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Executive summary:

Basic Business knowledge is required for everyone regardless of what subject a student has
conducted his or her major. To make effective and efficient decision, knowledge about all
business area or branches has required. By consider this factor; portfolio assignment of
introduction to business has been moulded. There are four tasks in this assignment one is
presentation about business environment, the other one is about one element of marketing
mix, the third one is about financial management and the last one is performance
management. Each and every part of this assignment needs to submit different forms which
will add value to the corporate life.

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Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................1
Task-2.........................................................................................................................................2
Task 3.........................................................................................................................................3
Case Study..................................................................................................................................3
Some options to get better profit of BSkyB Plc.....................................................................5
Task-4.........................................................................................................................................7
Executive summary:...................................................................................................................7
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................7
Contribution of the Performance management system:.............................................................7
Conclusion:..............................................................................................................................10
References:...............................................................................................................................10
Conclusion:..............................................................................................................................11
Table of FiguresY

Figure 1: Elements of Marketing mix....................................................................................................2

Figure 1: Performance management method.........................................................................................8

List of Tabl
Table 1: Contribution of performance management in Coca-Cola............................................9

Introduction:
There are lot branches in business and every branch covers different arena of business
operations of any organization. To make efficient decision, a person needs to have basic
knowledge about other subjects other than own subjects. By considering this, the course
introduction to business has been designed. From this course, a non –business study
background people can know basic business knowledge. There are four tasks in this
assignment that we need to do such as presentation on internal and external factors, an

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 academic poster on any element of marketing mix, a case study on financial management and
lastly a report on performance management. These all tasks have been completed below as
per the direction.
Task-2
Marketing mix elements-price
Marketing Mix: Marketing mix is a set
of controllable elements that a marketer
(Company) can control or manipulate.
Marketing mix elements: There are four elements
of marketing mix. Service related industry uses
expanded marketing mix. Elements of marketing
mix are:
Figure 1: Elements of Marketing mix
Source :( Warrink, 2018)
References:
Brassington, F. and Pettitte, S., 2012. Essentials Of
Marketing. 3rd ed. FT. prentice Hall, pp.334-335.
Warrink, D., 2018. The Marketing Mix in a
Marketing 3.0 Context. INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL OF INNOVATION AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT, 4(4), pp.7-30.
Warrink, D., 2018. The Marketing Mix in a
Marketing 3.0 Context. INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL OF INNOVATION AND ECONOMIC
Price: Each and every elements of the
marketing mix is responsible for creating
expenses except price. This is the only
element of the marketing responsible for
generating profit.
 Price is the value that customers pay
when they purchase a product.
 This is the most crucial element of
the marketing mix because the
success of marketing mix largely
depends on it.
 Before determining the price of the
product, markets need to understand
the perception of the customers
(Winer and Dhar, 2018).
 If the perception of the customers is
low towards the products, then
company can’t charge premium
because products will not be sold and
vice-versa (Brassington and Pettitt,
2012).
 There is direct relationship between
supply and the price of the product.
Low supply results in high price and
vice versa.
 Components of price are:
o List price
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o Discount price
o Allowances
 Task 3

Case Study
Gross profit margin:

This method is a vital conception to the investors and management as it points out how
effectiveness the business can manufacture and sell goods. This is a profitability
measurement tool. A profitability ratio that determines the percentage of sales that surpass the
cost of goods sold is called gross profit margin ( Averkamp, 2009). It can be determined by
subtracting cost of goods sold from total revenue. The formula is:

Total Revenue−Cost of Good Sold

Gross Profit Margin =
Total Revenue

2014 £m 2013 £m
3016 2906
Gross Profit Margin =39.51 % =40.16 %
.7632 7235

From the table it is found that British Sky Broadcasting Plc gained high gross profit margin
than that of 2013. It can be said from the table, If British Sky Broadcasting Plc made 100£ of
income or sales revenue, then 40£ of this will be the gross profit in 2013. This percentage
reduces by 0.66% within next year. The reduction of gross profit margin can be explained by
the 6.62% increment of cost of goods sold also although BSkyB Plc got 5.5% increase
method of sales revenue.

Operating profit margin:

This ratio is known also earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT). The method is used to
measure the percentage of profit of a company. It points out the capability of the profit of a
company from its operational activities (Chandra, 2009). If a company needs both operating
and non-operating income to fulfil the expense operationally, it indicates the operating
activities of business are not sustainable. On the other hand, if a company can make
sufficient money from their operations to aid the business, the company is normally regarded
as more constant (McLaney and Atrill, 2012). Dividing operating profit by total revenue, we
find operating margin. Operating profit can be found by operating expenses from gross profit.
Mathematically, it can be written as follows:

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 Gross Profit−Operating Expenses
Operating Profit Margin =
Total Revenue

2014 £m 2013 £m
1275 1330
Operating Profit Margin =16.71% =18.38 %
7632 7235

Before occurring any financial cost (taxes, interest etc), operating profit margin measures the
percentages of profit. We can know from the above table that within one year operating profit
margin reduce by 1.67%. The reduction of gross profit makes this to happen. To sum up it
can be said that BSkyB Plc had 18.38£ for every 100£ to reach its financial expenses in the
year of 2013 and this is decreased to 16.71£ within next year.

