Business Environment Analysis: A Case Study of Sports Direct

This report provides a detailed analysis of the business environment of Sports Direct, a British sports retail company. It explores different types of organizations (public, private, and voluntary), their purposes, and structures, with examples like the Department for Transport and the British Red Cross. The report identifies the scope, size, and range of these organizations, focusing on Sports Direct's background, products, services, size, vision, mission, and stakeholders. Furthermore, it examines the interrelationship among various organizational functions such as operation, technology, human resources, finance, customer services, and marketing within Sports Direct, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of a well-developed business environment for achieving organizational goals and recommends fostering a healthy and coordinated environment within Sports Direct through training and development.

Business and the
Business Environment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
Types of organisation along with purpose and structure.............................................................3
Identify the scope, size and range of different type of organisation............................................5
State the relationship between different organisational functions and how they link to
organisational objectives and structure........................................................................................7
Interrelationship among functional units at Sports Direct:..........................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
Recommendation ........................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
The business environment plays a key role in development of various functions and tasks
of a business entity (Falciola, Jansen, and Rollo, 2020). With the help and assistance of effective
business environment, a company achieves various goals and objectives that are essential for its
development. In the recent times, it is important role of a business to develop effective internal
business environment for welfare of organisation and employees. The choosen company for this
report is Sports Direct, it is the British retail company of sports which provide goods and
services related to sports equipment, electronics, cosmetics, footwear and textile.
This report includes explanation of different dimensions of business environment in order
to lead the marketplace. The report also covers various types of business organisations and their
impact on economy.
MAIN BODY
Types of organisation along with purpose and structure
Every business operates in particular type of organisation such as public, private and
voluntary to manage and achieve main purpose for which they establish. By legal structure, they
conduct as well as perform their roles, responsibility and task more efficiently.
Public sector organisation
The public sector organisation is owned by government of a nation and run through
funding. They supply their goods and services for the help and betterment of the community. For
example, Department for Transport (DfT) is a public sector organisation which was founded in
2002 by the Ministry of Transport Act to provide services related to roads, bridges, railways,
waterways and vehicles.
Purpose: The main purpose of DfT is to supply their transport or vehicle services for the
welfare of citizens.
Legal structure: Some of legal structures in public sector organisations are below:
• National level: Company owned and controlled by the President and members of
parliament of the nation. More than 50% share of the company held by the central government
and they provide finance to the state and regional government to operate organisation.
• State level: The company owned and managed by the ministers of particular state with
the guidance of central government for the welfare of people in particular state.

DfT works operate their business at state level and work to help the system of transport in
UK for the welfare of businesses, people and goods to travel easily.
Private sector organisation
Private sector organisation is formed and run by the individual along with groups of
individual without any control of government to earn profit (Karunasena, 2021). For example,
Sports Direct, it is the British retail company of sports which provide goods and services related
to sports equipment, electronics, cosmetics, footwear and textile.
Purpose: The main purpose of Sports Direct to grow internationally and increase their
market share by offering their customers a high quality branded product.
Legal Structure: Mentioned below are legal structures for private sector organisations:
• Partnership: This type of company owned and managed by the number of individuals
and have multiple owner. The profit, authority and responsibility is divided between them
according to their share in the company.
• Public limited company: The company owned by the stakeholders as well as managed
by the directors and managers (Kumar, Rawat, and Kumar, 2021) The company listed on the
stock market also sell and offer their securities to the general public.
The Sports Direct company operate their business as public limited company and offer
their shares to the people of UK to increase their wealth.
Voluntary organisation
Voluntary organisation are run and managed by people of the community to provide
goods and services to needy people to create social impact instead of making a profit. For
example, British Red Cross, it is a charitable trust which provide their health services and aid to
the sick and wounded people of UK.
Purpose: The main purpose of British Red Cross is to support victims, to connect the
power of humanity with human crises and give aids to the wounded people without any
discrimination.
Legal structure: Legal structures for voluntary sector organisations are underneath:
• Unincorporated associations: Many people of society come together to form a business
for the help of needy people and provide their services for the benefit of society without any
motive of earning money.

• Trust: It is non- profit organisation and formed as legal entity. The manager act as agent,
trustee and fiduciary on the behalf of a business or individual for the particular purpose or goal.
British Red Cross is a registered charitable trust which provide their aid services to wounded
people in crisis.
Identify the scope, size and range of different type of organisation
Each type of organisation have different vision, mission, growth and size according the
requirement and purpose of the business.
Public sector organisation (Department for Transport)
 Background: Department for Transport (DfT) was founded in 2002 by the Ministry of
Transport Act provides their services related to roads and transports.
 Product and services: They are dealing in transport services like roads, bridges,
railways, waterways and vehicles at state level for the help of community.
 Size and scope: There are 25,000 employees who work for the local organisations and
authorities to aid them manage their road networks.
 Vision: To create sustainable models, policies and regulation for the development of
efficient transport system.
 Mission: To maintain high quality of roads and transport for the safety and security of
people. Stakeholders: Transports bodies, local authorities, environmental stakeholders and
public interest groups.
Private sector organisation (Sports Direct)
 Background: Sports Direct, the company was established in 1982 by Mike Ashley
dealing in predominantly sports brand for both online and physical stores.
 Product and services: They provide their product and services related to sports
equipment, electronics, cosmetics, footwear and textile (Rusconi, and Contrafatto, 2019).
Along with this they operate fitness club.
 Size and scope: In this company more than 19,962 employees across 670 stores in
worldwide to deliver the quality product to their customers and growth of the company.
 Vision: To grow internationally, earn maximum profit and acquire huge market share for
the growth of shareholders.

