Describe two different organisations in different sectors and clearly identifying their main purpose. Tesco and the Red Cross

Tesco’s main primary goal of business is to make a profit; they do this by selling groceries, clothing and electrical items, also in the recent years they have expanded to giving services such as many types of different insurances, banking, telephone and internet services.

Tesco is an international profitable organisation, with having stores located all over the UK, US, Europe and Asia. Tesco have a total of 293,676 employees working in their stores in the UK. Around the world Tesco have a total number of 491,440 employees working for them.

This shows Tesco’s underlying profit before tax from 2008 to 2011. In this graph it shows that in the last four years Tesco’s profit has grown £1 billion from £2.8 Billion in 2008 to £3.8 Billion in 2011.

Tesco is a Public Limited Company. A public limited company is a company that offers shares to the general public and has limited liability of the business. This means that the company is owned by shareholders, these shareholders can buy stocks for the business on the stock exchange, and this usually means that the original owners lose control of the business as there are so many share holders investing in the business. Tesco stores Ltd went on the stock exchange with a share price of 25p in 1947; now in September 2011 the share price is £377.20.  

Tesco’s liabilities do not lie with directly one person as there are so many shareholders, but if the company goes bust they will bring in an administrator who will evenly distribute the debts between all the share holders.

British Red Cross

The British Red Cross are a charitable organisation, this mean that the organisation does not issue stock shares or distribute its surplus funds to owners or shareholders, but instead uses the funds to help achieve its own goals. They are a volunteer-led humanitarian organisation that helps people in crisis, whoever and wherever they are. 

They have been running since 1870 and help people all over the world in poverty and crisis areas. They have helped in the first and second world war and also in areas that have been struck by natural disasters, such as flooding and earthquake zones. They go in to these areas and try and help people who are worst affected and help in medical care, shelter and providing food and water.

The British Red Cross are a national organisation which have charity shops all over the UK. This is where people donate there clothes and other items they don’t want or need anymore and sell them off and all the profits go into helping the needy causes they support by paying for medication, shelter and food for the areas in crisis. They also have teams of people working in foreign countries to help people deal with natural disasters, poverty and war

The British Red Cross is a non-profitable organisation whose main purpose is to corporate advocacy as it plays a crucial role in increasing awareness of the conditions of vulnerable people and those affected by conflicts and disasters around the world. They advocate based on there knowledge and experiences, speaking out for a positive change to the lives of the people we seek to help, but also empowering individuals to communicate on matters that affect them.

The British Red Cross, like Tesco, are in the tertiary sector as they are providing a service to the public. The people who work in non-profitable organisation are mainly volunteers, they also have shop managers and also people who work in the headquarters that get paid, but over all the majority of employees are volunteers and the rest of the profits after paying the wages go directly into helping others in crisis.

They have a total of 35,000 volunteers working for them and 2,500 paid employees. They have a total of 323 charity shops all over the UK.  The people they have working for them are volunteers and medical teams to help people in the crisis areas.

In 2010 the British Red Cross:

• Reached 950,000 people in over 20 countries through there programmes to help vulnerable communities prepare for disasters
• Taught 178,400 young people about humanitarian issues, such as food insecurity and the rules of war
• Responded to 2,000 fires, accidents, water shortages and other emergencies across the UK
• Supported 439,600 people in the UK with health and social care services
• Helped 39,900 refugees and asylum seekers adapt to life in the UK
• Provided first aid cover at 9,500 public events
• Raised £17.5 million for the Haiti earthquake
• Raised £12 million for the Pakistan floods
• Responded to 25 overseas disasters
• Trained 335,500 people in first aid.

As charities are government funded by a large amount, and as charities raise there money they would never go into debt as they do not borrow money off of lenders, they also do not have any participation in the stock market. They may shut down for other reasons but because people donate money and the government give them money they never owe anyone anything so there would be no liability on the charity.

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