Profit for the year:

Net profit or profit is the proportion of returns deducted after all kind of cash and non-cash
expenses that can be disseminated to the shareholders in the form of dividend or can be
retained as reserve or earnings (Van Horne and Wachowicz, 2010). Basically, profit is
considered as lifeblood of a business. Because capability of higher profit generation opens the
way of business expansion. It is clear from the given statistics that BSkyB Plc had 11.65%
less profit in the year of 2014 than that of 2013. This reduction of profit is a concern thing for
the managers and authorities.

The attitude of shareholders to the performance of BSkyB Plc.:

If we want to know the thought of shareholders regarding the evaluation of BSKyB Plc, It is
important to see this statistics in the views of shareholders and it is also important to know
the aim of shareholders of investing in a company. Shareholders invest in a company to take
the return forming as a dividend. EPS ratio finds this earnings. Shareholders always love to
take privilege like an owner. An investor likes to have a shareholder of the company for this
reason. When a company meets all the obligation of the debt which is external like bonds ,
debentures, interest of borrowed loans , taxes , corporate taxes , adjustment of any reserve
then shareholders’ dividend are being allocated. Common shareholders might have very small
proportion of dividend after deducting all the required expenditures. We can understand from
the given data that although BSKyB Plc has gross profit in beginning, the company failed to

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gain net profit. The company made a decision to increase dividend of shareholder by 7%
despite having net loss and the company will give 32 pence per share to the shareholders.
Without any doubt this is a gain in the perspective of shareholders. It will also be a concern
for some shareholders as the company offered dividend despite negative net profit. It can be
said the company will provide this dividend either retained earnings or reserves. For any
company, to expend retained earnings unwisely might be risky. In refine, the dividend
offering or the apparent performance can make some of the shareholders contented but
intellectual shareholders will not be satisfied with this decision.

Some options to get better profit of BSkyB Plc

After evaluating the given scenario, it can be recommended to improve the profit of the
company by taking several steps which are enlisted below-

a) Although BSkyB Plc gained positive gross profit in 2014, it had negative profit. This
may be occurred due to excessive financial cost. It describes that a large amount of
interest expense had to be paid by the company. It happens when the capital structure
of the company had higher leverage. This company needs to meet its financial
obligations to increase its profitability as early as possible.

b) Another way to improve profitability is cost cutting. The company can follow future
contract, forward contract to decrease its cost. Cutting production cost may also help
to reduce cost of the company.

c) It can be said that the company had debt capital. The company may request to the
bank for restructures the loan.  As a result, installment of the loan can assist to
minimize financial cost.

d) BSKyB Plc can focus on the improvement of efficiency of its employee. They can
arrange training, workshop, seminar, brainstorming to make their employee more
efficiency.

e) To reduce employment cost, company may recruit part time employee, intern. Now -a

-days many organizations take these steps to avoid more employee cost.

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 f) BSKyB Plc can consult with an expert to generate a budget, a proper financial plan
and also marketing strategy. The company can take suggestion from them to make the
company more competitive.

Reference –

Harold A. 2009 blog of accounting and finance [Online] at-

http://blog.accountingcoach.com/calculate-payback-period/, accessed on 30 July 2020

McLaney, E. and Atrill, P., 2012. Accounting. 9th ed. Harlow, England: Pearson.

Prasanna C. 2009, Project Management, Delhi press, New Delhi

Van Horne, J. and Wachowicz, J., 2010. Fundamentals of Financial Management. New
Delhi: PHI Learning, p.187.

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 Task-4
A report on the performance management of The Coca-Cola Company

Executive summary:
The success of any organization largely depends on the employees of the company. The more
creativity of the employees, the more possibility to success. To increase out of thinking
capacity or creativity, giant companies like Coca-Cola applies many strategies among them
performance management is one of them. Performance management provides lot insights
about employees to the company. The company then can work on this insight in order to
overcome it. As a result, productivity of the employees has increased, which motivates the
employee to think out-of-box.

Introduction:
Performance management is a continuous process where a company analyses the
performance of the overall company as well as measures the value of the organization. The
result of the performance management will only be positive if the employees of the
organizations perform Up to the mark, which can only be possible for a company if it
continuously evaluates the performance of the employees (Ebert and Griffin, 2017). So, large
organizations like the Coca-Cola Company continuously measure the performance of its
employees, and this performance management system plays a great contributory role to
ensure the growth of the Company. Apart from performance management helps an employee
to think out-of-box because he or she has now become acumen in his arena.

