The Business Environment

Tesco PLC is a British multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer headquarters in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom. It is the third largest retailer in the world measured by profits and second-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues. It has stores in 12 countries across Asia and Europe and is the grocery market leader in the UK (where it has a market share of around 28.4%), Ireland, Hungary, Malaysia, and Thailand.
Tesco was founded in 1919 by Jack Cohen as a group of market stalls. The Tesco name first appeared in 1924, after Cohen purchased a shipment of tea from T. E. Stockwell and combined those initials with the first two letters of his surname, and the first Tesco store opened in 1929 in Burnt Oak, Barnet. His business expanded rapidly, and by 1939 he had over 100 Tesco stores across the country.

Tesco Extra stores are larger, mainly out-of-town hypermarkets that stock nearly all of Tesco's product ranges, although some are in the heart of town centres and inner-city locations.
The purpose of Tesco for them is gain profit from importing their goods that they intended to sell, buying in bulk allows them to pay a good cheaper price when compared to selling them individually. As well as this, Tesco have their own brand where they make their own goods to sell to the public, to avoid copyright Tesco make their own brands slightly different but ascetically they are same product.
Tesco's Ownership which is owned by several partners, Tesco is owned by thousands of people. This is because Tesco is a public limited company or PLC. The reason for Tesco being a PLC is because of its mammoth size. Due to its size it would be hard to raise enough funds for Tesco if it was owned by a sole trader or by partners whereas in a PLC (like Tesco) the company is owned by shareholders who fund the company. This happens by the people buying shares in the company and becoming shareholders. Sometimes this may seem more appealing to the people investing in a company as they have the luxury of having limited liability. Limited liability is where if the business goes bankrupt the people only lose whatever they invested in the business this is common with PLC's, LTD.’s (Private limited company) Unlimited liability applies to soul traders and partnerships if one of these went bankrupt they could lose all their personal assets over it and the money they put into it.

Greggs PLC is the largest bakery chain in the United Kingdom, with 1,671 outlets. It specialises in savoury products such as pasties, sausage rolls and sandwiches and sweet items including doughnuts and vanilla slices. It is headquarters in Newcastle upon Tyne. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange, and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
The first Greggs was opened in 1951. Originally growing regionally from its North East base, Greggs began to acquire other regional bakery chains across the rest of the country from the 1970s onwards. By the 1990s, it was the largest bakery chain in the country, after acquiring its major rival, Bakers Oven, in 1994.
The purpose of Greggs much like Tesco is to gain profit, unlike Tesco, Greggs only focus on one type of selling area (food) and also only sell their own brands (apart from drinks). Greggs however will have their suppliers of ingredients, for example, meat and pastries’. These ingredients will be sent to the factory where they will be branded and made into the almost finished product. The almost finished product will then be sent to stores across the country where it will be finalised and be sold to the public.

The Ownership and board at Greggs is, Ian Durant (Chairman), Rodger Whiteside (Chief Executive), Richard Hutton (Finance Director), Raymond Reynolds (Retail Director), Allison Kirkby, Helena Ganczakowski, Peter McPhillips, sander Turner (Non-Executive Director) and Jonathan Jowett Company Security. Greggs was founded by John Gregg as a Tyneside bakery in 1939. It opened its first shop in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne in 1951. When John died in 1964, the bakery was taken over by his son, Ian, assisted by his brother, Colin.

Stakeholders

All businesses depend on a variety of stakeholders. Some stakeholders are internal to the business, such as a company’s employees. Other stakeholders are external to the business, such as suppliers, customers, trade unions, civil society groups, shareholders and the communities in which the business operates.

