Comprehensive Analysis of Unilever's Business Environment - Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Unilever's business environment. It begins by defining the business environment and its impact on decision-making, followed by an examination of different organizational types: private, public, and voluntary, along with their purposes, legal structures, sizes, and scopes. The report then delves into the interrelation between various organizational departments, such as marketing and finance, and their links to overarching objectives. It also explores the impact of macro-environmental factors and conducts an internal analysis of Unilever to identify its strengths and weaknesses. The report concludes by examining the interrelation between macro-environmental factors and the organization's strengths and weaknesses. References are included to support the analysis.

Business Environment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Types and Purpose of private, public and voluntary organisation and their legal structure. .1
P2 Size and scope of different organisations..............................................................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
P3 Interrelation between different organisational departments and their link to objectives.......5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
P4 Impact of macro-environmental factors.................................................................................7
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................8
P5 Internal analysis of organisation for identification of strength and weaknesses...................8
TASK 5..........................................................................................................................................10
P6 Interrelation of macro-environmental factors with organisational strength and weaknesses
...................................................................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Business environment is sum of external and internal factors which have influence over
the business operations. It is an obligation upon manager of organisation is to keep these factors
in mind while making decisions. Internal factors are related to organisational capacity which are
under control of the management. To attain success and accomplish their objectives required to
adopt such measures which strengthen their internal position. External factors are such which are
not under the control of management such as political, economical, social, technological, legal
and environmental. It is important to oversee the impact of all these factors to attain
sustainability in future period of time. Unilever is consumer goods company which is
headquartered in London (Avramenko, 2012).
In the present report explain about different types of organisation along with their
purposes and legal structure, size and scope of various organisations, relationship exist between
different functions performed within the organisation along with their link with objectives and
positive and negative impact of external factors. Also, Internal analysis to identify strength and
weaknesses and interrelation of strength and weaknesses with macro environmental factors.

TASK 1
P1 Types and Purpose of private, public and voluntary organisation and their legal structure
There are different type of organisations are working in environment. These organisations
are known as public, private and voluntary. All the organisations having their different objectives
and legal structures. It is the duty of the manager of organisation is to follow such structure while
performing their functions. Types and purposes of all these public, private and voluntary
organisation is defined below:
Private organisation
This will includes all the organisations which are working or the purpose of earning profit
for the benefit of their different stakeholders. These kind of organisations are privately owned by
individual and government of country is having no significant control over them. There are many
restrictions are imposed by the government on the working of such organisations and they are
required to follow while operating their functions (Bovee, Thill and Raina, 2016).
Unilever is consumer good company which was established in 1930 in London UK. The
main products which are delivered by organisation includes food and beverages, cleaning agents
and personal care products. It is analysed that Unilever is Europe's seventh most valuable
organisation and also world's largest organisation in terms of revenue by 2012. It provides their
functions in more than 190 countries with the help of more than 169000 employees.
Purpose of Unilever
 To earn huge amount of profits for the benefit of stakeholders
 Attaining the target of zero impact upon environment through their business functions
 Improvement in the living standard of individuals of society
 Development of the highest standards of corporate behaviour
Legal structure of private organisation
Partnership: It is a type of business which is formed by the group of individuals for the
purpose of attaining common business objective (Cai and Yang, 2014). All the partners are
equally liable for the liabilities which are created as per the performance of business functions.
The profit and loss is shared equally among all partners or as per the ratios which is decided in
the agreement. The liability of all the partners is limited in nature.

Sole proprietorship: This kind of business is setup by single person. The main objective
of this type of business is to survive in market. The liability of this single person is unlimited
towards the business. The owner of organisation has total control over business operations.
Limited companies: This will be of two types limited by shares and guarantee. The
liability of all the members is limited to the extent of unpaid amount of shares and guarantee
which is required to pay off at the time of call. Such organisations are separate legal entity from
their owners (Chavis, Klapper and Love, 2011).
Advantages and disadvantages of private company
Advantages Disadvantages
Less interruption by government authorities More legal restrictions imposed by
governmental authorities
Total control possessed by individuals Restricted to invite public to subscribe their
shares so, difficult to raise funds.
Public organisation: The will includes such type of organisations upon which
government of nation has significant control over functions. The different type of activities
which are majorly covered under public sector is related to police, military, transport, education,
infrastructure, healthcare etc. These organisations are working with the aim of providing
maximum benefit to the individual of society.
