: Evaluation in Greek SMEs. In 2019 IEEE 21st Conference on Business
Informatics (CBI) (Vol. 1, pp. 204-211). IEEE.

Part 2
Reflective report on key skills development
Self assessment or reflective report is an opportunity which allows an individual to look
back at past events, incidents or situation, on the basis of which an individual present a report
related with the positive and negative outcomes from that particular incident or event. The
analysis consists of series of action where an individual evaluates the various aspects of that
particular event or situation so as to find out the learning outcomes from those experiences
(Gibbs, 2018). Furthermore these self reflection or self-assessment is a process where an
individual reveals various negative and positive aspects of their learning and considers various
measures needs to be taken so as improve their overall performance. One of the significant and
effective model which is efficient in analysing the overall situation or event or incident is
through Gibbs model which consist of six steps that highlight the series of actions in detailed
manner and help in extracting the conclusion from those specified events. These steps are
description, felling, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan. In the context of the report,
it is essential to have and develop set of skills which will measure overall performance of an
individual at the time of learning and what challenges have been faced and what measures needs
to be taken with the aim of overcoming these challenges and problems (Chng, 2018).
Gibbs reflective cycle model was created by Graham Gibbs in the year 1988, which
offers a structured framework in order to examine experience and provides a platform in order to
plan and learn from positive outcomes from these experiences. Descriptive : Communication is a two way process where a sender sends a message with
a valuable context in order to deliver it to a receiver with the same meaning as intended.
My strong and effective communication skills helps in communicating with the team
members in objective and meaningful way. With an proper communication techniques I
have able to manage interactions with my colleagues, superiors and subordinates which
in turn helped me in formulation a strong and healthy relation with the team members.
Communication is composed of various skills such as listening, presentation skills,
writing skills, and personal skills apart from verbal and non-verbal communication skills
(Govender and Alcock, 2020). To be a good communicator one needs to be a good
listener, with my strong listening abilities I have been able to build trust among the team

members and have addressed the issues which leads to the conflicts and fights at a
workplace. Whereas, my writing skills have stagnated the progress in personal and
professional life. I have been facing problems in a formal and structured way with the
top level of management which is crucial in creating and marinating a strong
communicating network within an organisation. Feelings : It has been observed by myself that good communication skills help in
boosting confidence and satisfaction level of a person. With my strong communication
skills, subordinates under me were having a positive and confident attitude towards work
(Brooke, 2019). Communication skills helped me creating and developing a positive
work environment at work place which contribute directly towards enhancing overall
performance and productivity level of employees and an organisation. However, my self-
esteem was getting affected by the moderate writing skills, as I was unable to create any
formal report or presentation which is required to be presented quarterly on the basis of
performance of an employees and organisation. Evaluation : I found my strengths and weakness when I came across with more
challenging task and difficulties. Working in an organisation need a strong
communication skills and I found it to be my strength when I was asked to manage a
team of 15 people and provide them a required training and development programmes.
With my strong communication skills I had effectively manages the team and developed
a sense of trust and unity among the team members. With an good communication skills
in was able to find the areas where employees needs improvement. Apart from this, with
the help of communication skills, I have able to seek feedbacks and suggestions from the
employees which help in taking necessary measures whenever required. Analysis : As per the self-assessment I have analysed that one of my weak area in
communication skills was moderate writing skills which have hindered my personal and
processional growth. Well laid policies , procedures, and process contribute directly in
improving the productivity and performance level of an each employee as they act as
guide to them during the course of working time with the company (Anderson, 2019).
My poor writing skills resulted in complex and unstructured format of policies which
was becoming difficult for employees to understand and improves productivity.
However, my oral communication skills proved to be beneficial for me and for the

organisation itself. It helped in creating a strong brand image, healthy relations based on
trust and mutual understanding. Conclusions : During the learning of these skills I have analysed that strong
communication skills contribute directly in building a strong career path, helps in
resolving conflicts at workplace, improves productivity, clear and directive guidance,
creates strong relationships etc. In order to provide guidance to the employees it is
essential to have a good and strong communication skills, having done this would help
employees work with a enthusiasm, confidence, integrity and in a coordinated way that
will result in achieving organisational goals (Nesbit, Jensen and Delany, 2018). Having
more efficient writing skills will help me in creating a strong customer base through
continuous engagement with the customers. Creating a content for websites, social media
sites, designing ads and blogs will enhance customer engagement and will help me
addressing the issues customer is facing along with seeking feedback or suggestions.
 Action plan : Poor and inadequate writing skills have lowered my self-esteem, morale
and confidence level which have contributed towards damaging my brand image and an
organisation for which I am working. I believe working closely on these skills will help
me in formulating clear and concise policies, making reports and presentation that will
help in strategic planning. Below mentioned are the action plans will help me
overcoming with these challenges :
 Attending seminars and training programmes which are concentrated more towards
techniques of good writing.
 Reading magazines, Journals, companies annual reports and business newspaper will
help me gaining a knowledge related with formal and structured writing (Baldwin and et.
al., 2018). These sources are represented in a formal way and promotes professionalism
in their written format.
CONCLUSION
From the above stated report it is evident that acquiring and developing skills will help in
formulating and implementing policies that are helpful in gaining competitive advantage to an
business firm. Business performance get influenced with various external factors such as
political, economical, technological and environmental factor which are beyond the control of an
company, still affect their profitability and productivity in long run. Self assessment or reflection

is a technique which help an individual in understanding strength and weakness, challenges faced
by an individual, necessary measures taken so as to develop these skills and to overcome those
problems, difficulties and challenges.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Anderson, B., 2019. Reflecting on the communication process in health care. Part 1: clinical
practice—breaking bad news. British Journal of Nursing. 28(13). pp.858-863.
Baldwin, A. and et. al., 2018. From the ground up: Improving pregnancy and birth experiences
through the provision of extraordinary learning opportunities in Australia. Journal of
forensic nursing. 14(2). pp.80-87.
Brooke, M., 2019. Using semantic gravity profiling to develop critical reflection. Reflective
Practice. 20(6). pp.808-821.
Chng, S.I., 2018. Incorporating reflection into computing classes: models and
challenges. Reflective Practice. 19(3). pp.358-375.
Gibbs, T., 2018. Curriculum development: A dynamic change inside the chrysalis. Medical
teacher. 40(5). pp.434-436.
Govender, N. and Alcock, A., 2020. Humanising writing centre practice: peer tutor reflections at
a university of technology. Africa Education Review. 17(1). pp.18-34.
Nesbit, K.C., Jensen, G.M. and Delany, C., 2018. The active engagement model of applied ethics
as a structure for ethical reflection in the context of course-based service
learning. Physiotherapy theory and practice. 34(1). pp.1-12.