Business Context and its Management

P1: Opportunity for the Development of Electric Vehicle Taxi Company

Introduction

Management or business management is called the process of administering of the overall activities of and organisation. The organisation chosen here to describe the management functions in details is Unilever Plc. located in UK and headquartered in London. Three major business management levels are the top managerial or administrative level then under that comes the executive or middle level and after that is the lower supervisory or operative level.

LO 1. Analysis of a business context and its influence on management decision

Unilever Plc. is basically a British multinational company who is headquartered in London and deals in various types of consumer goods. It is spread all over the world in various countries like Australia, Hindustan (India), Philippines, Pakistan and so on. Unilever Plc. trades its goods in more than 190 countries ranking as the largest brand of the US market (unilever.co.uk, 2021).

Strategical concepts of a business management

1 Competitive strategies- Competitive strategy is that plan which is prepared to compete with the rivals and win over them in the market of numerous brands. The competitive advantage s of a company is set after analysing their strengths, threats, opportunities they and their weaknesses (Burgstaller et al. 2017). These types of strategies influence the everyday execution, delegation, monitoring of plans, performance and actions. It helps the managers to evaluate whether the goals are competitively supportive according to the needs or not after determining the responsibilities, roles and relations.

2 Business strategies- A set of actions and plan who are as competitive as to fight with the rivals and attract more customers from others can be called as business strategies. It directs successful competition, performance strengthening, making better company environment & achieve the desired organisational goals (López‐Pérez et al. 2017). A manager uses the business strategic plan to outline the route map that how the execution of business functions can be carried out to reach the company goal in less time with great effectiveness.

3. Corporate strategies- Corporate organisational strategies are built from the top authorities i.e. the owners and managerial level which is majorly concerned with the business developing decision making plans. According to Żytniewski (2017), a firm’s corporate strategy is kind of a portfolio approach that influences operation management decision making process which managers pursues by accessing all the resources of the firm to determine the most valuable outcome by the managers.

4. Operational strategies- Strategies that are generally developed for operational management since these are mostly responsible for managing the firm’s organisational resources and establishing the relation between the organisational strategies and its functioning. This relation is the key determinant which enhances managers’ ability to achieve long term success. Oldman and Tomkins (2018) suggested that some of the deep core operation strategies are inventory management, optimising supply chain, continual product development and service offering, decreasing labour cost, increasing profit, subscription of cloud software models, continuous business spreading and so on.

5. Functional strategies- This strategic type serves as a functional decision making for the managers so that they can make effective choices after considering all the variables that impacts the business for a long term of period. Functional strategies can be like marketing, human resource, production, financial and research & development (Gryshova et al. 2017). It looks after all the specific functional areas among different operations and facilitates coordination among them.

Altogether these can make the best possible strategic decisions for Unilever Plc. Unilever Plc. is increasing the recruitment of diverse people for advertisement and production by 2030. Unilever plc. has announced the controlled operations and reduction of CO2 emissions and contributing towards better society environment (sciencedirect.com, 2020). Unilever’s vision and mission statement for its business is to aim to support the global sustainability and also to increase the vitality of consumers’ lives. And as a supporting strategy they will be applying the diversification and market development strategies for their business. In the year 2010, they launched a Unilever Sustainable Living Plan as their blueprint of the sustainable growth of business (unilever.co.uk, 2021). Their primary plan now is to drive the organisation towards more profitable growth by saving costs, mitigating risks and challenges, building a trustworthy image among shareholders and stakeholders and developing the brand image among customers and competitors. The top level board governance of Unilever Plc. is responsible for oversighting the general affairs, performance, management, directions and long term success. Unilever Plc. spread their message that connecting with the customers is not their only motto of business success but it’s also vital to share their sustainable ambitions with them (unilever.co.uk, 2021).

LO 2. Application of internal and external analytical tools (PESTLE & SWOT

The internal and external analytical tools used to explain the environment of Unilever Plc. are SWOT for measuring the internal factors and PESTLE for evaluating the external factors. Both the analytical tools will reveal all the aspects which impact the functioning of Unilever Plc. either supporting them company in a positive way or creating hindrances in the smooth running of the business.

External PESTLE Analysise

The PESTLE analysis here describes some of the external factors that impact either positively or negatively in accordance with them. All this depends on the countries where the business is running. Unilever creates a big positive image, meeting the customer demands and helps to make a better customer living standard.

