Question :
This assessment will cover following questions:
- Marks & Spencer is a multinational supermarket chain in the United Kingdom. Examine how a market economy functions and the role of government in the contemporary business environment.
- Explain the global business environment and examine why countries benefit from trade with each other.
- Analyse the impact of European Union on the businesses operating in the EU environment.
Answer :
INTRODUCTION
Contemporary Business environment is a dynamic, competitive and challenging in global marketplace. It is because of its ever-changing business policies and procedures. The business world always dominated with different problem that hinder the program of enterprise. In most of cases, enterprise challenges occur due to culture or environment. In this way, it will require for applying interdisciplinary approaches as to resolve any type of workplace issues. It will be understanding the enterprise environment that organization operates on.
There are various internal and external factors exists within organization that affects on business. So, as it will use different theories to control or manage process and also overcome enterprise problems. To fully appreciate contemporary business environment that conceive as a subsystem operating into macrosystem. The nature of interaction between business and its environment that represents the managers with threats and opportunities (Boone and et.al., 2019). It will potential of business failure and success. Generally, contemporary business and their environment is important part of organization and always concern about the complex set of interaction forces in culture or environment. In this way, it sustains the relationship in context of enterprise growth, survival as well as prosperity.
Business doesn’t operate in simple vacuum but it will root in large environment through input as well as output interfaces. It directly influences on dynamic environment that how they operate and whether they will achieve their significant goals. In most of cases, the external enterprise environment will be composed of several outside enterprises and forces different sub-environments such as social, competitive, political, global, demographic and technological. These are creating a unique challenges, threats and opportunities for businesses. In the organization, manager have a deal of control or maintain internal business environment which mainly covered in day to day decision-making. This will help for identifying suitable resources and skills, which may be satisfied existing clients.
Furthermore, The External environment situation directly affects on the business and beyond the management control and changing constantly. There will be no enterprise powerful with create major changes in its external and internal environment. Thus, organization is primarily to adopt new things that supports for increasing business performance and efficiency. In some conditions, an organization will be influenced external process through strategic planning which help for motivating the business owner to improve business activities. The report will discuss about the business culture, natural environment that shape behaviour of organization in global marketplace. Furthermore, it will implement the Pestle and SWOT analysis for identifying strength and weakness. In this way, it will help for improving business culture or environment in proper manner.
TASK 1
Discuss the business culture, natural environment that shape the behaviour of Marks and Spencer.
A business environment and culture have a great impact on the overall organizational behaviour. It can be divided into two different ways: non-economic and economic. The economic environment may include the economic system, policies, procedures and condition. Another way, Non-economic may include demographical, Social, technological, legal and political environment. In most of cases, it also considered the ecological or geographical factors that always influence overall business activities (Khalili, Abbadi and Ismail, 2019). In Marks and Spencer, employee at workplace talk about the business culture and it become mysterious that characterise qualities of working environment. it often considered, whether the staff members are conformable in environment. Sometimes, it is very difficult to defined but it can be identified review from employees. Marks and Spencer, with a large workforce that will not exits in future.
In 21 century, it only knowledge based where managers not spending so much time on paper-shuffling and pushing. The advancement of information technology will take care of entire work and collect information in proper format (You, Dal and Amankwah-Amoah, 2019). It has found that linear relationship between managers and employees flowing down because of culture or environment. It directly affects on the behaviour of employee where how they can deal business situation or condition.
Currently, the business economic environment is considered as mixture of international as well as national environments. It is becoming highly complex and not easy to understand them. In this way, it is reason of M&S operating in same economic environment often take important decision in business development. so, as it directly affects on the organizational culture or environment (Nikitina and Lapiņa, 2019). M&S business has economic relationship with capital market and government which always influence latest trends or entire structure of economy. But at that movement, M&S collectively can do to make an effective working culture by implementing economic policies and procedures. It is useful for M&S to improve relationship with staff members. On the other hand, economic conditions are considered as forces in economy such as enterprise cycle, client behaviour that always influence abilities of M&S to compete with competitive level. Low income also another reason for low demand of product in marketplace. in this way, it has increased the pressure on staff members for reducing profitability and productivity. Therefore, it unable to balance or maintain the economic environment or culture within organization.
Non-economic environment has strongly influence on the behaviour of Marks and Spencer business. It consists of various factors that applicable in business activities. The social environment can be consisting of mobility, nature of social firm, development and class structure (Raman, Garg and Thapliyal, 2019). In most of cases, it depends on the class structure as per society where what are occupation of people and their own income level. It directly influences the non-economic environment within M&S.
