Assessing the Business Environment - Save British Money - Case Study Example

ASSESSING THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT By Location Business microenvironment refers to the factors that have a direct impact on the functionality of a business organization. These factors include suppliers, consumers, employees, stakeholders, competitors, and the public. These factors collectively influence the outcome of business activities. Some of these factors are external factors while others are internal factors. As much as businesses have limited or no influence on the external factors, they can always counter them through proper management of the internal factors. With reference to Save Britain Money (SBM), this paper aims at describing the microenvironment within which businesses operate. Save British Money has its headquarters in the city of Swansea and a large sale office in the city of Cardiff. Save British Money group of companies offer financial services mostly associated with giving money saving advice to the public. Apart from the money saving advices, they also offer advices on energy efficiency. Over the last nine years Save British Money has gone through a significant developments, slowly growing into one of the most known welsh financial advisory providers. The group came to existence in the year 2005 after Nationwide Energy Services (NES) was formed by Neville Wilshire. The group consists of companies such as We claim u gain, Nationwide Energy Services, Save Me My Money, Debts Reduced, HiS Energy, Bills Cutter, and FuelSwitch.com. The services offered by the group include renewable energy advice and installation, energy efficiency surveys, mis-sold payment claims, debt management plans, price comparison plans, online fuel switching and many others. Since Save British Money is a service provision group of companies, it is evident that they do not necessarily need many suppliers. This is particularly because of the fact that the services offered here are intellectual. Unlike the physical services, intellectual ones do not needs allot of physical input (Chidambaram 2000, p. 83). However, in the provision of services such as energy efficiency surveys they would definitely have to carry out studies and researches that will probably need some equipment. The equipment will have to be supplied to them by certain suppliers. This means that in such cases the success of such activities will depend on the suppliers and the type of relation that they have with the suppliers. To make sure that business activities are not halted by lack of supplies, a business should make sure that they have a good relationship with their suppliers. This relationship can be maintained by making sure that they always make their payment in time. This way they would not loss reliable suppliers. A business organization should also keep contact with multiple suppliers. This is aimed at making sure that a business does not rely on a single supplier. In case a supplier stops supplying, the business will always have options and thus will not have to halt their business activities unnecessarily. Having multiple suppliers will also enable a business to compare the terms and the quality products supplied by different supplier. This will enable them to settle only for the most reliable suppliers and those who supply the best quality. Save British Money groups of companies offers services to the public in general. Most of their clients are individuals and households who are in need financial advices allover Britain. The way a business handles their clients have a big effect on the way their customers respond to the goods and services in question. For instance, businesses use various product promotion tactics to convince their potential clients to consume their goods or services. One of the most effective ways that Save British Money group has used in maintaining a good public relation is the quality of services that they offer their clients. This reflects in the way they have been performing in the market. On a weekly basis, they contact about 15000 households in Britain and offer their services to over 10000 households. These figures show how much the public seem to be satisfied by the services offered by Save British Money group of companies. Save British Money provides employment to over 950 employees on a full time basis. The company also provides opportunities to over 500 self-employed staff allover Britain. Much of the group’s good performance can be attributed to the skills and experience that their employees have. Financial advisory needs people who are well informed and updated. Without employee with such qualities, it would be difficult for a business in such an industry to do well. To make sure that the employees they have are of the standards required, the group has put in place a hiring mechanism that enable them to be aware of and individuals professional and personal attributes before they offer them an employment contract (Saleem 2010, p. 67). Apart from the employee hiring process, they also have in place capacity building programs to make sure that they improve the skills of the employees that they already have in order to enable them to give better services to their clients. This in results puts them in an advantaged position over their competitors in the industry. The group also offers promotion to their worker who exhibit devotion and commitment in order to make sure that they retain such employees instead of losing them to their rivals who will be more than willing to have such employees. Such treatment leads to job satisfaction that acts as a motivational factor to the employees. Competition is also an important part of a business environment. This is majorly because of the manner in which they can affect the results of business activities. For example, if a business organization has a number of competitors who are willing to do everything just to make sure that they take control of the market, it will be very challenging for the business organization in question to be able to succeed without putting extra effort to their daily activities. Businesses face the risk of losing their market grip if they are not able to keep up with their competitors tactically. The market is very unforgiving and a single tactical misappropriation will always be taken advantage of by the competitor (Nieuwenhuizen, Rossouw &Badenhorst 2008, p. 54). In the case of Save British Money, competition has been one of