Contribution of the Performance management system:

The concept of performance management is not new previously known as performance
appraisal. In 1980, this concept had been renamed because at performance apprise employees
were told how was their performance good or bad but now through performance
management system employees get direction, training, counselling from top authority to
develop themselves(Keller, 2016). Performance management is a continuous process where
an organization identifies the performance of an individual or team, measures the
performance of an individual or team, improves the performance of an individual or team,
and lastly aligns the performance with the strategic management goal of the organization.
Measuring the performance of the employees is a vigorous activity (Murray, 2020). A few
years ago, performance management was similar to a report card where the company told the

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employees what they had done in the organization for a while (generally one year) and what
reward they would get in return. This method had no positive impact on the employee, but
nowadays direction has given to the employees how they will develop their performance.
This helps the employees to think out-of-the-box because they become skilled, sharp than
before. There are a lot of techniques for measuring the performance of the employees such as
(Janssens and Steyaert, 2009):

Figure 2: Performance management method

Source :( Sharma, Sharma and Agarwal, 2017)

The usage of these performance management systems varies from organization to

organization but now a day most companies use a 360-degree method and MBO
(management by objective) method for measuring the performance of the employee.

By using these techniques organizations measure the performance of the employee. The
result aids organizations like Coca-Cola a lot. Through a performance management system,
The Coca-Cola Company can know ins and outs about its employee, their shortcomings, their
scope of opportunity. After knowing each and everything, it now designs the developing plan
of the employees, which employee needs training, which employee needs counselling, and so
on.

Performance management system provides a great number of benefits to Coca-Cola

Company. They are:

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 Favourable Through performance management system, management can identify the
Relationship loop-holes of an employee. After findings loop-holes, management provides
Build-up suggestions to the employees that help the employees to perform top-quality
performance which results in a favourable relationship between employee
and management.
Ensure Performance management helps the employees to find out their mistakes. To
productivity eradicate the mistakes, management helps the employees such as
counselling, training sessions, which ultimately help the employees to
enhance their productivity (Mitchell, 2018).
Increase the Without measuring the performance of the employee, it is impossible to
motivation determine whose performance is the best. Identification of the best
performer helps the organization to give promotion to that employee and
result in upbeat motivation
Select The salary of sales force employees depends on their performance.
appropriate Measuring helps the organization to make an appropriate compensation plan
compensation for them which will ultimately boost their mentality to perform their work.
To formulate Sometimes, due to the wrong HR policies, the performance of the
new HR employees may downgrade, Measuring the performance of the employees
policies helps the organization to find out the wrong policies. As a result, the HR
department can formulate new policies to increase the performance of the
employees.

Table 1: Contribution of performance management in Coca-Cola

Source: (Janssens and Steyaert, 2019)

Performance management aids the employees to develop themselves which ultimately helps
the employees to think out-of-the-box because when an employee can fundamentally develop
oneself, He becomes confident to his arena which motivates him to intrapreneurship activity
and opens his mind broadly then he or she can think more beyond its arena. So, undoubtedly
Performance management is a great strategy and has a great impact on out-of-the-box
thinking.

Conclusion:
Employees are the key to any organization. Employees find out new techniques to increase
the market value of the company. For increasing market value in this competitive market

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creativity of the employees is must, organizations apply new strategies among them
performance management is one of them. Coca-Cola Company uses this technique which
provides them lot of benefits result in increasing out-of-box thinking of the employees.
Because of out-box thinking of the employees; Coca-Cola has become the market leader of
carbonated soft drinks.

References:
Ebert, R. and Griffin, R., 2017. Business Essentials. 11th ed. New York: Pearson, pp.443-
459.

Janssen, M. and Steyaert, C., 2019. HRM and Performance: A Plea for Reflexivity in HRM
Studies. Journal of Management Studies, 46(1), pp.143-155.

Keller, L., 2016. Performance Measures System and productivity. Public Productivity
Review, 1(2), p.30.

Mitchell, D., 2018. Performance Management. 9th ed. Chandni Chowk, Delhi: Global Media,
pp.399-417.

Murray, T., 2020. What Is Performance Management In The Workplace? [Online] The
Balance Careers. Available at: <https://www.thebalancecareers.com/performance-
management-1918226> [Accessed 1 August 2020].

Conclusion:
This assignment has been designed by considering four core important subjects of the
business which are very important to make efficient business decisions. One is business
environment which is important when company goes for investment, launching a new

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product and so on. Then second one is marketing mix which is the heart of marketing.
Companies which are capable to manipulate this can success easily. Then comes financial
management which is important to know whether business is running profitably or not and
lastly to continue all these task personnel are required. Through performance management
system, management can find out employees shortcoming and can work. Besides the tasks
need to submit in different forms such as presentation, poster, case study and report. This will
help to learn different formats which a student can apply in this job life.

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