The business culture and environment influence organization in context of behaviour that has been rapidly changing drastically (Craft, 2018). After revolution of industries, corporations and organizations that were nothing but focused on increasing productivity or profitability in marketplace. For Example- TESCO is based on multinational organization in UK which has rapidly increasing progress in global market with the help of information technology. There is huge business want to remain maintain the position in global marketplace. that’s why, Marks and Spencer have tried to enter into different location across the world. In terms of organizational behaviour, Marks and Spencer behave differently than another firm at workplace. They provide the social settings because of entire business.
The business culture plays an important role within every organization whether big or small and thus is the integral part which shapes the overall performance of the company. Business culture basically is the mixture of the various beliefs and values which employees within organization have (Wolf and Alwan, 2019). As M&S is highly diverse organization which consist of employees having different background, values cultures, perceptions etc. thus it becomes highly essential to understand that how this diverse culture eventually transforms the operations and behaviour of M&S. Talking of the business culture which prevails within M&S, it is highly customer as well as employees driven. This culture is mainly driven by the diversity within organization and the company. M&S mainly focusses on the collaborative as well as team culture for fostering the knowledge as well as creativity within employees. Its great business culture affects the working as well as performance of the employees to a great extent. The organizational culture of M&S have been rooted in collaborative experience as well as practice which reflects its great performance in the market and thus their value for cultural diversity has made this organization as the renowned entity (Ivanova-Gongne and Torkkeli, 2018). Due to the prevalence of team and collaborative culture within M&S, employees are more likely to understand the cultures and beliefs of other team members and thus helps them to increase their skills and abilities. The organizational culture of M&S is highly imperative and thus besides having their main focus on the collaborative working environment, their culture us highly technology-oriented which leads to the creation of positive competition among employees. As the organization have become highly tech-savvy thus this has reduced the overall pressure upon employees and have helped them to increase their productivity by smartly performing their work. Along with this, the collaborative culture has enabled M&S to sustain their competitive position in market and give a tough competition to their competitors like TESCO.
As the business environment also consist of non-economic environment in addition to economic environment, non-economic environment mainly encompasses natural environment like various geographical and climatic factors. This natural environment have also driven M&S in different direction and has revolutionized their entire operations (Vaduva and et.al.,2016). The most important factor of natural environment which is climate affects M&S to a high extent. For example- As Marks & Spencer have its headquarter in UK where climatic conditions are infrequent and this has affected their supply chain. The extreme weather conditions mainly disrupt their supply chain and thus it becomes highly challenging for them to get raw material as well as resources. The extreme drought as well as weather condition makes it difficult for M&S to arrange the raw material and there remains the shortage of crop which is being used for apparel products. Thus, climatic conditions have a strong bearing on behaviour and operations of M&S. Besides this, another factor of natural environment which geographical location poses a great impact on the behaviour as well as operations of M&S. The location plays an important role in the productivity as well as performance of the organization and therefore is one of the major factor of natural environment. As M&S is located in highly developed countries and at the location where the access of customers become easy thus it affects the company in positive way. When the outlet of M&S is located at such a place where customers can easily travel hassle free and get all the facilities like parking, transport then the number of customers eventually increases. On the other hand, when organization is located at the place for which people have to cover long trips then they tend to avoid going to the outlet. This eventually reduces the overall customer base for company. Thus, location plays a highly essential role in overall performance of the organization (Bolcas and Ionescu, 2019).
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Describe the SWOT and Pestle analysis with example.
SWOT analysis is term that can identify weakness, strength, opportunities and threat in the existing organization. On the other hand, pestle analysis is based on framework which may influence economic, social, legal and environment impacts on the business. These are considered as external factors for recognized into specific manner.
Pestle analysis of M&S
Political: There are some policies and political factors which is providing several opportunities to Marks and Spencer such as free trade policies as it has approximate 1500 overseas stores. On the other hand, it can also be said that due to Brexit it will face several problems. Brexit is increasing its production cost which can lower its profit margin. Some changes in taxation policy also affecting it in negative manner.
Economic: It is stated that increment in inflation rate of UK economy is affecting its ways of performing activities. On the other hand, UK's monetary as well as Fiscal policy is now maintaining and managing in a proper way because now the Government of the UK has strong finances. Financial crisis is one of the economic factors which is affecting Marks & Spencer's negatively because it is decreasing demand for qualitative products (PESTLE Analysis of Marks and Spencer, 2019.).
Social: It is stated that people of UK are becoming health conscious and that is why they prefer high quality as well as organic food products. Due to changes in needs of customers for clothing and food put pressure on company to make changes its policies and adapt situations. On the other hand, it is a popular brand which resist customers to switch their shop and it is the biggest opportunity for Marks and Spencer.
