Business Environment - Essay Example

Business environment Place While the company’s development and success depends on the internal resources and factors of a certain industry, there are also other elements that influence the performance of company activities. Thus, new enterprises with the launching of products or the existing companies with the good established services come under the influence of these factors and so should be carefully analyzed. Such analysis will enable the company or organizsations to determine its role in the community, will help to achieve goals and be able to avoid complications from the political or legal spheres. Among the others factors that may impact the way business runs its activities is the external environment, which elements can manipulate company’s marketing and thus require the organization to make adjustments and revisions of its strategy and vision. It is known that customers are among those external elements that are able to influence the business the most and thus the company should know that good relationship with clients is based on finding ways to influence them to purchase one’s products. Besides, such political or legal forces that the government regulations develop play an important role in the cost of business doing and its ability to enlarge its activities in new markets. New regulations can increase one’s unit costs and thus affect company’s profit margins. Besides, for the organizations that act internationally, the laws of the other countries create certain obstacles for the companies in their ability to bring product into foreign markets. Among the other factors of external environment that influence the company’s performance are the economic factors that determine how market products and how much money one can spend on certain business growth. The public perception is also an important factor that can help the company to prosper or ruin its image at once. However, it is also up to company to commit such an influence on public opinion by using public relations professionals and strategic information, monitoring of public opinion in order to try and smooth potential issues. One of the best known tools that enable the company to analyze the factors that influence its activities the most, is the PESTLE analysis. It is used to identify and analyze the key drivers in the business environment. The factors that may put an impact of one’s business activity go for political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors and they should researched and brainstormed by each organization in order to develop or improve its business strategy. For Bianchi, PESTEL analysis will help to analyse the external environment of UK market as the new direction to which the company wants to move. Once identifying the main factors that influence the business, it will be also vital to track and update the findings to provide the company with the best solutions as to its activities. The political factors of PESTEL analysis include internal and external politics such as cohesive projects and personal interests that should be considered and managed by stakeholders. These may be the employment laws, tax policies, trade reforms and restrictions, regulations about the environmental preservation etc. Among the economis factors, there are the micro-economic events connected with the project use and internal soundness of the project. Interstate taxes, embargoes, economic growth, the inflation rate and wage rates, as well as level of unemployment are the external factors that may influence the way business runs its activity in the country of origin or in the other country. From the sociological point of view, every organization should take into consideration the effect it makes on the market and community socially. Thus, different aspects should be investigated and examined by the company if it starts its project in a particular area and identify advantages and disadvantages that people and the community may have toward the way the business runs its activities. For example, Bianchi Company should take into account the cultural expectations and norms of the new market, the population dynamics and their consciousness about the product of the organization. PESTEL analysis touches technological sphere as well. With the rapid changes in the recent technological trends, the companie should take into account such important feature when organizing its activity. Legal factor includes imports and exports, employment, taxation etc. For the success of one enterprise, the company should also think over the preservation of environment when conducting a business. This factor takes into account ecological aspects such as access by rail and road, the ground conditions and others. As it was unveiled by the National Travel Survey, there are forty- three percent of people in UK who has a bicycle. n owns or has access to a bicycle.  According to Census, a procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information, more than seven thousands of people use a bicycle as the main type of transport while getting to work in England and Wales. Other fifty thousand people use bikes for making a longer journey. These are people that use bicycles in urban areas and in London, for example, this number increased to hundred and seventy- six percent in comparison with the year 2000. The economic advantage for entering the UK bicycle market is in the possibility to pay duty on dispatches within the EU Goods. Since Bianchi company produces its products in the EU they can be sent to another EU country, UK, and be in free circulation. The owner then will not have to pay duty on them. If Bianchi brings bicycles from Italy to the UK and pays duty on them, these products will be in free circulation. One will be able to buy the bicycles and dispatch them to Italy without paying duty on them. When it comes to bike industry technology in UK, it should be mentioned that everything is done to improve bicycle riders conditions. Thus, there are new directions in bike and kit development, one of which is the aero helmet market that has now become a competitive one in the UK. For a long time disc brakes on road bikes have been technically possible, however, only a few manufacturers make them. Today, most manufacturers are not sure about the disc brakes, but they understand that to attract consumers, they should produce a compatible bike to be achievement oriented. For Bianchi, it opens an excellent opportunity to represent the portfolio of its products, which respond the latest technological trends and are already recognized in many other countries. In UK the bicycle industry is developing with every year. Thus, it builds plans for implementing a smart highway with Tron-esque glow to provide bicycle riders with the safe possibility to move in the darkness. Designed by Dutch engineering company, such novelty will use special green paint with the glowing powers from the sun, and will be clearer than the cat’s eyes reflective disks. Soon such technology will be testing in UK, which will enable to make the roads safer. The British society has already recognized the advantages of cycling. The latest results from Sport England’s Active People survey showed that over two hundred thousand people are cycling at least once a week comparing to 2011. It is now exceeding the ambitious growth goal that was set by Sport England about four years ago. The total number of people in England cycling is now about two million opening Bianchi great possibility to enter the market on the most advantageous