their greatest worries. These in particular being because of the fact that there were players already in the market by the time they were coming in. When it comes to competing against already established players in the industry while the business is a new one, it is always a very difficult task. This was just the case in Save British Money. However, the business took up the challenge and it clearly paid off. The business made sure that they remained competitive by ensuring they gave high quality services to their clients. This was basically attributed to by the group policies and the type of employees that they hired. They initially also offered more affordable prices for their services just to make sure that they maintained the already existing clients and also winning new ones. The public can also be of influence to a business’ success or failure. The public can be referred to as any group that might have potential or actual impact on whether or not a business will attain its goals. The public involves people like the media, local communities, and the citizens in general who are in most case perceived to be the potential clients (Prasad 2010, p. 44). These groups definitely have a say in the way the business will be viewed by the public. A business with a poor relationship with the public is likely to have less influence on the market as compared to businesses with good relations with the public. The media has over the years been used by businesses allover as a way of reaching out to the public. Audiovisual media has so far proved to be the most effective of all the media that businesses use to reach out to the public. The internet has also lately been used regularly and has proved to be very effective. Save British Money has widely used the internet as a media for communicating to the public. The group has a website that they regularly use to communicate to the public. This way they can keep the public aware of their activities thus increasing the possibility of getting clients (Banhegyi 2008, p. 123). They also communicate to the public through social media such as twitter and Facebook. This increases the number of people that they reach out to. The local communities also influence the success or failure of a business. A business can never flourish when they are having poor relations with the local communities. This is because a poor relation with the local community can translate to a poor relation with the public at large. A business should therefore strive to have a good relationship with the local community at all cost. The community should also feel like they are benefiting from the activities of the business organization. This can be attained only by giving back to the community. A business organization can do this by offering job opportunities, starting developmental projects, and involving itself in charity that is aimed at giving back to the community (Bates 2005, p. 72). Save British Money does this by offering employment to the local community. The group also involves itself in community development activities such as sponsorships and even providing internship opportunities to students from local higher learning institutions. This has resulted to the community highly valuing the business organization, a factor that contributes to its smooth operations and their public relations at large. The good relations also make the business organization part of the community. It is also important to note that for a business organization to be started and to grow it definitely needs to have finances (Fernando 2011, p. 101). Business owners mostly produce money that is used to start and develop business organization. The owners are in most cases known as the shareholders. Shareholders are very essential to a business organization because they are the ones who take all the risks. These risks involve having trust in a certain business venture with their funds. Were it not for their willingness to take risks, development of business organizations would definitely be much harder than it is. This is because the money that investors give to the business enables it to make their products and services better. Apart from providing finances, shareholders are also always involved in decision-making processes. This makes them an important part of a business organization. It can never be doubted how important decision-making is to business organizations. Good decisions will always yield good results while bad ones will always yield bad results. In the case of Save British Money, the shareholders have been outstanding. Ever since Neville Wilshire started the business organization in the year 2005, his consistent contribution to its growth can never be ignored. His contribution comes in the form of both financial contribution and managerial expertise. He has always made sure that the business is customer centered rather than being income centered. This has been of high importance to the business. Despite there being other investors who chipped in later, Neville Wilshire’s contribution to the success of the business has been outstanding. It is clearly evident that business microenvironment affects the operations of business organization in many ways. This is the reason as to why business managers are expected to have a clear understanding of these factors. A manager who has such knowledge is likely not to take the effect of these factors on the business for granted. Just being aware of these factors is not enough. For the sake of the business organization, a manager is supposed to be equipped with the skills that enable them to manipulate these factors to work for the good of the business organization. For instance, Neville Wilshire was able to make sure that all these factors worked for Save British Money. This is evident in the way the group of businesses has been able to constantly grow ever since it started back in the year 2005. Bibliography Banhegyi, S 2008, Business management, Cape Town, Pearson Prentice Hall South Africa. Bates, B 2005, Business management: fresh perspectives, Cape Town, South Africa, Pearson Education. Chidambaram, K 2000, Business environment, New Delhi, Vikas Pub. House. Fernando, AC 2011, Business environment, New Delhi, Pearson. Nieuwenhuizen, C., Rossouw, D., &Badenhorst, JA 2008, Business management: a contemporary approach, Cape Town, South Africa, Juta. Prasad, V 2010, Business environment, Delhi, India, genNEXT. Saleem, S 2010, Business environment, Delhi, Pearson. Read More