 Mission: To provide high quality of branded product to their customers to enhance
customer base.
 Stakeholders: The company has multiple stakeholders like customers, competitors,
lenders, general public, trade association and employees.

Voluntary organisation (British Red Cross)
 Background: British Red Cross was founded in 1870 by Robert Loyd Lindsay. The
society formed as British National Society for Help to the Wounded and Sick in War.
 Product and services: They provide their health and aid services to helping people of
UK and worldwide during crisis.
 Size and scope: It is a charitable trust with 3,400 staff and 17,200 volunteers works to
helping groups without favouritism, discrimination, irrespective of their nationality,
religion and political beliefs.
 Vision: It is a movement which reduce discrimination and bring neutrality, unity in the
country.
 Mission: To connect the power of humanity and kindness with human crisis and war.
 Stakeholders: Service user, government association, staff, volunteers and fund provider.
Illustration 1: Sports Direct: A Clear Strategy Is Missing.2022

State the relationship between different organisational functions and how they link to
organisational objectives and structure
Every business is managed through their organisation department and functions. These are
operation, finance, technology, marketing, human resource and customer services of the
organisation (Saltus A., 2021). All these function are interlinked with each other as well as they
influence the working of other department. In the context of Sports Direct, the company has
many branches so, they follow divisional structure in organisation. It deals it multiple line of
product such as sports equipment, footwear, textile, electronics and cosmetics. Each product line
has different functional unit for seamless movement of work.
Interrelationship among functional units at Sports Direct:
Operation and technological
In Sports Direct, operation department works to convert raw material into finished goods.
For producing goods and services they need to install various machines and technology (Sarmah,
and Rahman, 2017). Both the department are interlinked with each other as operation department
give information technological department about the requirements of machine and technology as
well as technological department share information about recent trend and technology and its
instalment to operation department.
Human resource and finance
In Sports Direct, finance department manage and control the flow of money as well as
human resources department manage and control the work force of organisation. To full fill the
objectives of company both department works together. HR department give information about
the benefits, salary and incentive of the new employees to finance department to manage their
fund. As well as finance department tell about their requirement of finance related employee
for hiring to HR department.
Customer services and marketing
In Sports Direct, marketing department works to find or generate customers and customer
services works to maintain those customers for the business growth (Srivastava, and Yadav,
2021). To increase the customer base of the company marketing and customer service
department make strategies. Customer services provide information about target market,
customer taste and preferences to marketing department to better understand the reach and desire

of customers. As well as marketing provide information about the area and scope of their
product.
Advantages and disadvantages of relationship in organisational function
There are various advantages such as clear and efficient communication, accountability
or financial control, strategic and strong leadership, effortless flow of production work. Along
with these advantages there are some disadvantage also such as overlapping, miscommunication,
disagreement and conflict among various department due to the lack of knowledge about each
other work and functions (Suroso, Tarigan, and Setyawan, 2017).

CONCLUSION
The above discussion concludes the business environment is considered as major
surroundings of a business which are essential in development of internal environment for the
business. It is essential for a business entity to focus on development of effective business
environment in order to achieve various targets and aims of the company. This project also
includes different types of companies and their role in development of economy. The above
analysis also concludes the role played by strategic and top level management in order to
develop a major planning framework for the business.
Recommendation
In Sports Direct, the managers create healthy and friendly environment in all departments
of organisation for coordination and smooth working. Also, they provide various training and
development to their employees to improve their performance and understanding of task for the
growth of company

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Falciola, J., Jansen, M. and Rollo, V., 2020. Defining firm competitiveness: A multidimensional
framework. World Development, 129, p.104857.
Karunasena, D.M., 2021. Strategies of different international business relationship
Comprehensive Literature review. Available at SSRN 3988793.
Kumar, V., Rawat, A.K. and Kumar, N.S., 2021, May. A Deep Dive on Business Intelligence
Systems and Infrastructure using Cloud Environment. In 2021 2nd International
Conference for Emerging Technology (INCET) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Rusconi, G. and Contrafatto, M., 2019. Stakeholder Theory, Accounting, and Business
Legitimacy.
Saltus A., 2021. EFFECTIVENESS OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENUERSHIP IN CURRENT
BUISNESS SOCIETY (Doctoral dissertation).
Sarmah, B. and Rahman, Z., 2017. Transforming jewellery designing: empowering customers
through crowdsourcing in India. Global Business Review, 18(5), pp.1325-1344.
Srivastava, R. and Yadav, Y., 2021. Retail post-COVID growth strategy–is omni channel the
way?. Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies.
Suroso, J.S., Tarigan, R.E. and Setyawan, F.B., 2017, August. Information systems strategic
planning: Using design thinking method at startup company. In 2017 4th International
Conference on Computer Applications and Information Processing Technology
(CAIPT) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Online
Sports Direct: A Clear Strategy Is Missing. 2022. [Online]. Available through <
https://seekingalpha.com/article/3968587-sports-direct-clear-strategy-is-missing>