Business Context and its Management: A Case Study of Barclays Bank

Business Context and its Management

Tutor: Louanna Robinson

Student: Maria Macari ID.209360, group B

University of Suffolk

2020-2021

Student’s Declaration

I confirm that this business case study report on Business context and its management module is my own work without any collusion or help, except acceptable support from my Lecturer(s).

Maria Macari 21/01/2021

ID:209360

Introduction

The report is prepared to look into the business context and its management, which will demonstrate the study and analysis of an existing business in building and managing a competitive business. This assignment will discuss the business case study report of Barclays Bank.

Furthermore, the writer will introduce an overview of what business contexts and management is all about, with reference to the author’s choice of organisation. The main purpose behind this, is to prove the achievement from the module and underst?nding of m?n?gement pr?ctice. Also, the author will analyse different types of strategic concepts, a thorough expl?nation of the ?nalytic?l tools for the intern?l (SWOT) and external factors (PESTEL) ?ffecting business structures in Barclays Bank, and offering an underst?nding of the business environment in Barclays Bank. To demonstrate well researched work, it will also touch the contemporary theories of operation management such as total quality management, lean management and the impact of management practice such as empowering staff, training staff, introducing schemes for improving quality (Saeed et al., 2019). Eventually, to reinforce the research, the writer will reflect on the credibility of Barclays Bank to its management functions, strategic and behavioural approaches.

Barclays plc is a British multinational investment bank located in London, England. The company was founded in 1896 and the headquarter of the bank is located at London, United Kingdom. Key people of Barclays bank include the CEO, Jes Staley and the group chairman Nigel Higgins. Annual revenue of the company is approximately 21.632 billion. Barclays bank has been listed in London Stock Exchange. Barclays bank aims at moving, lending, investing and protecting the money for customers from all over the world. The subsidiaries of the company Barclaycard, Barclay bank Delaware and others. Barclays bank employs approximately 83,000 as of recent record (home.barclays, 2021).

Task one

Analysis of different strategic concepts

The strategic concepts that abide by the company define how they plan to carry out their business to achieve the end goals in a collaborative manner (Wieland et al., 2017). These concepts play a vital role in the overall improvement of the company dynamics and help to achieve the end goals. The strategies that shall be analysed are as follows.

Competitive strategy: The competitive strategy is a plan created by companies and organizations to make better progress than the competitors working in the same industry. This strategy focuses on various factors that influence the company dynamics and can be stated as strengths and weaknesses. The businesses who implement the competitive strategy need to know the core attributes of the competitive culture and formulate the strategy accordingly. These strategies can be further divided as:

Cost leadership strategy: This kind of strategy is usually applicable to medium and large-scale businesses. Cost leadership strategy is hard to implement because it involves generating a long-term supply of the products at lower prices.

Differentiation strategy: The differentiation strategy is usually implemented when a company produces a product that is different from other products in a market. When a product is different and has a good quality, the sale of the product proves to be beneficial (Collings, 2017).

Cost-focus strategy: The cost focus strategy specifically sticks to a particular segment of products that a company offers. This strategy implies lower pricing of the particular segment to survive in the competitive market.

Business strategy: As the name suggests, the business strategy is related to the executive planning and implementation of the business plan that has been created by companies and organization to achieve the organizational goals. The business strategy has to be applied with precautions as this shall directly influence the overall performance of the business in the market. Business strategy has key elements which include serve purposes like:

• Achieving cost and plan effectiveness

• Leveraging and uplifting opportunities

• Getting a better position and hold on the market

• Accepting challenges and excluding threats

• Promoting efforts and motivation

• Implementing proposed business plans and strategies

The business strategy needs to be crafted in compliance with the leaders and managers to improve the and achieve the company goals.

Corporate strategy: The competitive strategy is formulated for a long term. This strategy is created by the management team and includes integration, commitment, and cooperation of the managers and leaders at a corporate level (Sull et al., 2018).

