Primark and Blockbuster Describe the main aims and objectives of the business

– Describe the main aims and objectives of the business and the external factors which have affected the ability of the business to achieve its aims and objectives.

-Analyse how marketing activities, enterprise skills and teams have contributed to the success of the business

Task 1 – Aims and Objectives

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All Businesses have a variety of goals that they aim to achieve and most businesses do achieve their goals. When they do they set their business with a much bigger goal that they will then try and reach. The common aims of business are to aim to make profit so that the owner can expand the business even bigger and which will influence the way that they behave. Some of the common aims are stated above and also explained in details below.

The business I have chosen is Primark. First Primark store was opened in June 1969 in Mary Street which is where the Headquarter is also located. The business sells a variety of clothing, shoes and home ware such as curtains, pillows/cushions, rugs and simple bathroom equipment e.g. toilet seats. Primark has 238 and 156 store just in United Kingdom, 38 Stores in Ireland and etc.

Also read The Story of an Eyewitness Essay Analysis

Primark’s goals are mainly to provide what the public needs in a good quality and a low priced way. Seeing as Primark does not charge much money for any of the products that they sell, people should be realising that the product would not last very long as more expensive products that we would get from other store. The prices for Primark’s Products are all based on the quality of the product and its use which will all be taken into account when they price their products.

Primark’s business aims and objectives

Primark aims for increased sales by placing sales on a daily basis such as at the end of every season. For example, at the end of winter they place the winter products on half price sales which is a good strategy for a business to use because people will try to save money on products that they will be needing for the next winter and they want to be a step ahead and prepared for the arrival of the next winter. They objective here would be to make sure that they do not price their products at a higher cost rather than a reasonable and affordable price. Primark sell goods at a reasonable price and they want their customers to have a variety of options to them, so Primark are offering their customers good quality products at reasonable prices. This will be achieved by looking at their competitors and other stores, selling similar products, and making their prices lower than their competitors.

Primark mainly aims to provide good quality products for their customers because they want their customers to realise that Primark is a good company. Just because they sell products at a very cheaper price, this does not mean that the products they sell are not good or at a bad quality. The main objectives in order to reach this aim will be to satisfy their customers and gain more potential customers. This will be done by making sure that they provide the customers with good quality products in order to grab potential customers. This will also help them to grab more potential customers as well as letting their customers know that they sell good quality products.

Primark makes sure that their aims and objectives are linked to SMART which includes their aims and objectives being specific meaning that the goal can be accomplished than a general goal and measurable meaning that they can measure the progression that they are making to achieve the goal. Achievable, realistic and timely meaning that the aims and objectives can be achieved, realistic and can be achieved in the time they want to spend on achieving the aim.

Primark aims to provide their customers with an excellent customer service which involves them being friendly and helpful towards customers and staff. Primark wants the public to think that they are a friendly company, so that this makes their customers want to come back to their store if they feel welcomed. Primark’s objectives for this are to make sure that the staff treat and greet their customers properly. They are trying to achieve this by greeting customers as soon as possible and making them feel welcomed at Primark and they also ask if they want any help in case they are shy to ask for help, just to make it easier for their customers. This will also help them grab potential customers and which will mean that Primark will be benefiting from a range of areas such as increased sales, potential customers and etc.

Primark has a policy to treat everybody the same and everybody have their own rights. Primark wants to make their regular customers to feel like everyone is treated the same. Each and every customer are the same to Primark whether they have less money or lots of money with them, Primark intends to treat all their customers as equals. Primark will achieve this by having an objective to making everyone in the store feel individual and also by making everyone feel like they are ‘special' and no different from one another.

Primark aims to target young, fashion-conscious under the age of 35’s, offering them high quality and fashion basics at a reasonable pricing, so that it could be afforded by everyone and are value for the amount of money they pay.