NHS is public organisation which provides services in all over the world. The main aim
of organisation is to provide free medical facilities to the poor people of society. The other
services which are provided by NHS includes optical and dental care. They wants that no body is
deprived from the basic medical facilities (Commander and Svejnar, 2011).
Purpose of NHS
 Provide basic medical facilities to the individual of society
 Attainment of quality in their services fro the optimum care of patients
 Act as the voice of different health providers to provide information regarding different
policies related to health aspects
Legal structure of Public company
 Central government: They provide functions related to operation of the department of
state and central government departments
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 State government: They provides functions related to oversee of the functions of state
government agencies (Cuervo‐Cazurra, 2011).
 Local government: Their main aim is regarding functioning of different operations of
public organisations
Advantages and disadvantages of public organisation
Advantages Disadvantages
Make the society better place to live Highly controlled by government authorities
Helps in improvement of the living standard of
individuals
Large number of legal requirements are
imposed upon public organisations
Voluntary organisation: This will includes all such organisations which are operates
their business activities for he purpose of development of society and not for earning profits. All
the functions are provided with the helps of volunteers. To form such kind organisation required
to take the approval of government and follow the guidelines provided by them.
Oxfam is voluntary organisation which formed with the aim of removing poverty from
the society. There are many activities which are simultaneously provided by this organisation
includes advocacy, disaster relief, policy research, pro etc. This organisation was established in
1942 and now provides their services in all over the world. They also provide food relief to the
poor individuals of society with the help of volunteers and government of England (Gebauer,
Paiola and Edvardsson, 2010).
Purposes of Oxfam
 Helps in removal of poverty from society
 Provide secure future to the individuals of society which is free from poverty
 Holding up educational programmes which helps to spread awareness among th
individual of society
Advantages and disadvantages of voluntary organisation
Advantages Disadvantages
Large number of volunteers are working to
serve their services
Not having any guarantee about coherence of
transaction
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High financial support from government
authorities
Large number of conditions need to be fulfilled
to carry business in voluntary sector
P2 Size and scope of different organisations
It is observed from the above analysis that organisation is of three types mainly which are
defined as public, private and voluntary. The size and scope of organisation depends upon their
nature (Halbert and Ingulli, 2011). Size of organisation covers about the business operations
which is have in different nations along with their capacity of earning revenue. On the other
hand, scope of organisation provides the information about different type of services which are
provided by them. The size and scope of these different type of organisation is defined below:
Unilever
Size: Unilever is transnational consumer goods company which provides diversified
products such as food and beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. The total
number of brands which carried by this organisation is around which helps in earning the
turnover of 50 billion euros in 2016. In terms of profit, this organisation is considered as world's
largest organisation in 2012. The revenue which is earned by organisation in 2017 is around
$62.622 billion.
Scope: This will defines about the products and services which are provided by the
organisation. The different type of offerings which are provided by Unilever includes personal
care products, food and beverages and cleaning agents.
Vision: The main vision of Unilever is to build sustainable living common place which is
proved as the best way to to grow business with continuous rate. Here, more emphasis provided
on sustainability in terms of consumer services (Hamilton and Webster, 2015).
NHS
Size and scope: NHS was founded in 1948. The total number of employees working in
NHS is around 1.5 million. They provide health facilities irrespective of their wealth. The other
services which are provided by NHS includes Optical and dental care. The services which are
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provided by organisation is free of cost to the poor individuals of society for improvement of
their living standard.
Oxfam
Size and scope: This organisation is established in 1942. The total number of charitable
organisations which works under common brand name are more than 20. all these working for
removal of poverty from society. The type of services which are provided by them includes
advocacy, disaster relief, policy research, poverty eradication and pro-migration (Hilton and
Platt, 2013).
Stakeholder analysis
This will includes determination of different stakeholders along with their power of
influence upon business operations. This can be understood from points given below:
 High power – fascinated people
 High power – less fascinated people
 Low power – less fascinated people
 Low power – fascinated people

TASK 2
P3 Interrelation between different organisational departments and their link to objectives
The major objective of any organization is for all its workers to work as a team. In large
organization workers are organized into their department, according to a specialisation. The
organizational structure defines the relationship and interaction between the employer and
employees to identifies how the chain of command runs through at different levels.
