Barclays Essay

It is of great importance to make an analysis of the environment in which an organisation operates in order to develop and implement a suitable, successful strategy for the company. According to Johnson, Scholes and Whittington (2008) the business environment of a company is an important issue determining its survival and success. There are several layers of this business environment – the macro environment, the industry or sector layer, the layer with competitors and markets.

Barclays Bank, one of the biggest multinational banking and financial services companies in the world, headquartered in London. Barclays is the oldest bank of British, and it has a long history more than three hundred years, which can be traced to 1690. Barclays is the first bank in the world that owns the Automatics Teller Machine, and issued the first Visa card in 1966 and the first debt card in 1987 of British. Up to 2012, Barclays was the seventh biggest bank in the world with the total asset of £1.49 trillion.

This paper will bring about factual information presented by components of the general/macro environment, components of the specific/competitive environment, and the environmental analysis of Best Buy Co. Inc.

The business environment of an organization reveals much about its competitiveness and the possible influences on the success of its strategies. The focus of this paper will be an environmental scan of the internal and external environments of two real-world firms, their competitive advantages and company strategies for creating value and sustaining competitiveness, measurement guidelines for verifying strategic effectiveness and their evaluation.

Identifying influencing factors of a company’s macro-environment helps in the strategic development and management within a company. The macro-environment outlines an industry and the competitive environment as seen in figure 3.1, (Gamble, Peteraf, Thompson, 39). Within the macro-environment there are the political factors, economic conditions, sociocultural forces, technological factors, environment forces, and legal/regulatory factors. All of these factors blanket the habitat an industry and its competition thrive in. Inside the industry and competitive environment there are five factors that influence an individual company. The five factors are suppliers, rival firms, new entrants, buyers, and substitute products. The biggest impact on a company are these five factors. For example, Under Armour focuses on their industry and competitive environment to survive and grow. Their strategy to win over the market share from Nike and Adidas consists of expanding a stable and original brand within record time, taking an innovative approach to their product line-up and brand-name appeal where the market seemed to be barren, and lastly, the company enters in the foreign market early on to establish its brand and influence markets outside of the US.

“Competition is not only the basis of protection to the consumer, but is the incentive to progress” – Herbert Hoover. The environments that today’s firms operate in are not static. The competitive environment they are operating in is constantly changing due to the entry or exit of competitors, changing technology and the demands of consumers. In order to maintain their market share and profitability, firms must continually assess and evaluate their competitive environment. Evaluating the various market forces firms’ face, and their effect on the competitive market ensures that an organization retains a proactive stance to the competitive environment. Instead of just accepting the status quo, organizations that actively examine and analyze their environment can then make choices and develop strategies that take advantage of the competitive situation or affect it to the firm’s benefit. This proactive stance to the market allows organizations to create value and position themselves for long term success. Firms that do not remain proactive and continually scan the competitive environment run the risk of being blindsided by innovation in the environment or significant changes undertaken by the competition.

"A host of external factors influence a firm's choice of direction and action and, ultimately, its organizational structure and internal processes" (Pearce and Robinson, 2004). These factors are the basis for the forces and trends research. This essay presents the research on forces and trends as they affect specific businesses. This research will allow businesses to identify not only forces and trends, but also challenges and opportunities.

CLAIM: We have the skills, resources and determination to make a positive and lasting contribution to the communities in which we operate.’ (Barclays social review, 1999)

The credit crunch can be basically described as the increasing costs of borrowing money due to prevailing situations and rising interest rates. The increase in the interest rates resulted in the inability of many people to afford the repayments on mortgages that led them to default. The rising interest rates had huge effects on the subprime market in the United States in which money was lent to probable risky debtors. Credit crunch was not only exacerbated by the increase in interest rates but it was also fueled by over lending by banks that could offer around 125 percent mortgages. In such instances, these banks were left with 25 percent out of pocket because they could only recover 100 percent in cases of defaults and repossessions. Therefore, the main cause of the credit crunch in 2007-2009 was over-optimistic lending by banks without the considerations of recoverability and risks.

The competitive environment : competition from the industry can impact a company’s strategy and operation. For example if a competitor release a new or similar product that threaten to steal market share, an organization must be ready to change in order to retain its

An analysis of the external environment includes the factors in a business’s external environment about a business's industry, competition, and political and social environments, and affects the firm’s strategy (Aaker, 2001).

In today's world, no business operates in isolation without interacting with the environment where it operates. Irrespective of the nature of business whether public or private organization; manufacturing; service industry; local or international firm, its operations are inhibited by the environment in which it operates.

An organization is an open system; therefore it interacts with its environment. To manage the relationship with the environment, a large part of strategic planning is concerned. The environmental factors can be divided to 2 main categories, which is MACRO and MICRO .Macro environmental factors seriously affect an organization business practice, profitability and future progress. It can

Microenvironment- microenvironment surrounds the factors that are close a company that affects their ability to serve their customers, this would include; Customers, suppliers, competitors, other departments within the company, general public, marketing intermediaries and finally members of the distribution channel. These are all forces that closely influence the company and they have a direct affect on the organizations relationship. The suppliers of a company are a part of the microenvironment as even if there is a slight delay in receiving any supplies off the suppliers can result in the customers not being satisfied. Marketing intermediaries are the people that are helping to promote and sell the companies products. Competitors include companies that are offering the same or similar products, for example; Morrisons, Tesco and Asda are all in competition with each. It is in the company’s best interest to develop a strategic advantage over their competitors, encouraging customers to come to them not their competitors. This would include Tesco giving you vouchers for any price difference with their competitors ( if your total bill comes to more than it would in one of the competitor stores then you are given the

It is important for any businesses to know its business environment so that it can see the economical potential of doing business and get accustomed or adapt with the changes. Besides, they can make plan in advance to capture the market ahead of its competitors. In fact, business environment is a crucial part of doing business to forecast its future in order to survive during economic recession, changing in political situation, and so many other things. It also helps to analyze the competitor’s strategies and formulate their own strategies accordingly. In addition, it helps the business company to identify their weakness and strength based on global business development.