Making a profit is one of Primark’s main aims and the objective to achieve this aim would be to make sure that they get increased sales instead of decreased sales. Increased sales will help Primark to make a lot of profit and will also show them if they have gained any new potential customers for Primark. This will also help Primark know the performance of their staff such as if they are providing an excellent customer service because this will increase sales. Primark comes up with their own designs for clothes that would attract their targeted customers which would be the under 35 year olds and the young who like to be up-to date with the latest fashion. Gaining more potential customers would also ensure Primark making more profit than usual. Making a profit will also help Primark to expand their business

Total revenue is the total amount of money that comes into the business, Primark from selling products or service that were originally designed by the business. The total revenue can be calculated by:

PEST

Political Factors:

There are several political factors that could affect the entire firm of Primark. One would be that if they were sued by their competitors for copying their similar products this will bring the market to a downfall for Primark. Primark was brought to court and sued by many of their competitors for copying designs of their products. This has a major effect on Primark as a whole firm because if they keep getting sued that will bring their market to a downfall and that is not great.

In May 2004, Monsoon also took legal actions against Primark. Monsoon claimed that Primark had copied their £44 butterfly skirt, selling it at £11, as well as copying the Brittany top for girls. Primark charged around £23,000 by Monsoon which was also an out-of-court settlement and this was after Primark admitting to the copies. In April 2005, Monsoon accused Primark of copying the designs of six more items that they claimed to have created. Primark was once again forced to remove all of these products that monsoon sued them form, from all the Primark shops when Primark was threatened by Monsoon to take legal action.

Primark was not sued just by Monsoon because in 2009, Primark was sued by Superdry for making a cheap imitation of their 'Brad' jacket. Primark got an out-of-court settlement with high street fashion brand Superdry, after Primark was accused of copying one of the Superdry’s leather jackets which was originally priced £174.99 at the Superdry store and the imitation was sold for £30 at Primark stores. This lead to Primark being sued which exposed that they were copying their competitors’ products which would have brought suspicion to all their other competitors on Primark. Primark was made to suffer the financial consequences of their illegal action that lead to a downfall of Primark.

Political Analysis relates to the ability of the organisation to adopt or follow on the different governmental initiatives that might affect the performance of the entire firm, so basically this will affect Primark as a whole not just one Primark company the entire Primark companies and this will also include the headquarters. The government might establish certain policies for Primark and these policies that are established by the government might divert the local priorities of all the Primark companies.

The government has a role to contribute in estimating and also forecasting the success of downfall of the Primark. The government might regularly take action in the changes of financial and economic policies in at a certain point on how the economy reacts. As the government also holds the regulations that should be part of the business’s cycle. Examples of the several acts that the organisation needed for compliance included the health and safety act, sex discrimination act, disability discrimination act, data protection act, sales protection acts, consumers’ protection act and so on. It is highly recommended that the organisation should be reacting to the impact of any increase or decrease in taxation or even to the impact of the acts in their business.

Economical Factors:

There are many Economical factors that may affect Primark and which may cause Primark to fall behind of their competitors. Primark targets the young Customer’s specifically the under 35 year olds. In 2008, Primark opened over 12 new stores and has now moved its business around Europe. This is a successful event that took place for Primark in 2008 and this could be affected in the future if they don’t make sure that they keep up with the forever changing economy. This will have an effect on few of the aims and objectives that Primark aims achieve because Primark’s potential customers would not have faith in them due to them copying products of other retailers.

The business environment is ever-changing, and it is crucial that Primark analyses the environmental factors correctly in order to allow them to adapt to changes that may arise in the future. If Primark fails to analyse the environment changes correctly, or if they do not pay enough attention to observing the environmental changes then there are chances of Primark missing out of vital opportunities and will certainly fall under massive threat. This will also help their competitors to get ahead of Primark and it would not be an easy matter to handle. It will take Primark a very long time to get back on track and make sure that they handle things properly and to compete with their competitors on the same level.

Economic analysis will help the Primark answer the increases and decreases in interest rates and its impact on their business or how a recession in the business cycle can affect their business as a whole. Primark has been recognised as one of the strongest businesses that can contribute a lot in the country’s Gross Domestic Product or GDP. In order to make Primark able to stand indifferent economic changes, there should be a strong financial fund that holds in the effects of recession as much in low exchange rates made by the import and export operations.

Unemployment began to level off towards the end of 2011, and the beginning of 2012 saw the first fall in almost a year. This would have affected Primark due to the fall of Unemployment it would have made it harder for Primark to recruit appropriate and suitable staff for their companies which means less staff and it would have put more pressure on the staff that are employed at Primark because they will have to complete two people’s tasks in a day.