Technological: It is stated that M&S has announced technology transformational programme which will make it able to become digital based business. It will also help it out in satisfying needs of different segment and customers. On the other hand increased use of technology is increasing competition which can have negative impacts on it (Nandonde, 2019).
Legal: It is stated that some employees of Marks and Spencer's file a lawsuit against the company due to not protecting workers from potential risk of exposure to asbestos. It has been also involved in many other legal disputes which decreased its image. But now it conducts training session in order to keep itself aware about changes in current laws.
Environmental: It can be said that Marks and Spencer's is a luxury brand and operates various store so, it is important for it to follow all rules regarding environment. It has promoted a concept considered as a sustainable retail and it is the main effective strategy of Marks and Spencer's. It helps it out in attracting customers and improving its image.
So, from the above it can be said that all these external factors have both positive and negative impacts on it performance which it needs to considered and solved.
SWOT analysis of M&S
Strength
- One of the main strength of Marks & Spencer is it operates in number of countries as well as has international presence.
- It offers variety of products at one place which attract wider range of customers.
- It has great E-commerce infrastructure which makes it somehow able to being in a competition.
Weakness
- It is stated that Marks & Spencer has poor financial stability which is the main weakness.
- Many of its products are not innovative and trendy by which people think that it does not cater for young as well as teenagers’ people. So, public thinking and this perception is other weakness.
Opportunities
- International expansion can give it opportunity to attract customers to the great extent and increase its sales (SWOT Analysis of Marks and Spencer, 2017).
- It uses advanced technology which gives its several online opportunities.
Threat
- Increased competition and strong players in this industry is one of the biggest threats which can lower its revenue and sales.
- Changing needs of customers for food and clothing is other threat which push pressure on Sainsbury's to make changes in policies and invest in technology.
CONCLUSION
It has been summarized that an effective business environment plays an important and thus impacts the organization in both positive as well as negative way. The business environment When the business environment of an organization is highly competitive as well as challenging then this sometimes leads to the negative competition among employees and thus affects their productivity. Within the business environment, the most important as well as significant aspect is the business culture as well as natural environment.
Business culture of Marks and Spencer is highly technology oriented and company focus on collaborative working practices. M&S promotes teamwork and through this, foster the performance and productivity of employees. This also helps the employees to understand the cross-cultural differences and help them to work towards each other experience. On the other hand, natural environment also plays an important role for example- due to the adverse weather conditions, organization mainly faces problem in acquiring the raw material as well as good which is being necessary for producing the product. Besides this, another aspect of business environment includes external as well as internal environment. External environment mainly helps the organization to assess the external factors which impacts their overall operations and these include political, legal, economical environmental, socio-cultural factors. Like for example where on one hand the increase in interest rates poses a negative impact of organization as it becomes challenging for them to take loans from banks on the other hand, decrease in tax rate affects the organization in positive way because due to decrease in tax rate, import and export becomes cost effective. Thus, external environment which is macro environment affects the functioning as well as operations of the company to a great extent.
The various factors which impacts the operations of the organization have strong bearing on the internal environment too and thus eventually affects the overall business environment. The business environment not only consist of the external environment but also addresses internal environment of the organization. The internal environment mainly helps the organization to analyse their strength, weakness, capability along with the threats as well as opportunities available to organization. The most effective framework which helps then organization to evaluate their capabilities is SWOT analysis. Through the help of this framework, organization is able to analyse that what are their weakness, strength and what are the opportunities as well as threats that might impact them. Like the major strength of the company is its operations in large number of countries while weakness is poor financial performance and stability. Opportunity is international expansion for attracting the customers from wide geographies while threat is the strong presence of the competitors in market which might hinder the position of company in market.
REFERENCES
- Bolcas, C. and Ionescu, V.C., 2019. Organization Culture. Models and Approaches. Manager Journal.30(1). pp.163-171.
- Boone, L.E. and et.al., 2019. Contemporary business. John Wiley & Sons.
- Craft, J.L., 2018. Common thread: The impact of mission on ethical business culture. A case study. Journal of Business Ethics.149(1). pp.127-145.
- Ivanova-Gongne, M. and Torkkeli, L., 2018. No manager is an island: culture in sensemaking of business networking. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing.
- Khalili, A., Abbadi, A. and Ismail, M.Y., 2019. Perspective of social media as an organisational KM tool: contemporary literature review. International Journal of Knowledge and Learning. 13(1). pp.10-24.