Business Environment Analysis and Strategic Planning for Virgin Money

This case study examines the business environment of Virgin Money, a major UK bank, focusing on its internal and external factors. It explores the impact of the business environment on the company's operations, including the challenges and opportunities associated with expanding its market prese...Read More

2 BUSINESS
ENVIRONMENT
INDIVIDUAL CASE STUDY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Virgin Money...............................................................................................................................3
Business environment..................................................................................................................3
Relevant theories and models used by Virgin Money.................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Business environments of the companies effects the working or small as well as big
companies because it affects both its external and internal environments (Abu-Rumman, A.,
2021). Businesses have to be careful while studying the business environments for long and
future growths with full sustainability. If a company wants to expand its business in the new
market examination of the markets and environments is compulsory. The company Virgin
Money is the United Kingdom largest bank with millions of customers worldwide due to digital
network or operating its business through online platforms internationally. In this report we will
include examination of the economic environments of United Kingdom and global environments
and its impact on different countries. Furthermore, this report will include various challenges
faced by this bank in expanding its small banking markets with a view to earn long term growth
and sustainable profits with relevant theories and models with supporting arguments.
MAIN BODY
Virgin Money
Virgin Money is the UK’s largest bank with 6.5m customers is a banking industry founded
in 3 march 1995 and the founder is Richard Branson. This company expanded its operation
around he world in 2000 and planning to expand its small business in the markets through digital
networks for more long term growths with sustainable growth. This company is offering personal
equity plan and various banking services throughout the world. The aim of this company is to
increase its pioneering growth with full efficiency in the work and this company believe in
sustainable growth.
Business environment
Business environment affects the working of the firm internally and externally and if any
company wants to expand its business its needs to evaluate all the external and internal
environment of the markets (Kumar, and et.al., 2021). Every different countries have different
external environments and in case of internationalisation it has to be studies carefully for more
advanced and sustainable growth of the firm. Global business environments are the factors that
influence the performances of the businesses due to micro and macro economic factors they

include all the supplier, customers, competitors, legal, technological, environmental factors etc
which has to be carefully examined. The bank Virgin Money wants to become digital first bank
which leads to increase in its small business markets internationally through digital networks.
Digital networks helps this bank to increase its customers at rapid growth because people are so
comfortable in using the online banking system rather than going to banks this way they can save
their times and increase their banking activities with ease.
For accomplishing this task this bank has to study its business environments so that
internally and externally so that all the pros and cons can be developed and various strategies can
be developed for improving the weaknesses if any. International business environments has
positive and negative impacts on the like providing huge opportunities and employments,
infrastructure developments, contributes new technologies and vice versa. The impact of
business environment can be negative for some of the companies like more competition and less
capital, using old technologies and old products, Unsuitable political conditions, social
conditions etc affects the working of the firm.
Relevant theories and models used by Virgin Money
There are various theories and models used by this bank for knowing all the economic and
external and internal factors that affects the working of the company (Benzaghta, and et.al.,
2021) Using this theories helps to know all the internal strength and weaknesses and uncertainty
so that best possible solution can be studied.
SWOT analysis
This analysis are used by all the companies for knowing all its internal strength,
weaknesses, threats and opportunities so that they can be used for improving the performances of
the firm. This analysis is used for knowing all the internal factors which may affects the
companies business operations. Strength: The strength of the company can be known by doing the internal analysis in
which all the strength like companies customers, its position in the market, its products
demand and services etc can be known (Djellabi, and et.al., 2021). The Virgin Money is
the 6th largest bank of United Kingdom and using all the innovative digital banking for
doing its business world wide for expanding its business and earn huge amount of
revenues with long term growth in the future. This company has huge number of

customers and its very competitive in the world and this is the biggest strength of this
firm. This company is highly efficient and parent company offering variety of services to
its customers and its customers are increasing every year. Offering services like finance,
loans and mortgages which are the most important need of the present world. Weaknesses: The weaknesses are the internal factors which has to be improved for
improved performances like it has less markets accept UK which is reducing its
competition and revenue (Abdullah, et.al., 2022). This bank is providing services to only
United Kingdom customers which is decreasing its brand value. This company is not
listed company and it cannot take more capital for expansion and internationalisation.
This bank has to focus on this for improving its operations and have to expand its
business worldwide through its digital networks. Threat: The threats for this company is various competitions are prevailing in the market
like HSBC bank, Barclays etc are becoming tough competition in the market of United
kingdom. The Virgin Money need to carefully investigate and check every strategy which
is used by its competition for competitive advantage (Barnish, and et.al., 2018). The
business environment of various companies get affected by huge competition and Virgin
Money need to expand its business in other countries which has huge competition already
prevailing so this company need to carefully plan all its strategies according to the rivals
and develop its products and services in a way that it has no substitutes and the customers
have no option left. Opportunities: There are various opportunities prevailing in the market or in
international market for more advanced growth and long term profits of the firm (Qiu,
and et.al., 2020). The company need to grab all the opportunities so that more profits can
be earned and more customers can be attracted towards the services of this bank. The
opportunities are present everywhere and one must need to grab the opportunity as fast as
possible. The Virgin Money has the opportunity that it can open its branches in the areas
which is underdeveloped and has less financial possibilities. This bank has the
opportunity for making its company digitally strong like creating a market in which all
the online transaction takes place in which customers will not have much problems in
doing any transaction related to the transferring of money or taking any type of loan.
PESTEL analysis