Inflation could possibly be one of the factors to affect business. Inflation is actually a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a specific period of time. I don’t think Inflation would affect my selected business, Primark because their products are a mainly fast-fashion and a decent cost and that’s one of the main reasons that Primark makes a lot of profit and has many potential customers.

Interest rates could also be a cause that affects the business. An interest rate is like the fee that you would have to pay as an interest which is paid by a borrower for the use of money that they borrowed from a lender such as the Bank. So basically the charge for borrowing money which is called Interest and Primark has also paid interests for the amount of money that they have borrowed of the bank. Primark has made sure that they pay back all the money that they have borrowed with the interest.

Social Factors:

Primark has received several awards for being value retailer of the year and UK retailer of the year. This will mean that Primark has an advantage of going abroad to other countries that they have not opened a Primark street store in those certain countries. Primark can now also easily expand and diversify, giving its competitors such as Next, H;M, New Look and so on, a competitive environment with the large amount of financial power that they hold. Primark now operates from 5.4 million sq. ft. of selling space which gives them the advantage of providing more goods and services for their potential and usual customers.

Primark has many competitors and the competitive rivalry is “VERY HIGH” as there are a number of similar sized companies in the market who are offering similar kinds of products and due to high cost on exit (Exit barrier). The threat of substitutes are also “HIGH” for Primark because other company are offering similar products that are offered by Primark with a lower price and now it is very easy for customer to switch from one product to other as they have a variety of products to choose from for cheaper prices.

The threat of new competitors for Primark is ‘LOW’ due to the high cost setup because new business cannot afford the amount of setup costs. Now-a-days banks tend to give loans for only larger businesses due to the smaller businesses not succeeding and failing to pay them back. Primark have number of smaller ones rather than relying on one big supplier. So here the negotiating power of suppliers is ‘LOW’ with Primark and amount of Buyers power is ‘HIGH’, as the market has many multi companies in them and now customer have become more sensitive than before towards the price that they pay for the products they purchase so they tend to visit every similar shores and then they come to an conclusion on where to buy the product and this would include the switching cost which is also not too high.

The economies of scale may also have an effect on certain businesses. An economy of scale is the increase in the effectiveness of production as the number of goods that are being produced by Primark increases. In general, a company such as Primark that achieves economies of scale lowers their average cost per unit through increased production seeing as fixed costs are shared over an increased number of goods.

There are two types of economies of scale; one which is an external economy, which means that the cost per unit depends on the size of the industry, not the firm. The second type of economies of scale is internal economies which meaning the cost per unit depends on size of the individual firm.

The taste and preferences of the buying population is on the priority of the business. If there are newly-marketed products, the organisation will surely find many other ways that they could develop their own design which would make them be on the leading market. This would show the ability of Primark in different social changes and challenges mainly when they have many competitors.

There are lifestyle factors that may affect Primark because they will also have to think about what the customers want. Most customers expect to have the latest fashion with the cheapest demands, meaning they would like to keep up with the latest fashions and be able to get them for cheaper. This could also affect the aims and objectives of Primark because if the customers decide not to shop at Primark t would decrease their sales. This would have a major effect on one of their aims, which is to get increased sales and they business would be on a downfall.

Technological Factors:

There are few technological factors that may affect the success of Primark and there are a number of technological factors that may help Primark succeed against their competitors.

In Primark's bid for world class, cutting edge management of its ethical auditing programme, it has signed a deal with BSI Management Systems for the provision of Entropy Software. The investment in Entropy Software is a key part of Primark's ethical trade strategy, which will help calculate all supplier audits, non-conformances and remedial actions and also allow it to be managed through the Entropy Software platform, with much greater global visibility and management control. This means that Primark would either be on the same level or ahead of most of their competitors with this software installed at their stores.

However, Primark lacks on online shopping whereas M;S have an online shopping which gives M;S a head start and gives the leading position to them. This affects Primark because they do not own an online shopping system which most people shop on. Online shopping is one of the most essential things for Primark as most people are lazy now-a-days and shop online. Moreover, most people tend to check out the new products that Primark has and customers will also want to find out if any products are on sale at Primark through online as well as shop.

