Unit 1 Business Environment Assignment – Morrisons vs 4 Children

Program	Diploma in Business
Unit Number and Title	Unit 1 Business Environment
QFC Level	Level 4

Part 1

Describe the purpose of each of the chosen organisations

There are two key differentiation between the types of the organisation such as Profit organisation, and the non-profit organisation. The private limited organisations are termed as the profit organisation those only work for their profit earnings. On the otherhand, the NGOs are the non-profit organisation those work for the betterment of the community in an effective manner. Here, the profit organisation has been selected as Morrison’s(Morrisons, 2016) and the non-profit organisation has been selected as 4 Children (Actionforchildren, 2016).
Purpose of Morrison’s: To off  er the best quality product along with the best service to the consumers with the best offered lowest price to match with the affordability rate of the mass population in UK(Morrisons, 2016).
Purpose of 4 Children: The purpose of the organisation is to offer the better life to every children and the young with the help of the services such as Fostering, adaptation , support to the families., support to the children in need , and others(Actionforchildren, 2016).

Explain the main differences between their types and purposes

Morrison’s	4 Children
It is the profit making organisation The purpose is to offer the best quality product and the services to the customers to expand their brand recognition to earn ore profit.	It is non-profit making and the volunteer based organisation. The purpose is to offer the better quality life to the children and the young people in the UK population in need for the services without concentrating for the profit generation and with the help of the fundraising from the public to continue their operations.

Explain the main differences between their size and scopes

Morrison’s	4 Children
It the fourth largest chain in the supermarket in UK. By the end of the year 2015, 569 store of Morrison’s have been opened in UK. 9 million customer base use to help the sooth Operational activities of the organisation. They have the scope to become the leading supermarket chain in UK market.	The organisation is helping the community for more than 147 years. They are serving the community of Scotland for more than 60 years and community of Northern Ireland for more than 15 years. They have worked with over 14,000 disabled children of UK . They are moving in parallel manner with the other competitors such as CRY foundation and CARE foundation and has the scope to lead them.

Describe and analyse the link between their structure, size and scope and their offered products and services

In spite of the different in the type and the purpose of these two organisations, from the aspect of the operational activities, they have the internal link in terms of the support exchange. As per the presentsituation, the consumers use to prefer to do business with the ethically concerned organisations. In this aspect,Morrison is closely associatedin supporting the different NGOs to highlight their ethical consideration. On the other hand, the NGOs are dependable on the investmentand fund support from the supermarket like Morrison in an effective manner for the further development of the lifestyle of the children and the young people in the community with need(Gebauer, et al., 2013).

Business environment analysis of Morrison’s

As per the view of Mellahi & Frynas (2015), the perfect organisation is the assembly of the different departmentsto operate in a smooth manner with their different functions. The perfect systematic approach use to be executed by the different departments. The different organisation structure use to depend on the culture associated with the organisation in an effective manner. The different organisation structure are: Divisional structure, Matrix structure, Mechanistic structure, Organic structure, and the team based structure. The chosen organisation for this section of the discussion Morrison’s use to follow the functional structure. It has been mentioned byFleisher & Bensoussan (2015)that in the functional structure, the experts and the leaders of the different functional departments are assigned to work with their own project as well as the projects led by the other departments. Thus the coherent transparent communication is effectively maintained in the functional structure organisation.

The key business functions of Morrison’s are as below:

• Product stewardship: With the own manufacturing firm and the excellent training and development skills offering to the employees, the organisation is well to maintain the high quality food product offering to the customers. This department also look for the application of innovation to the product category and also focus on the maintenance of the responsible source guidelines.
• Supply chain integrity: the excellent supply chain integrity is maintained here, as numerous farmers use to play their role as the suppliers of the fresh raw materials for their effective supply chain. This supply chain department have a coherent relationship with the maintenance of the good product quality. Thus, the supply chain department and the product department use to work mutually to reach their individual goals as well as the overall goal of the organisation to offer the quality product to the customers.The fair ethical trading standard is maintained here.
• Satisfaction for the stakeholders: Apart from offering the good quality products, the excellent customer service is alsomaintained to satisfy the important stakeholder’s of the organisation as customers. The Human resource team use to offer the excellent training to upgrade the skills level of the employees to make the customers satisfied. Hence, here as well the human resource tea and the technical tam use to work together for the betterment of the organisation. On the other hand , the low pricingstrategy use to take by the marketing department and the sales department together so that they will be able to discuss regarding the information received for the market about thepreferences of thecustomersthrough the sales team with the help of the public relationship communication. Thus, here as well, the marketing and the sales yea use to work together to meet the overall objective of theorganisation.