Internal SWOT Analysis

The internal strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats of Unilever are inter-related with each other. The opportunities are created with the help of strengths of the business and same as that the weaknesses of Unilever reveal the threats of the business operations. These four aspects are fills the gap of each other’s and are connected with each other.

Correlation of PESTEL and SWOT of Unilever

The strengths of Unilever Plc. are unique from its competitors and develop opportunities for their growth. In the same way the weakness will bring threats to the business functioning and increases challenges and problems. The opportunities and threats are also inter-connected since with a proper utilisation of the opportunities will mitigate the treats coming to Unilever.

Management practice in response to business challenges

The recent time is the time of uncertainty and changes in the industry world where a business in reality will have to face various challenges sooner or later. Nowadays a firm can be at the top level at a time and can be at a lower level in the next second, so no place is fixed for anyone. According to Żytniewski (2017), the growing market trend decides the business position of organisations. The market position of a business is affected and impacted highly by the challenges and complexity which they face while running the business whether external or internal. Oldman and Tomkins (2018) suggested that these can be solved if appropriate strategies and practices are adopted at correct time. Some of the management strategies or practices are such as:

Lean Management approach

This practice is related with the focus on the customer base. This management approach is applied by Unilever Plc. to deeply understanding the customer demands, preferences, taste, mentality to buy products and some more factors which are necessary to attain the nature of customer demands. De Silva (2019) advised that this challenge can be resolved if there can be created a link between the company and their customers exploring their experiences, problems in shopping and other thinks. The learning of how to break the silo mentality of customers is necessary and needs trained employees to do so is mandatory. As disclosed by Żytniewski (2017), in this regard not only a single department but the whole organisation should involve in trying to do that.

Continuous improvement approach

In case of the issues related with technology, only one solution is not enough sometimes. De Silva (2019) stated that here every business organisation has to prepare multiple methods to solve by using the design thinking approach in their working. This approach brings out every possible and innovative method to solve the technological related issue with high-end solutions. So that in real time if one way fails then the next one can be applied without wasting time again prepare a new plan. This approach helps Unilver to make time to time upgradation and improvements which are needed to compete with the rival. Oldman and Tomkins (2018) disclosed that this approach basically applies the company’s own skills and expertise to remit the market issues.

Total Quality Management approach

As revealed by Martens and Carvalho (2017), the easiest solution to this is integrated customer service given to every customer and making them feel important and special by taking time to time reviews about the company, its products and services from the customers and asking them about their shopping experiences and the corners where there is a need of improvement. Without customers every company will get shutted as quickly as they cannot even think and this is known to every business personnel (sciencedirect.com, 2020). This approach basically as the name says helps Unilever Plc. to hold a smooth control over all the working process of the business else there will rise gaps and loopholes in the activities which are harmful for the company.

Leadership approach

The internal challenges of every business like employee conflicts, bad work environment, ego clashes between employees, demotivation among the workers, disagreement between the managerial personnels and many others (tandfonline.com, 2020). All these can be resolve if there an open minded communication with each other can be brought where the problems exist. A good and skilled leader is a mandate for every firm so Unilever also applies this approach to make the business leaders enough efficient to handle every small and big issues and will be able to take the team towards accomplishments. Martens and Carvalho (2017) stated that there must be conducted open minded chat between the employees so that each one could share their experiences and problems and then steps can be taken to solve them as much as possible.

LO 4. Alternative Strategic Approach

Relational approach h

This approach is basically used to create a good working environment and it includes the factors like mission and objectives, strategic options, evaluation of choices, implementation and review of all those so that they can be presented externally. These kinds of approaches makes room for out of the box thinking perceiving the limitations, generating new ideas and making collaborations to get best possible remedies. This approach says to encourage more the employees within work environments by creating such a workplace where both work and play can adjust (Burgstaller et al. 2017). Unilever adopted this approach to make the work environment efficient and effective because that will ultimately give productive results to the company.