This analysis is used for knowing all the external environment which may affects the
future working of the companies and affects the long term goals of the firm. This analysis helps
in knowing all the political, economical, social, technological environment that affects the
working of the firm. Political factors: The political conditions of the companies are different depend country
to country and if the political conditions of the company is not stable then it becomes
difficult for the company to expand its business in those country (Keeler, and et.al.,
2019). The political stability of the country is important because level corruption can lead
to inefficiency in the working of the firm and different markets have different level of
corruption. The bureaucracy in the country also affects the working conditions of the
market which leads to difficult in marinating the operation of the firm. Economic factors: Another main external factors is the economy of the firm that affects
the market of different countries due to globalisation (Hovy, D. and Yang, D., 2021). The
inflation rates of various countries affects the supply of money and demand in the market,
foreign exchange are changing and dynamic in nature and affects the purchasing power
of the customers. If the customers cannot pay the interest rates then it will become
difficult for the company to operate and Virgin Money bank has to raise huge capitals in
the local markets so that it can do its operation and due to unemployment prevailing in
the market the economic condition is also decreasing and expansion of the bank in this
market will lead to decrease in the profits choice of the market should be consider
carefully before implementing the plan. Social factors: This is the essential factors which impacts the working of the firm
because in different society people have different level of education and habits or
behaviours, the cultural differences of the banks are also affects the working of the firm.
Different person has different skill level and education and different level of employment
and attitude and favourable society views towards the company will increase the
efficiency of the firm and vice versa. Social factors plays key role in increasing the
demands and services by the firm. Technological factors: New technological factors also affects the working of the firm
because the company who are using advanced technologies with quality feature are
gaining huge competitive advantages over the world (Truelove, and et.al., 2021). Virgin

Money need to expand its small business with new digital networks so that more number
of customers can be attracted towards the firm. The new technologies are used by
differently in different market areas and using of digital technologies leads by this bank
helps it to expand its business in the target market because online banking are less in
various countries and with this method this bank can earn long term profits with
sustainable growth. The companies who are lacking in this areas due to less budget and
resources are facing huge problem in surviving in the present market environments. Environmental factors: They are the uncertainty which cannot be measured but only
estimated due to various climatic weather conditions, and environmental pollution etc.
Different countries have different climatic weathers which have to be estimated before
expanding and planning its strategies due to economic conditions of the world.
Globalisation has led to increase the importance of environment so that pollution will be
less and all the greenery and the wildlife are being protected against unethical conduct by
various companies. Many big companies are funding huge amount of money in
protection of an environmental issues for saving the world and for the sustainable growth
of the countries. The Virgin Money need to give huge importance for the issues related to
the environment for surviving in the future due to world protection act (Romao, 2019).
All the companies who need to increase its profits in the long run and want a sustainable
growth need to follow all the instruction related to the global environment laws for facing
all the environmental factors. Sometimes due to uncertainty in climate changes the
company’s are facing huge problems in affected areas the climatic changes can be
controlled by using environmental safety precautions for its business. Legal factors: The legal factors like antitrust laws in the banking industry, discrimination
laws, copyright laws, employment laws and various data protection laws affects the
company’s policies due to government. The legal laws are different in different countries
and all need to follow this laws and any change in any kind of laws affects the working of
the firm (Teoli, and et.al., 2019). Due to globalisation and long term growth of the Virgin
Money bank the company has to follow all kind of legal laws for expanding its business
in the other areas and need to made all kind of precautions and policy for safeguarding its
future in any kind of uncertainty and change in law.

CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that business environment analysis is important
for knowing all the factors which are internal and external that affects the working of the firm. If
the company wants to expand its business it has investigate its environment all the internal and
external factors so that it can achieve its long term goals with sustainable progress. Companies
environment has to be studied if a company wants to increase its revenue and sales for long run
with sustainable developments. Furthermore, it has been concluded that using relevant theories
for expanding its business with SWOT analysis all the internal strength and weaknesses can be
studied and investigated and with PESTEL analysis all the external environments can be studied
and all the pros and cons can be known so that various problems can be solved for
internationalisation and expansion of the firm.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Abu-Rumman, A., 2021. Transformational leadership and human capital within the disruptive
business environment of academia. World Journal on Educational Technology: Current
Issues, 13(2), pp.178-187.
Kumar, and et.al., 2021. Current research trends on micro-and nano-plastics as an emerging
threat to global environment: a review. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 409, p.124967.
Benzaghta, and et.al., 2021. SWOT analysis applications: An integrative literature
review. Journal of Global Business Insights, 6(1), pp.55-73.
Djellabi, and et.al., 2021. SWOT analysis of photocatalytic materials towards large scale
environmental remediation. Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering, 33, p.100696.
Abdullah, et.al., 2022. Big Data in Criteria Selection and Identification in Managing Flood
Disaster Events Based on Macro Domain PESTEL Analysis: Case Study of Malaysia
Adaptation Index. Big Data and Cognitive Computing, 6(1), p.25.
Barnish, and et.al., 2018. How much evidence is there that political factors are related to
population health outcomes? An internationally comparative systematic review. BMJ
open, 8(10), p.e020886.
Qiu, and et.al., 2020. Impacts of social and economic factors on the transmission of coronavirus
disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China. Journal of Population Economics, 33(4), pp.1127-1172.
Hovy, D. and Yang, D., 2021. The importance of modeling social factors of language: Theory
and practice. In The 2021 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for
Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies. Association for Computational
Linguistics.
Keeler, and et.al., 2019. Social-ecological and technological factors moderate the value of urban
nature. Nature Sustainability, 2(1), pp.29-38.
Truelove, and et.al., 2021. A unified deterrence-based model of legal and non-legal factors that
influence young driver speeding behaviour. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 160, p.106327.
Romao, 2019, June. Robotic process automation: A case study in the banking industry. In 2019
14th Iberian Conference on information systems and technologies (CISTI) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Teoli, and et.al., 2019. SWOT analysis.
1

2