Organizational structure can be categorized into two different dimensions that is vertical and
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horizontal (Klapper, Lewin and Delgado, 2011). The vertical organization structure can flow in
two ways such as downward. It includes top to bottom, whereas, in upward the direction flows
from bottom to top. In a horizontal organizational structure involves the flow of direction in
different department. The major objectives of an organizational structure are describe in detail
as:
 Flexibility: Through, organizational design helps to provide flexibility for decision
making, in their authority and departmentalisation. This will increase the efficiency level
of an individual in the Unilever company and bring the accuracy or effectiveness among
the employees.
 Coordinating the components: In the organizational structure, managers need to tie all
the departments together to ensure coordination and collaboration across the departments.
It assists in arranging the employees according to the internal environment of an Unilever
organization (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010).
 Integrates elements: This includes growth, evolve and respond to changes. For instance,
the strategic need to enhance the quality services and creating teams or re-delegating
authority.
The interrelation between the different departments are as:
Marketing Department: This department is the main part for producing the sale in a
marketplace. Hence, Unilever will responsible for the demand of products in a competitive
world. It focuses on the demand and the needs of a customers, targeted sales and research of the
marketplace (Pikka, Iskanius and Page, 2011).
Financial Department: It will responsible for the financial budget of a company. This
includes the allocations of resources, resource estimation and scheduling as per the requirements.
Organizations are set up in specific ways to accomplish the different goals, it helps to overcome
from the hinder and its progress towards completes their goals. The different organizational
department in the organization structure of Unilever are discussed in below:
Organization department includes the following department are as: Functional Department : This type of organizational structure works on the
management functions in a specific manner. The common departments are as follows:
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 Planning: It refer to the planning for a future. It involves what to do, when to do, how is
to be done and by whom should be done. This bridges the gap between the present and
the future needs. Organising: It refers to the arrangement of the department which can help in improving
the efficiency as the work is in organised form. This will enhance the abilities and the
skills of the subordinates. It includes the authorities, responsibilities and accountability of
an individual employee. Staffing: This function of an organization is the most important structure in the business.
It includes the manpower and human resources of the company which will increase the
productivity for expanding the business organization (Prajogo, 2016).
 Controlling: It measures the actual performance with the standard performance of a
company. Through, this corrective measures can be taken for controlling the performance
of the business.
 Divisional Department: This structure is a set of division in which a business is divided
into a smaller groups, which can easily managed by the supervisors of the organization.
It offers greater flexibility to a large company with many divisions.
 Matrix Department: The third main type of organization structure, it is a hybrid of
divisional and functional structure. The advantage of a matrix structure is that employees
have responsibility not only for their department but for organizational projects. It
focuses on the company's resources on the specified project, thus enabling better planning
and controls.
 Line and Staff Department: In this type of organization structure, it is used for large
enterprises. It is a modification of line organization and it is more complex than line
organization. But, the power of command always remains with the line executives and
staff supervisors guide, advice and council the line executives. The whole organization is
divided into different functional areas to which staff specialists are attached.
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TASK 3
P4 Impact of macro-environmental factors
Macro environmental analysis helps in ascertaining the impact of external factors upon
business operations which is understood from the points defined below:
Political and legal factors :-
Positive Impact :- In many country's government offer trade free facility to men for
economic development of nations. Maintain good relationship with government give opportunity
to Unilever company for enhancing and rising business at internationally ,With the help of
stability in political factors like tax benefit.
Negative Impact :- Purchasing power of buyers are weak so that they are not buy
expensive goods. Consumers demanded for a cheap products are big problem to Unilever
company because negative impact on net profit and cash flow. In environment tax reforms,
policy and regulation are changes according to government they factors are negatively affected
to company product ( Pulver, 2012).
Economical and social factors
The factors which are included in this point are related to education, flow of cash, age,
inflation and deflation rates etc.
Positive impact: If education is good and flow cash is high in an economy then this will
have positive impact upon business. This will provides opportunity is to easily expand business
operations.
Negative impact: Presence of deflation in an economy has negative impact upon demand
and sales of product.
TASK 4
P5 Internal analysis of organisation for identification of strength and weaknesses
Internal analysis is the process which includes the activities related to identification of
aspects which are present within the organisation and turns into their strength and weaknesses.
The tool which is basically used by the management of organisation regarding internal analysis is
known as SWOT analysis (Reed and et. al., 2013). This will enables the manager of organisation
is easily know their strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This will provides the
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