A company can avoid this by offering all of its employees training facilities to better them if the worst should happen (redundancy), because if a company doesn’t make sure that the employees are happy, then that could largely effect the local community, if people loose there jobs then they will have less money to spend therefore the local shops will make a lower profit forcing them to close down.
Producing high quality products and offering high quality services
Producing high quality goods and services is extremely important in a business because if a customer buys a poor quality goods or service they are not going to use that company again, then that’s loosing customers which will in the future cause the business to loose profit, so making sure that the business is providing excellent quality goods or services will therefore increase the profit.
Developing a skilled workforce
The workforce of a business is the most important part of a business because without them there would be no one to run the business, not only do they need to have a work force they also need to have a team that knows what they are doing, and this can be done by training the employees.
Fulfilling charitable or non-profitable objectives
Businesses may set these objectives to get on the better side of the local community, businesses sometimes do this by letting the community use the staff facilities such as meeting halls and sport facilities.
A business may also donate money to local charities.
TOPMAN itself has several objectives most of them have been explained above these are there objectives.
- Making a profit
- Surviving
- Producing high quality goods
- Training staff
- Increase market share
(Details from appendix 1)
TOPMAN sets its objectives in a medium term, they set them four times a year in autumn, spring, summer and winter.
In appendix 1 you will see the objectives sheet for 2004’s autumn season.
Their main goal for that season was to make a profit that exceeded £6 million.
Underneath the main goal you will see what the managers have to do to achieve that goal.
That is set out in four different areas, sales, profit, people and visual, if all managers follow the guidelines given on that sheet then the goal would be successfully met.
In the autumn season of last year TOPMAN did exceed its £6 million goal by over £2million, therefore they met there main goal of making a profit that exceeded £6 million and they done that by following the guide lines given by the directors.
TOPMAN met all of its objectives last year it made a profit of over £17 million, it survived the market (its now the second biggest clothing company in the world), it produced high quality goods because TOPMAN received great results with their mystery shopper, they trained all of there staff to a high standard of customer service also shown in the mystery shopper results, TOPMAN out done all of its competitors last year therefore meeting the objective of increasing there market share.
Most businesses have different departments that deal with different aspect of the company.
The different departments that most businesses have are:
- Finance
- Production
- Human Resources
- Marketing
- Administration
- Research and Development
Finance
The finance department handles all of the money going out of the business and coming into the business, making the finance department one of the most important departments.
The major responsibilities of the finance department are, Preparing accounts – this area of the finance department will prepare accounts for showing to independent auditors and they will also prepare the account for the annual general meeting (AGM), Paying wages and salaries – this department is the department that pays all of the businesses employees either on a monthly or weekly basis, this area needs to team up with the accounts department to make sure that the wages are paid directly into the employee bank accounts and that it is not sent else were, Other payments – this area is were they make sure that they pay any payment that need paying in order to run the business such as V.A.T, loan repayments, insurance premiums, Investment – at certain time a business may have spare fund left over and the finance department has to decide on what to do with these fund they can, take the money out of the business as profits, re-invest the money back into the business, pay back any loans the business may have, invest the money outside of the business and Obtaining capital and other funds – this area is were they get money that they need to progress in the business world such as funds for new machinery.
Production
This department deals with all aspect of producing the product.
The major responsibilities that this department has are, building and land – buying buildings and land for the product to be produced, Equipment – obviously a wide range of equipment is needed to produce a product, equipment such as vehicles, computer, tools, People – people are need to produce the product, materials – a number of materials are need to make a product materials such as wood, metal, plastic.
Human Resources
The human resources department of a business is often know as the hiring and firing department, because that is what they do.
The major responsibilities of the human resources department are, Recruitment – hiring new staff to work in the business, Retention – this is were the human resources department will investigate certain incidents involving staff leaving the business, they will investigate why they have left, Discipline – this area is were the human resources department keeps track of the behaviour and performance of the staff in the business, if the behaviour or performance of a certain employee drops rapidly then meeting with them will be called and the employee will be issued with a warning which in the future will result in dismissal, Working conditions – this area is were human resources have to make sure that the conditions that the employees are working in are acceptable, these conditions can be hours of work, temperature that the workplace is, noise in the workplace (could future result in deafness therefore resulting in the employee suing the company), safety, Health and Safety – the human resources department need to make sure that the workplace the employees are working in is safe, an unsafe work environment may result in an injury, Training, Development and Promotion – this is the area were staff are trained to the standard of the company in order to develop and get a promotion.
