Business Environment and Vodafone: Analysis of Legal Structures

This assignment provides a comprehensive analysis of the business environment and its impact on Vodafone, a British multinational telecommunications company. It examines various business types, including public, private, and social ventures, and their legal structures, such as sole proprietorships, companies, partnerships, charities, franchises, and public entities. The report employs tools like PESTLE and SWOT to evaluate the external and internal environmental factors influencing Vodafone. The organizational structure of Vodafone, along with those of BT Group and Oxfam, are analyzed to understand how different departments interrelate and contribute to business objectives. Vodafone's financial performance, global reach, and strategic goals are also discussed, providing insights into the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This document is available on Desklib, a platform providing a wide array of academic resources for students.

BUSINESS AND THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................2
LO1..............................................................................................................................................................3
P1 and P2.................................................................................................................................................3
LO2............................................................................................................................................................21
P3...........................................................................................................................................................21
LO3............................................................................................................................................................24
P4...........................................................................................................................................................24
LO4............................................................................................................................................................27
P5...........................................................................................................................................................27
P6...........................................................................................................................................................29
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................30
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................31

INTRODUCTION
Business environment comprises of various factors that affect activates that are undertaken by the
company. Study of business environments helps to take better decision and make better plans for the
future (Wetherly, 2014). This assignment is about study of business environment and various types of
business that run in this business environment. It also focuses on the legal structure of public, private
and social ventures. Tools such as Pestle and SWOT are used in this assignment to identify the impact of
external and internal environment facts on Vodafone. This assignment also highlights the impact of
strength and weakness of these factors in decision making. Overall, this assignment provides a good
understanding of business and business environment and their influence.

LO1
P1 and P2
Slide 1

Slide 2

Slide 3
Business Environment
Every Business consists of various factors that influence it, this factors can be divide into external factors
and internal factors. The external factors are political, environmental, economic, social and cultural. The
internal factors are organization structure, financial resources, human resource, product and leadership.
The output of business are result of influence this internal and external factors.

Slide 4
Business can be classified into three different types that are public, private and social. They all have
different objectives and business purpose, and have a lot of similarities and differences.
Public Sector: They are owned by the government and have an aim of public service. They are large in
size and investment and do not aim to earn lot of profit. They are all good employees and thrive for
customer service.
Private Sector: Private sector is owned by individual or group of individuals, and aim to earn profits from
their operations. They provide products or services to the public and provide good quality customer
service.
Social Sector: Social Sector aim to serve a social issue such as women empowerment, child education.
They run from the donation they get and are very important part of society. Different social organization
has different purpose.

Slide 5
On the basis of legal structure business can be classified in six different ways they are:
Sole Proprietorship: this is the simplest kind of business, they are owned by a single individual who
invest and runs the business. The most common examples are local shops and restaurant. The owner is
responsible for profit and loss in the business and they have limited scope.
Companies: Companies are formed when group of individuals come together to run a business activates.
A company may be formed to run variety of business or a single business and a company may be formed
by group of many companies also. Companies in UK are defined by companies act 2006 by legal factors.

Slide 6
A partnership is formed when two or more people invest in a business activity and run that business
activity for sharing of profits. The profit sharing in a partnership is based upon the ratio of investments
that has been contributed by each of the partner. A partnership is formed when the investment that is
required in the business in more than the single individual can afford.
Charity: the definition of charity is different from countries to countries because of various tax related
laws that are forced over this organization. But a charitable trust is has a objective to run for the social
cause and in UK it must be register with the Charitable Commission. This charitable commission is
different for Scotland, England and wales and Northern Ireland.
Franchise: A franchise is a license given by a business owner who wishes to increaser the profit and
market share. The license is given to an individual or group of individuals who wish to run the business
on behalf of the business owner. The people who run the business get advantage of using the brand
name, marketing and other copy rights of the business owner. A franchise is given on behalf of a legal
contract that explains various terms and condition. The examples of franchise business are McDonalds,
Pizza Hut.

Public: Public companies are owned by the government, they are very large in size of investment and
area of service. Most of the companies that are public have a small share of public and private
investment in them by means of share and derivatives. They are defined by Companies Act 2006.

Slide 7
In Vodafone the CEO is the head of the company, and he is followed by different directors and Chief
Officers. This directors and chief officer head their department and they are followed by range of
different heads of nation and states. This is type of matrix organization where various heads and chiefs
are interconnected with each other and running the company.

Slide 8
The organization structure of BT Group can be seen in the figure, the Director reports to the
Telecommunication ministry, he is followed by the operation manger, finance manager and the internal
audit manager. The operation manger has various area mangers under him and MIS managers. The
finance manager has different account managers of regions working under him and the internal auditor
works as an independent department.