The committee
This Committee guides the Board on the social, ethical and environmental impact of our Company activities, and is supported by the CSR team (part of Corporate Communication s) and the CSR forum - a representative group from all business units and areas, chaired by David Gregory (Head of Food Technology).
Functional Areas
Introduction
In a large organisation, people with the same type of jobs work together in Functional Areas. These areas, which relate to the main functions that must be carried out within the business it is to succeed. All functions have a specific purpose.
The important functions are:
- Human Resources
- Finance
- Marketing & Sale
- Administration
In any organisation these functions, which match the title of the department, e.g. the Human Resources department, Finance department etc, are always found, but may be combined if the company is small.
These functions, which are not the only ones, take place in the businesses. Other functions, such as quality control and research and development are also usually present.
Each of the Functional Areas support the business’s aims and objectives and a range of activities are carried out in each functional area. For example the Human Resource department have to regard their staff as their important resource that they possess and the Finance department have to make sure their staff get their paid on time and make sure the banking work are correct and the other one is the Marketing and Sales department have to find out what their needs and then they providing it.
I am investigating how the functional areas work in a business; I am using Marks and Spencer to explain how each area work.
Human Resources
Human Resources are concerned with the employees who work for Marks and Spencer. Marks and Spencer regard their staff as the most important resource that they possess, other resources include equipment, money in the bank, buildings, land and materials. Moneys in the form of stocks and investments, which are available to be used in the department of the company, are called capital PTO.
The Human Resource department their main jobs are to attract and retain goods, high- quality staff, to ensure that the organisation operates within the law in relation to employment and health and safety and to ensure that the organisation avoids unlawful or unfair discrimination.
However, if the employees of Marks and Spencer are not motivated and only do the minimum work that is required, then all the money or equipment in the world won’t make Marks and Spencer a successful business. On the other hand, if the employees of Marks and Spencer are keen to do their best and well trained and committed to the aims of the business, then Marks and Spencer will be a successful business. This is why the employees or human resources are so important to Marks and Spencer.
The ways Marks and Spencer can give their staff opportunities to train are to give them a work experience first and than show them the basic work.
Finance
Marks and Spencer have a Finance department their reason for having one is to control the financial side of Marks and Spencer. The Finance Director deals with all the banking work of Marks and Spencer. The main work of the Finance department is to sort and keep the accounts and the staff wages up to date. The due of targets of the Finance department are to make sure that their staffs are paid on time and with the correct wages and make sure all the banking information are correct.
The Finance has to keep on track of all the money going out and coming into Marks and Spencer. Finance department is very important to all the staffs that work in Marks and Spencer, because the payment of wages and salaries is part of its function. In Marks and Spencer they have a chief financial manager who has the responsibly for ensuring all the accounts are properly prepared.
The Finance function of Marks and Spencer keep all the financial records required by the business and detailing all the receipts and payment that have been made by Marks and Spencer. They prepare the financial records of the customers who have the store cards; monthly statements have to be sent out to each one and they also have a currency exchange in some store and they prepare the final accounts from these records that are required by law; the annual accounts have to be seen by all the shareholders and they also provide the continuous, up- to- date financial information for managers on performance. Marks and Spencer have to pay the amounts of their owing to their supplies.
In Marks and Spencer the finance function are grouped into three main areas.
In Marks and Spencer the Finance department they have to deal with the currency exchange and the store cards and in the future the finance department in Marks and Spencer probably introduce new cards, which is credit card.
Marketing and Sales
Marketing and Sales, which is looking at the business through the customers’ eyes. The basic purpose of Marks and Spencer marketing is concerned with identifying in what their customers require and providing it, so that customers continue to shop at Marks and Spencer. They can do this by introducing the new products such as new fashion clothes and they can introduce new service such as you buy two things you can get another thing free.
Marketing in Marks and Spencer is considered much more than just a separate function. Marks and Spencer staff are very keen to be involved and to find out other things they require. They are keen to make their customers happy and even try to duopoly additional services that the customers may be aware of e.g. new credit card.
Marketing and Sales in Marks and Spencer include the market research, promotion and sales. Market research tries to find out what their customers opinion and needs are from the data collected, they try to propose change to existing products or service. They do their best to match their customer’s requirements.
The marketing department are linked with many department for example the finance department provide the money the purchase stocks and services.
The graph show that the sales performance per quarter increase during the year this means that the finance department would then have to provide the retail department with money to purchase stock.
(Taken from the website which is www.marksandspencer.co.uk
Administration
Administration was designed to ensure that the organisation operates as smoothly as possible. They do this by performing a wide range of support activities fast and efficiently. Administration is what holds the whole business together. If administration does not function properly then the business will have problems in producing goods and lifting sales.