Marketing
This department specialises in selling the businesses product to current customers and potential customers, they do this buy using the four p’s:
- Place
- Price
- Product
- Promotion
The marketing department needs to make sure that the business is up with current trends, is a threat to its competitors and that the constantly are looking for ways to improve the business.
Administration
This department is not usually directly involved with the product its self but more of the behind the scenes department, the major responsibilities that the administration department has are, Clerical work – providing stationary equipment to all other areas of the business, filling, word processing, Collecting And Distributing Mail – the administration department will deal with all incoming and outgoing mail, Keeping records – These records may be of staff contacts, supplier contacts, Organising Meetings – the administration department will organise all the meetings that staff want to have to discuss certain aspects of the business, Responding to enquiries – the administration department will be the part of the business that replies to any queries made by customer or suppliers, Cleaning and Maintenance – the cleaning and maintenance of the business is organised by the administration department, security – hiring or buying staff or products that help secure the premises that the product is being sold on such as security guards and security cameras.
Research and Development
This department specialises in the development of the business by researching the demand for the product that is being sold and seeing how they can improve it, improving a business may involve producing a brand new product.
The business that has been chosen to be investigated in this report has 14 different departments that all help in the running of the business.
They are:
- Group Finance
- Accounting Centre
- Tax and Treasury
- Audit and Loss
- Information Systems
- International Franchise Management
- Property and Store Development
- Facilities
- Logistics and Supply Chain
- Customer Sales and Services
- Public Relations and Special Events
- Purchasing
- Zoom – Internet Business
- Human Resources and Training
All of the above departments are set in different part of the country, they are set in certain store around the United Kingdom and are all linked to the head office of TOPMAN.
Group Finance
This is the finance department of TOPMAN and it is based in the London store and focuses on coordinating budgets, plans and forecasts.
The team also takes responsibility for the production of weekly and monthly trading reports.
Also like any other business the finance department of TOPMAN keeps track of all the revenue going in and coming out of TOPMAN’s account, the finance department of TOPMAN helps achieve there seasonal targets by providing the store managers with daily, weekly and monthly sales throughout the day so that the managers know whether or not they have met the targets that have been set.
Accounting Centre
The Accounting Centre is based in the Leeds store and is responsible for the production of financial and management accounts for all of the Brands and head office.
All of the transaction processing activities are undertaken here activities that include payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable, stock accounting, credit control, statutory accounting and data services.
The accounting department for TOPMAN is important because it helps in the overall running of TOPMAN, without this department TOPMAN would have no organization of its main accounts, they would not know who they owned money to or who they needed to receive money off so the accounting department is one of the main department that operates in TOPMAN.
Tax and Treasury
The Tax and Treasury department is based in the London store and is responsible for day-to-day cash flow, foreign exchange, taxation, insurance and VAT. There is also a small Tax and Treasury team based at TOPMAN’s Leeds offices.
The Tax and Treasury team also provides an internal tax consultancy service to ensure that TOPMAN is operating in a tax efficient way.
TOPMAN also has a specialist V.A.T and insurance team that also provide a service to store making sure that that they are operating efficiently.
The Tax and Treasury department is important to TOPMAN because without it TOPMAN could loose a major percentage of its profit to taxation, this department helps TOPMAN to operate in a tax efficient way.
Audit and Loss
This department consists of a loss prevention team who are brand aligned and provide support for all control, risk and loss management at store level, working closely with the retail operations and Branch Managers.
The loss prevention team is supported by a specialist fraud investigation department, which uses data mining techniques via the company’s retail systems.
This department specializes in the prevention of loosing profit due to fraud by both customers and staff.
TOPMAN has seasonal audits, these audits consist of the TOPMAN staff scanning every item of clothing on the TOPMAN sales floor and in the TOPMAN stockroom, then the overall number is compared to the results the head office computer gives out, if the overall number is lower than the number the head office computer reports it should be then that store has lost stock (though fraud), a percentage will be given to every store and the lower the percentage the better.
Information systems
The TOPMAN Information Systems department is a centralised function providing IT services to all of the TOPMAN stores, developing and operating the systems for the stores and includes a data centre, help desk, application management and application development teams.
This department managers all of the computers in all TOPMAN stores whether it’s the administration computers or the tills, without this department the running of TOPMAN’s transactions would be impossible.
International Franchise Management
The international team manages the relationships TOPMAN has with their overseas brand franchises as well as running the directly owned concession business in Germany.
There are currently over 340 TOPMAN branches in 23 countries ranging from Iceland to Singapore.