Functional strategy: The functional strategy is a short-term plan, lucratively created to leverage and implement each function of the business plans and strategies. Functional strategy focuses on the minute accomplishment that are supposed to be achieved on daily basis. This strategy implies when, how, and what has to be done to implement the action plan. The element of functional strategies can be stated as:

• Marketing strategy

• Financial strategy

• Human resource strategy

Operational strategies: The operational strategies imply the operations that are supposed to be carried out by companies in order to run the business smoothly (Tien, 2019). These strategies are vital form the businesses perspective and the company cannot operate if the operational strategies fail to function. Operational strategies include various attributes like:

• Supply chain management

• Quality and control

• Research and development

• Logistics and delivery

• Marketing and sales

• Distribution and supply

• Customer relations and management

The above-mentioned strategies are the building pillars for any organization that wishes to grow and sustain in the relevant market. Barclay bank is open of the most successful finance companies in the UK and they are not any different when it comes to following proper business strategies and adapting to new challenges as well.

Analytical methods for the internal and external factors

The SWOT and PESTEL analysis reflect the internal and external factors respectively which influence the businesses. These have been mentioned below.

SWOT

Strengths: The Barclays bank is one of the most reputed financial companies in the UK and has a range of customers across the globe. The company operated in more than 50 countries worldwide with over 48mn customers. The company has been sponsoring a lot of academic and sport event which has given them proper recognition globally. Barclays sponsored the Premier League football tournament held in England which gave the company a lot of fame and traction.

Weaknesses: Barclays has been involved in a lot of controversies that prevailed for a long time. The government funding in Zimbabwe incidence caused a lot of trouble for the company and the brand image was questioned by the masses all over. Barclays was accused for money laundering which in some or the other way disrupted the brand image.

Opportunities: The Barclays bank has a lot of opportunities in the developing and developed economies because of increase in global industries and the company shall be benefitting from the same (Newton and Barnes, 2020). The global youth seek for safe investing options, and this could be a great opportunity for Barclays to create attractive investing schemes for people. Most of the banks have adopted to technological practises to make banking and finance a hassle-free experience and Barclays have a great opportunity to make the most out of this situation.

Threats: The financial and banking sector is every growing which bring a lot of challenges for the existing companies and this could cause a lot of trouble to firms like Barclays. The changing economic policies in international market might cause a lot if uncertainties for the company. Due to changes in technology and adaptation to block chain by competitors, the company shall have to adapt to new and improved techniques to survive in the market.

PESTEL:

Political: The government policies severely affect the functioning of banks like Barclays at multinational level. These policies hinder the business strategies and the companies have to work according the government guidelines and so does Barclays bank. The Brexit has created a lot of trouble for the companies in UK and EU but Barclays is ready with provision to sustain the business and support the UK alongside (home.barclays, 2021).

Economic: The companies that operate at a multinational level need to abide by the economical factors of the countries that they are operating in. Economic factors depend on the GDP’s of the nations and this directly relates to companies like Barclays bank. Being in banking sector, Barclays have to bear the consequences like inflation rate, interest rate and foreign exchange. Barclays shall have to strategically prepare business plans and foresee the economic trends in such nations to keep the business growing (Bari and Syazwani, 2018).

Social: The social factors are every changing depending on what kind of lifestyles are people adapting to. Banking sectors need to create lucrative business plans depending on the needs and choices of people. Due to change in geographical differences, lifestyles differ and the Financial companies like Barclays have to keep up with such trends to make sure the customers are retained.

Technological: Technology has revolutionised every field in some or the other way. Companies tend to be entirely dependent on technologies which make the business easy and Barclays not any different. Although, there are a lot of other competitors that adapt to such services which might attract a lot of potential customers and Barclays has to put in efforts to keep up with the competition.

Environmental: The environmental factors are supposed to be considered by every individual and the companies like Barclays are looking up to do the same. Barclays aims at providing funding to help counter environmental crisis. A lot of accusations are made against the banks who provide funding for the oil companies and Barclays is not any different (theguardian.com, 2019).

Legal: The new laws being introduced concerning the consumer protection and privacy is a challenging outcome of the legal reforms (Quaglia and Spendzharova, 2017). Tax reforms from neighbouring nations demands the financial firms like Barclays to be on their toes to sustain and grow.

Assess the impact of management practice on business structure

The management practises are a way of running a particular business in a systematic and lucrative manner. These practises play a vital role in the overall growth of a company. Various business practises like staff training, recruitment of potential staff, reward system, training the employees to be able to adapt to new technologies and organisational are of paramount importance. Every aspect of management has its own importance.

