Case Study: Fred Smith Has Been Made Redundant With A Payoff From A Large Company

Session Activities – Workbook

Activity 4

Fred Smith has been made redundant with a payoff from a large company and wants to start his own business and work for himself.

Which of the business types are the best choices for him?

The best choice for Fred would be to set off as a sole trader.

What risks would be involved?

There are many benefits involved from being a Sole trader; however, the risk is extremely higher than the other options. All finance, debt or legal issues are the responsibility of the owner, so if Fred ever got himself into trouble, he would have to be the person to dig himself out of it. The responsibility is all on his hands. On the plus side, all the profits go to the owner (Fred).

Activity 5

A public limited company (PLC)

Aims and objectives

For this unit we are focusing on five core areas;

Operations, People, Information, Research & Development and Finance.

Using a large company as an example (For example; Virgin, Google etc) show how it operates within these five areas. Describe the functions of each area of the business. Break it down into departments and see if you can link some of these together in a simple chart/diagram to accompany your descriptions.

Technologies/Skills to be used

Google Search, Content writing/repurposing

UNIT MAPPING –OUTCOME 2

207 2.1

Tescos

Operations

The Operations function is central to any business, no matter what its size. Its chief purposes are to: obtain resources necessary for the business to produce goods or provide services organize the resources in the most efficient and effective way possible. The Production function is responsible for providing customers with whatever the business offers. This usually takes the form of either producing goods or offering services, e.g. Ford manufacture cars, a firm of solicitors offers legal advice to clients, so for Tescos the operations team we be responsible for the logistics of the business, for instance the delivery trucks for the stock will be organised by the operations

Sales for a new product should product life cycle gradually increase – if the marketing mix fits the market requirements. However, sales will begin to level and then decline. This sequence is called the product life cycle. Declining sales reduce the business’s income, so large businesses often have a Research and Development team to improve their existing products and to invent new ones. Therefore, for Tescos it would be the Tesco branded items. The R&D teams will do surveys, research into new and old items to see which product is doing well and what feedback they have received from customers. The way the R&D team will link to the information team is by understanding the needs of the customers by receiving the facts and figures from the information team then directly feeding that information to the customers through the