Environmental factors:

Environmental factors can affect the business because if there was certain changes in the climate and environment. For example, if there was a sudden change in the sea levels, which would certainly have an effect on the transportation of supplies for Primark. If the goods are delayed for some time, this would decrease the sales for Primark and making them lose their potential customers that they have worked so hard to gain.

Marketing activities:

Marketing mix

Blockbuster has been applying huge amount of effort in achieving their aims and objectives and in being successful. Factors such as marketing mix, they are providing the best product they possibly can. The products are high in quality, and original. The pricing they are keeping it fair. They are not ripping of customers, the customers feel safe with them because the customers know keeping a link with blockbuster mean they are happy with their pricing and the quality of their products.

Furthermore, the placing is extraordinarily well; they have situated their store in a place where the customers are able to find it easily. Blockbuster is situated in a place where they are closer to wherever the customers are. The blockbuster organization knows what the best is for their customers, because of the carried out primary and secondary research. E.g. some primary research which blockbuster looked into was test marketing and focus group. Test marketing involved a certain product being tested in certain market to an individual age groups and seeing where it fits the best. Secondary research was looking at their competitors work, how they are getting all their customers and trying to expand in that idea and link it to the ones which blockbuster already has. So these types of secondary and primary research which blockbuster carried out and managed to gain the success in reaching their aims and objectives.

To prove or disagree with that statement on the next page are graphs and charts of a questionnaire on the customers who shop at blockbuster asking how well blockbuster are doing in their 4ps and the overall business itself.

Team working collaboration

How the blockbuster team has effectively managed themselves in receiving their organisational aims and objectives. The meaning and importance of groups and team work in a business is essential. Work is a group based activity and if the organisation is to function effectively it requires collaboration and co-operation among members. In other words meaning any number of people who interact with one another are psychological aware of one another and perceive themselves to be a group.

Group are characteristics of all social situations and almost everyone in an organization with will be a member of one are more groups. The working of groups and influence they exert over their membership is an essential feature of human behaviour and of organisational performance. So one event which blockbuster team has collaborated is the bankruptcy moment. Despite having the worst time and getting sued by Netflix, they were looking into their research more effectively. They looked at the 4ps carefully. They looked at the competitors’ way of gaining customers. The pricing, the productivity the quality of it and so on. The team work or the groups have co-operated with the business so well from going bankrupt they made the position of the business become number 1 in the rental retailing world.

Questionnaire questions asked in the two different questionnaires are shown below for both questionnaires.

Question on questionnaire

audience

What are your thoughts on the pricing on the products which blockbuster are holding them on?

Public

The qualities of the products are they up to the standards and are they up to your satisfaction!

Public

The promotional activities which blockbuster holds on occasions are they the best! So meaning should they reduce the price further or add additional accessories on to that deal and have it for longer periods of time.

Public

The placing of blockbuster is it situated in a place where you can easily get to it and find it easy to find! Is it the best place to reach the audience so customers?

public

Overall, blockbuster how good are they doing in their business, so are they achieving the best, most customers, and good quality products and so on?

public

The top questionnaire is a public based questionnaire which I handed out to those who shop at blockbuster and are working in place. The bottom questionnaire is a student based questionnaire. Why I chose to do two different questionnaire is because they will help me get the view of two different classes. Public side will tell me what they think of blockbuster rental industry, through what they can afford because they work. The student questionnaire is a based questionnaire on what they think of blockbuster rental industry because they buy mostly from blockbuster, e.g. games. The students will be saying what is good about blockbuster by not thinking of what the price of the products are, and how they are given out. Because they don’t work

Questions

Audience

What are your thoughts on the pricing of blockbuster products?

Students

What are your thoughts on the products of blockbuster?

Students

What are your views on the promotional activities on the blockbuster deals?

Students

What are your views on the place where blockbuster store is nearest to you?

Students

What is the overall view on the blockbuster rental industry?

Students

The two questionnaires are compared at the bottom, which shows what they have in common and what they don’t and there you can see why I chose to do two different questionnaires. The different in minds and the classes they are in.

Question 1) pricing of blockbuster?

School public

What the questionnaire found out for me from the students is that positive feedbacks may include something along the line that it is the value the pricing should be for their products because the value of the product is in high quality, the gaming renting and the buying of the movies or games are up to the customer s expectation. Furthermore you can buy membership for rent, so the students thought that that was a good deal.