There are many different activities carried out by the administration. They consist of:
- Clerical work, which includes mail handling, record keeping, document production, organising meetings, dealing with enquiries etc.
- Cleaning and maintenance.
- Security.
Administration in Marks and Spencer is concerned with many departments for example the information handling, communication, making arrangements and obtaining resources.
Equal Opportunities
There are several Equal Opportunities which legislation in place to cover Marks and Spencer employees and employers. These Equal Opportunities which are concerned with the Marks and Spencer’s employees and employers and they are the:
- The Equal Pay Act 1970
- Health and Safety at work Act 1974
- The Employment Right Act 1996
- The Sex Discrimination Act 1975
- The Race Relations Act 1976
- Disability Discrimination Act 1995
The Equal Pay Act 1970
At the work place women and men should be treated equally and fairly to give out work and the most important is their receiving the same amount of pay. Marks and Spencer have to abide by this legislation in their work place because in the past there was the case about their staff are not being treated equally and paid the same amount for everyone. For example: The Noble v David Gold sons Ltd 1980.
At the Male Warehouse the men where getting more that the women who were working in the warehouse and the women were working alongside of the men. This case are held to be justified by the fact that men are loading and unloading the goods when they come in the company and the women are doing different activities but their job was higher and their work are involved sorting, labelling and packaging the goods.
Health and Safety at work Act 1974
At the work place the important area is to have good conditions to work in place and health and Safety at the work place is being increasingly regulated by legislation from the United Kingdom and the European Union. Marks and Spencer have this Act in the work place because all the employees and employers should have a safety policy in place at the company. If the employee gets hurt in their work place they can take this to court and get money off Marks and Spencer.
The employees have the same responsibility to work to these rules to keep themselves and colleagues safe too.
The Employment Right Act 1996
At the work place everyone has the Right to fair treatment which means employees cannot be dismissed because they belong to a trade union or for being a health and safety representative, and this act concerned with all the employees. They should be allowed time off for their jury service or ante- natal care etc. There have been cases where employees get dismissed when they are ill and stay at home too long.
The Sex Discrimination Act 1975
At the work place this act will make it illegal for anyone to be discriminated against on grounds of genders. In this act there are two different types of discrimination and they are the direct discrimination and the indirect discrimination. Marks and Spencer have this law in place because at M & S employ both men and women staff.
There have been cases where women get sex discrimination at the work place.
The Race Relations Act 1976
This act is basically the same as the sex discrimination act, the race relation act have two types of discrimination such as the direct discrimination and the indirect discrimination and the difference of this act compared to the sex discrimination act are that this act makes it unlawful for anyone to be discriminated against on grounds of colour, race, nationality or ethnic origin. Marks and Spencer have a policy in place to avoid these types of discrimination.
There have been cases where members of staff get discrimination by other staff because he/she was different colour.
The Disability Discrimination Act 1995
At the work place employers have the duty to make reasonable adjustments to the workplace and in order to be found guilty of discrimination, the employer must know about the employee’s disability.
Business Communication
Introduction
In each organisation they have their own communication to communicate with their department or communicate with the other organisation for example if is emergencies they will write memos, email or send a faxes. If is not emergencies they talk at the meeting or negotiate over the phone.
Communication is very important to all the business. If the business doesn’t have good communication they cannot achieve anything in their business. For example if the business doesn’t have communication they will take more time to do one job and the other business with communication they can finish job fast and can get a other job to work on.
If Marks and Spencer within poor conditions of communication that they will not achieved anything in their business for example if they suppliers send a wrong order of the materials and they don’t have the communication to communicate their suppliers they can not make anything and nothing to sale for their company that will their business loss money.
Marks and Spencer are involve with all kind of the communication for example there are three main communication that Marks and Spencer are need to communicate with their customer, suppliers and their staff are:
- By Method
- By Recipient
- By Formality
The department in Marks and Spencer need to use communication a lot are:
Methods
There are many methods the Marks and Spencer functional areas can communicate with each other and the methods are:
- Business Letters
- Telephone Message
- Notice
- Newspaper
- Reports
- Memos
- Meeting
The types of methods used in Marks and Spencer functional areas it would be depend on what the urgency of the situation is.
All types of communication are organised into categories.
These categories consist of oral and written.
This table shows how the different types communication are organised into these categories. They are split into Internal customers (inside the organisation) and External (outside the organisation)
The main method of written are Business Letters because when writing letters people must take into consideration how many different of letters there are:
-
Confirmatory letter that confirm an arrangement already agreed verbally e.g. details of a meeting.