International is an exciting and rapidly growing area of the business with further expansion planned in, amongst others, Spain, Sweden and the Middle East.
The international team is responsible for maintaining brand integrity, product merchandising and visual proposition in these stores.
The international Franchise Management department helps TOPMAN to achieve a better market share by expanding TOPMAN to other countries all over the world by 2009 TOPMAN will have branches all over the world.
Property and store development
The Property function is responsible for the management of TOPMAN’s property portfolio, facilitating the acquisition and disposal of the Group’s Retail and head office estate.
The team is also responsible for brand outlet strategy covering location planning, size of store and number of outlets in the UK. Estate Services, which is based in London is responsible for all aspects of Estate Management, including rent reviews, services management, building services and retail maintenance.
Store Development is responsible for the outfitting of the retail network of stores from concept design to the project implementation of new build and modernisation programmes for TOPMAN.
The property and store development department teams up with the international franchise management department and they help TOPMAN’s market share to grow.
Facilities
The Facilities department is responsible for the working environment and support services to all of TOPMAN’s stores. Specific services include: site maintenance, receptionists, cleaning, catering, vending, porterage, security, help desk, photocopies and faxes.
This department may also be know in other businesses as the administration department but in TOPMAN this department is called the facilities department or back of house.
Logistics and Supply Chain
The Logistics and Supply Chain central operation is based in TOPMAN’s London store and is responsible for the inbound delivery of all products from there suppliers world-wide to UK Distribution Centres and delivery to stores at home and internationally via an outsourced logistics company.
Without the logistics and supply chain department TOPMAN would not receive its products therefore resulting in loss of sales due to no product.
Customer Sales and Services
The customer sale and services department is based in TOPMAN’s London store and it responds to all customer communications, requests from stores for product search and home shopping sales/enquiry calls.
The team deals with any customer queries and complaints to do with TOPMAN which are received via e-mail, telephone and written confirmation.
They also provide the retail branch network with a ‘Searchline’ service. This enables them to identify the stock available within TOPMAN’s warehouses and arrange for the allocation of stock as required.
Having this department TOPMAN can gain more customers because is a certain store doesn’t have a certain size then using this department TOPMAN staff can order the product in for the customer, therefore the customer has received good customer service and will hopefully pass on by word of mouth the efficiency of TOPMAN’s product range and service.
Public Relations and Special Events
The Public Relations and Special Events department is responsible for ensuring that TOPMAN gains maximum positive exposure in the fashion pages of the national and regional press and in the fashion ‘glossies’.
The Special Events team organises numerous key events throughout the year, including fashion roadshows, new store openings and charity events, doing this ensure that TOPMAN is getting the maximum expose it needs to gain more customers, with more customers comes more profit.
Purchasing
The purchasing department is based in both TOPMAN’s London and Leeds stores so, is responsible for all non-trade procurement across TOPMAN to ensure TOPMAN gets best value from its suppliers.
Visual Operations design and purchase all printed matter for the brands, including window graphics, carrier bags and promotional material.
TOPMAN have a dedicated in-house design studio, which provides artwork for all the company’s head office support functions. It also provides support to the dedicated Brand design teams when they need additional help.
This department helps entice more customers into TOPMAN stores by providing visual window graphics to invite customers in store.
Zoom – Internet Business
Zoom is TOPMAN’s Internet Service Provider and on-line retail website. The retail website allows customers to purchase TOPMAN products on-line and also to access many other internet sites, related to entertainment, travel, lifestyle, job searching and many others.
Zoom is one of the few organisations in the UK who offer total distance solutions for retailers across both traditional (print catalogue) and Internet-based shopping channels. Their expertise, gained through working with the best known High Street retail brands enables them to offer a comprehensive range of merchandising, fulfillment services, such as customer services, warehousing and delivery, in addition to interactive and direct marketing services. This enables TOPMAN to offer fully integrated multi-channel solutions under one roof.
The Zoom – Internet business department helps TOPMAN to gain more profit.
Human resources and Training
The Human Resources department works closely with line managers to support the recruitment, training, development and management of individuals. It is this department’s responsibility to research and introduce the ‘best practice’ in employee relations and the most effective development processes.
The human resource department also has a number of specialists who work across the whole company, particularly in the field of Employee Relations and Reward, Management Development and Graduate Resourcing.
The human resources department of TOPMAN has some of the most highly trained training staff in the business, they are passing the expertise onto the TOPMAN sales advisors therefore resulting in customer receiving excellent high quality customer service.
Managers have to perform many roles in an organisation and how they handle various situations will depend on their style of management. A management style is an overall method of leadership used by a manager.