The public replied by the same sort of answer. The pricing for games as an example, is that high because firstly they are high quality, online severed, amazing graphics and the game modes. The movies are high definition. So the public graph shows the nearly the same sort of positivity and the amount of numbers which they thoughts was the right pricing.

Negative feedback may be along the line of that it is expensive. So opposing what the positive feedback all concluded to. They don’t think the quality is up to what they think is right and so on.

Negative feedback which I got back was that they are expensive. Again opposing the positive feedback. Some say that due to their pay they can’t buy it but overall, it’s good.

The two pie charts above show the difference in views in acknowledgment of blockbuster from the students in Drayton manor high school and the people in workplaces or outside in public. The pricing of blockbuster utilizes where the faults and the goods are for this company or blockbuster. In general terms pricing is simply what the company gives their products in order to sell the most goods from their stores. In the bottom table you can see how the two graphs show the differences in themselves and the similarities in them self selves. Or moreover the disadvantages and the advantages blockbuster got in their pricing strategies.

Overall, blockbuster has a good quantity of numbers supporting the goods of pricing. E.g. blockbusters are becoming global leaders through this. More and more people are renting their movies and games and buying them also. So blockbusters have been doing fairly good with their pricing but however. More people are downloading the movies and games of online for free. This put blockbuster into gaining loses of customers. So their profit level went done by miles. This also gives a bad impact on them reaching their aims and objectives.

Question 2) quality of productivity?

School public

Firstly, products are simply what the market provides to its target audience. The charts above show the different thoughts on what they think of the productivity of the blockbuster products.

The positive feedback which I concluded to get from the students was that they are up to what they expect to get. But some thinks that the products that blockbuster provides are of other companies like Disney or other game software companies. So it doesn’t actually count to what the products of blockbuster are up to high standards.

What the positive feedback which I gained were that they were not scratched up, they worked properly. So you can see in the chart everyone ticked yes so full 10 people agreed that the blockbuster provide the best productivity they can offer.

Negative feedback which I received about the products were that they are angry with the quantity of how many of the same product blockbuster has got. Some students went to buy fifa they get the response of `we are out of stock for that product’. So the quantity of the product matters when dealing with the productivity of any company.

As you can see that the negative feedback which got was nothing. Because everyone I asked ticked yes. They did not objective with the productivity of the product of blockbuster.

Overall, the productivity of the product from blockbuster is too what the customers expect. Blockbuster never had any complains about their products and they got positive feedback about their products. Blockbuster however, been unable to get the most amounts of people to buy their product. Because their competitor has been stealing their customers with their online movies watching site. With amazing quality and the best they can provide. So with the productivity blockbuster has been doing great but Netflix beats them by an inch of better nests. So competition is a main obstacle in reaching their required aims and objectives, so blockbuster must know what to do in order to restore its profit levels

Question 3? Promotional activities?

School public

Promotion is type of communication that uses various methods to reach its target audience in order to sell the best and still gain the scene profit.

Positive responses which I had been given by some of the students were the promotion types which blockbuster gives out are pretty effective. Why? Some say that it attracts the customers in varies different ways. Firstly, the deal itself. What it is? Secondly, the pricing, so what the deal is ended up adding to and how much of amount disc for movies and games can be bought.

Positive feedback which was given to me by the public was as follow. The deals which blockbuster gives out are always amazing to look up to. They don’t give a slight dissatisfaction of what the deal disapprove them by. So any bad faults.

Negative feedback such as they don’t have the best for their deals. They are simple. In order to gain more customers they need to promote their promotions through TV and billboards maybe.

Negative feedback which I received back where they were still high in pricing. They may have some deals which give out 5-10 DVDs but people just download it from the internet for free and for high quality.

The promotional activities for blockbuster have been effective in gaining various customers. However people just download the movies or get pirate copies for £2. They can get cheapest games from gaming sites such as steam. Steam is an online gaming site where you can buy games including the latest ones like fifa 13 and mw3 and play them on your pc for the same type quality on the gaming consoles. So blockbuster may have great deals but, people don’t buy from them they download it free of the internet and or buy it for cheaper room online gaming sites like steam. Again blockbuster must research the competitions. There is not only Netflix or game, but online gaming sites like steam so this is a let-down for blockbuster they got ruined by an online gaming site.