Thus, the strong interrelationships between the different functional departments can be observed in Morrison’s. On the otherhand, if the functionalhead swill not performtheir task with greatimportance, then the interdependencywill get increased. This will give rise to the matrix structure. Thischange in the organisation structure may impose the negative impact as the employees will feel demotivated about their presence and due to the sudden systemic change in the organisation.

Part 2

Section 1: Identify some positive and negative impacts of the macro environment on the business operations

The positive impacts: The positive changes due to the macro business environment fact can be mentioned for the change in the social factor and the change in the technological advancement. The eradication system is likely to pose the opportunity to Morrison to attract more customers to them. This will result for the future consistent growth of the organisation. On the other hand, the technologicadvancementis sufficient enough to bring the competitive advantage. The socialmediainteraction to meet the query of the customers as el as the online presence of the shopping experience through Morrison use to boost up the consumer buying pattern. The hassle free shopping experience and the vast searching option with an ease use to facilitate the positive shopping experience in an effective manner(Anderson, et al., 2013).

The negative impacts: The political and the legal factors use to have a negative impact on the business oeorations of Morrison. The usage of the low Calorieingredients based on the health policy of UK government,Morrison is bound to use the low calorie rawmaterials for theirreadyfooditems to be offered to the market.  In a contrary, the legal and the political factors use to create the obstacle to open up new business. Thus, this use to create the opportunity to Morrison to maintain the minimum competitors in the market(Cavusgil, et al., 2014). 

Thus from the discussion , it is evident that the macro environment factor use to have a string influence on the business operations of Morrison and the organisation is able to cope up with the influence of the factors with efficiency.

Section 2: Conduct an internal and external analysis to identify its core strengths and weaknesses

The internal and the external analysis has been done with the help of the Porter’s five force analysis of Morrison as below:

• Power of the competitors: The key competitors of Morrison in the UK market are Tesco, Asda, and Sainsbury. They use to offer the similar types of the products to the UK customers along with the presence of the online shopping mode So, Morrison is in struggling phase with the lowest offered process for their offered products to sustain in the market with their competitiveness(Morrissons, 2015).
• Threat of the substitutes: The threat of the substitute in terms of the local grocery stores is low as they are unable to offer the variety products with the cheap rate like Morrison with the supermarket brand with them.
• Bargaining power of the buyers: This force is high. The buyers are the customers. They have large variety option to choose the product from the competitors of Morrison. Therefore, Morrison is in continuousprocess inproductinnovation with the strategic move of the price setting in aneffective manner(Morrissons, 2015).
• Bargaining power of the suppliers: Morrison has their own manufacturing firm along with the on farming with numerous farmers associated with them. Thus, the support from the suppliers is high for the organisation which use to help in the product innovation and to get the fresh product(Morrissons, 2015).
• Threat of the new entrants: The threat of the new entrants is low in UK market as the legations are string for the newly opened business in the UK market. Thus, the strength are the variety of products with the support of the suppliers and the low pricestrategy. The negative factor is the forcefrom the competitors.

Section 3: Explain how these strengths and weaknesses are linked to the external macro factors

There is a direct relationship between the strength –weakness factor and macro environment alanalysis.Thesefactors are the outcome of this macro analysis. The analysis of the threat factor use to shape up the business organisation to cope up with the change in the market. Thus, threat factor use to help to convert the weakness of the organisation to the strength factors with the perfect strategic steps. The perfect analysis of the PESTLE factors also use to shape up the business operations of Morrison. As an example, the legal aspects for not using the high calorie food ingredients has shaped up the innovative food processing strategy to bring the competitive advantage of the organisation and also to do e ethical business in an effective manner. Thus, the generation of the strength and the weakness factor use to help the business operations of Morrisonin a great manner(Agan, et al., 2013).

