Analysis of HR, Marketing, and Finance Functions at The Body Shop

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of The Body Shop's business operations, focusing on the roles of human resources (HR), marketing, and finance functions within the organization. It details how The Body Shop manages its HR, including recruitment, training, and employee development. The report explores the marketing strategies employed, emphasizing the use of marketing tools and techniques to promote goods and services. It also examines the finance function, highlighting the importance of financial management, allocation of resources, and financial reporting. Furthermore, the report discusses the significance of collaborative working practices in fostering harmony and efficiency among employees, and how The Body Shop enhances collaboration through various methods. The report concludes by emphasizing the crucial role of financial management in ensuring the company's sustainability and growth, given its global presence and diverse operations. The analysis is supported by references to academic sources, providing a well-rounded perspective on The Body Shop's business practices.

INTRODUCTION TO
BUSINESS STUDIES

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
The role of HR, marketing and finance functions within organisation.......................................3
Understanding of collaborative working practices......................................................................4
Role of financial management and reporting in the organisation................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
Books & Journals:........................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Introducing of a new business require many things for their success and growth in the
market such as effective HRM system, using of marketing methods, and performing financial
functions in the organisation (Opstad, 2018). It is very important for a company that should make
sure about all important functions which helps them to stay competitive and survive in the
marketplace. Companies identifies that human resource is a key element of success and growth
and that's why it becomes necessary for organisation to use effectively their human resource. In
order to promote goods and services organisation uses marketing methods. In this context, The
Body Shop is undertaken which is the British cosmetic company. They have headquartered in
London Bridge, UK. This report covers the role of HR, marketing and finance functions. It also
covered the use of collaborative working conditions. To survive in the market companies need
finance and that’s why they should be managing their finance.
MAIN BODY
TASK
The role of HR, marketing and finance functions within organisation
The Body Shop is a large organisation which provides cosmetics, skin care and perfume
to the customers. It is established in London, UK that runs their business very well. The success
behind their organisation is efficient functions in the company (Colli and Perez, 2020). They
regularly focus on making effective and efficient function such as HR, finance and marketing.
The Body Shop identifying that these all three functions play a very important role in the success
and growth of company. It can be better understand with the separate role of each function which
is mentioned below:
HR function
Human resources is an important element of success which every organisation need to
manage. It is very obvious that our company is run by people and for people that mean
employees are the person who run the organisation for customers (Farooq and et. al, 2017). Due

to this, The Body Shop needs to recruit and appoint employees in the organisation so that they
can perform their practices in order to achieve organisational goals and objectives. In order to
fulfil this purpose they perform a specific role which is mentioned below:
 HR manager of The Body Shop recruit and select most suitable candidate in order to fill
the job vacancies.
 HR manager of The Body Shop also provide training and development programs to new
and existing employees so that they can improve their efficiencies and productivity level
in order to achieve company’s goals and objectives.
 They also take review from their employees in the form of feedback so that they are able
to remove their problems.
Marketing function
Marketing is an important function of any organisation as it promotes goods and services
of a company in the market place so that customers are able to purchase. Marketing needs to use
effective tools and techniques which make the function easy such as digital marketing methods.
Marketer should aware about all the trends in market which can be effect on their organisational
activities (Olalla and Merino, 2019). For that purpose, marketer of The Body Shop uses many
marketing method in order to promote their goods and services. They identified that marketing is
very important for selling their products in the marketplace. Some important models which can
be used by organisation such as marketing mix, communication mix, etc.
Financial function
It is another important function which performed by finance manager of The Body Shop.
Every organization has a different department of finance which managers by financial manager.
It is very important for organisation that they allocate finance from different sources in order to
bear all expenses such as purchasing of raw material, land and equipment, and other
miscellaneous expenses.
Understanding of collaborative working practices
Collaborative working practices are very important for an organisation because it assist
The Body Shop to create harmony between employees (Shrestha, 2017). Generally The Body
Shop divide their work into small all goals so that they can assign each goal to a team which