A business can have as many management styles as there are leaders, the two main styles that mangers use are:
Authoritarian
The manager tells the employees what to do, the manager doesn’t listen to what the employee has to say, the overall motivation of the businesses employees is lowered due to this type of management style.
Democratic
A manager with a democratic approach listens more to what the employees have to say, there is a lot more communication between the managers with this style, using this style employees feel more motivated and feel like they are a part of the group.
The managers in TOPMAN try to use the democratic management style when they are managing a team and this approach is also used in the different departments of TOPMAN.
They decided to use this style because they found that it makes the TOPMAN team more motivated because staff have a say in the discussions they feel as though they are a part of the team, when a business has motivated staff it shows though body language, most of the body language that TOPMAN staff show is toward customers so motivating the team will therefore result in the customers receiving good customer service.
Using the democratic management style will help TOPMAN achieve its greatest goal (of exceeding £6 million in profit) because all of the staff will be working to the best of there ability.
If the authoritarian management style was to be used then the team would feel left out and they wouldn’t feel like part of the team.
Although they try there best to use the democratic management style sometimes the TOPMAN managers have to take an authoritarian approach to managing there team.
So TOPMAN uses both Authoritarian and democratic management styles.
All businesses have particular attitudes, values and beliefs that will decide which of the businesses objectives they find the most important and whether there are any others that they might consider.
This whole process is known as the culture of the business.
There are many different types of culture, below are four of the mainly used cultures.
- Power Culture
- Task Culture
- Person Culture
- Role Culture
Power Culture
Power culture is mainly used in small and entrepreneurial business. A power structure has a strong central figure e.g. founder and chairman (Dave Whelan at JJB).
In this structure the leader has power and influence over the organisation.
Most of the time the founder trusts only a number of people in the organisation.
All of the decision making in made by the people at the top of the organisation.
Task Culture
This structure is used to complete projects, this structure is mainly centered on building a team.
This approach allows the employees to feel valued by the business, the employees are encouraged to use there own initiative rather than waiting to be told.
Person Culture
This type of culture is of a formal structure and seems to only exist to serve as an administrative tool to assist certain individuals within the business e.g. architects and management consultants, this structure has virtually no rules or procedures and setting targets is difficult.
Role Culture
The work that takes place in the business has to closely follow the rules and procedures, any issues that employees have need to be referred up the hierarchy.
This type of culture is very strict and rule oriented, all managers have to meet the business aims and objectives on the basis that they are set.
The type of culture that TOPMAN has is Task culture, there employees are very dedicated and passionate about there role and really enjoy working for TOPMAN. This is reflected in the atmosphere of the company, which is friendly, fast paced, lively and fun.
The culture of TOPMAN is also relaxed and informal and there employees are trusted to use there own initiative instead of relying on help from the managers.
TOPMAN greatly values there employees working as a team because to meet the daily, weekly, monthly and yearly objectives TOPMAN needs the help from all of its staff, but not just individually but them all working together, if the staff do this then the objective will be met.
Using Task culture in TOPMAN helps them to achieve there targets because all of the staff feel valued and wanted therefore resulting in them wanting to come to work, they also enjoy there jobs and want to meet the objective set.
Communication is an important aspect of the way TOPMAN operates, without communication they probably would survive.
TOPMAN as do every other come has different types of communication and they are catigorised into the following:
- Internal and External Communication
- Formal and Informal Communication
- Upward and Downward Communication
- Open and Restricted Communication
Internal and External Communication
Internal communication takes place between employees and TOPMAN itself, the types of internal communication that TOPMAN uses are, Note – this is usually left on yellow post sticks for employees or managers to see, Notice – TOPMAN has numerous notice boards around there store they have them in the staff rooms, the smoking rooms, the toilets, the corridors, all of the Notices tell TOPMAN staff vital information about the business, the information that the notice boards provide TOPMAN employees are things like legal notices, stock loss notice board, customer service notice board, brand information notice board, store information notice board, Reports – reports are TOPMAN’s main form of internal communication without reports TOPMAN staff would not receive information on how they have done in current events, such as model stores, mystery shoppers, audits daily, weekly, monthly and year intake, all of the above are given to the TOPMAN teams in report form, Internal Magazines or Newsletters – TOPMAN has its own in store magazine its called LADS and supply’s employees with information about current trends, current promotions, current events, current offer, current competitions, Conversation – TOPMAN managers have a team brief every day with every member of staff to brief them on any information that they may need to be told, Telephone – TOPMAN staff may need to check if the stock room has a certain size, they will ring the stock room and ask the staff if they have the required size, Meetings – TOPMAN call meeting regularly they have appraisal meeting were TOPMAN staff’s performance is viewed and graded, they have manager meetings at the end of the day, this is were all of the managers and deputy managers come together to discuss the daily issues.