Section 4: Apply some analysis models -i.e. PESTLE and SWOT/TOWS- to develop an in-depth understanding of the impact of the macro environment as well as to justify how this affects organisation’s decision-making processes

The PESTLE analysis is the perfect tool to identify the external environmental impacts in an effective manner.

• Political: The UK legislations regarding the control over the food wastage and the usage of the low calorie food ingredients from the aspect of the health consciousness is strong in UK market. This, Morrison has to abide by the rules and regulations. Thus, it use to effect on the decision making process of the organisation as well(Saltmarsh, 2013).
• Economical: As per the present positive economic condition, the decision making process of the origination is based on the positive forecasting of the sales volume in an effective manner.
• Social: The slow eradication system in UK use to influence the versatile range of the segmentation and the positioning by highlighting the positive impact and brining the opportunity as well.
• Technological: The advancement of the technology along with the presence of the social media presence use to bring the positive aspect for the organisation and also use to focus on the social media brand spreading in their decision making process(De Castro, et al., 2014).
• Legal: The permission is required from the local authority to open up new business and Morrison use to abide by the rules.
• Environmental: The environmental conservation is strongly focused by the organisation by suing the sustained and the recycled material in their processing unit. At the same time, the conservation of the water and the electricity also are given priority.

SWOT analysis

Strength The good supply chain with the own manufacturing unit More than 400 stores in UK market Low pricing offering to the UK market	Weakness Limited geographical reach Force for the competitors
Opportunity Expansion in the international market	Threat Increase in the UK tax system Rise in the labour cost

Thus by analysing these factors, the management of Morrison is required to take the properdecisions to cope up with the competitivemarket.

Reflective

The macro environment analysis has been done with the help of the PESTLE analysis and the Porter’s five force analysis in an effective manner. At the same time, the internal analysis has been done with the help of the SWOT model. It has been understood that analysis of these models were required to find out eh strength, weakness as well as the probe factors sothat the necessarystrategicmoves can be decided with the help of the proper decision making approaches.

The Porter’s five force analysis has decided the fact that the effective supply chain is the great opportunity to utilize in a proper manner to bring the sustainedcompetitiveadvantage, A the same time, by analysing the SWOT analysis, it has been understood that the low pricingapproach of Morrison is the key uniquesellingprice in thecompetitive UK market along with the presence of the other competitors such as ASDA, Sainsbury and Tesco. From the entire discussion , it also has been understood that the macro environmental analysis also is required to take the effective decisions for the firm in terms of the strategic planning using the low pricing, continuous innovation , upgrading the skills of the employees so that they will be able to meet the satisfaction of the customers.

The strength factors of Morrison are the low pricing strategy implementation and the effective supply chain with the maintenance of their own manufacturing firm so that they will be able to maintain the string competiveness inside the firm to cope up with the change in the market trend as well as to cope up with the change in the strategic moves of the competitors. The low expansion of the brand in terms of the limited geographical reach within UK only is one of the weakness of the organisation to add more competitiveadvantage in them. But,with the expectedgrowth of the firm,it is assumed to have the opportunity in near future to expand their market reach. Thus, the information & knowledge from the entire discussion lies on the fact that the perfect analysis of the internal and the external factors associated with any firm use to influence the decisions making process by the mangers and the leaders to reach the assigned goal or the objectives of any organisation in an effective manner. Thus, this analysis also has become the most effective tool to take the strategic move of any firm by using the effective decision making approach of themanagers by considering all the strength, weakness, threat, and the opportunity fact as well by considering thedegree of the internal and the external forces that the firm use to face as their dallychallenge

References

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De Castro, J., Khavul, S. & Bruton, G., 2014. Shades of grey: how do informal firms navigate between macro and meso institutional environments?. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journa, 8(1), pp. 75-94.
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Mellahi, K. & Frynas, G., 2015. Global strategic management. London: Oxford University Press.
Morrisons, 2016. Strategy. [Online]Available at: http://www.morrisons-corporate.com/about-us/strategy-structure/
[Accessed 28 October 2016]
Morrissons, 2015. Annual report, London: Morrissons.
Saltmarsh, M., 2013. Essential guide to food additives. s.l.:Royal Society of Chemistry.