Understanding the organisational purposes of businesses
Introduction
Within this assignment I will use Marks and Spencer’s (M&S) as my organisation as an example to answer the criteria, I will source a range of information from a range of resources that will produce reliable information. M&S is largely recognized organisation amongst the high street, offering high quality products to their customers. I feel M&S will be the best example to use as I work within M&S therefore I am quite knowledgeable of the criteria headlines set below.

Identify the purposes of different types of organisation

Different organisations will have different mission, values and objectives that they would like to encounter. It is first important to define Mission and Values and how M&S meets them. In terms of Mission it is the long-term goal your organisation seeks to achieve, and in terms of Values those things your organisations believes in and search for to understand in its work Within M&S’s their objectives are incorporated within its mission statement of Vision, Mission and Values: Vision: The standard against which all others are measured Mission: Making aspirational quality accessible to all Values: Quality, Value, Service, innovation and trust
The Mission Statement is a vital part of a business organization in strategic planning, it assess what key objectives they would like to endure. This is a vital building block to the organisations overall strategic planning and how they would like to meet their Mission Statement by meeting their objectives. M&S’s Mission Statement summarizes their key aims of what they would like to achieve for their different types stakeholders, most importantly their customers. M&S’s Mission Statement is important that it meets all Stakeholders, internally and externally. The Mission Statement and the influence of Stakeholders on M&S’s is helped it to achieve to be a successfully organisation.

The influence of stakeholders can be shown by stakeholder mapping which is a diagram to examine and visually display the relative influence that different individuals and groups have over decision-making of an organisation. In Figure 2, diagram represented shows a simple approach how a stakeholder has influence over an organisation, the closer the stakeholder is to the organisation at the top of the pyramid the more influence it exerts to the organisation.

customer being the most important Stakeholder and with the aims of M&S to increase their sale as meant that returning customers has increases profits meaning the Customer’s will always having increasing influence over M&S.

Effectively M&S Mission Statement and their most important Stake holder has helped create a largely successfully retailer amongst the High Street. M&S has aimed their Mission Statement towards the Customer to create a ever increasing bond which will help drive the sale of M&S and create returning customer for profit. Describe the extent to which an organisation meets the objectives of different stakeholders
It is important for M&S to meet all objectives of a stakeholder, I will evaluate 3 different stakeholders and whether M&S meet the objectives set by the stakeholder. A Stakeholder is any individual or group who has an influence over a organisation. Not all stake holders have the same equal influence/importance to an organisation, however all stakeholders play a part in the existence of a company. Stakeholders can be split into three categories which is shown in figure 2 which explains the different types of stakeholders present within a organisation. In order to evaluate the extent of how M&S achieves the objectives of three stakeholders, I have produced a diagram to explain the three different categories of a stakeholder and the different types of stakeholders branched to gain a better understanding of what they want from an organisation. Suppliers
M&S sources products from over 2000 suppliers from around the world. M&S believe in esteem in third party rights and honesty in providing customers with the best quality and value products with competitive prices. M&S work under international standards noted in the Ethical Trading Initiative Base Code in making sure suppliers comply with the requirements. M&S also work with suppliers who practise and stick to high principles of animal welfare, and high standards of sustainable farming and fishing. The Suppliers objectives are met by fair pricing which will leave them with profit and not out of profit and by offering them long term exclusive contracts, with the placing of regular orders.
Shareholders
M&S have large amount of individuals that invest the shares of M&S. M&S are largely focused on building a long term relationship with their shareholders, by creating a sustainable business with increasing profit, therefore meeting the shareholders requirements of a consistent profit growth of M&S. M&S keep daily, weekly, monthly and annually records of their performance as a organisation in promoting more shareholders to invest within their company and meeting both objectives of M&S and the shareholders- generating profit for both.

Customers
M&S promote Quality, Value, Service, innovation and trust to their customers, to present the highest achievable standards of quality available to their customers. M&S believe in building a customer goodwill, excellent customer service, reasonable prices, quality products, and hearten customer fidelity. M&S achieve their values by the accuracy of their advertisement, their labelling, and any other sort of communication is correct, truthful and apparent. M&S offer positive and negative feedback which will help the organisation as a whole to improve customer service and make sure their objectives of a customer is met.
Explain the responsibilities of an organisation and strategies employed to meet them
Any organization has a corporate social responsibility (CSR) to encourage positive actions within its company; it is the voluntary action of an organisation to look after the environment and the society. M&S fully embraces CSR who has the philosophy of ‘helping others to help themselves’ where M&S aim to support their philosophy which can also be seen through their Mission statement which is also aimed at every individual involved with M&S. CSR are grouped in 3 general areas: Products, the local community and its employees.
Products- M&S stresses on producing high quality and good value products which have a positive social and environmental benefits. M&S show a high responsibility protecting the environment by becoming the world’s most sustainable retailers; the programme named Plan A was launched in January 2007 sets out 180 commitments which they aim to achieve by 2015. These 180 commitments are categorised were they are working with their suppliers and customers to reduce waste, combat climate change, trade ethnically, help customers to lead a healthier lifestyle and to using sustainable resources. I have produced a diagram with information taken from the Plan A website as a example of a few of the commitments of how they would like to combat climate change. Local Community- M&S started a community programmed in February 2004 offering work experience to the young employed who found it hard to secure a job, also including the homeless, other groups that were also offered were disabled peoples, school students raging from 14-16 years old, parents returning to work etc, M&S aims were to a responsibility to ensure their local community were treated fairly making sure everyone is treated equally. The aim of the programme was to offer these in people a taste or introduction of life in a working environment, and the all important experience in gaining other careers for the capability of gaining employment. With the strategy of offering a two-four hour placement a week with a allocated buddy as mentor for gaining work experience, which all of this that M&S offer go beyond the legal obligations of a organisation.
Employees- M&S emphasis equality within their organisation- the Equal Opportunities Policy is stressed from recruitment selection that they treat everyone equally, no matter you religion, age, sex, sexuality etc. M&S believe everyone is equally and shall be treated with respect and dignity. M&S also have the policy to promote the “the best fit between personal requirements and business needs” All judgments recounting to employment practices will be objective, open from unfairness, and based only on work criteria and individual value.
Conclusion
M&S clearly has a strong Mission Statement, which is renowned through its customers and its workforce, the generally pattern through this assignment is M&S has a strong relationship through all of its stakeholders and the way that they treat them which has led to their success, I feel I have achieved in successfully fulfilling the criteria of the assignment by using M&S as a example, due to M&S being a highly reformed organisation within retail. I feel I have presented the assignment through diagrams in order for it to be easier to read and classify my research which is a positive to my assignment. To conclude, I feel I have answered the criteria, through identifying, describing and explaining within my bullet points.