Training the staff to adapt to changes: The financial and banking sectors are seeing a rise in use of technology and new methods that are crucial for improving business and inducing individual growth. Employees need to be trained to be able to adapt to new organisational goals and agenda. Training Employees at Barclays to adapt to new technologies shall prove to be beneficial from the organisations point of view (Sekerin et al., 2018). The company has adapted to various techniques like blockchain, Quantum computing, and machine learning. Tends in such innovations shall pave a way for training the employees.

The management practises are of great importance when it comes to the improvement and growth of the individuals in an organisation. New trends in the market introduce a lot of challenges for organisations and implementation of these practises can only prove to be beneficial to stay ahead of the competition.

There are a lot of proposed management techniques that help to improve the overall performance of companies. Six sigma theory, lean production, total quality management, just-in-time inventory are few of the many techniques that help to improve the company dynamics.

Six-sigma theory: The six-sigma theory proposes the organisations the tools that can help them to improve overall aspects of the organisational strategies. The quality of products, improvement of services, excluding the threats are some of the attributes that are related to this theory. The six-sigma theory helps to find the root cause that stunt the growth and provides solution to tackle these issues (Antony et al., 2017). The tools that help drive the change in an organisation are cause and effect analysis, pareto chart, the 5 whys, and the kanban system. These tools could prove to be beneficial to Barclays to improve the company dynamics. The six-sigma practically helps the managers to find out processes that are most effective. Other processes that are less effective need to be analysed and worked upon. For instance, the Barclays bank have an accusation of funding the oil companies that neglect the negative impacts on the environment. By implementing the six-sigma theory, the issues can be resolved by appointing a dedicated team. The brand name gets affected by such accusation and the company has to put in efforts to help drive a change for good.

The 5-whys are another tool that provides an in-depth insight of the issues that cause trouble to the company. This tool briefly discusses the root cause of an issue and provides ways to resolve the issue by providing why questions until the final cause is found. Techniques like this and others help a lot of companies deal with internal and external issues and Barclays can make the most out of this tool as well.

Reflecting on the alternative strategic approach

The above-mentioned management practises have been adopted by a lot of firms all over the globe and have improved their businesses significantly. Organisations that wish to grow have to keep on looking for opportunities that shall help them grow. There are other alternative approaches like creative approaches of management, behavioural management and emergent approach. These approaches are meant to be different form the traditional approaches but have enough potential to help drive changes.

Creative management: The creative management is a technique used for solving issues and problems by using creative and new tool that are different from the common techniques. Below are some of the creative management techniques that work effectively (Plotnikova and Romanenko, 2019).

Change maker: A change makes is a person who comes up with great ideas that can be implement with unanimous decision that can help to solve the challenges. These change makers have a knack for doing things differently. Barclays could employ these types of change makers who potentially help change the business strategies for good.

Engagement of workforce: The workforce of a particular company has to be collaborative in to sustain a healthy work environment. The senior authorities have to introduce collaborative event like sports and other cultural activities that would get the employees well versed with each other. This shall eventually benefit the company like Barclays if they want to avoid internal conflicts.

Feedback programs: The feedback program is one of the important attributes that help the company reflect on what they need to improve on. Getting positive and negative feedbacks can help the companies make improvements.

Creative hiring of potential candidates: The HR department of the companies like Barclays can hire a team that is energetic, creative, and deserve to be a part of the team. Creative and potential candidates have a head full of ideas and suggestions that help to improve the overall growth of the company.

Conclusion

The following report has briefly discussed various business management strategies. This report has put light on business strategies that govern the overall performance of the financial firm Barclays Bank. The internal and external factors that are essential for the analysis of company dynamics have also been briefly discussed. Also, the management practises that are beneficial for the organisational changes like six-sigma theory along with the internal operations of the company have been highlighted. Barclays Bank is reputed multinational firm and has been in to the news for a while. Barclays Bank has been transparent about the way they do the business and aim to stick to this program. In the wake of the pandemic, they have also adapted to new ways of doing business which shall prove to be beneficial to the customers and client all over the globe.

They aim to make positive changes both internally and externally to sustain growth. An alternative method of creative management has also been discussed in the report that shall prove to be beneficial for the company.

References

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