conditions. For the UK community, cycling engages more and more riders, attracting new people by programs for all ages and abilities. Moreover, the country cares about the all the conditions for the riders in all areas of UK to enable safe riding of bicycles. Thus, the main relevant cases that highlight the design of lighting along cycle routes are described in the Code of Practice for the Design of Road Lighting and the Institution of Lighting Professionals. They have decided to make a lit route with the consideration the consistency of lighting provision along the route. The UK government ensured riders to feel safe and more confident while using sensors to switch lighting on when movement is detected. There are already set the requirements of the local authority to adopt proper standards to such innovation. However, there is still no legal obligation under the Highways Act to ensure street lighting on the adopted highway. Besides, due to the latest political atmosphere in the UK, many authorities try to diminish the level of new lighting installations stating about the energy costs and carbon reduction commitments. With the world’s sixth largest economy status, the UK services sector is the biggest, accounting more than seventy five percent of total GDP. The main types of services are distribution, transport, hotels and restaurants. These are the biggest contributors to the growth. With the Gross Domestic Product expanded 0.70 percent in the third quarter of 2014 comparing to the previous quarter, services have increases such rate. Economic opportunities for business within such conditions are report on the state of the world economy and it found that UK businesses gave the right to new IT systems and machinery to raise their marketing budgets in order to take advantage of Gross Domestic Product growth. Experts state that Growth will reach 2.6% this year up lifted by a turnaround in business investment from three percent in the last year to six percent in the current. However, the political conditions emerged as a result of Scottish referendum and the expected general elections in 2015 have created negative consequences for the businesses in their desire to make investments in UK. Political risks are the hot topics for most of businesses and those companies that are those based outside the UK, such risk cannot be exaggerated. They may observe the dramatic changes in the rate of inflation of UK with the rise to 1.3% and then up from 1.2% in earlier period. Economists believe that UK will benefit from below-target inflation and suggest the CPI inflation to fall to one percent before the end of year 2014. These measurements are advantageous for households, because prices go up faster than people’s incomes as the result of financial crisis. In addition to the rise in prices, UK suffers from the high rates of unemployment, according to the Office for National Statistics. Notwithstanding these facts, sales of certain segment of goods, in particular cycles have enhanced the last years. Besides, in general, cycling in Britain is a safe activity with the low cycling risks and physical activity is a certain health solution for non-cyclists as well. Along with the different economic and social factors, the bicycle industry in UK is affected by the political decisions. Thus, the latest Westminsters Infrastructure Bill paid no attention to cycling and walking, missing the entire Get Britain Cycling campaign along with all advantages of this kind of transport, such as health, business and pollution benefit. The UK national organizations are claiming to bring walking and cycling together with the road and rail networks. Their amendment calls for developing a strategy for Cycling and Walking Investment as a long-term vision for UK politics and guarantees funding and key performance indicators. Such imbalance between investments that government gives for the roads and encouraging active way of life by using bicycle will reduce carbon emissions and give society the choice of transport they need. As it is stated by David Cameron, the way people support this way of transport is the cycling revolution and following UK success in the Olympics and the Paralympics British cycling has all chances to obtain high level of use. Another opportunity for the bicycle business to be seriously perceived by the society is that cyclists would be compared to the full member of traffic. Thus, there is a recommendation to cyclists to wear identification similar to car number plates that would help manage and avoid any misbehavior they can commit. Moreover, it is believed that cyclists should also wear certain form of identification the police, for example, was able to identify and prosecute them for possible breaking. Unlike previous statements, London’s mayor vision for cycling in London is to become an integral part of the transport network. Moreover, like any other transport, people on bicycles should be a normal part of traffic life. It is also planned to spend another nine hundred million pounds on cycling that is more than triple comparing to the previous levels. Focus the investment on such meaningful improvements s routes and junctions, the cycling industry will give the opportunity to bicycles manufacturers to increase their sales and thus get considerable profit. London plans to have a network of direct and joined-up cycle tracks, like the Underground with its directions and routes. While it is estimated that by 2037 there will be seventy three million people living in UK, now it is that moment to think about the preservation of those sources that are possible. If to speak about the bicycle business, the use of bikes will bring the great benefit to nature, diminishing the use of cars with its polluting emissions. Using bicycles will enable community to pursue towards the government vision about the village in the city, with more green trees and more free space for pedestrians and less traffic. Riding a bicycle is becoming more and more popular kind of transport in many cities around the world. With such increase, the bicycles manufacturers and distributors should keep bringing their products to the consumers. The entire industry creates new perspectives for such companies as Bianchi to try new market which has a big potential and despite political and economic conditions, to make people’s lives healthier with regard to the preservation of the environment. Riding bicycles is in its developing stage in UK with certain aspects that are already well set up. For companies, like Bianchi, this is an opportunity to open new market. It will allow the company to broaden its products, developing new strategies for meeting the needs of new consumers. Thus, it is recommended for Bianchi to examine the new market, the products it has and the competitors the company will deal with. Along with these activities, the company should conduct constant monitoring and start operating in those areas which bicycles are use not as much as in London, for example. Besides, special offer policy and the ability to present the new types of bicycles will play at Bianchi’s hand over its competitors in UK. Finally, the company’s history and the existence of rewards, such as Olympic Games Athens 2004 Gold Medal and UCI Pro Tour have already created a positive image of this company in the industry of cycling, thus bringing the company an essential advantage over its rivals in UK. References Understanding Pest Analysis with Definitions and Examples, 2014, Available from http://pestleanalysis.com/pest-analysis/ Read More