Customers customers want value for money which involves providing the highest quality products at competitive prices.
Employees
Their stake is that the company provides them with am livelihood. They want security of employments, good rates of reward and also promotional opportunities.
Suppliers
They want to feel valued by the company and want frequent orders with prompt payments.
Owners
In a company it would be the shareholders. Owners are often thought to be the most important stakeholders because they have set up the business and give a lot of time into the company to make it successful. Owners like to see their share of profit increasing, and the value of their business rising.
Trade Unions
This is for groups of employees who seek to secure higher wages and better working conditions for their members.
Employer associations
This is the same as trade unions but for the employers, representing the interests of employers in specific industries.
Local and National Communities
The actions of business can have a dramatic effect on communities. E.g. The oil Giant Shell has built vast pipelines in Nigeria, which runs through the lands of various tribal peoples. The pipelines can be very dangerous and causes local pollution. Community leaders therefore represent important interest groups
Governments
The government wants businesses to become successful, to create jobs and to pay taxes. They want to see good businesses that take a full responsibility on looking after the welfare of society.
Influence of stakeholders on organisations
A business needs to take account of the interests of all its stakeholder groupings. These interests are linked together.

How are businesses organised

The different functional areas in Tesco are, finance, marketing, Human resource, operations/legalistic and management.
Finance is a field that deals with the study of investment. Which includes the dynamics of assets and liabilities over time under conditions of different degrees of uncertainty. Finance can also be defined as the science of money management. A key point in finance is the time value of money, which states that purchasing power of one unit of currency can vary over time. Finance aims to price assets based on their risk level and their expected rate of return. Finance can be broken into three different sub-categories: public finance, corporate finance and personal finance.
Marketing is about communicating the value of a product, service or brand to customers or consumers for the purpose of promoting or selling that product, service, or brand. The oldest and perhaps simplest and most natural form of marketing is 'word of mouth' (WOM) marketing, in which consumers convey their experiences of a product, service or brand in their day-to-day communications with others. These communications can of course be either positive or negative.
Human Resource Management (HRM) is the function within an organization that focuses on the recruitment of, management of, and providing direction for the people who work in an organization.
Operations and Legalistic, Tesco's operations department concentrates on keeping a constant supply of goods to the stores. Getting the right products, in the right quantities to the right stores, at the right time. Management know when the shelves are getting empty, and the warehouse are informed, send the goods and then inform the suppliers that they're running low themselves. This is all done electronically thanks to ICT.

Gregg's is organised extremely similar to how Tesco is organised, basically they both run of the same system of how they keep their money intact and make sure that they don't spend more then they sell, the more successful they are in this the more profit they'll gain.

Their Purpose

They way both Tesco and Greggs are organised helps them in their purpose because it keeps them on track to gain income and profit from there sales. Without an a steady programme in the organisations, the company’s won't be able to keep up with there finances. Making sure all their employees are happy and paid on time also helps boost sale because this give encouragement for the employees to work as best as they can. The communication in both business help keep everyone in contact and helps them know what they are doing. This helps because if there ever is a problem it can be easily sorted out. This also helps them to improve their reputation and quality, in doing this they are able to expand as a company.

Stakeholders Influence (M1, D1)

Stakeholders have increased influence on company business activities in the early 21st century as community citizenship and social responsibility have been consistently integrated into business management. Customers, employees, communities and business partners are among key stakeholder groups that carry weight in company decisions and activities. Understanding the impact of these stakeholders on business is especially important for small businesses.
The Stakeholders at Tesco such as the employees will want to influence the company in a positive way so that they can keep their job and potentially gain a promotion, all the people who gain a profit from Tesco such as the suppliers and shareholders will also want to influence the company in a positive way so they gain more profit. Stakeholders such as people who shop at Tesco will want to influence the company by making them lower there prices so they save themselves money from shopping, they can do this by shopping more so Tesco can afford to drop their prices which will attract them more customers. This will gain them more buying power with their suppliers and result in a bigger profit. Stakeholders who live near by to Tesco will want to influence them by making sure that the Tesco isn't an eye sore or over crowded. In order for them to do this they would have to complain to the council about it. Companies such as Tesco and Greggs are mainstream and are able to lower the prices, this cause small local shops to lose profit or worse go out of business. People who run these shops obviously won't agree with the amount of Tesco's and Greggs' being in the UK and surrounding there local area. The government will have to make sure that both Tesco and Greggs is a good idea to be hand in the local community and if it will benefit more people then not.