Business Environment of a Home Electronics Retailer-Free-Sample

Question: Discuss your chosen organisations general external environment and analyse the impact of one real-life dimension in its general external environment in 2016/2017. Answer: Introduction: JB Hi Fi is an organization which has already made its way through the customers of Australia and New Zealand. JB Hi-Fi is a retail company based on Australia and New Zealand that deals with Blu-rays, video games, electronics, CDs. DVDs and other electronic home appliances. It is one of the renowned public listed retailers in the country. The purpose of the organization is to expand more within the Australian territory and more. The most significant factors that have affected the business of the organization in recent times are the increasing price, cost along with demanding for more service and products (Morris and Metternicht 2016). With the higher inflation rate in the country, the cost of daily lives of the citizen is growing higher. Culley et al. (2017) indicates that if the prices start increasing in such a way, the low and middle income group may start spending in a prudent way and they may also cut off the additional spending. Therefore considering the economic and social sys tem can be a headache for the management of JB Hi fi. Therefore this report aims to discuss the mission, vision and purpose of the organization along with discussing the macro environment of the organization. This report will discuss the external business environment of the organization along with its ethics and corporate social responsibility. The report will also analyze and evaluate the organizational culture of JB Hi Fi. Purpose and Mission of the organization: JB Hi fi is one of the fastest growing companies in the business and also one of the most successful ones. Although there are several competitors of JB Hi Fi in the regional market, such as Harvey Norman, David Jones, Myer, Target Australia and Noel Leeming in New Zealand, the company has kept on flourishing with a consistent growth. The company sells a number of products to the global brands such as Samsung, Sony, LG, Sharp, Plasonic, Apple, Asus, HP, Toshiba and several others. JB Hi Fi mainly operates from total of one hundred forty one stores including the Clive Anthonys stores and Hill and Stewart stores. The goal of the company is to have more two hundred stores all over New Zealand and Australia. The company also sells a number of products on internet. The organization also identifies the significance of social and environmental issues which matter to all the stakeholders, customers and suppliers. The vision and mission of the company is delivering the specialist range of reco rded and good quality music at low prices in Australia. This company also monitors the continuous developments of the corporate governance which are associated with the business activities. External environment of the company: Political The government of Australia has already signed a rewarding and significant Free Trade Agreement with China, which has revealed that the eradicated tariffs tend to contribute to the low cost for importing the necessary products from China to Australia. This agreement has a positive influence on the business operations of the organization. The company can now save a massive amount of financial expenditure while they are importing electronic equipments from China. Therefore this also implies that the company can now sell a lot of Chinese brands at their retail stores at a much cheaper price for gaining more attention from the consumers (Morris and Metternicht 2016). This has improved the opportunities for increasing the market competitiveness of JB Hi fi, but there are also cons of this agreement for the organization. The price advantage the organization has acquired through this may also be undermined. Therefore if most of the competitors of the organization start taking advantage of t he eliminated tariffs and starts offering products in a cheap price, the organization may risk losing some of the target customers as well. Economic As the economy of Australia is positive and comparatively floating for the retail organizations, the company can be benefitted. The RBA or the Reserve Bank of Australia has maintained the cash rate to low 1.5% since the second half of April 2016. Therefore this low interest rate has benefitted the organization to a great extent as the customers are now having more cash that they can spend easily. The rate of inflation and the unemployment rate have also been healthy in the last financial year. As stated by Culley et al. (2017) in the year 2016-2017 the inflation rate in the country has been maintained around or below 2%. Even the inflation rate was 3% in the year 2015 which was the highest till date. On the other hand, the unemployment rate has also been positive and it has been kept below 6% since the year 2016. JB Hi fi has been a constant beneficiary from the economy of Australia and New Zealand. The company has performed quite strong in the last financial year. The sales performa nce of the country has recorded that it was 42.3% increment in the last year while the fundamental profit before interest and the tax rate rose 38.5%. The growth of revenue has been boosted with the sales of audio gear, mobile phones, accessories, cameras and home appliances. These products have shown a strong demand as the economy was high and the consumer sentiment was high as well. Social With the low unemployment rate and changing societal concerns, the life style and attitudes of the consumers are changing with a great pace. People are concerned with improving their life style; therefore they are buying more electronic goods. The company also provides financial aid to the projects that are working for health and well being of Australian children and women (Arndt, Singhapakdi and Tam 2015). They also support several charitable organizations. Their corporate social responsibility helps them to attract more customers towards the organization. Technological With the help of the agreement between Australia and China, JB Hi fi now can offer more advanced technologies to the customers (Heard et al. 2017). In addition to that, the company has also planned to open up more online stores so that the customers can shop online. Environmental The company utilizes sustainable practices and products which enhances their image in front of consumers. Also it should be considered that the ethical consumerism tends to determine sales for the company (Graafland. and Smid 2016). Therefore ethical and sustainable practices help JB Hi fit to enhance its image to a great extent. Legal There are some legal issues with the company as the JB Hi Fi ha some price wars with ACCC. The company also had to face legal actions in the due to safety issues; therefore these issues have made the business environment a little tough. Ethics and Corporate social responsibility: Corporate Social responsibility is a definite form of self regulation that is embedded within the business model of every organization. These policies tend to function as a self regulatory mechanism that monitors the operations of the business and makes sure that the business practices are aligned with the ethical standards, law and global and national norms (Rao et al. 2016). This can also be considered as a concept framework where the companies integrate the environmental and social concerns in their everyday interactions and operations with the stakeholders of the company. The social responsibilities are not really focused on increasing the profits of the organization; rather it tends to entail the development of the business with a positive relationship for the society where they reside (Graafland and Smid 2016). JB hi fi is retail giant which a bigger seller than any other company is within the market. The company has helped several charitable organizations and it is still