Applied Business Studies Unit 1: Investigating Business

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Hayley Wilkinson                Business Studies Unit 1

Business Studies Coursework (Investigating Business)

This piece of coursework is all about Martin Manufacturing Ltd in Louth.

A01: describe the main aims and objectives of the business and external environment factors which have affected the ability of the business to meet its aims & objectives illustrating these with examples taken from the business

What this means: i have to state the aims and objectives of MMUK and any factors that contribute to them meeting these.

Introduction to MMUK

The company I am studying for my coursework is Martin Manufacturing UK (MMUK) in Louth. They make smoke machines and architectural lighting. The photo below shows an aerial view of MMUK:

Below is a rough sketch of the building:

Martin manufacturing UK is a subsidiary company of Martin professional, which is owned by the holding company Schouw. Along with MMUK there are several other manufacturing sites spread out throughout the world (including Demark and China). They also have a series of offices (including one in Kent, that operates as martin professional UK and is in charge of UK Sales) and there is a central warehouse in Venlo, Netherlands (known as the hub).

The factory in Demark make intelligent lighting products, the factory in china makes lower priced DJ products (both lighting and smoke).

Martin Manufacturing Ltd. in Louth make “industrial smoke machines” these are the sort of smoke machine professional DJ’s would use, as well as them being used for stage shows and concerts and finally in nightclubs.

The Louth factory currently supplies most of the big European festivals (Glastonbury included), and they are also the sole supplier of smoke machines for the Ministry of Sound clubs worldwide.

The Aim’s And Objective’s of Martin PLC

  1. Develop products the meet and exceed the expectations of customers and the competition worldwide. This is important to martin as it will mean that they will get the repeat business of their customers as they know they will always receive high quality products.  
  2. Continuously improve, allowing martin to maintain there position as world leaders in intelligent lighting systems (light systems controlled via a control panel), and to help them work towards their objective of becoming world leaders in architectural lighting and smoke machines.
  3. Consistently provide high quality 100% defeat free products and services. This is important to martin because if they don’t provide consistently high quality products there customers will not come back to them.
  4. Develop 3 or 4 new products a year, this is important to Martin, as they need to try and stay ahead of the competition. Expand product range in the UK to include intelligent lighting. This will allow martin a fresh perspective in regards to making lighting and allow them to improve the quality of their products.
  5. Keep staff happy, this is important to martin as having happy staff normally means more efficient/productivity staff, which means more products made in the same space of time but off equalling or better quality.

PESTEL Analysis

PESTEL stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal external influences. (see appendix three for research)

Political & Legal

Consumer legislation

Consumer legislation is something enforced by the government. They are pieces of legislation focused on consumer rights, and try to get the consumer the best possible service when buying a product. In the case of Martin, for them this means they have to adhere to legislation on sale of goods, trade descriptions, supply of goods and services, consumer safety and weight and measures Act.

Martin must make sure they aide by any and all rules and regulation regarding the internal sale of goods, as well as any regulations regarding what the machine can do, i.e. use of harmful chemicals.

What this means to Martin is that they have a legal responsibility to make sure that all their advertising material, product guides and brochures are accurate, and that the information given before a sale is made is correct and not misleading in anyway. Furthermore their product specifications must be accurate and relevant. The packaging of each product should have the size and weight of the product and any ingredients it has (with allergy advice if necessary). The packaging should also have a safety logo to show that it has been tested and is safe and legal to sell aboard.

UK Government

The UK government is a key external influence as there are the body who enforce tax’s, pay benefits to people (this will not affect Martin direct but may affect there staff and therefore accurate financial/wage records will need to be kept and revised periodically by the government to make sure that the people who are getting money are getting the right amount), they also control policies on overseas trading, and asset control (i.e. controls on transport, planning permission etc).

What this means to Martin is that they have to do what the government say and pay them the amount they specify when they specify it (tax), this includes VAT. Also any business they do abroad (which they do a lot of) must follow the strict government rules. Furthermore, they have to record they earns of there staff, as it will need to be checked by anyone on benefits. Also if the Martin decided to expand there current factory or move to another site, or even buy an additional plot of land to build a new factory on, they would more than likely need to get planning permission to do this.

The European Market

The main way that Martin s effect by the European market is:

  • Laws affecting the importing and exporting good (for when they sell abroad (in Europe))
  • The euro, they will have to change currency a lot. Especially when doing joint business with there sister company in demark.

Labour Market Legislation

Labour market legislation concerns things like:

  • Equal pay, equal equality, and discrimination
  • Notice, dismissals and redundancy
  • Health and safety
  • Holidays, leave of absence (maternity etc) and benefits
  • Employment contracts
  • Disability discrimination and accessibility
  • Harassment

What this means to Martin is that they have to follow government laws on how they pay there staff (they use a basic hourly rate), how many hours that staff can work, they have to pay men and women doing the same job the same, and they cannot discriminate against anyone during hiring or firing or anytime in-between. They have to have an employment contract with every employee, in this contract it must state the type of pay they are on (salary, hourly rate etc), the minimum number of hours there are required to work per week, the amount of holiday they are entitled to, there job description, basically everything about there job (i.e. exactly what they do when they do it who they do it with how much they get paid for it etc) have to be stated in this contract witch is signed by both employer and employee before employment starts. This provides the company and the staff a speciation of exactly what that member of staff agreed to neither employer of employee can break the contract without good cause or notice.

Furthermore this relates to health and safety procedures and training. It is the company’s legal responsibility to provide each member of staff with the correct training for their job. If they do not and the employee has an accident the company could be liable.

Technological

Technological influences are probably the most important to Martin. This is because they make electronic machinery using electronic machinery, so therefore it is vital they keep at the cutting edge of technological advances to stay ahead of competitors.

A very important part of the design process for martin is R and D (Research and development). This process will be affect a lot by technological advances. For martin this will mean look at the new technology emerging and seeing how they can apply that to new products and also how they can improve existing products. This will partly involve market research, seeing what is already out there, what the competitors have and then developing products to match the technology or beat it.

Also world technological advances are something martin, have to take into account. For example there are a lot of countries in the world in poverty, that don’t have electricity, but also there are countries that are just establishing themselves, these countries will have market for products.

Other things that influence martin technologically are changes in production methods.  For example there is a current market for outsourcing work from one company another. Martin does not out source their work, however they do, do outsourced work for other companies (basically this means that they makes products that are branded as something sold by another company and not martin). Also things like advances in machinery affect production.

Advances in communication also affect Martin. As martin is a multi national company and ahs clients all over the world new forms of fast technology are vital to the smooth running of the company.

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Social

After technological, Social factors are in my opinion the most important factor to Martin. I think this because the changes in social attitudes are amount of leisure time people have dictates the need for Martins products.

For Martin this means that as there biggest area of sales is for nightclubs and festival type event/concerts. The more free time people have and the more socially expectable it is for people to go clubbing the more lighting an smoke products will be in demand.

Also the issue of binge drink will slightly effect Martins, as there is a ...

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