External communication is were TOPMAN staff communicate with individuals and other businesses outside of TOPMAN.
The types of external communication that TOPMAN uses are E-mails – TOPMAN staff and managers can e-mail other departments or other businesses to discuss certain issues, they may e-mail suppliers to discuss the delivery information or they may e-mail another store to see how much they made in that day, Telephone – TOPMAN staff can use the telephone to contact the main warehouse to check for stock availability, also TOPMAN mangers go on conference call every week to discuss certain areas of the business with there area manager.
Formal and Informal Communication
Most types of communication tend to be formal.
The main informal method of communication is rumor or grapevine. This is were the information may be overheard or passed on by someone who hasn’t heard the full story, sometime it may be made up to create unrest or fear to those who hear it.
TOPMAN doesn’t really use this type of communication because rumors are lucked on as bad.
Upward and Downward Communication
Information that TOPMAN’s employees pass to there managers is known as Upward communication, TOPMAN uses this type of communication to, Identify Problems – That employees may encounter whilst doing there job, Requesting advice or help – TOPMAN staff contact there managers to gain certain advice that they need, Requesting information – A TOPMAN employee may need information that only the TOPMAN managers can get hold of so they may contact them to get the required information, Expressing dissatisfaction – If TOPMAN employees aren’t happy with a way a certain thing is run on the TOPMAN sales floor they can express there dissatisfaction to there managers.
Information that is passed from TOPMAN managers to employees is know as Downward communication, TOPMAN uses this type of communication to, Give Instructions – Give instructions to TOPMAN staff on what is expected of them on that day or week, Warnings – TOPMAN managers can give warning to there staff regarding current or future issues, Advice – TOPMAN manager give advice to there staff on how to do certain things, Information – TOPMAN managers give the staff information on the businesses maybe what changes the business is undergoing or current promotions that are available.
Open and Restricted Communication
Communication can also be open or restricted, open communication is available for all of the TOPMAN staff to see were as restricted communication is only available to certain people.
TOPMAN uses open communication by showing all of its employees the results that they have gain in recent events, were as TOPMAN will not give information about dismissals or disciplinary out to employees.
TOPMAN uses ICT to communicate with employees within the business and with people and other businesses outside of TOPMAN.
TOPMAN uses ICT to communicate with its employees by offering a Computer Access Management System (CAMS), which is a system available to employees which includes information about any certain employee, this system is only available on request and is not available to all of TOPMAN’s staff.
TOPMAN uses ICT to communicate with people and business outside the business by, e-mail suppliers to arrange deliveries, e-mail area managers or other managers with information they may require.
The introduction to ICT made working for TOPMAN a much easier task because before ICT TOPMAN had to write down all of its information in letter form to send to the relevant people but now you can just put that information in an e-mail and send it using ICT.
Without ICT the communication process that TOPMAN uses would be hard and time consuming so the introduction to ICT was much needed.
TOPMAN’s mainly depends on the use of ICT because the tills in TOPMAN are all operated by ICT without the tills transactions could not be made between TOPMAN and its customers therefore resulting in TOPMAN’s profits plummeting.
TOPMAN’s most recent form of ICT was there introduction to the version 5 touch screen till system, this was now one of TOPMAN’s biggest strengths because the new till system was much faster, compared to the old version 4 till system, with the TOPMAN tills being faster the staff could serve more people in a day resulting in higher profit turnover.
Not only was the version 5 till system a strength but it also created a weakness, when the till system was first introduced for the first 4 weeks there were a lot of problems with them, they started, working extremely slow, declining most cards that customers wanted to pay with, freezing.
All of the above problems caused TOPMAN to loose a lot of customers, when these problems happened the till had to be re-booted which took on aerage 10-15 minutes and customers used to get fed up and leave.
Communication in TOPMAN is highly important when it comes to meeting there objectives, because TOPMAN has so many departments that are spread out all over England it is extremely hard to communication with everyone, but it is important.
TOPMAN has developed several ways to effectively communicate with all of them departments whether it’s through e-mail, or telephone TOPMAN has a way to communicate with every person in the business at any time.
So the communication in TOPMAN is very effective and helps TOPMAN achieve all of its objectives by providing every member of staff with the option to communicate with anyone they need at any time.