Flexible approach

In most of the businesses, this approach is must because without this firm could not make its activities flexible according to the present situation. In every business scenarios sudden changes and turn-ups comes that every company must be ready to face (López‐Pérez et al. 2017). Unilever also applies this approach to make emergency changes and can take required decisions flexibly when needed This approach is more grass rooted to the employees’ flexibility to adopt the changes when it comes to solving real time business issues and leading the company towards better new strategies (Gryshova et al. 2017). This approach recognises those uncertainties which can never be eliminated but can be handled tactfully.

Rational approach

This approach basically is adopted the rational environmental changes and respond towards them by fully accepting them and adapting new changes and improvements according to the changes. This approach gives strategies which are sometimes conservative and difficult to address but can give good results (López‐Pérez et al. 2017). Unilever applies this approach to improve their competitive advantages by improving the creativity and innovation.

Behavioural approach

The behavioural approach primarily presents the view of management values and goals which are more important than any other individual inputs in the overall planning process. (Mendling et al. 2019). This approach style enables the creation of those conditions which keeps the workers satisfies with their job and makes them motivated to contribute more rather than just simply setting up the tasks and demanding their completion from them. It influences the way in which the environment is generally perceived so there must be choices in case of opportunities, assessments and threats of the strengths and weaknesses (sciencedirect.com, 2021). The outcomes of application of this approach are strategies which are satisfactory at a definite level instead of seeking for the maximum result.

Conclusion

The writing concludes that managing a business may seem not that hard but managing every big and small details of it is not a piece of cake. The Unilever Plc. have set up certain unique strategies and practices which gives them internal and external strengths to compete with the rivals and grow smoothly. The internal and external factors affecting Unilever are mostly inter-related with each other. The approaches which are applied by Unilever which are mentioned above are lean management, continuous improvement approach, total quality management and leadership approach. All these somehow help Unilever in developing and growing despite a competitive market industry. The alternative approaches discussed here will give boost to Unilever in their business functioning and are better for problem solving matters. Finally it can be concluded that altogether these can make the best possible strategic decisions for Unilever Plc. Unilever Plc. is increasing the recruitment of diverse people for advertisement and production.

References

Books

Burgstaller, F., Neumayr, B., Schuetz, C.G. and Schrefl, M., 2017, October. Modification operations for context-aware business rule management. In 2017 IEEE 21st International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference (EDOC) (pp. 194-203). IEEE.

López‐Pérez, M.E., Melero, I. and Javier Sese, F., 2017. Management for sustainable development and its impact on firm value in the SME context: Does size matter?. Business Strategy and the Environment, 26(7), pp.985-999.

Oldman, A. and Tomkins, C., 2018. Cost management and its interplay with business strategy and context. Routledge.

Żytniewski, M., 2017, September. Context specification in support of business processes and knowledge management integration. In International Conference on Information Systems Architecture and Technology (pp. 153-163). Springer, Cham.

Journals

De Silva, M.T.C.N.S., 2019. An Empirical Review: Knowledge Management & Its Implications in the Contemporary Business Context. International Journal Of Research In Business Studies And Management, 6(2), pp.39-44.

Gryshova, I.Y., Nikolyuk, E.V. and Shestakovska, T.L., 2017. Conceptualization of the Organizational management Mechanism of the Development of the National Education System in the Context of its Quality. Наука і освіта, (10), pp.118-125.

Martens, M.L. and Carvalho, M.M., 2017. Key factors of sustainability in project management context: A survey exploring the project managers' perspective. International Journal of Project Management, 35(6), pp.1084-1102.

Mendling, J., Weber, I., Aalst, W.V.D., Brocke, J.V., Cabanillas, C., Daniel, F., Debois, S., Ciccio, C.D., Dumas, M., Dustdar, S. and Gal, A., 2018. Blockchains for business process management-challenges and opportunities. ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (TMIS), 9(1), pp.1-16.

Websites

unilever.co.uk 2021. About, available at: https://www.unilever.co.uk/about/ [Accessed on: 26th December, 2020]

sciencedirect.com 2020. Knowledge management, decision-making style and organizational performance, available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2444569X17300562 [Accessed on: 17th January, 2021

sciencedirect.com 2021. Sustainability strategy as a moderator in the relationship between digital business strategy and financial performance, available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965261932476X [Accessed on: 15th November, 2020]

tandfonline.com 2020. Business risk management in the context of small and medium-sized enterprises, available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1331677X.2020.1844588 [Accessed on: 7th December, 2020]

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