Comprehensive Report: Global Business Environment Analysis for SASOL

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the global business environment, focusing on the multinational organization SASOL. It begins with an introduction to globalization and its impact on businesses, followed by an examination of key factors driving global trade, including cost, market, environmental, and competitive drivers. A PESTLE analysis is conducted to assess the political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors affecting SASOL's operations. The report then explores the opportunities and challenges presented by the global environment, such as technological advancements, wider customer bases, and cultural differences. It also addresses the strategic difficulties faced by SASOL, including international recruitment and supply chain complexity, and delves into the challenges associated with risks and expansion. The report concludes with an assessment of the global business environment, highlighting the influence of opportunities and challenges on organizational operations. The report emphasizes the importance of proper analysis and study to increase productivity and efficiency in the international market.

GLOBAL BUSINESS
ENVIRONMENT
PART 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS
• Introduction
• Key factors affecting globalization
• PESTLE analysis
• Effects of opportunities and challenges.
• Strategic difficulties
• Challenges regarding the risks and expansion
• Assessment of global business environment
• Conclusion

INTRODUCTION
Globalisation is termed as the dismissal of trade
barriers across national borders to facilitate
integration, interconnectivity and interdependence
among various national and capital markets to assist
flow of capital, resources, goods and services from
various different nations.
SASOL is a multinational organisation growing at a
rapid pace in chemical and energy industry. It has
capacity to expand its operations in global markets
while also being able to generate high profits and
revenues.

KEY FACTORS AFFECTING GLOBALIZATION
There are various different factors which act as driving forces enabling nations
and domestics businesses to initiate global trade and commerce. The key
factors that drive global commerce and trade in today's times are:
• Cost Drivers: The cost drivers in global business scenario hugely affect the
way global commerce and trade is performed in various countries.
• Market Drivers: With the internal markets becoming highly saturated, the
domestic businesses are provided with limited opportunities for growth and
further developments purposes.
• Environment Drivers: These act as an incentive for organisations to initiate
global commerce and trade. As the increased level of dependency of
companies on some nations for providing a respective essential product for
production of the business product.
• Competitive Drivers: These work as a motivator for businesses to begin
global trade and dealings as the competition between inter firms increases in
global market and hence the businesses are constrained to perform
international commerce and trade

PESTLE ANALYSIS OF SASOL
• Political factor: This refers to the government authoritative control
and influence over the business and the economy of the nation.
• Economic factor: These have a long term impact over an
organisations growth in the market and influences the company's
pricing policies
• Social Factor: These are factors such as demographics and culture
that can affect the business environment by affecting peak buying
periods, purchasing habits, and lifestyle choices.
• Technological factor: These have a direct influence on the
effectiveness and business innovations
• Legal factor: These affect the internal and external legal and
regulatory environment of businesses in a country
• Environmental Factor: It considers factors relating to physical and
general environment for their protection requirements

EFFECTS OF BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES
The key factors of global environment include both opportunities as well as challenges dealt
by businesses performing their functions globally. The opportunities that are available to firms
globally include advancements in technology, presence of wider customer groups, economies
of scale.
These opportunities assist businesses to perform their functions effectively at a larger scale
while helping them in executing productions aiming for higher profit margins. The global
challenges are various such as cultural differences, management of global teams, currency
exchanges and inflation rates. These sometimes make it challenging for businesses to perform
their activities smoothly in an effective manner.

STRATEGIC DIFFICULTIES
The strategic challenges faced by SASOL when performing its operations in the global environment includes:
• International Recruitment: The most common challenge faced by the organisations when performing globally
lies in the recruitment process which involves recruiting individuals internationally.
• Global expansion difficulties: For organisations which aim upon functioning their operations at a global level
and observe the benefits of globalization, setting up a manageable existence overseas is challenging.
• Complexity of Global Supply Chain: The flow of all the inputs involved in manufacturing from their primary
suppliers through several processes to the end customer is very intricate and complex
• Economic complexity: It is very difficult to anticipate the changes and trends in the economic factors of an
organisation in the global scenario.

CHALLENGES REGARDING THE RISKS AND EXPANSION
The supply chain risks involve interruptions in the
product flow whether the raw materials or parts of final
products within the supply chain. The organisations
should work upon understanding the type of risks
present and also evaluating the degree of risk involved
in each case so that the treatment of these risks could be
performed efficiently. Risks along with diversifications
are factors which involve primary strategies accepted
by management of an organisation for the purpose of
managing the business activities as well as overall
performance of the concern.

ASSESSMENT OF GLOBAL BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
The opportunities and challenges faced in global business
environment influence the operations of an organisation
hugely. The external opportunities available to organisations
globally includes better international growth potential which
assists the businesses to expand their operations and profits
earned exponentially. The challenges in the market affecting
the organisations include exploding data and monitoring
performances. As the employee involvement and
engagement in the global scenario is huge it becomes
difficult for businesses to keep a track of the performances
of all the individuals also the data involved in a global
business scenario is massive leading to difficulties in the
processing of that data.

CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that a business moving in
international market has a good scope of expansion. SASOL is one
such organisation which is present in global market it producing
chemical and energy organization. The challenges faced in global
market can be dealt with proper analysis and studies. this helps the
organisation in increasing productivity and efficiency.