helps them to effectively and efficiently complete. A team working for a common goal then in
many cases it is identified that it creates conflicts which reduces a productivity and efficiency
level of team members. It is necessary for an organisation that reduces conflicts because it effects
on their productivity. For that purpose, The Body Shop need to focus on improving working
condition. They have to improve working condition by concentrating and enhancing
collaborative working practices. There are some ways which enhance collaborative working
practices:
 The first thing that always The Body Shop kept in their mind that they have to to
introduce each member to other one so that they can able to know each other and
communicate easily.
 Without teamwork and collaborative work, it is not possible for companies to attain their
goals and objectives because it helps in generating harmony between employees.
 For enhancing collaboration, The Body Shop clears out the goals and objectives in front
of each employees or each team member so that they can perform in order to achieve the
goals.
 The Body Shop also defining the jobs and responsibility of each member so that they
cannot create any ambiguity in working practices. It really helpful for members of a team
that they can work in order to achieve targets.
 Training and development program are also become very helpful in order to enhance
collaborative working conditions (Amankwah-Amoah and Wang, 2019). In training
programs, organisation tries to improve the understand ability of each member which are
performed their work in an organisation.
 For collaboration, it is important for The Body Shop that they should provide
opportunities to employees so that they can meet each other and able to understand their
point of views. The Body Shop conducts many informal meetings which give chances to
communicate each other. It helps them to understand the nature and behaviour of other
person which improves collaboration.
The above discussion shows collaboration working practices are very important because
it helps an organisation to reduce conflicts, completion of work on time, providing positive
environment, etc. Collaboration is very important between employees so that they can

communicate with each other and are able to resolve their small problems independently. With
the help of other employee, an organisation is successfully achieving their goals which assist
them to stay competitive in the market. It also helps in a sustainable growth and development of
an organisation as it provides a positive environment.
Role of financial management and reporting in the organisation
Finance is very important as it is already discussed that every organisation performs of
finance function. Many organisation says that finance is a backbone of any organisation and
because of that the always maintained the financial position strong (Verbeke and Yuan, 2021).
Finance is an important element which becomes reason of success or failure in the market. It is
identifying that the company's growth is judge on the basis of their financial position. So that’s
why finance plays a very important role in organisation. The Body Shop has large operations in
many cities and countries (Masanja, 2018). That's why they need always liquidate as well as
fixed assets in the organisation. They need liquidity which assists them to manage daily
expenses. Whereas they need fixed assets which shows the financial position of organisation in
the market? That’s why it is very important for finance manager that they should perform
financial management function very effectively and efficiently. For that purpose, financial
manager of The Body Shop is always focusing on allocation, uses of finance in an effective way.
For allocation purpose, there are many sources which are mentioned below:
 Savings: This is very important source which mostly organisation owners use to
introduce their business. But for the survival of organisation they are looking forward to
more sources.
 Borrowings: There are many financial institutions such as banks, non banking
institutions, and etc. providing funds to organisation in order to purchase and invest in
fixed assets as well as for liquidity purpose.
 Shares: Organisation has two types of shares that are preference and equity shares. If
organisation want to increase their capital then the generally focuses on share capital.
Organisation has an option to choose preference shares as well as equity shares.
 Debt: It is also like a borrowing which generally comes under long term borrowings
(Verbeke and Ciravegna, 2018). That does can be secured and unsecured. Secured debts

need collateral security to an institution that provides funds for raising their capital.
Whereas unsecured debts need not any collateral security.
CONCLUSION
Above discussion shows important functions of organisations that include human
resource functions, marketing function, and finance function. It is analysed that all these three
functions plays a very important role in the organisation as it helps in stay competitive and
survive in the marketplace. It also used collaborative working practices which are important for
effective and efficient business practices. This report also covers the role of financial
management because finance is a key element and without that no one organisation can sustain
their business in market.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals:
Amankwah-Amoah, J. and Wang, X., 2019. Opening editorial: Contemporary business risks: An
overview and new research agenda.
Colli, A. and Perez, P .F., 2020. Historical methods in family business studies. In Handbook of
qualitative research methods for family business. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Farooq, M. S., and et. al, 2017. Acceptance and use of lecture capture system (LCS) in executive
business studies. Interactive Technology and Smart Education.
Masanja, N. M., 2018. Introduction to business research. NMM Printers.
Olalla, C. B. and Merino, A., 2019. Competences for sustainability in undergraduate business
studies: A content analysis of value-based course syllabi in Spanish universities. The
International Journal of Management Education, 17(2), pp.239-253.
Opstad, L., 2018. Success in business studies and mathematical background: The case of
Norway. Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education.
Shrestha, P. N., 2017. Investigating the learning transfer of genre features and conceptual
knowledge from an academic literacy course to business studies: Exploring the potential
of dynamic assessment. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 25, pp.1-17.
Verbeke, A. and Ciravegna, L., 2018. International entrepreneurship research versus
international business research: A false dichotomy?.
Verbeke, A. and Yuan, W., 2021. A few implications of the covid‐19 pandemic for international
business strategy research. Journal of Management Studies, 58(2), pp.597-601.