Question 4) the placing.

School public

Blockbuster which I looked at is in west Ealing the nearest blockbuster to my house and to those who I have asked to fill out my questionnaire.

Positive feedbacks were basically as simple as the blockbuster store is near my house. Or it is around the corner. Blockbuster is on high street of west Ealing so they are seen without having the people for them or their store. They are easy to find. But most importantly they are close to their houses.

Positive feedbacks were the same as the section for the students. Some whys which were the response were they are closer to their housings and in the main shopping centre to where they live. So in this case it is west Ealing. People say they can just walk to their nearest blockbuster so it’s great for them.

Negative feedback not given because nobody though blockbuster had a bad placing.

Negative feedback was they are not more than one blockbuster around their housing area. So in west Ealing there is only one blockbuster, none in Ealing Broadway and other towns. So they need to extend their store to further reaches.

Blockbuster placing of their stores in fact done great for them, because whenever you enter west Ealing that is the first store you see. Most importantly it is the only blockbuster store you will find. Why this is a good thing, blockbuster will get all of its customers to that coming store so they will receive the great deal of profit and customers. However not having a blockbuster everywhere or every town, such as Ealing Broadway customers or consumer will go to their nearest gaming store. So Ealing Broadway has Argos or game or other stores like him. So blockbuster has lost in profit and customers due to this point.

Question 5) overall view of the business.

School public

Overall view of blockbuster, means it include the 4ps and the whole business layout itself. Meaning the staff, the stores and what the business should, does provide.

Some positive feedback which I got back from the students was that the students thought that the deals which blockbuster gave were amazing. E.g. game like call of duty, if you pre order it and get at midnight on the day comes out you get it for £2. So the students enjoy these kinds of deals and that’s why the students think that blockbuster is the best store.

Positive feedbacks are simple being just a great shop and the place for to rent and buy DVDs. The staffs are helpful; they tell you about any unsure products, they will give you feedback and their personal views on the product. So you if are buying it you won’t regret buying it.

Negative feedbacks were that they weren’t enough stores in London. They need to build more stores in order to gain that max profit and take on their competitors like Netflix or game. Or as I previously said online gaming site named steam.

Negative feedbacks were as follow, they said that it was slow on customer service and the stock levels. What that means whenever someone goes to buy something, blockbuster don’t have it or it’s for viewing only.

Overall, the business has done great but for them to reach their aims and objectives they need to build more stores to reach their max profit and not go bankrupt. Blockbusters have gone bankrupt by Netflix. Blockbuster has been sued for coping Netflix ideas which concluded the future of blockbuster into bankruptcy. No customers went with them. No nothing bought and rent. So overall blockbuster has been having difficulties in life of its stores but blockbuster still managed to achieve the aims and objectives it has dreamt of. So global leadership is still highly stated with blockbuster, they still are in front of Netflix, they are still the best rental type. All this because they knew what they were doing. The 4ps were defined well. So the right pricing, good quality products, and so on. Blockbuster may of have been deflected in many ways but they stood their ground and did achieve their biggest aim of global leadership in the rental retailing world.

Manager response to the success of business in achieving their aims and objectives

In order to reach the aims and objectives, the manager gives me an answer of management and control. In the discussion the role of the manager attention was drawn to the motivation of staff and importance of control over the performance of other people’s work.

Organisation implies control. A social organization is an ordered arrangement of individual human interaction. Control process help keep them conformant to the rational plan of organizational. Organization requires a certain amount of conformity as well as the integration of diverse activities. It is the functional of control to bring about conformance to organisational requirement and achievement of the ultimate purpose of the organizational. This shows that team work is an important factor in running blockbuster rental retailers.

Control and management is essential in order to get the best out of the staff as a manger. In order to reach the max potential to gain the organizational aims and objectives you will need control on the staff.

Furthermore you need control over the 4ps in order for the business to succeed in their aims and objectives. Control over the 4ps is essential. Control over the 4ps meaning full success on the business profit lines and aims and objectives. 4ps meaning control on place, product, promotion and price. The business needs to know what has the best meaning of customer needs is. They need to find out their expectation and what they can afford. This can help the business achieve their aims and objectives.

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