-
Letters of acknowledgment that confirm receipt of a letter request or order that cannot be dealt with immediately.
-
Reminder Letters that are sent to joy someone memory e.g. an account is overdue for payment.
- Letters of Enquiry
- Letter of Response
- Sales letters and Circular letters
- Letter of complaint and Adjustment
- Job Application letter
- The Personal letters
The main method of oral are Telephone or face to face conversations (sales assistants) because telephone can help the organisation less travelling time and they have more time to do what the important work and telephone remains one of the most important forms of external communication, it’s a rapid and relatively cheap form of verbal letter.
Line of Communisation
There are two lines of communisation, Formal and Informal.
Function areas use one or the other to communicate with each other, depending on the situation of their business.
Formal is used for important or serious matters and records may be kept of these.
Informal is used for people to contact each other frequently, these mat be Internally or Externally.
If a function area is using a formal line of communication the best method would be a meeting, mainly because thing may be talked about thoroughly and notes may be kept for future reference.
There can be some problems with some communication, like fax and Email. They are very different to telephone or meeting. Email and Fax’s are only useful for informing a department of something, because it takes so long for a message to travel where as telephone call or meeting can be used to discuss various problems quickly and efficiently.
Marks and Spencer use communication to obtain their aims and objective, for instance, if they have to communicate with their suppliers for a wrong order. They can phone them to change the order or ensure them of any problems that have accord.
E-mails is on of the communication that Marks and Spencer used too because E-mail can be saved and people can take their laptops to refer to the E-mail in meetings.
Organisation Structures
Introduction
The meaning of Organisation Structures is to make the business run smoothly. It is designed to make it easy and less complicated for workers to communicate.
All business needs to organise their actives. Running a business involves planning decision-making, co- ordination and communication.
In order to simplify these complex tasks it is helpful to organise the business sections. For example a business selling books to customers by mail order from a warehouse may be organised into number of departments.
There are two different types of organisation structures; one of the structures called Flat structure and the other one are Hierarchies structure.
Flat Structures
A flat structure only has few levels/layer of authority.
There are many factors that portray the structure. They must:
- Be relatively small
- Operate quite informally, in that everyone will know everyone else and there will be few formal procedures staff has to follow.
- Have good communications, in that it is easy to speak to other people and find out what you want to know
- Be good at responding quickly to new ideas or specific customer requests.
- Be flexible, in that if someone has a problem, someone can help.
Many organisations have problems maintaining their flat structure when they expand.
Hierarchy Structures
Lot’s of organisation have structure where people are in charge of responsibility for different things. Where an organisation has people in charge things at different levels then this is known as a hierarchy/hierarchical structure.
The higher up the hierarchical structure that person is the more responsibility than the other one. If you have authority over people they are your subordinates.
Hierarchy structures are very different to the flat structures. One of the differences of the hierarchy structures is that it is taller than a flat structures and a tall structure is one, which has many layers/level.
The meaning of hierarchy is a system whereby grades or classes are ranked one above the other.
Marks and Spencer Structure
The Marks and Spencer structure is a hierarchical structure.
There four main directors at Marks and Spencer, which will help them to success, their aims and objective and the four main directors are:
Finance Director
Human Resource Director
Marketing and Sales Director
Administrative Director
I will compare the different business structure with Marks and Spencer and the business I will compare with are the flat structure business, the business I compare with are the Cyber net Ltd.
I will give you what the cyber net Ltd structure and compare the different of it.
Cyber net Ltd Structure
Cyber net Ltd structure is the Flat structure.
Cyber net Ltd only have two stage levels, the company only have three people Tim is in charge and Tim only has two employees which is Catherine and Amjad, they two in the same level.
Compare Marks and Spencer with Cyber net there are lot different because Cyber net only have two stage levels but Marks and Spencer have six different and more employees and Marks and Spencer can get the work done faster than the Cyber net.
Strengths and Weakness of Marks and Spencer
The strengths of Marks and Spencer is they have many levels and different stage of their structure this will see Marks and Spencer success in achieving their aims and objective and the other strength are they have different manager to take care the different department and that will help Marks and Spencer achieving their aims and objective because that can take care the little problems don’t need the Director to take care of it and that the director can do other thing that is important.
The weakness of Marks and Spencer is the they have many levels of their structure this is because if the finance department staff need to talk the clothing director they have to go talk to their manager first and their manager talk to the director of finance and then the director go talk to the clothing director and that will take lot of time that the people can do lot of things and that will affect Marks and Spencer aims and objectives.