continuing. The company is a member of the Australian Charities Fund ad supports the goal of having one million donors within the year 2020 (Arli and Cadeaux 2014). The company has also started a project named Helping hands in the year 2009 which allows the employees of the company for donating to nine charity partners through deductions in their payroll. The matching staff contributions are effectively done to the community and charities (Rao et al. 2016). There are several other charities that the organization does. JB hi fi supports few other charitable organizations such as the Song Room which is a nonprofit organization which works with the disadvantaged children in Australia. The organization also supports other charities such as The Fred Hollos Foundation, Reachout.com, Redkite, Oxfam, Medecins Sans frontiers, Bushh eritage Australia etc. the employees of JB hi fu have selected their charity partners. They have already begun with the social concerns and more than five charities, but the numbers are increasing and the opportunities are increasing as well (Arndt, Singhapakdi and Tam 2015). There is also a program in their stores namely change for change. This is basically a donation program. There are several donation programs are installed in all the stores across Australian territory for encouraging the customers so that they donate their spare changes for help others lives (Paynter, Halabi and Lawton 2018). This provides the charities with the confidence that the organizations ongoing sustainable support will allow them to develop long-term projects and ensure we help deliver their long term vision short term goals together. Evaluation of the Organizational culture: The overarching concept organizational culture is the specific beliefs, values or principles based on which a particular organization runs their entire process of business in the market. In order to influence the customers towards purchasing products and services the impact of organizational culture leaves a major significance. After conducting an in-depth research and development on the overall employee review of JB Hi-Fi, an overview about the organizational culture can be portrayed. After making detailed analysis about the organizational culture of JB Hi-Fi, both positive as well as negative cultures have been highlighted that are as follows Agile work environment along with diversity: As per the opinion of several employees, this specific organization is constituted with extreme level of flexible work environment. Employees do not have to maintain a strict office hour for providing services to the customers. Every single employee is responsible to maintain the duration of work hour. Managers never intend to fix up their shift duration of employees. In addition, employees do not have to follow any sitting arrangement at their workplace. They are flexible enough in maintaining effective communication with each other even at the time of work hour (Uddin, Luva and Hossain 2012). Automatically, employees get courageous in providing better services to the customers. In addition, this particular organization has hired the employees from various cultural as well as psychological backgrounds and attitudes. In this kind of situation, employees having different cultural backgrounds have to face innumerable difficulties in maintaining an effective interaction with each other. Agile work environment within the business process of JB Hi-Fi has enhanced the comfort level among employees. They like to share their views and thought to those people with whom they are comfortable. Well structured reward and recognition system: The employees of JB Hi-Fi are very much satisfied in terms of their wages. Business managers by implementing reward and recognition policy tend to motivate the employees towards good services. At the end of the year, this specific organization tends to nominate those employees who have provided good services throughout the year. After receiving an appreciation, the organizational employees show their best endeavor for fulfilling the needs and demands of the customers (Erkutlu 2012). Automatically the organization is able to render the peak of success by expanding business beyond going the regional market. Reward and recognition policy is one of the most effective ways of motivating those employees who are not capable enough in performing well towards the services. Effective communication among the employees: Due to agile work environment, the internal rapport among the employees of JB Hi-Fi is very much effective. The employees before delivering the services to the customers tend to share necessary information with each other. Consequently, the entire operation process goes in a systematic and rhythmic way. In addition, employees belonging to diverse cultural backgrounds are not flexible enough in communicating effective communication with every individual (Shahzad, Iqbal and Gulzar 2013). In this kind of situation, the fellow employees show their cooperative outlook y maintaining non-verbal communication so that language barrier cannot affect the service method. This kind of rapport among the employees of JB Hi-Fi has left positive impact in rendering the success of business organization. Autocratic form of leadership at the workplace: Along with systematic and healthy organizational culture, JB Hi-Fi intends to follow autocratic system of work that highly affects a specific business organization in maintaining image and reputation. As per the point of view of several employees, the managers of this organization tend to follow autocratic leadership style at the workplace (Mills 2017). Autocratic leadership style implies the business managers in imposing their own decision on the employees. Business managers before implementing a specific business strategy and policy never intend to make an effective communication with the employees (Sarangi and Srivastava 2012). They like to change roster structure, impose their own decision on the employees while providing services, takes strategic decision without informing the employees. As a result, the existing staffs show their reluctant attitude in providing good services to the customers. Lack of opportunity in enhancing professional skill: JB Hi-Fi in the current business scenario does not intend to provide any training and development session to the employees in order to enhance their communication skill as well as professional competency. With the dynamic progress of market, the needs and demands of the employees are changing gradually. The employees have to attend effective training session in order to update their professional skill (Wolf, Dulmus and Maguin 2012). The business managers on the other hand impose extreme work burden on the employees within showing any kind of cooperation. These specific factors have become a major barrier in the growth of organization. After evaluating the entire organizational culture of JB Hi-Fi, it can be analyzed that the business managers can follow participative form of leadership style in order to make collective decision regarding the success of business. Conclusion: In conclusion, it can be said that the organization has made several efforts to be sustainable. This report has evaluated the external environment and the ongoing CSR policies of the organization. The organization helps numbers of charity organizations for helping the deprived ones in the society. The corporate social responsibility of the organization has been aligned in a way that it maintains the ethical concerns in an appropriate way. JB hi fi provides several financial aids to projects all over the country for the well being of the society and the community they are residing. The organizational culture of the organization is also aligned with the corporate social responsibility policies. However, there is a huge lack of professional skills. 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